Spring in Colorado

I love it when we get snow like this.



Ben got me my favorite kind of roses, orange and yellow. They're blooming like mad.



He took me to Vesta Dipping Grill last night. It's a very fun place to eat (although they could turn the lights up a bit, it would be nice to be able to see the food). I had a lamb tenderloin with pistachio-mint sauce, red pepper rica rouille, and dried berry chutney. We also had a sauce sampler with pita bread and a cheese plate. The truffle cheese was amazing.

Dinners from the past two weeks

I could have remembered what all these spices were, if I had posted this picture in a timely manner. But if memory serves me, it includes paprika, tumeric, fenugreek, cloves, cumin, coriander, cayenne . . . and others.


Put it all together, and you get my first attempt at Ethiopian cooking. I made Tibs W'et, red lentils with chow, basmati rice, quick pickled carrots, and yogurt (because this was WAY spicier than anything I normally make). (Ben was thrilled).


Beef fajitas with guacamole, grilled onions and peppers, and various toppings.


Pan fried potatoes with paprika and cayenne, boiled brussel sprouts, and smoked sausage with onions.


Whole wheat banana bread with wheat bran on top.


Meatloaf with spicy hoisin glaze, steamed green beans, roasted sweet potatoes, and beans.


Spring is here! Strawberry shortcakes.


Bean, onion, pepper, and cheese quesadillas with guacamole and blue corn chips.


Roasted pork loin, sweet and sour red cabbage, and pickled radishes.


Leftover grilled pork sandwiches (surprisingly flavorful), more pan fried potatoes (they were so tasty, I had to make them again), and the ubiquitous steamed green.


Chocolate pudding from scratch. I learned pudding really isn't worth it when made with low-fat milk.

102 movies

From Kottke.org:

Film critic Jim Emerson recently compiled a list of 102 movies that you should see before

you can consider yourself movie literate:

...they [are] the movies you just kind of figure everybody ought to have seen in order to have any sort of informed discussion about movies. They're the common cultural currency of our time, the basic cinematic texts that everyone should know, at minimum, to be somewhat "movie-literate."

Kottke then asterisks all the movies he has seen. I do not consider myself movie literate, but for kicks, let's see how I do.
* means I saw it
- means I've seen parts of it (parts = at least a ten minute segment, not "clips") and probably won't ever watch the whole thing

- 2001: A Space Odyssey
* The 400 Blows
* 8 1/2
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Alien
* All About Eve
* Annie Hall
* Apocalypse Now
* Bambi
The Battleship Potemkin
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Big Red One
The Bicycle Thief
The Big Sleep
* Blade Runner
* Blowup
Blue Velvet
*Bonnie and Clyde
Breathless
Bringing Up Baby
Carrie
* Casablanca
Un Chien Andalou
Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
- Chinatown
* Citizen Kane
- A Clockwork Orange
The Crying Game
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Days of Heaven
Dirty Harry
* The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Do the Right Thing
La Dolce Vita
Double Indemnity
* Dr. Strangelove
- Duck Soup
* E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial
Easy Rider
* The Empire Strikes Back
- The Exorcist
- Fargo
* Fight Club
* Frankenstein
The General
The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
Gone With the Wind
GoodFellas
* The Graduate
Halloween
* A Hard Day's Night
Intolerance
It's a Gift
* It's a Wonderful Life
* Jaws
The Lady Eve
* Lawrence of Arabia
M
Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
* The Maltese Falcon
The Manchurian Candidate
* Metropolis
Modern Times
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Nashville
The Night of the Hunter
Night of the Living Dead
* North by Northwest
- Nosferatu
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
Out of the Past
Persona
Pink Flamingos
- Psycho
- Pulp Fiction
Rashomon
Rear Window
Rebel Without a Cause
Red River
Repulsion
The Rules of the Game
Scarface
The Scarlet Empress
Schindler's List
The Searchers
* The Seven Samurai
* Singin' in the Rain
* Some Like It Hot
A Star Is Born
* A Streetcar Named Desire
* Sunset Boulevard
- Taxi Driver
The Third Man
- Tokyo Story
Touch of Evil
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Trouble in Paradise
Vertigo
* West Side Story
The Wild Bunch
* The Wizard of Oz

Yikes. I've only seen 33 of these movies. Does it matter that I can explain the historical significance and/or plot of at least half the movies I haven't seen? How do my readers compare?

Work, dance, work, dance . . .

The scenes I'm choreographing are looking really good! Most of the scene is done, and about half has been taught to the dancers. It's hard trying to gauge what's too hard and what will work spatially, given my the lack of pointe shoes and my small apartment.

Crafts updated on my website! (Same pose, now with a cat!)

Potatoes and vacuums

Baked Potatoes with chedder, broccoli, bacon, and plain yogurt. Easy and good.


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. This recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens' cookbook. I made the whole wheat variation. Good texture, but a little sweet.


I love my new vacuum! This was a birthday present from Ben (and to make sure the present wasn't interpreted offensively, he promised to vacuum for a few weeks before my birthday-he hates to vacuum, so this really was special).

Our old vacuum was very cheap and used bags. I emptied the bag a few times a year and changed it maybe once since we got married. It never seemed to get full, so why change it?

This red baby sucks so much more than the old one. It's the cheapest bagless model, but oh, the satisfaction I get from the sediment layers it forms. I have to empty it every three times I use it (I only vacuum weekly, I know, I suck). Pictured here is what I collect after vacuuming twice. Ew and Mmmm.

Lazy Sunday

I'm so addicted to Volfied. I've gotten through 13 of 16 levels. There's no saves or passwords. It's an old arcade game recently released as part of the Taito collection for PS2. I don't get to play it as much as I'd like, so Sunday I indulged and set a new high score for myself.


What a nerd.

Yes, those are stretch pants.

But really, I caught up on a lot on Sunday: listened to General Conference (which I think should be held once a month), cooked, choreographed, and sewed (Check out my webpage for an updated crafts section!)

The weekend was fun in general, with Friday dance class, an Indian buffet lunch Saturday and the last of our Colorado Ballet season tickets at night.


Dinner today was chicken pot pie redux with roasted beets. I'm so lazy about making pastry that I make biscuit topping instead. At least it was from scratch with buttermilk :-) And the filling was condensed soup-free, with chicken I roasted last week.

Caught on Film!

I got some paparazzi style pics of Molly exploring the great unknown. She's graduated to letting me close the screen door behind her. What a wild girl ;-)








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Cooking update

Chicken enchiladas, no recipe, just thrown together!

These were divine cookies. Fairly healthy too: whole wheat flour, wheat bran, hardly any butter, low sugar, and homemade peach jam filling. Well, the would be healthy if I could eat less than 6 a day. They tasted similar to a Nutrigrain bar, but better.

Shepard's Pie. Pork filling with a sweet tomato sauce, peas, and carrots. The topping is mashed potatoes as well as the leftover vegetables from our Irish dinner: carrots, parsnips, and turnips. So the topping was slightly sweet and surprisingly cheesy, but there wasn't any cheese in it!

Balsamic chicken with rosemary, garlic roasted fingerling potatoes, and steamed broccoli. Ben went nuts for Colorado potatoes, so we've been eating a lot of them.

Strawberry rhubarb pie - Spring is here!

Tamale Pie. Eh, too much polenta, not enough filling. But really this was just using up odds and ends, so not bad considering.

Roasted a chicken this week (sorry, no picture) and then made stock! I love homemade stock. I tripled strained this one. Should contribute a nice clear broth to soup for next week.

Decadent Peanut Butter Cups really lived up to their name. My grocery store started carrying Guittard chocolate chips. Heavenly.

Added butter changed the texture dramatically. It surprised me.

The cup.

Classic potato salad. This is maybe just the third potato salad I've ever made. I liked the peas, Ben and Brian thought it was weird.