Yesterday I went out to breakfast, changed the bed, rented a tuxedo, bought wedding rings, went to the gym and jogged my little heart out, made chocolate gelato, had green beans, leeks, Humboldt Fog cheese, and orange fizzy water for dinner, followed by a candlelight interlude with my love, and then The L Word!

2006 promises to be a wonderful year. This year I plan to:

1. get married

2. make 4 quilts!

3. organize all of my crafty materials so they will make me happy instead of sad

4. be terribly in love

5. eat vegetables and bake

6. go to the gym at least 17 times per month (the most times I went any month in 2005)

7. frame and hang all of my beautiful pictures

8. fix the front yard (I mean it this time)

This year I am doing my first very own family christmas since college. I think I will make simple bags to give gifts in instead of wrapping with paper for the most part. One thing I can never really decide about: white xmas tree lights or multi colored? Also, I have a big bottle of rum so I think we will need some rum flavored holiday food, like rum balls, hot buttered rum . . . the only ones I can think of sound sort of sexy.

The dinner party went great! I made this yummy pear chocolate clafoutis for dessert. Since I didn't have the time or money to go looking for pear eau de vie I just used rum and I used Scharffen Berger 60% dark chocolate (because they've had it at Trader Joe!). I would like to make again using raspberries and maybe some syrupy red wine. On the flip side Thaddy said he wanted more pears so it's a matter of taste.
The other internet recipe I made was this red cabbage from Orangette. You should read this chick's site, I have made about 80% of the recipes, well maybe less, but a lot at this point. I really liked the cabbage and will definitely make again and include maybe some allspice? I remember the cabbage in germany being even warmer and spicier.
We are now proud dinner party veterans and ready to entertain again.

Tonight Thaddy and I are throwing our first ever young adult style dinner party. I am very excited but some problems have arisen:

1. Thad has been working a weird job and not had any time at home, I have been handling everything, with a new kitten.
2. Our house is a pigsty.
3. I planned an Oktoberfest theme and then remembered that I have never seen these people drink beer and the only beer I've ever seen in their home is Corona.
4. For our virgin dinner party I chose to invite the wealthiest/most professionally decorated/foodiest/wine expertyist/neat freakyish friends that we have. We are none of these things.

happy home weekend:

1. car and garbage disposal and dishwasher are now fixed

2. cleaned the house and got rid of about 10 bags of clothes for goodwill

3. made squash soup, vegetable stock, roasted potatoes, and apple cake from a family recipe

4. got new kitten, life is good with a new kitten

5. boyfriend talked to me about something I needed him to talk to me about

6. came in dead last in bowling, well actually that part was kind of lame

7. watched Wayne's world parts 1 and 2, pretty damned funny, still

8. had coffee with my grandma

Maybe this isn't the most exciting list ever, but it means things are going right, and my hibernation schedule is proceeding nicely.

So anyway I was trying to figure out how many calories were in the Giant Salmon Burrito I ate for lunch at Dos Coyotes when I stumbled on this page where a few people are really scared of breathing calories and extremely paranoid about how many calories might be in their diet coke for the following reasons: 1) it's too good, it couldn't be low in calories; or 2) the fountain syrups were hooked up incorrectly and you just never know what you're getting. My favorite line is this one:

I think all diet drinks taste healthier than the ones full of sugar. Anything that isnt diet tastes bad 2 me. thats just what I think.

This is the best explanation I have ever seen on how to lose weight! The moral of the story is that if you consume 500 fewer calories per day than you burn, then you will lose one pound per week. No problem.

Half of me wants to be a farmer. How cool is this person who raises chickens and pigs for people who want tasty happy meat!

Continuing my chickeny saga, I roasted two (oh yes, two) chickens on the weekend. I got them on sale for a really good price at WholeFoods, since my local grocery store does not sell whole free range organic chickens. It was brilliant: smelled fabulous, tasted great, loads of leftovers! But now I'm not so sure what to do with the leftovers.

Somehow I did not feel better when I picked up my new bc prescription today to see the pharmacist think twice about giving me the pills. Apparently she did not agree with the new prescription provided by my doc (not my OB/GYN?). Hormones are scary.

to make myself feel better, tonight I will:

1. go to the gym
2. buy new sneakers so my feet don't hurt anymore when I work out
3. maybe get new vegetables

Also, I took the liberty of asking my doctor for a different birth control pill so maybe I can stop being so crazy every month. Could be kind of nice.

Well last night I made my very first real chicken soup! It wasn't completely from scratch in that I did not have time to roast or boil a whole bird, but I did start with just onions, garlic, chicken, stock, carrots, celery, rice, and thyme. It turned out great! And I didn't use a recipe, I just used what seemed the appropriate amount of ingredients for where I was trying to go. I am very proud of myself and excited for fall with soup. My grandma always told me I would be a good cook because I come from a long line of good cooks (she is the best!). I never believed her until recently, it does feel sort of like I have tapped into a stream of memory.

Last night I received my first very own shipment of organic fruits and vegetables from Capay Farms! I am planning a vegetable feast with the bounty including this soup with 20 cloves of garlic. This is part of my new plan to spearhead the loss of the extra 20 pounds I've gained over the last year. Ah Love! it makes you fat.

At first I thought it was an interesting description, but now I'm getting a little irritated at the amount of times the term "shard" is used in food writing around the web lately. Of course I'm too lazy to site sources but let's just say that all of our throats should be permanently scarred if we are eating as many shards as have been mentioned recently.

Every year I get at least one perfect fall evening. I can't wait for this year's and I think I would like to celebrate with an organic roasted chicken.

This whole food chocolate mousse sounds really cool to me. I am liking the idea of making desserts out of unrefined foods so they are sort of good for you. I have made these cupcakes with zucchini and coconut fat two times now and they are excellent!

Alright, enough of the pity party. I feel much better now. Back to the regularly silly items I like to post here. For instance, these cookies look very nice to me.