A really delicious casserole worth remembering.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Eggplant-Potato-and-Pepper-Casserole-347

I'd recommend George Foreman-ing the eggplant instead of frying it (less oil; delicious taste), but frying the onions, potatoes, and green peppers is a good idea.  I'm not sure if I have ever made this with actual thyme (maybe I used dried? maybe I used basil and/or oregano?), so feel free to season as you would.  It was surprisingly ridiculously delicious.

Oh, and we definitely layered in canned roast beef to make it an entree.  And we probably added cheese.  Awesome.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

The snow from last night is melting this morning, so the world outside is a mix of white snow, yellow and orange leaves, and a slick brown shininess to everything melting and being melted on.  Necessarily, I wanted pumpkin something for breakfast.

I'm a solid cook, but I am not a great baker.  These muffins, however, were fantastic and easy.  (Except--I put in more chocolate chips than was called for, maybe just 1/4 cup more, because why not?  And turns out, it was maybe too many chocolate chips.  I was eating the muffin wishing I could taste less chocolate and more pumpkin.  Weird, right?)

Ingredients

• 1 2/3 cup(s) flour
• 1 cup(s) sugar
• 1 tablespoon(s) pumpkin-pie spice (OR some mix of ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon)
• 1 teaspoon(s) baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon(s) baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon(s) salt (kosher is my preference, always)
• 1 cup(s) semisweet chocolate chips
• 2  large eggs
• 1 cup (do not use pumpkin-pie filling) canned solid-pack pumpkin (OR maybe 1 1/4 cup?)
• 1/2 cup(s) (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted (OR 1/2 cup applesauce and 1 tablespoon melted butter)

---

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray muffin tins.
2. In large bowl, mix first six ingredients; add chocolate chips, tossing to coat. 
3. In another small bowl, whisk together remaining ingredients; add to flour mixture and stir just until combined (do not overmix). Fill each muffin cup about two-thirds full.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until muffins spring back when lightly touched (or, as I did, until they mostly look done and the edges look crispy but the top doesn't quite spring back but you have to leave to go practice a hymn for church the next day). Cool muffins on rack.

Adapted from http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/paula-muffins

Recipes I've been a-using

This is mostly for my records, but feel free to look in.  Both of these are delicious for breakfast.

Chilled Raspberry Soup
(adapted by Sarah from Betty Crocker)

2 bags (about 4 cups) frozen raspberries, thawed overnight in fridge
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cranberry juice or orange juice
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
1 tsp vanilla (or to taste)

1. 1 Place raspberries, sugar, and juice in blender. Cover and blend on high speed until smooth.
2. Strain raspberry mixture through sieve into bowl. Discard raspberry seeds.
3. Stir yogurt into raspberry mixture.  Add cinnamon and vanilla; stir.
4. Cover and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours or until cold.  Serve topped with fresh raspberries.

Pear Clafoutis

(adapted by Sarah from the Domestic Goddess)

4 large eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/3 cup flour

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 large pears, cored, thinly sliced

powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Generously butter 9-inch-diameter glass or ceramic pie plate.
2. Beat eggs, sugar, and salt in medium bowl to blend. Whisk in flour. Add milk, butter, vanilla, and cinnamon - whisk until smooth.
3. Arrange pears in bottom of prepared plate (preferably in circular-fan pattern). Pour custard over pears.  Sprinkle additional cinnamon and/or sugar on top.
4. Bake until clafoutis is set in center and golden on top, about 40 minutes.
5. Sprinkle or serve with powdered sugar.

Homemade Caramel Recipe

The following is mostly for my own records, but you should feel free to use it too. It comes from this website.

CARAMEL:

3 c. sugar, divided
3/4 c. milk
1 egg, beaten
Pinch of salt
1/2 c. butter (cut up)

Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar in heavy saucepan; place over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until sugar melts and syrup is golden brown.

Combine remaining 2 1/2 cups sugar, milk, egg and salt in a bowl, stirring well; stir in butter. Stir butter mixture in caramelized sugar. (The mixture will lump, becoming smooth with further cooking.) Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until a candy thermometer registers 230 degrees (15-20 minutes). Cool 5 minutes. Beat with a wooden spoon to almost spreading consistency and spread between layers and on top of cake.

Grandma Hoggard

This past Tuesday morning, at approximately 12:30 am, my Grandma Hoggard died. Mom and Anika were there with her, in her hospice care facility, and I had seen her earlier that evening, earlier that day, and for many hours on the previous two days. We had been praying she would die on Monday because she was so uncomfortable. It was such a blessing to have it happen when and how and as peacefully as it did. Grandma considered her death a graduation, and she requested we play "Pomp and Circumstance" at her funeral, which the bishop thought was "resoundingly appropriate." So on Friday, at her funeral, as the cousins pall bearered her casket out of the chapel, Cousin Stephen played a version of the graduation anthem. I'm sure she was 100% delighted about that.

At Uncle Rick's request, I wrote a tribute to Grandma, which was included in the program for her funeral. For posterity's sake--and to update this long-neglected blog--I post it here.

Grandma Hoggard, we love you very much. I miss you already.

* * * * *

As Grandma Hoggard Would Say, “We Just Had to Laugh”

I once won $1100 for an essay I wrote about Grandma and Grandpa, in which I essentially just wrote down experiences I’d had with them. I wrestled with not submitting the essay in the first place—should I make money on Grandma’s idiosyncrasies? Could it really be okay to share her foibles with the world? In the essay, I describe watching Grandma give herself insulin shots, poking a sharp needle into her belly, sitting alone late at night at the kitchen counter. And of course, of course, I expose her fridge for all that it is—a tattooed appliance, covered by a collection of quotes, handwritten by Grandma in black permanent marker. “Pornography is the literature of the devil,” the freezer says. “If jealousy were a fever, all the world would be ill.”

I shouldn’t have worried about sharing these things. When I showed Grandma the essay, she laughed at every page. “You painted me perfectly!” she said. “You got me just right!”

The perfect, shocking thing about Grandma’s willingness to laugh is that she was also so serious about so many things. The gospel of Jesus Christ, for one. Her family. Genealogy. Graduations, events, holiday decorations. New clothes for the grandkids, new shoes for the grandkids. Pretty much anything for the grandkids. Fudge.

With seriousness, she decried sin. (She once told me: “Rick bought his kids a poker table. Someday he’s going to call me and say, ‘Woe is me,’ and I’ll say, ‘Woe IS you!’”) She advocated for achievement. (She counseled a soon-to-be-lawyer grandson to take all 50 state bars at the same time, “just to get it over with.”) She loved buying things. (One day, after hearing her emit a string of gasps and “That’s darling!”s in the BYU Bookstore, I asked her if she saw anything she didn’t think was cute. She stopped walking, turned entirely around, and said brightly, “Nope!”)

And she gave, gave, gave. Gave. Gave more. (For instance, a former roommate of my sister’s recently credited Grandma Hoggard with helping her avoid urinary tract infections, so plentiful was Grandma’s supply of cranberry juice to Anika’s college apartment.) Grandma never stopped giving—she was giving the rings off her fingers for weeks before she died—and she hasn’t yet. (Turn an object over in Grandma’s house, and you’re likely to find a “Stephen” or a “Coco,” written in Grandma’s own schoolgirl cursive. She long ago began preparing to divide her possessions among her family.) My guess is she’s already finding ways to keep giving, both to us here and to our family on the other side.

Grandma Hoggard is one of the finest, funniest, most passionate, most loving people ever to live on God’s earth. We who are lucky enough to be descended from her by birth or marriage have been trying since our very first days to live with as much meaning, good humor, and generosity as she showed everyday.

She’d like that, I think, because she loves us. And because she has always, always enjoyed a good laugh.

Salad Crazy?

Me too.

Which is why Manfriend has made this:

sarahssalads.wordpress.com

He says he'll update it every time I eat a salad, which, it turns out, is typically at least once a day. But already we're two salads behind--a pork salad and a salad I ordered as part of lunch today at The Prime Rib, during DC's restaurant week. But he has an iPhone, plenty of access to me (hooray), and the desire to document our crazy salad eating.

Here's hoping even more attention to me and my salads doesn't go to my head.

(Manfriend, that pun was for you.)

Stay tuned.

Coolest (Thesis) Idea (Ever).

http://writemythesis.squarespace.com/

I haven't checked it out yet, but it is the brainchild of my friend Brittany Watson, who has better taste and more personal class/loveliness than just about anyone I know.

Academedia revolution! That's what I say.

Spread the (design/media/academic) word.

Do you ever have days

on which you want to be covered from head to toe? No skin showing at all?

I think it's my way of staying in bed. While going to work.

Hopefully it's not too hot today.

Question

Would you rather have your president be fat or your lawyer be a terrible speller?

Recipe: Soda Cracker Pie

Adapted from the recipe by Grandma George, heaven bless her.

In a cold bowl

• beat 3 egg whites until stiff
  
• then add 1 cup sugar
  
• then add the crumbs of 14 saltines (which you've procured from finely crushing 14 saltines in a ziploc bag)
• then add 1/4 tsp baking powder
• then add 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• and finally, add 1 tsp vanilla.

Fill buttered 9" pie pan with pie goop. Push the goop up on the sides.

Bake 30 minutes at 325 degrees, until it looks solid (not goopy) and golden brown. It will be puffy.

Remove it from the oven. It will fall.

Cool it. Slice fresh peaches or nectarines thin. Fill pie crust SO FULL. Add whipped cream (or even Cool Whip) to your liking.

Eat it before anyone else does.

Two Pictorial Updates

1. Le dessert du triomphe.
An impromptu dessert made for the birthday of one Jeff S., during a recent spur-of-the-moment, whirlwind weekend in Rochester. Ingredients: one half-gallon of vanilla bean ice cream; one half-gallon of chocolate ice cream; one layer of homemade whipped cream with lemon zest; fresh mango, blackberries, and raspberries; shredded coconut; and tall skinny candles that turned out to be almost impossible to blow out. Can I tell you the truth? It was amazing. We were all surprised.

2. Kayak thumbs.
The remains of a short kayaking adventure in the Chesapeake Bay, had as the capstone outing to a perfect Memorial Day weekend spent lounging around a house on the water with friends. In real life, the sores are pretty dramatic. And liquidy. (Are my hands really that sissy? I need to get out more.) But no regrets. The weekend was perfect.

Louise

It's been forever. And this comment isn't something big (it's small) or original (Louise wrote it). But I want to make it mine.

Louise wrote the following as a comment to her own post. Read the comment here: http://theapronstage.com/2009/05/14/in-a-panic/#comment-2678, and the post here: http://theapronstage.com/2009/05/14/in-a-panic/

To increase the likelihood you'll do one of the two, I'm reproducing the comment here. God bless Louise Plummer.

I forgot number 101: Learn to say no. You may have to practice. Never say yes right away. Say, “Let me think about it and I’ll call you back.” Then call back and say no. This is hardest to do when people you love ask you to do things you really really don’t want to do. “No, we can’t drive across country to be home for Thanksgiving this year.” “No, I can’t be on the R.S. enrichment committee.”"No, I’m not coming to choir practice at seven in the morning on Sundays.” I’m not doing anything early mornings. Get used to it.

Stand up for yourselves, anxious ones. Plan anxiety into your life. I need a long morning. Right now, I’m so nervous about my fiction writing that I have scheduled one hour a day to write (instead of four) and think I’m successful if I write one paragraph. But here’s the thing: books get written one sentence, one paragraph at a time, one hour a day. I can’t worry about those people putting out a book a year. I’m just not one of them. I can’t worry about anyone but me.

I think walking to the mail box is good exercise. Hot chocolate is good too–anytime.

Don’t you all see it? Most of the world is terrified. We’re rabbits on a chopping block. It takes a lot of faith to get over that view. It’s why people drink, smoke, eat too much, have unsafe sex and kill themselves. That’s why we watch too much TV, play too many video games, stay in bed. We’re scared to death. Recognize it, embrace it, expect to fail occasionally, and move on.

Decide to be a believer. Decide to be terrific in a doddling sort of way. When Jesus gets tired of crowds, he always walks away. Read the gospels and see how often he walks away. No THAT’s taking good care of yourself.

Saturday in Sunbury

I spent Saturday in Sunbury, PA, with the lovely Reija M. Turns out, Sunbury is halfway between Rochester and my house in VA, so we decided to meet there, to hang out in the middle. I rented a car, borrowed my roommate's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book on tape, and drove the 3ish hours to mid-PA, where Reija waited for me on a swingset in a park built like a fort.

It was awesome.

We ate dinner at the restaurant in the first building in the world to have electricity. (Sunbury, PA, is the first town in the world to have been wired with electricity.) And we saw the Susquehanna (but only once we climbed over the flood wall); a 19th-century fort-like prison that is still in use (despite a lawsuit pending about the inhumane conditions for the prisoners inside); and rows and rows of houses and stores, all charming, sad, and/or cute. Sunsbury is definitely a place with history. Now for Reija and me, too.

Read Reija's account/see more pictures of my awesome Saturday here: http://reijagainsthemachine.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-meeting-halfway.html.

Having friends/Reija rocks. And so does America. And No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. I commend them all to you.

Lettuce Eat

Lettuce is my new favorite thing to eat. I crave it all the time. I don't know if it's the roughage, the wateriness, the almost entire lack of calories. Something.

I eat it under eggs. I eat it with grilled onions. I buy a salad and then buy more lettuce to add to my salad.

And I've been dreaming--for a week now, maybe two--about eating pizza on lettuce. (Not lettuce on pizza, as, I was told, is sometimes sold in restaurants like the California Pizza Kitchen.) But pizza on lettuce. A piece of pizza--pepperoni is my favorite these days--cut into bite-sized pieces and put on top of a bed of Romaine. Fresh, watery, piled high, topped with scattered pizza bites.

Oh man. Lettuce. LETTUCE.

I'm dreaming of lettuce tonight.

Today in Relief Society

Stephanie: (whispering) Sarah, do you feel like that?

Sarah: Like what?

Stephanie: Like what that girl just said? Like sometimes you're on a roller coaster--and you feel up because you're confident that God loves you and you're doing what's right but then you hit an obstacle and you feel down and everything is hard. Do you feel like that?

Sarah: Um. I don't know. In some ways, but not all ways. Do you feel like that?

Stephanie: No. (pause) But maybe I should. I like roller coasters. You know like when you're going up and then you come down and you're like whoo!

Dozy Daisy and Zilly Notwithstanding*

You know how word verification words tend to be fake words that have real-word-like characteristics? Spotus. Linita. Flackel. Like aliens posing as humans. So close, but not quite right. Creepy.

I wanted to comment on a blog the other day, and this came up as my verification word:

clowns

I looked closer. Was I mis-seeing things? I mean, my eyes have been getting worse. (It was five years ago that I got my eyes lasered.) But maybe the screen resolution? the colors? my perpetual tiredness? I tried other options: clouns. dovns. clowms. Nope.

Clowns.

Apparently, clowns are creepy enough.









* My roommate Jeanette recently met two professional clowns at the LDS temple in London. Or rather, she met two people who were at the LDS temple who were also professional clowns. They're married. He's Zilly, and she's Dozy Daisy. And they were super nice to Jeanette. Which is not a silly thing! So, they're excepted.

For KT on her birthday

(The only picture I have of the two of us. We don't even look like we know each other well. This is totally ridiculous and must be remedied.)

Somehow, this says most of it:

"Thank you for the books you sent which connect
quite specifically to everything I have been thinking of
for the last 12 years."
(Naomi Shihab Nye doesn't come between us as much as she calls it like it is
and then leaves us to talk and live it out.)
You have given me bobby pins that fit this description.

I have to tell you, I live my life so it's more like yours.
The comforter
is only the first thing. You'll notice, it's gold. Not unlike your curtains.
The dishes, the lovely boxes of matches, the yellow gold earrings--
these are things
everyone sees.

But also, the way you read your scriptures in your bed in the mornings.
The way you make events out of Wednesdays.
"I'm going to lunch with Samantha
and then to the mall. I think I'll leave work at 3, 3:30. Bye!"
Then you'd come home later than usual
and from the temple.

The way you finger the stereo while you're driving, flipping confidently
through all six CDs. Or thousand. However many you're listening to right now.
I always wanted your long fingers.
(However, I do not plan to begin changing lanes in the middle of intersections without signaling. This is thrilling
but I am risk averse.
I am, after all, a lawyer.)

And the way you love the Word. And the women around you.
And the way you make goals
for yourself
writing them in big letters on your mirror.
You do not mention them to us
usually
but you leave them there.
And I see them when I come in to borrow your jewelry
when you are not home.
(And the markered note that said, "Please ask before you borrow jewelry. Thank you!")

You are always up for a talk on a bed, for a cuddle, for a tea party, for good pancakes, and lemon curd.
These are the concrete details that make life well lived.
This is not just the English teacher in me speaking.

This is the observer, the roommate,
the one who would watch you from across the chapel
and wish you were walking down the aisle
in your gold heels and herringbone skirt
towards me.

The one who is glad we share hair color so sometimes people mistake me for you, or say,
"Man, you looked like KT just now. You guys could be sisters."

At some point, it might sound to the world
like I've stopped talking about you
but listen close.

Fortunately

Reija added this to our conversation re mini-crushes: http://reijagainsthemachine.blogspot.com/2009/02/for-s-my-favorite-mini-crush-poem.html.

If you don't read her blog regularly, you should. It's genius and beauty.

Going Public

See my first NY Times appearance: http://proof.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/why-and-how-i-drink/?apage=6#comment-14915.

Just a comment, but still. I'm working my way into the real world.

(But not of the real world. Don't you worry.)

Discussion Topic: The Mini-Crush

1. First you have a mini-crush*.

2. Then what do you do?

Discuss.


*I would define a mini-crush as a crush about which you are excited but for which your heart is not actually on the line. I'll also accept discussion re the definition of mini-crush.