Two of my favorite things - the Market and Cooking

It's been a crazy few weeks/months in the Lynch household. All of us have been super busy with work/school/family so yesterday, Chris decided to surprise me with a day of fun :) As most of you know, surprises really aren't my thing. Figuring out surprises is my thing. I was good though and made it until 8:30 a.m. before I made him tell me.

Chris knows of my love of all things culinary and food related so he booked a session with a local chef that has an "urban cooking school" right next to his office. The session was even better because it involved buying all the ingredients at Pike Place Market and then taking them back to the studio and cooking it all up! We met Diane, the chef, at the "pig" at the Market at 10 am. There was supposed to be another couple taking the class, but they never showed up. SCORE! Nothing like some serious one on one time! We bought halibut at Pike Place Fish-home of the famous Seattle flying fish, and then we bought produce, spices, truffle oil and cheese from other local vendors. As we walked through the market, she talked about the benefits of buying local as well as the importance of sustainability. She also gave us some interesting info about the Market and vendors.

After the purchases were made, we headed back to the studio to cook. She started out by having us taste lots of different salts from Hawaiian black salt to Cyprus sea salt in order to emphasize the importance of seasoning. After watching many episodes of Top Chef, I am all over the seasoning. We also tried lots of different spices, some olives and different cheeses. Then it was on to the main event - cooking!!

Lunch consisted of sauteed ramps - wild leeks that are in season right now and available at the market for $16.00 a pound (yikes!), fiddlehead ferns and parmesan-crusted halibut. The ramps and fiddleheads were sauteed with pancetta, wine, cream and a bit of lemon. The halibut was lightly pan-seared and then finished in a hot oven. We got to help out at each part and then we enjoyed eating our creations with a glass of chardonnay. Dessert was a lovely strawberry-rhubarb pie. After we finished, we walked back through the market and bought lots of yummy goodness. I also made a stop into Sur la Table for a chef's apron, microplane grater and potato ricer.

We'd love to plan a 7 course tasting menu with wine pairings at the studio for sometime in June so if you're in the Seattle area and are interested, let me know and we'll put it all together!

Thursday Thoughts

1. I have another test tonight. We can have a single-sided 5x7 cheat sheet to help us, so I managed to get 4 chapters worth of material down to 5.5 font. I may be blind by 6pm, but hopefully it will help me do well!

2. I felt a sense of vindication this week. I didn't blog about it but last week I had decided not to shop at Albertson's anymore because they had a staggering amount of out of date product on the shelves. I managed to buy organic ketchup that was 6 months out of date, and almost bought some mayo that was a month bad. When I told the manager, he seemed nonchalant about it so I vowed to not go back. Well, I caved the other day because of convenience. Much to my surprise (and delight), there were several signs advertising great sales on soon to be expired items. I'm such a consumer crusader.

3. Our dryer stopped drying earlier in the week. I'd turn it on and after 3o minutes, it would feel like Southeast Asia inside, complete with humidity and damp clothes. After some research, I figured out that there must be a build up of lint in the system. Chris took the hose off of the back and didn't find anything so we decided to have a guy come out and clean the air ducts. After about 10 minutes under the house, he came back up and told me that there was a bulging air duct filled with about 5 lbs of dog hair and water. Ew. He cleaned it out and now the dryer works just fine.

4. Bailey has decided that she doesn't want to go outside anymore. Something spooked her in the yard and now she flat refuses to go out willingly. Cole had to drag her outside the other day and then she stood there shivering. We found "evidence" in the house this morning (read: poop) so now I have to physically force her outside. Not easy with a 60 lb dog.

Commitments. I has them.

I've said so many times that my life either runs at Driving Miss Daisy speed or 1.21 Gigawatts. There is no in between. This week, I'm running at the latter speed. I've got another mega test on Thursday. This one is even "harder" according to my lovely Prof. Harder. Huh. Not quite sure how that's possible, but we'll see.

I've also had lots of family in town this week. My brother and both sisters are visiting. It's the first time we've all been together since 1989. We've seen each other separately of course, but never seemed to make it all in one place. Last night, we took some family pictures during a brief respite from the ugly-ass weather that's been plaguing us. My cousin's wife is a photographer, and I think she got some really cool shots of us. Maybe I'll post some soon.

I've been struggling with another sort of commitment lately - a commitment to myself to get in shape. I have the desire, but I haven't been able to convince myself that now is the time. I'm sure the fact that we have had exceedingly crappy weather hasn't helped because I am a fair-weather exerciser big-time. I'm thinking about starting up the Couch to 5k Program again this weekend. Those of you who are my long-time readers will probably remember that I did this last year and blogged about my progress. I did end up running a 5k, only to get severe shin-splints which curtailed my running for the rest of the year. The program is great in theory, but I will probably double or triple some of the weeks so I can build up gradually. I'm also planning on taking a running class this summer. I had too many commitments right now to start the spring class.

Only 7 more weeks and my life will be back to Miss Daisy speed. I'll then be whining that I'm bored :)

Wait... it's already Monday again?

Wow, this weekend just flew by! I think I slept about 10 hours last night in recovery! Here's what went on in the Lynch house this weekend.

Friday - We went with C and T to a "performance art" show. We thought it would be like Zumanity (which we had all seen together in October). It wasn't. At all. You can read more about it on Tania's blog. She pretty much summed it up nicely. Note to self: Don't make Tania laugh when she has a mouthful of pudding or you will wear it. As I did. Everywhere.

Saturday-The temps were forecasted to reach the lower 70s so I got into full-on spring mode. We went to breakfast at Wild Wheat and then stopped at Carpinito's for some hanging flower baskets for the deck. We also got out our deck furniture and cleaned up the grill. C and T came over in the afternoon to get some music so we sat out on the deck drinking sangria and soaking in the sun. I even got a bit of a burn. I think the temp actually got into the 80s but today we're back to icky greyness and cold. Spring is such a tease.

Sunday- Chris runs a big 50 mile relay race with some peeps from work every year. I usually head out to watch the last part of the race but this year, I decided to help out by being the team chauffeur. We got up to North Bend around 7:45 and drove from checkpoint to checkpoint for the next 8 hours. The weather started out nice, but turned grey by the end of the day. We didn't see any raindrops until we were safely en route home. I was hungry for Mexican food so we grabbed dinner after picking up Cole at home. Of course, around 1am last night, I woke up with horrible heartburn and weird dreams. I think I'm going to lay off the Mexican for awhile.

What was your weekend like?

Does it get much better than this?

I think not.

Chris made this comment on a friend's blog this morning:

"Nice post - I agree with everything you've said. I think Bev and I have a great and special relationship that's built on a lot of these things with each other. She's that one in a million for me. Someone who I can relate to, talk to, and learn from. The best part is I love hanging out with her and doing just about anything."

Needless to say - I am one lucky woman :)

I'm not a neurologist - I just play one on tv

I've learned so much about the brain and neural activity over the past week that I might as well be in med school. I'm pretty sure I could at least perform cranial screwtop-ziplock surgery ala Steve Martin in The Man With Two Brains.

While the material is pretty interesting, my brain has declared that it has had enough of the learnin' for a day. Therefore, to appease my brain, I am watching reality tv, Tivo'd CSI Miami and surfing the internet today.

I can't expect to be intelligent everyday! My brain says it just might explode.

Have I mentioned my slight Disney obsession?

Ok - not so slight would be more appropriate. Even more appropriate would be to call it an overwhelming desire to know all the ins and outs of a great DisneyWorld trip.

We've been to DisneyWorld several times over the past 10 years. Chris and I have been 4 times ourselves, not to mention 2 trips to DisneyLand in between. Cole has only been twice but still has as much of a Disney addiction as I do - must be hereditary.

I've also mentioned in previous posts that I love to plan. LOVE IT! I especially love planning Disney trips. My little daily pick-me-up in between studying about brain anatomy is surfing the Disney planning boards. I'm usually hanging around disboards.com or my newest uber-obsessive planning board, tourguidemike.com. On these boards, we discuss every aspect of the trip, from making hotel reservations, and the best ticket package to getting all the hard-to-get Advance Dining Reservations such as Cinderella Castle.

One additional aspect of my obsessive planning is The Spreadsheet (cue the voices of angels). The Spreadsheet has every aspect of our vacation planned, and is color coded by day and activity. But wait... there's more! In addition to listing the parks and restaurants for the day (complete with time and reservation number), I also have every attraction in each park laid out in a daily touring plan. For example, on our Magic Kingdom day, I have each moment scheduled from park opening at 8am until the time we go to bed - I've even scheduled rest time :)

Chris's eyes start to glaze over when I want to show him my latest additions to The Spreadsheet, but he indulges my obsession and listens to me obsess over scheduling dinner at 5:45 or 5:50 pm. I get giddy even thinking about it. It's a sickness, but I hope there's no cure!