Cobbler For Breakfast: A Good Idea, Until Your Teeth Turn Blue

Having spent the week leading up to the holiday weekend dying of some upper respiratory plague, it was with great joy that I woke up on July 3 with the ability to breathe through both nostrils. CPM was also overjoyed, and invited me to join him on a celebratory 30 mile bike ride. (Some people would just eat cake or something. Not me. I enjoy torturous physical activity.) By mile 2, I was convinced that I was going to die. A week of forced inactivity had weakened me. By mile 10, all was well, except I was holding CPM up. He was riding his fancy road bike, and I was on my comfy hybrid. After the ride, and a lunch at Farmicia, we ended up in a bike shop. Somehow, CPM convinced me that it would be a good idea to buy this, so that I would no longer ride at a snail's pace:



It's a women's Trek 1.2, the starter road bike. On Saturday morning, CPM suggested we take it for its inaugural ride, towards a brunch at Dos Segundos. This sounded like a really good idea! It was, sort of. What better way to learn how to ride a bike than to actually ride a bike. I only almost died one time, when I ended up in a trolley track in front of an asshole SUV, somewhere in the hinterlands of North Philly. Lesson learned. Trolley tracks suck. Asshole SUV drivers suck more. North Philly by bike is a little scary. Mimosas make everything better.

I definitely developed a new form of road rage on the new bike. I also developed a keener sense that the streets of Philly aren't so clean. Yuck. At least my neighborhood isn't covered in broken glass and discarded Dunkin Donuts cups...yet. Some of the other areas of the city, well, it's too late for you, I'm sorry to say.

On Sunday, CPM and I decided to try brunch at a new spot that I had read about somewhere online, Cafe Estelle. What follows are boring food photos. (And we took the car this time, by my request.) Trust me, everything was delicious. Our server was incredibly nice and even gave us the secret to CPM's delicious smoothie. Verdict: repeat visits are necessary!

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie...(The secret is the Jif peanut butter)


Eggs Benedict with Spinach and Mushrooms


Shirred Eggs


Walnut Sticky Bun, Drowning in Cream Cheese Frosting


At some point over the weekend, I did do a little cooking. I wanted to make something "fourthy." You know, summery and with a festive holiday feel. I settled on the cobbler #2 featured on The Pioneer Woman's website. Only, I don't have access to a bountiful supply of blackberries. So I used a combination of blue and blackberries, and then made homemade whipped cream. Ooh la la. I'm still eating this for breakfast. And yes, it does turn your teeth blue. But it's so worth it.

Jesus. I can't post regularly to save my life.

Two weeks ago, my house was invaded for a weekend of band practice. Band practice weekends mean that all of my little OCD cleaning/shopping/chore routines are shot to shit and I am forced to have fun, eat out a lot, and basically chill the eff out while the rock is happening in my basement. The vacuuming and bleaching can get done during the week, right? I took no pictures. I cooked dinner twice (lasagna, veggie chicken cheese steaks) and breakfast once (blueberry pancakes). I ate out at our favorite Thai place, our favorite veggie place, our favorite Mexican joint, and a good sushi joint. One of the house guests wrote about it on his blog way back on June 24. That's how late I am in updating.

Last week I took a spontaneous vacation day and went to Laurel Hill Cemetery with Jaime to take some photos. You should look at hers, not mine, because hers rule and mine are meh. I need to learn Photoshop.

This weekend, we became a four dog house. Our "niece," Rosie is staying with us while her people are away visiting Shamu. My three dogs are not allowed on the furniture. Rosie, however...



Our couch cushions will be squished down to pancakes by the end of the week, and that will be just fine, because she is so darn cute.

This weekend, I ventured into experimental ice cream territory. I made the vanilla ice cream from the ice cream maker's manual, and then added chopped frozen cherries and chopped bittersweet chocolate at the end. CPM says this is my best ice cream yet.



I also made a skirt. I got it done in two hours! The zipper isn't as wonky as it usually is! Woohoo!

Book Buying "Spree"

I've been trying not to buy books that I want to read. I've been trying to hit the library more. This works about 30% of the time. The other 70%, I succumb to the lure of Amazon and my Prime membership--free 2 day shipping, woohoo!

Today, I ordered two books, but one doesn't really count, because it's a cookbook, and you can never have too many of those! On the advice of Joselle, who writes an awesome blog, I snapped up Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Vegan Brunch. I am not vegan. I love cheese. But I do love to experiment making tasty vegan dishes. I am excited to try the vegan omelet!

I also ordered My Life in France. I love cooking. I love reading books about cooking. I love reading books about American expatriots in France (see also The Sharper Your Knife The Less You Cry and Le Divorce). I also loved Julie and Julia, so I figure this is a good follow up.

I hate water

When a medication tells you to "take 1 capsule...with a full glass of water," and you are doing this twice a day for 21 days, you will begin to hate the sight of a glass of water. It is inevitable.
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When a coworker snickers and says, "What are those?" referring to your shoes, you will question your choice of footwear all day, even though you got the shoes at Target and they absolutely RULE!
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When it rains every day for what seems like eternity, you will find strangely colored mushrooms growing in the grass around your house and then begin to imagine that you live in Super Mario Bros. the game.

Things I've Made...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream



Delicious! I left out the peanut butter patties because I was in a hurry to try this!

Strawberry Ice Cream (from the manual that came with the ice cream maker)



Heavy cream makes any ice cream better!

Tzatziki in Progress



It turned out well, however, I think this recipe could use a little lemon juice or something. I ate it with two baked potatoes. I love baked potatoes and can never eat just one.

The Headband from Weekend Sewing



There was a lot of guess work involved in a few places due to some imprecise directions (for instance, when you tell me to sew pleats, tell me how far apart to make the marks to make the pleats even). Next time, I'll do a better job. Also, telling me to do a 1/8" fold? Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. I laugh. I always up this dimension to 1/4".


And now appearing in my container garden, tomatoes!

Two Cautionary Tales

These Boots Were Made For Shipping

2 weeks ago, I ordered boots from Overstock.com. I wanted them for wearing on the Vespa...I have a pair of normal purple Doc Marten's, but the side zipper on these appealed to me as a way to cut down the "gearing up" time in the morning. They arrived in a timely manner. Alas, my calves are just too shapely for these boots. After trying one on, I put it right back in the box, and requested the return label from Overstock.com. I packaged them in their original box, and gave everything to the UPS driver at my job the following morning.

Yesterday, I saw that I received only a partial credit for the return. I contacted customer service at Overstock and they told me that the warehouse people inspected the boots, and that they were stained and couldn't be resold. WTF! So, either the UPS driver or the Overstock people damaged the boots and tried to blame me, because they were in mint condition when I repacked them! This morning I see that they have given me back the rest of my money. I think this is because I threatened to never be a customer of Overstock again, blog about my experience, twitter my experience and facebook my experience. Even though they gave me back my money, I have a bad taste in my mouth from the ordeal, and I don't think I'll be using them again for purchases. Hello, Zappos! You win.

I'm a Limey

Last week, my wonderful husband removed a tick from my leg. I found it while I was showering. Because I am blind without my glasses, I originally thought that a new mole had appeared on my leg. A closer inspection totally skeeved me out. It was a tick, and that sucker was attached! I spent that morning at work googling "lyme disease", but felt pretty sure that I had been attacked by a "safe" dog tick. Phew. What a relief. Then on Sunday, a little red dot appeared in the spot where the tick was attached. It slowly grew. By Tuesday, I had the tell tale bulls eye rash. WTF. Yesterday, I visited my physician and got the recommended course of antibiotics. Woohoo. These things are no joke! There are five warning labels on the bottle! I have to take them for 21 days! I will probably feel sick to my stomach the entire time! Fan freaking tastic.

I will never leave my house without applying bug spray ever again.

Blah Blah Blah

What a weekend. Bones had his surgery to repair his torn cruciate ligament last Thursday, and came home on Friday. Here he is, plotting my demise for making him wear the dreaded cone.



Apparently, the vet no longer sends the dog home with a padded bandage on the leg. Bones' stapled incision is exposed. Woo boy, it's a doozy. On the positive side, he won't get the nasty pressure sore that Ollie got from his bandage. For the first night, as expected, he whined and cried from the discomfort. After that, he figured out how to get comfortable, how to walk around, how to lay down, how to demand a chin scratch, basically how to be a dog again. He's healing well (I think), and gets his sutures removed next week. I'll feel a lot better when that happens. I hate making him wear the cone. I think it really bums him out.

Since I was confined to the house for the weekend, caring for Bones, I got lots of domestic crap done. Primarily, I was psyched to try my new ice cream maker. Wow. Why didn't I get one of these before? I started with a recipe for coconut ice cream. Instead of saffron, as called for in the recipe, I simply added toasted coconut. Wow. Wow. Wow. Because I can't eat ice cream without something, I also whipped up a fruit crisp, using the abundance of plums and apricots that I had on hand. I ate only one bowl. CPM made it disappear little by little over the course of the next few days.



I also whipped up a quilt top.



I don't have a rotary cutter, so I decided to tear my fabric to make the pieces. That was actually fun. The pieces ended up coming out not exactly the same size, but I don't believe in perfect, so that was fine. I still need to make the quilt sandwich, make the binding, quilt the thing, and then bind it. Eh. Maybe before the year ends.

I will leave you with a post from another of my favorite blogs, Stuff White People Like. This one hits a little too close to home, I think. It's about Vespas. I have a Vespa...I am white. Oh god.