It was cold that day.  I remember waiting at the back of the church, freezing cold in the silk dress my mom had made, watching out the door and seeing a few flakes of snow drift down.  In October!  I would have been annoyed or amused, but I was preoccupied.  The woman at the back told me it was time, and I grabbed my parents’ arms, entered the sanctuary and saw all these faces turn to look at me.  I had been calm and collected, but the sight of all those faces of family and friends broke me down.  And there was Chris, at the front of the church, waiting for me.  I think we both smiled through tears.

8 years ago today

I don’t actually remember much about the service except that my feet were freezing cold on the cold stone floor.  We have an audio cassette tape of the whole thing, so I could listen to it.  If I had a tape player.  Who has tape players these days?  My car doesn’t even play tapes.

I remember walking out of the church and laughing, and seeing a friend who had run into troubles finding a parking spot.  He arrived 18 minutes late.  He missed the whole service.  It was short.  But it was sweet.

At the reception, our photographer was getting antsy since we had only booked him for the first hour or so, he wanted to be sure to get a picture of us toasting.  The champagne wasn’t opened yet, so in our photos, we’re toasting with beer.  The food was very good (we were worried because we hadn’t actually done any tastings).  The friends and family were even better.

I am so happy that we shared those vows eight years ago, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.  And it keeps getting better.  If things are this good now, I can’t wait to see what the next 8, 16, 32, or hell even 64 years hold for us.

very proud of herself

I don’t want to be one of those bloggers who’s always blogging about their children’s pee and poop, mostly because I don’t find it too interesting, but I had to share.  Last weekend, Zoe decided that she wanted to sit on the potty.  A lot.  At first I was pretty excited.  Then I got bored.  It was a lot of her sitting on the pot while I grabbed a magazine or paper to peruse.  She’d go through a whole roll of toilet paper in one sitting if I had let her.  I didn’t.  But she didn’t, ah, produce at any of those sitting.  That is, until today at daycare.  We got the report of her day today that said that she actually peed in the potty this morning.  According to Chris, she was extremely proud of her self and talked about the potty the whole drive home.  Then tonight when I tucked her in to bed, I told her again that I was very proud of her using the potty.  She started singing “potty potty potty” while wiggling her little butt under her blanket.  It was probably the funniest thing I’d seen in a really long time.

Oh, if only I’d seen this guide before buying the apples for the apple sauce.  I know I could have remembered honeycrisp, which is a sweeter variety than the cortlands, and I’m pretty sure the store had some.  Plus I love honeycrisp apples.  Again, not that the applesauce turned out bad, but Zoe likes the store bought variety better because it’s sweeter, and that makes me sad.

But just looking at the pictures on that page is making my mouth water.  I’m going to have to make some more applesauce.  And maybe an apple pie, too.

Fall clearly is the season of eating for me.  I’ve got 3 posts in a row about food.

(thanks to Chris for finding and sharing the link to the apples guide)

Eurydice over at Geeks in Rome has a great post up detailing how to make pasta that an Italian will probably not love, but will at least not spit out in distaste.  Which is good enough for me.  It reminded me that I had promised a few people that I would write up my tomato sauce recipe.

Before I begin, a bit of background.  I was not much of a cook before heading to college.  And didn’t really learn much in college beyond how to make a decent meal from the salad bar in the cafeteria.  Until I spent a term in Italy on a geology program.  We lived in a very small town (there were 6 other residents besides the 24 of us students), and we all rotated through various chores in keeping the geologic observatory running.  One of the assignments - the one we all looked forward to - was cooking for the other students and 2 professors.  So that’s where I learned a lot of my cooking.  Making food for starving geology students just back from a day in the field hitting rocks with hammers.  Not a tough crowd.

So, this sauce is not authentic.  At all.  But it is inspired by my time there, and it’s been refined over the years into a sauce that I really, really like. It’s a pretty rustic sauce, no silky smooth texture here, but I find that I like having some texture to it.  It takes around 20 - 40 minutes to make depending on lots of different things such as how many times I have to pick up Zoe and let her stir, and whether I have someone who can help with some of the chopping, and whether someone has to run to the store to pick up wine.

I’m also really bad at writing recipes, so it may not make a lot of sense.  I kind of make up the recipe as I go, depending on what I have and what I’m in the mood for.  I also try to time my cooking so that I have very little prep to do ahead of time, and instead, I’m doing chopping or blending while other things are cooking.

Tomato Sauce by Ann

Feeds 4, depending on how hungry they are.  Or feeds 2 plus an occasionally picky toddler with enough leftovers for at least on lunch.

You’ll need

• fresh tomatoes - enough to make about 4 cups of tomatoe puree when you run them through the blender.  Preferably a mix of really good heirloom tomatoes, so you get a nice mix of flavors.  When it’s not tomato season, I use cans of Muir Glen organic tomatoes (whole or diced).
• an onion
• some garlic - 1 to 4 cloves depending on their size and how much anyone you talk to after eating this can tolerate garlic breath
• a mix of herbs like parsley, sweet basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary.  Can be fresh or dried, or a mixture of the two.
• red wine.  Doesn’t have to be all that good, but good enough to drink.
• chicken or veggie broth.   About 1/3 cup
• olive oil.  some.
• salt and pepper to taste
• pasta - whatever type you like, you can vary the texture on this recipe to match a bunch of different shapes.  I usually use fusilli, but if I can get them, I love orecchiette.

1. Open the wine.  Pour yourself a glass.  Preferably in a juice glass.  Less likely to tip over that way.  Drink as needed while cooking.  Keep the wine bottle near by.
2. Make the pasta as described in Geeks in Rome.  I know you’re supposed to be super vigilant about time on the pasta, so maybe have someone else do this step.
3. Chop the onion as fine as you have the patience for.
4. In a large pan, with sides high enough that you won’t slop all over the place when you add all the ingredients, saute the onion on medium with some salt and maybe a tablespoon of oil.  Enough oil to coat the bottom.  Stir occasionally.
5. While the onion is sauteing.  Mince the garlic (you can use a garlic press), and chop the herbs if they’re fresh.
6. Chop the tomatoes into large pieces, and remove the stem part if it’s big and tough.  Don’t worry about de-seeding or peeling.  For most tomatoes, I quarter them.  Cherry tomatoes (which add a nice sweetness) get cut in half.  Huge tomatoes into eighths.  Toss them into a blender and puree until it’s as smooth as you want.  You can actually skip the blendering if you’re wanting a sauce with more texture, in that case, chop the tomatoes.
7. Toss the herbs and garlic into the onions and stir until fragrant (1 minute).  If you want a bit of a kick, you can add a teaspoon or so of crushed red pepper here.
8. Add around 1/3 cup broth and 1/3 cup wine and stir to get all the good browned stuff off the bottom of the pan.
9. Add the tomatoes.
10. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer.  Stir occasionally.
11. Now you hang out and drink a bit more of that wine.
12. It’ll take anywhere from 10 - 30 minutes, depending on the tomatoes, to reduce from a soup-like to a sauce-like texture.  I’ve had many a night where I’ve gotten impatient and served while it’s still pretty liquidy.  It was still good.
13. If you’re using non-blendered tomatoes, smash them a bit with the back of your spoon to mush them up as they soften.
14. While it’s simmering, taste occasionally and add salt and pepper to taste.  Since you’ll be serving this with pasta, it can be a little on the salty side and still end up ok once you serve it.
15. Serve over hot pasta.  Because we’re classy like that, we just let people serve themselves from the pan and choose how much sauce they want on their pasta.
16. Can be served with grated parmesan, but it’s not necessary.

I have Fridays off, but with things so crazy at the beginning of the school year and Zoe’s surgery before that, I haven’t felt like I really had time off until today.  Other than a quick trip to the vet for Tycho’s annual check-up and shots, we had nothing planned for the day.  It was awesome.

• Zoe and I got to the library.  In what may shock many people, I go to the public library far less often than Chris does.  I may well lose my librarian card for admitting this.  It’s not any particular reason other than I just don’t think of going to a library when I’m not at work at a library.  But we had a great time, and I need to remember it for future days with Zoe.
• Zoe kept saying daddy all day.  I asked if she wanted to have lunch with Chris, and she gave an emphatic head nod.  So we met for lunch.
• We also hit the park again today.  Zo mostly wanted to swing, but she also made me get on the swing a couple of times and pushed me, while saying “wheee!”
• Ever since reading this post on the Eat. Drink. Better. blog, I’ve been wanting to make applesauce, and today I got the chance to pick up some apples and give it a go.  It turned out really well and made the house smell pretty awesome.  I had not realized that applesauce could be quite so silky smooth.  A couple of notes on the recipe:
  • The recipe calls for sweet apples (not pie apples) because there’s no added sugar.  Of course, when I got to the store, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what a good, sweet apple was, because I’m always paying attention to tart apples.  So I picked up cortlands.  The resulting sauce is tasty, but a little on the tart side.
  • The recipe says to leave skin and seeds in and just put the sauce through a food mill to remove them.  I don’t have a food mill, so I peeled and cored the apples, and cut them into eighths instead of quarters.  I just cooked until it all fell apart in the pan anyway and mashed it with the back of a spoon.  Super easy.
  • I added a little cinnamon.

After our wonderful morning together, I dropped Zoe off, wrote a blog post, did some laundry and headed to work.  I got to work just as an email arrived from Chris.  Zoe was being sent home from day care because it appears she has pink eye.  Ugh.  Chris took her to the eye clinic (because our regular doctor’s office was too busy to see her today), and the doctor confirmed that it was pink eye.  Luckily there doesn’t seem to be any concern due to her recent eye surgery (her eyes are pretty healed up at this point).  Unfortunately, it means we have to do eye ointment again.  When we did eye ointment after her surgery, Zoe would scream and cry and hide her face in our shoulders every time we tried to give it to her.  I have no reason to expect that it’ll go better a mere 2 weeks later.

Today is Wednesday, so I have the morning off again.  This time, Zoe and I hung out together until around 9:45 (she has music class at daycare, which she loves, and I didn’t want her to miss it).

We walked over to my favorite nearby coffee shop / bakery.  The bakery is one of the best in the city, so it’s nice that they decided to locate so near to me.  I got my favorite breakfast there, a fruit focaccia.  It’s a perfect little rectangle of focaccia, but instead of olive oil and rosemary on top, it has fruit (this morning grapes, but they’ve also done strawberries, raspberries and blueberries) baked on top in the little holes that are on focaccia, and it’s dusted in powdered sugar - not too sweet, with yummy little bursts of fruit.  I keep meaning to try to make my own, but it’s so good and so near by, I don’t have much motivation to try.  Zoe got a slice of the rustic bread that they had out for samples. Then a cup of coffee from the coffee shop and we were good to go.

The coffee shop has a sign saying “unattended children will be given an espresso and a puppy.”  I’ve since seen that sign other places, but this is the first place I’d seen it, and it always makes me chuckle.  Despite the warning, I settled Zoe onto a chair with her bread and walked a couple steps away to get her a glass of water.  I was a little disappointed not to find a puppy and espresso when I got back, but maybe it’s for the best.

I thought about other people I’ve had coffee with through the years: friends, boyfriends, coworkers, fellow students, family members.  Thought about our conversations as I listened to Zoe point out the dogs, babies, trucks, and other nouns that passed by the window.  Though I’ve had many great times getting coffee with others, many great conversations, and I look forward to meeting up with most of the people again over coffee, today, this morning, there was no one I’d have rather seen across the table from me than Zoe.

see shiny

I got my very first blog award from The Continuing Adventures of SuperPreemie.  SuperPreemie is Shoshanna, Zoe’s big blog sister, and the daughter of very dear friends, who have kept Zoe well-dressed in S’s clothes.  Shoshanna will be 4 in just 2 days and it’s been very wonderful to read her story and watch her grow.  She spent 89 long days in the NICU and has grown into a pretty stinkin’ cute and smart kid.

So I’m supposed to pass the award on to others.  Ummm, this feels kind of like I’m leaving lots of people out, but here’s my picks:

• At the foot of the bluff - a former co-worker and wonderful friend.  Her photos are amazing, as is her writing and her taste in certain sci-fi shows.
• Oranges and Peaches - a friend and fellow librarian.  I love how she turns posts about day to day occurrences into a chance to do more research.
• Fighting Windmills - more fantastic photos and thought-provoking posts.  Plus, she’s an Ani fan.
• Geeks in Rome - geeks.  and in Rome.  Her stories keep me laughing, and I love reading about life in Italy.

Ok, for those that I’ve passed this on to, they are supposed to:

1. Place the Logo on your blog
2. Link to the person who awarded you
3. You can nominate up to 5 blogs
4. Add their links to your blog
5. Leave a message in the comment section of their blog to notify the winners.

So many little observations in the last week or so that I keep mulling over putting into a post.  Fall is a tough time of year.  It’s my favorite season, but it’s also the busiest one.  Every fall, I tell myself that next year I’ll remember how busy things are, and I’ll get started on everything earlier.  Every fall, I look ahead and think, this year won’t be so bad, I’ve done this before.  Every fall, I’m just barely keeping my head above water.  It stays above water, and it’ll stay above water this year, too.  But I have no left over mental energy for much else.

I think that’s maybe why I keep noticing little things recently.  Some things I’ve seen recently, with  no additional commentary:

• on a walk around the lake, a heron standing stately on a sandbar in the lake.
• on the same walk, a woman on a bike with a pomeranian in the basket on the handbars.
• a hummingbird flitting through the flowers a block from my house.  I’ve never seen a hummingbird here.
• that feeling of anxiety in the pit of my stomach at the beginning of the school year, as I think about all the school work and exams and papers, that always catches me by surprise, until I remember that I’m not a student anymore

There was a little box of beautiful, ripe autumn raspberries in our farm share this evening.  Zoe recognized them immediately and pointed to them saying “my! my!”  (”My” is her new favorite word, edging out even “no” at the moment.)  I handed her 3 berries, which she immediately shoved into her mouth.  I handed her four more.  Same thing.  “Can you stop shoveling these straight into your mouth, and instead eat them one at a time?” I ask as I hand her a couple more and put the rest away.  She can not.  After dinner, Chris took her up to take a bath, and as I put away the other produce from the farm share, I see the little box of beautiful, ripe autumn raspberries.  I pick out one and taste it.  Perfection in a small bite.  Doing away with decorum, I shove the next half dozen in my mouth and devour them in a single bite.