Tarting It Up

Moribund

...is what this site is, and I'll admit it.  We're off to Portland, Oregon this week to celebrate the 85th b-d of J's nana.  GO NANA.

We plan to take pics, eat, drink, be merry, repeat.

Hopefully this westward journey will be a shot in the arm for this site.  We'll report back to sate the appetites of the LITERALLY FEWER THAN ONE HALF DOZEN people who have noticed that this site has long since flatlined.

Tom Sietsema visited these places when he went to Portland back in 2002, we might check them out.

Man I've forgotten how to write interestingly.  Arguably it's a skill I never possessed.  I spend all my days now drafting things like this:

"WHEREAS, the Parties have concluded that it is in the Company's best interest to enter into the Purchase Agreement..."

It's hard to then write interestingly.

But I'll try.  Why come our traffic increases the less frequently we update?

Google Pride

Time to revel. We've made it to the Big Time.

Guess who's the number one result on Google for "tom hanks" "family ties" "vanilla extract"? That's right: it's us.

Crappy Kitchen Gadgets

With the holiday shopping season drawing to a close, we thought we'd post a Behind-the-Times Gift Giving Guide (tm)! We own a lot of kitchen gadgets; like more than any one human could need. From the relatively mundane microplane zesters of various sizes to the vaguely esoteric coeur a la creme molds and bamboo-handled grapefruit spoons, our kitchen is flush with items matched to essentially every physical task. We use many of these gadgets over and over again: microplanes, silicone spatula, aerolatte frother, silpats.

Other gadgets really suck. You know the ones I'm talking about; you have some in the hidden recesses of That One Drawer, don't you? They're the little devils that either can't perform the task that they're designed to perform, or they're designed to help solve a problem that nobody's ever had (Perfect Pancake, I'm looking at you here: "WHAT MAGICIAN COULD POSSIBLY FLIP A PANCAKE WITHOUT DIRTYING THE ENTIRE KITCHEN??"). We have a number of these guys. And here is our list of...

Our Top Five Worst, Most Useless, and Irritating Kitchen Gadgets

It's That Fun Time of Year

Yes, yes, I know, no post in over 10 days?

The season is quickly taking over and we're in the thick of things: J. is studying for finals, with her first exam on SATURDAY EVENING? (What's up with that?) so she's pretty much out of commission for the moment.

Meanwhile, I'm holiday baking like it's gone out of fashion and preparing for a bake sale which I'm holding on Tuesday to raise money for my participation in the DC Avon Walk for Breast Cancer next year.  If anyone is going to be in the Arlington Courthouse area on Tuesday and wants a slice of cake or a couple of my magnolia cupcakes, then  just e-mail me and I will send you the details.

So it's busy here, but we'll be back soon.

Fun Weekend

This isn't food related, but here's what I did this weekend:

With a photo like this, can you believe we didn't win the photo scavenger hunt? I'm beer, and my neck is a little saggy. We were local celebrities for this group: nearly every one of these kids wanted a picture with us. Dressing up as beer brings a lot of love your way, trust me!