Se Hace Camino Al Andar

Slice of Life Story Challenge

28 days? Really? Well, hello… I’m back.
I’ve been back for a week actually, but this past week, I’ve been watching my 21 month old nephew, and wow… I’m tired! One baby that needs your attention all the time is exhausting enough but double that and throw in some jealousy for good measure, and I need another vacation already!
Also, I came home from Austin to this:

As of yesterday, there is no more bathtub! Good riddance… still hard to visualize the finished product, though but I know the day is coming. My brother in law has done a great job so far, despite various setbacks, such as being unable to reach the super to get the water turned off, while we were out of town and having to replace some very old valves. Once the new bathtub goes in, the work should proceed pretty quickly… or, we hope so, anyway.

Today is the NYCWP Teacher to Teacher conference, and I’m sorry to miss it. I was looking forward to hearing Natalie Goldberg’s keynote but alas, it’s been an exhausting week, I’ve hardly been home because of the construction and we have lots to do this weekend to make up for our neglect.

Interested in seeing some of my pictures from Austin? Check out my Facebook album.

I’m here in Austin for SXSW and BBQ, sans laptop. Just leaving a quick note on my blog using Wordpress’ iPhone app, for all you Slicers. Needless to say, I won’t be slicing ’till Sunday, at least. See you soon!

Technorati Tags: Austin, SXSW

Slice of Life Story Challenge

It’s madness around here suddenly.

When I moved into this apartment, I knew the bathroom would need to be redone at some point. The kitchen was my first priority and it was redone before Alice was born. A few months ago, Henry was taking a shower when tiles started raining on him. We cleaned up the tile and covered the wall with heavy-duty plastic, as a temporary fix. We weren’t yet ready to do the bathroom, financially. Thanks to a windfall in the form of Henry’s bonus and our tax refund, we were finally able to pay off the charges on our Home Depot card, incurred during the kitchen renovation. I called in a contractor to get an estimate on the bathroom. The estimate came in at 8000+ dollars, which didn’t even include the fixtures and tile. People, if you saw the size of my bathroom, you’d know how ridiculous that estimate is! Plan B came in the form of my brother-in-law, who’d renovated his entire apartment and was now doing a gut renovation of a family house in Connecticut. If anyone could handle a bathroom remodel, it was Ralph. He agreed to do it, we agreed on a fair price and we just needed to decide when.

A few days ago, it dawned on us that our upcoming vacation would be an ideal time to begin the work. At the very least, the demolition and the floor could be completed before we returned. So, yesterday Ralph came over to take the measurements and together, we went to Home Depot to select the tile and the fixtures, and to pick up the supplies he needed. I gave up my ambitious plan to clean the house before we left for Austin as our tiny studio was taken over by boxes of tile, slabs of sheetrock and bags of mortar.  A small price to pay, for sure.

In the meantime, this morning I’ve already had keys made for Ralph, and for Henry’s father, who’ll be watching our cats while we’re gone, had Alice’s passport pictures taken, and done a load of laundry. There’s still packing to be done and a freelance website migration job to finish up. Despite all this, I managed to remember to dress Alice appropriately today!

Slice of Life Story Challenge

Hello, Sunday! Thankfully, the dread stomach virus is a thing of the past, for everyone in my house, anyway. (I know a wee 5 year old boy that was unfortunately struck down by the virus, at his own birthday party, no less but hopefully, he’ll make a fast recovery. Also, not my fault… I hadn’t seen the kid in months!) We saw one grandma yesterday and another today, lucky Alice.

Alice woke us up at the not-so-gentle hour of 4:30am, went back to sleep and summoned us again at a more reasonable 7 am. We lolled around in bed for awhile, then I got the bright idea that I wanted to send my mother home with an irish soda bread. I left my husband to enjoy a few more precious moments of sleep, and brought Alice into the kitchen. Sitting in her acvitity center, gnawing on a teething biscuit, she was happy as a clam while I dug around on my slow XO internet connection for the Martha Stewart recipe for irish soda bread, which she made on her show last week.  There were different recipes and I chose the one for which I had all the ingredients on hand. I put the coffee up and pre-heated the oven, which still contained the pan of water I put it there last night while re-heating a chicken for dinner. I figured a little extra moisture couldn’t hurt!

I whipped up all the ingredients, according to the recipe and found myself with a very sticky dough. Mmh… was this right? I couldn’t remember. I didn’t recal Martha wrestling with a sticky dough on the show. I tried to form it into a round, domed loaf as instructed but found it too sticky. I settled for just round, sacrificing the dome. I popped that baby into the oven, and poured myself  a cup of coffee, ready to watch the first Lost episode of Season 5, which my husband had tracked down… a closed captioned version, no less (My hero!).

Meanwhile, the house slowly filled with the warm smell of soda bread. The timer went off the same time the doorbell rang! Uncanny timing, my mother and sister have. Of course, my sister wanted to dig right in but I implored her to let the bread cool. I was disappointed when I took it out of the oven but I had hopes that it would taste good, at least. I didn’t think it looked attractive, and it felt a little heavy. Was irish soda bread supposed to be like this? We couldn’t help but grab a piece of it before leaving the house for brunch at our local irish pub. I put some delicious Kerrygold butter on it, bought especially for the occasion.

While the bread was tasty, in and of itself, I was disappointed by its flavor and texture. For one, the recipe called for 2 teaspoons of caraway seed. In the comments for the recipe online, one commenter had suggested leaving out the carraway seed, finding that it imparted too much of a rye bread taste to it. I agree with this assessment–next time, the carraway seeds will be omitted. I found the texture to be too crumbly. It fell apart when I tried to spread the butter on it. This was a definite FAIL.

Irish Soda Bread FAIL

While we were at brunch, I told the waitress about my baking experiment that morning. She seemed skeptical about the carraway seed and agreed that next time I should leave it out, referring me to the pub’s chef. According to the chef, I would get the best results if I used Odlums Flour, an national brand in Ireland and used the Odlums recipe, which calls for “cream flour.” The chef also suggested mixing regular flour and whole wheat flour. I didn’t know if I wanted to seek out such a specialty flour, so I did a little research to find out exactly what makes Odlums flour so special. As far as I can tell, what is known as cream flour in Ireland is similar to what we would call cake flour. A search of my (two) baking science texts didn’t turn up any information. I’d like to attempt another loaf, for my husband to bring to work on Tuesday, which is not enough time for me to hunt down Odlums. I’m going to try mixing flours, and adapting another Martha Stewart recipe, which calls for wheat bran. Here’s hoping the second round works, because I’m DYING to have something on to which to spread that yummy Kerrygold butter!

Technorati Tags: baking FAIL

Slice of Life Story Challenge

The other day, Henry got a call from his mother. She had a dream that Alice was a big girl, standing up in her crib and crying out for “Abuela, Abuela.” It was a clear sign that it had been too long since Alice had seen her abuela.
So, Abuela came to visit today! We raced around all morning cleaning the apartment. Henry scrubbed the bathroom until it shone. I scoured the oven and the sink, did the dishes, and vacuumed. Alice got a bath and wore an abuela-worthy outfit. It’s very rare that Mohammed comes to the mountain. Usually, the mountain goes to Mohammed. I wanted abuela to be as comfortable as possible! I picked up a few of her favorite foods, like shrimp and her favorite beer (alas, she’d given up beer for Lent, so it’s left for Henry to drink!).
Abuela came, and was so happy to see her granddaughter. How big she got! Oh, look at all those teeth! Look at those chubby legs. Oof, you’re so heavy. Oh, she’s dancing!

Alice swung between moods, ranging from happy to content to sleepy to downright cranky. It was a lot of excitement for one day! Henry put her in the crib during a temper tantrum, and she rolled right over to sleep. Guess it was really time for a nap! The day went by so fast, I didn’t stop to take a picture.  But, hopefully, I still have time to take one for the Daily Alice…

Slice of Life Story Challenge

I gave myself permission to skip Day 12 of the challenge yesterday. By the time I got home yesterday, I was wiped out and not feeling well at all. This stomach virus is kicking my tuchus like nobody’s business! I thought I was better and then, I wasn’t… what a let down!
Next Wednesday, we are leaving for Austin. We’ve been looking forward to this trip for a loooooong time. Poor Henry hasn’t had a vacation in over a year. We originally planned to attend SXSW but we got sticker shock when we checked out the cost of attending shows. Time for Plan B!
According to our friend, there will be free, outdoor shows to attend. Failing that, there’s always BBQ. Huzzah!

Slice of Life Story Challenge

Will I ever write a normal blog post again? LOL. I suppose I should just give March over entirely to Slice of Life?
It’s been awhile since I wrote a new blog post for HuffPo but there hasn’t been much going on in my kitchen since everyone got sick last week. I was working on a post about slow cookers and got sidetracked. I need to get back on it since I’ve converted at least one person I know to the slow cooker camp! It’s very exciting but right now, all my slow cooker knowledge is based on recipes and tips I’ve found on the internet, nothing original. The fact is, I’m not an innovator. I take a recipe and I follow it closely, unless I don’t. I leave stuff out if I don’t have it, I add things in if I feel like it. Shortcut here, long way there. In other words, I cook in the moment and that’s hard to translate to actual recipe writing. The meatloaf post I wrote last month was actually pretty hard to write because I had to remember every decision I made. I didn’t stop to write anything down as I went along. That loaf of bread I made? It was a recipe from Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and I couldn’t begin to tell you what I did differently from the recipe but I didn’t follow it to the letter. The bread came out pretty damn good, so either the recipe is foolproof or I’m that good. Ha ha.
As of now, creating recipes is not my goal in life. I just happen to like being in the kitchen, I like cooking for my family and friends and I like to think I’m pretty good at it, even if I do have the occasional mishap.

Slice of Life Story Challenge

Today, we are very, very tired! Alice and I are feeling much better but poor dad was struck down last night and came home early from work today to rest his weary body.
In the meantime, I have some chicken consomme simmering away on the stove for Henry. I haven’t been able to go grocery shopping yet this week but I was able to cobble together a soup, thanks to the staples that I keep on hand. If you look inside my pantry at any given moment, you’ll see cans of tomatoes, boxes of chicken broth, a bag of rice, and in my freezer, you’ll see tons of frozen veggies, not to mention all the baking staples. This supply ensures that I can always whip something up at the last moment! So, the chicken consomme is half an onion, a few carrots, some garlic, chicken sausage and a container of chicken broth, along with some water. It’ll be nice and flavorful, and hopefully, it’ll start Henry on the mend.

Slice of Life Story Challenge

Between you and me, I’m glad the weekend is over. I like the routine of the workweek, even I don’t work, per se. Alice is in better spirits but her body is still fighting the bug. The end is in sight, though, so I’m not worried.
I really need to shower and brush my teeth but as soon as Alice fell asleep for a nap, my first thought was re-heating my coffee and sitting down to actually drink it. Is that so wrong? Showers and teeth can wait, I suppose. It’s a moody day out there and I’m somewhat relieved that I’m house-bound, until UPS delivers the wine, that is.
My plans for today: some light cleaning, some cookie baking (and packaging), and learning more about my new sewing machine. This is all theoretical, of course!

Slice of Life Story Challenge

Today was definitely a Sunday kind of day. The bear is feeling much, much better though she has been taking catnaps all day. I made a loaf of bread for dinner tonight, and mixed together a chocolate chip cookie dough to bake off tomorrow.

My husband and I are late to the Lost game, and this past month, we’ve been renting the DVDs of the first four seasons to get ourselves caught up before we dive into the Season 5 episodes we have saved on the DVR. I don’t know why I was so slow to catch on but now that I’m into it, I’m utterly obsessed with it and waiting for the next DVD to come in the mail is sometimes agonizing.  Since we were home all weekend, we watched all the DVDs we had on hand (we can have three out at a time), and since the DVDs won’t be mailed back until tomorrow morning, we’ll probably have to find some other way to spend our evenings until the new DVDs arrive on Wednesday (I hope…).

In the meantime, I’ve been getting into The Reader by Bernard Schlink.  My mother’s partner offered the book to me the last time I was home. She enjoyed the book immensely and was pleased that I wanted to read it. I know we’ll have plenty to discuss the next time I see her. (She is also a huge Lost fan, so I doubt we’ll talk about anything else besides the book, and the show!)

Tomorrow is another stay-at-home day. Besides wanting to give Alice plenty of time to recuperate, it will also be raining and UPS will one have more chance to redeem itself, so I’ll be waiting around for the wine to be delivered.

By the way, I started this blog post hours ago, so the bread has been baked and devoured. It was yummy!