Actually, I Could Live On This Alone

When I was a kid, one of the constants in our house was Irish Soda Bread, more commonly known as "brown bread". My parents grew up on the stuff, and so my mother made a couple of loaves every week, and it was just.... always around. There's nothing pretty about brown bread, it's coarse and heavy and plain, but it's also filling and hearty and utterly comforting. I love it, and make it myself regularly.

Of course, my oh-so-sophisticated children will have nothing to do with it, preferring the glamor of Wonder Bread and baguettes, and the Mister isn't much of a bread eater. (I marvel, sometimes, that we managed to ever hit it off at all.) So I end up eating all of it by myself, which is a-okay by me; brown bread with marmalade for breakfast, brown bread with cheese for lunch and brown bread with jam for a snack after dinner with a cup of tea is almost a perfect day, if you ask me.

You can't buy brown bread, you have to make it, which makes it all the more enchanting to me. I've seen recipes for it all gussied up, which is entirely the opposite purpose of brown bread. (I once saw a recipe for "Porcini Mushroom and Apricot Soda Bread"....oh, the humanity.) And I also love it because, from pulling out the big bowl to tossing the whole thing in the oven takes about 15 minutes. Of course, you can take longer to put it together, making it an excellent activity for small children, who can bash the tar out of it and it will still bake up just fine.

Mrs. O'Sullivan's Soda Bread:

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 cups of milk

Preheat the oven to 400°F, and lightly grease a baking sheet, cake pan, pie pan or whatever you want.

Put everything but the milk into a big bowl, and stir with a whisk. (The recipe actually says to sift all the ingredients, but I just give it an enthusiastic couple of turns with the whisk and it seems to work out just fine.)

Add the milk, stir with a wooden spoon and add whatever additional milk necessary to make a slightly sticky but fairly dry dough. It should come together into a ball.

Knead the dough a few times to make it come together a bit, or untill you can form it into a loaf.

I prefer to bake it on a cookie sheet, sort of "free-form", but my mother puts it in a 8x8" pan, because it looks a little neater. Pat out the dough until it makes a circle roughly 8 or so inches across and an inch or two high, on the cookie sheet. Now, this is the important part: with a bread knife, slash a cross into the top of the bread, about a half an inch deep. (It won't look right without that cross, believe me.)

Bake in a 400° oven for 40 minutes, or until it's nice and brown on the top. When the bread is done, it should sound hollow when you thump on the bottom with your knuckles, the preferred testing method of Irish mammies everywhere.

Amazing Race 14, Ep. 7

Another nice team gone....I was enjoying Mel and Mike very much, and had hoped that they would be in the finale. But they didn't have much of a chance of gaining time after that cabbie debacle, and it was their own fault for not questioning the location of the gorilla more.
Another Rule of The Amazing Race: when everyone else is going in one direction and you are going in the complete opposite, ask around a bit more.

I went from liking all the teams, and not particularly wanting any one team to win, to not liking The Tweedles and The Redheads very much, and now I'm down to wanting Tammy and Victor or Margie and Luke to win.
Damn, the Tweedles constant self-congratulations is wearing very thin, don't you think? And, seriously, if you are so unspeakably superiour to everyone else on this race, is it really necessary to mess with their equipment? Why not just let them fail as nature clearly intended? I think that, in addition to the 30 minute penalty, the people who had to pull the rickshaws with the flat tires should be able to give the Tweedles a good ass-kicking, too. The pretty Thai greeter didn't seem to impressed with them, either.

And after her giggly confessional and subsequent foul treatment of the shopkeeper, Jamie is dead to me. I think he was going slower and messing with her because of the shreiking. I know I would. So, she doesn't like foreign languages and dislikes people? What a surprise this Race must have been!
When Jamie said that she would happily live with animals rather than deal with people, I was all "but....animals don't speak English, do they?"

I wonder what the locals must have thought of all that..."Honey, you're not going to believe what happened at work today! I was standing in front of the shop, minding my own business, when about 4 taxis full of screaming Americans descended on us like a flock of locusts, and waved around a picture of that gorilla statue from the zoo, and shreiked and carried on like lunatics, and then they all took off. It was bizarre."

That whole sneezing in the cab scene by Keisha and Jen had me howling with laughter....I must have replayed that about 10 times. The hilarious sound of the sneezing was bad enough, but when Jen snarked "shut up" I really lost it.

If that tiger handler was banging me around the face with a stick, I'd have bitten off his arm, too.

Favorite Exchange of the Night: Mike: Do you speak any Thai? Mel: Yes: Mai Tai..... That was a pun. Mike: (staring straight ahead) I know." My children and I have this exact conversation all the time.

Another addition onto the List Of Things I Really Don't Ever Want To Do: Have an elephant jiggle my butt fat. (Also on the List: Attend any sort of car racing event, swim under ice, be abducted by aliens, see Paris Hilton ever again.)

If I was Margie, I would consider suffering heat exhaustion and dehydration to be totally worth it if I got to swoon in Phil's arms just once.

Until next week!

And The Card Attached Would Say....

It's been another "treadmill week" here at Chez Loudshoes....I feel like I've been running very hard just to keep up. I've worked almost every night until 6:30 or 7, and there has been very little room for error. ("I can only sign your pizza lunch form if you slip it under the bathroom door.")

On Friday morning I don't have to be at work until 9:30, a precious half-hour later than usual. (But the toilet broke at work just before we left last night, so we had to stop off at the hardware store before we went in, resulting in a precious 15 minutes respite, instead of a half hour.) Usually I spend my time wisely on that morning, namely, logging onto Television Without Pity to see what everyone else thought of last night's "The Office", "30 Rock" and "Grey's Anatomy". Good times. But I cannot bypass checking my e-mail quickly, and also sneaking into Facebook to see if anyone wanted to talk to me since I went to bed 8 hours before.

This morning, as I was quickly skimmed through the status updates (because that is very important) I noticed that Big Liver Girl was kvelding that she had "made wickedly good lunches today" for herself and her four children. I was downcast, because I knew that my lunch today was going to consist of an All-Bran Bar, some past-it's-best-before-date yogurt and a banana deemed "too spotty" for consumption by the rest of my family. (Mostly this situation was due to the fact that I was surfing Facebook at 8 in the morning, instead of getting a better lunch together for myself.) I quickly fired off my own status update, specifically "Mrs. Loudshoes wishes Big Liver Girl had made her lunch today". And then I went off to fling some not-actually-ironed clothes on myself and slap on some makeup to make myself fit for meeting the public at work.

The Mister and I took off for the hardware store on our way to work to pick up the bit for the toilet. (Very important....9 staff, 40 clients, one bathroom. You do the math.)

When we got into work, the receptionist and the rest of the staff were all gathered around the front desk, because Big Liver Girl had dropped off a freshly hand-packed lunch for me. I nearly blacked out with delight. The rest of my co-workers were thrilled, jealous and entirely agog. It was marvelous. And it got even better when I opened the lunch....a mortadella sandwich on homemade bread, some cut-up veggies, an apple and a gingerale. Honestly, I couldn't have been more thrilled if it had been bacon-wrapped scallops and fiery pork.

Because a true friend, your best friend, knows the importance of having a lunch to look forward to. Big Liver Girl....thank you. Really.

Lightbulb Moment.

I was making Hamburger Helper tonight for dinner, which, don't get me started. I can cook almost anything, and I actually LIKE to cook, and what does my family want, crave and swoon over? Hamburger Helper. I dispair.

(When we were in the States last week, we found a sale at the grocery store: Hamburger Helper on for a dollar a box. And if you got 10 boxes, you got the 11th one for free. I refused to get 10, because as far as I was concerned we were careening dangerously into White Trash territory, and 11 boxes of Hamburger Helper was going to cross the line entirely.)

Anyway, I was looking for a large enough frying pan to make it in, one with a lid, because that's what it calls for, and after bashing around in the cupboard for upwards of 10 minutes to see if someone in the family had bought a 12 inch, non-stick skillet with a lid without telling me, it hit me!.....the big soup pot is 12 inches wide, and had a lid....it's a really a big, TALL skillet!! I was beyond thrilled with myself, I tell you. It was like I had discovered cold fusion right there in my own kitchen.
And then I made the Hamburger Helper. Which, believe me, brought me right back down to earth.

And, Another Hour of My Life, Gone.

This is my new favorite website: TackyWeddings.com. Hard to believe, most of it, but highly entertaining!

And He's Very Tall.

Today I realized one more Nice Thing About Being Married.

After you have been together for a while as a couple, you develop a automatic plan of action together that eventually requires no thought or discussion, you just do it.

Tonight the Mister and I ate dinner out with the staff, to celebrate some birthdays, and, frankly, because I love that restaurant and hadn't eaten there since Christmas. This particular place has an extensive appetizer menu, and because I have trouble choosing just one, we usually skip the main course and just load up on those. And the Mister goes right along with that.

One of the many reasons I married Himself is that he never orders the same thing as me. Wouldn't dream of it. Because what would be the point? We're going to share, and this way we get to try TWO dishes. So when he asks if I'm ordering the salmon, it's because he really wants the salmon himself, and will only order it if I am not. He knows he'll be getting salmon either way. If I'm not ordering the salmon, he's free to get it, and I'll get something he's eyeing. We do this with only a couple of words exchanged and some strategic planning. ("Okay, if I get the scallop appetizer, then YOU get the salmon main, and I won't be getting all fish and you can have some of my steak.") The other part of the equation is that you cannot order something the other hates without permission. The Mister always had my permission to order the lamb, since I hate it and won't cook it and it's the only way he's ever going to get any, but he has to order a first course that I like. Similarly, I never order anything with black olives or clams in it, because he hates them. And he just does it, no muss, no fuss.

I once had a boyfriend who took me to a fancy-shmancy place and had the exact same thing as me (after I had ordered) and I felt cheated because I was only going to be tasting a small fraction of the menu. So I appreciate that the Mister has embraced this policy as his own.

Also, the Mister and I have a firm "Quid Pro Garlic" Policy: "The eating of aggressive garlic shall be openly and freely disclosed in order that the other party may address the garlic imbalance and eat in a similar manner". So Caesar Salad is usually shared. (There is particularly garlicky Lebanese restaurant we adore that is so egregiously garlicky that we've agreed to only eat there when the other one can too, because there is no way you'd ever be able to achieve that level of garlic any other way.) I value a man who can see the wisdom in never having more garlic than me at one sitting.

There are many other reasons that I like being married to Himself, but as the only married couple at the table, I thanked my lucky stars that I got to have the bacon wrapped scallops AND the fiery pork all at one go.

Amazing Race 14, Ep. 6

Was it just me or was that episode sort of....bland, especiallly for being in India? Other than Lukes tears for the children and Jaime crying because of the poverty of animals, there was none of the emotional tsunamis we Race fans have come to expect in India. It seemed to me that this wasn't a particularly well designed leg...there wasn't much of a chance for anyone to speed ahead or get lost or even lose sight of the pack much. The Flight Attendants never stood a chance.

I was sad to see those two go, actually. I liked their non-whiney, down and dirty attitude to getting things done.

Wow! Sober locals! And I do mean sober. Those camel-wranglers barely cracked a smile the whole time those fools were using their shirts to transport camel feed.

I'm getting a little tired or Jamie's "don't you speak English" freak out in every country. Because surely she had to know that she would be travelling through foreign countries where English isn't routinely spoken when she signed up for this. Maybe I'm just getting tired of Jamie.

Victor and Tammy have grown on me since Romania. I didn't think I'd ever get to like him, but he's proven himself to have learned a bit from his mistakes, and his obvious delight in everything certainly has gone a long way in redeeming himself. And Tammy's megawatt smile helps, too.
But they can lay off the "we're breaking stereotypes" thing....I have no preconcieved notions about attractive, educated, Asian-American lawyers whatsoever, so my expectations are nil.

That Indian greeter was a hoot! I swear I had about 4 boys in my Grade 8 music class do exactly the same thing with the recorders we were learning on. You'd be surprised at how much noise 4 13 year old boys can make with 8 recorders up their noses.

Good on yer, Mel! With all the death-rattle wheezing during the camel task, I thought for sure he'd be India's first victim this race, but he pulled it out and did just fine. Plus, I'm all soft for a guy who feels badly about yelling at a cab driver (Jamie, take note.) and he was all proud of himself because his son was proud of him. That was nice.

That camel kick must have hurt like crazy. Did you see that guy go down like a sack of potatoes?
And the camel was so awesomely casual about it, he barely stopped chewing.

Next week: I would happily endure dehydration and exhaustion if it meant I could faint in Phil's arms. I would hope my partner would make sure I was wearing lip gloss right beforehand.