Month: October 2017

Happy Halloween!

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Hey everyone! Sorry you didn’t get your usual Tuesday morning post today! Things have been a little bit crazier than usual for me lately. But never fear! It’s still Tuesday here in Washington and it’s time for a Halloween update!

So a few weeks ago, Cobalt and I went to pick pumpkins for Halloween. This patch was awesome! There were perfect pumpkins in every direction! And we got to clip our favorites off the vine! How could we pick just two? We couldn’t. We brought home three delightful pumpkins.

Fast forward to last weekend: Cobalt’s and my friend L was in town. So we asked him if he wanted to come over and carve pumpkins with us. Obviously he said yes. Carving pumpkins is the best. Success – three pumpkin carvers for three pumpkins!

So I present to you a photo gallery of our happy jack-o-lanterns this year:

First up we have L’s pumpkin “Derp-face.” I can’t get over the eyes. :D

Next up, Cobalt made the pumpkin featured in the first Halloween movie. It looks almost traditional but then it gets a little creepy the more you look at it.

Finally, you know the demon fish pumpkin is mine. I’ve been carving shark/fish pumpkins for a few years now and I have to say, I really like this guy.

How can you say no to that grin?

I like him so much that you get an extra picture of him.

In addition to carving pumpkins, Cobalt and I went to Scaregrounds last weekend. It consisted of three haunted houses at the fairgrounds (get the name now?)! Unfortunately we were only able to go through one of them, called “Blackout.” It was pretty dark in there and they gave us one glowstick for the six of us. The ghosts kept stealing it but then somehow sneaking it back to us, which was amusing. My favorite part was that our friend K started the haunt by announcing things like “there’s a trap door in here so… fair game…” Then we just started saying “fair game… fair game…” every time we turned a new corner. By the end, the ghosts were screaming “FAIR GAME” back at us. Heh heh heh. It was good though. Especially because that’s not something I normally do.

Did any one dress up for work today? I didn’t go too crazy but I definitely wore some extra ears all day.

So now it’s your turn. Tell me about your Halloweens! Any ridiculous weather? Any hilarious costumes? I saw some good ones on Twitter today. Any plans for Dia De Los Muertos tomorrow?

The pumpkins say goodbye!!!!

Not alone

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I have been having a tough time, friends. The Tubbs fire that ate up half my hometown is now listed as the most destructive wildfire in California history. It’s jarring and heartbreaking to see my hometown as a statistic in the news. I’m not used to looking at The New York Times, for example, and finding a map of my hometown, complete with the names of everyone who died.

I feel so lucky that my parents and our house are okay. But I also feel horror for the people who lost everything. And for the people who went to bed on Sunday night and then died less than 12 hours later. My town will never be the same. I have no idea what to do with all of that. As I go through my daily activities, I get stopped by random memories popping up in my head. And then I have to stop and think: is that structure still there? And then I have to shake it all away and try to remember what I was doing.

On top of that, I have some other stuff going on (such as: “OK Potassium, you really need to figure out what you want to be when you grow up…”) that’s been gnawing at me and keeping me up at night.

But this weekend, two things happened that gave me a break from all of the insanity. First of all, Cobalt and I went to Portland.

Cobalt helped our friend F move to Portland on Thursday. I followed them after work on Friday. I drove by myself through the Columbia Gorge. It was super windy at first, then kind of rainy, and then the clouds cleared and I was driving into a gorgeous orange sunset, complete with tufts of fluffy clouds rising off the top of the gorge. Plus the fall colors scattered around all the evergreens made a stark contrast to all the gray. I almost had to pull the car over because I was that stunned by the beauty.

Somehow I made it to Portland and Cobalt and I spent the evening with our friends M and P. We had Korean BBQ for dinner. Then we drank a glass of wine and watched The Shining in the dark while M’s and P’s cat purred loudly on the back of the couch. I found myself breathing deeper and snuggling into my blanket. For the first time in weeks, I felt at peace.

The other thing that happened is that I got a group text message from two of my childhood friends. We’ve been group texting since the day of the fire. But I realized on Sunday how amazing it is that I’ve had these friends my whole life and that we can be honest about what’s going on for each of us. It reminded me that despite feeling anxious about everything going on in my life, I am not alone.

About the picture: I have been doing Inktober on Twitter. That means I have to draw a picture in ink every day of the month of October. This picture was from Mental Health Awareness Day and it’s called “You are not alone.” I like it because the shark on the side is kind of nebulous. Maybe it’s not even a shark? I think that’s often how I feel when I feel depressed and anxious: all my anxiety is so clear to me that it’s hard for me to see past it to bring anything else into focus.

One last thing. This blog is 7 years old this week. WAAAAAAT. Oh and also I defended my PhD thesis 3 years ago today. Geez…

Loafing about

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Hi everyone, how’s it going? I’m still pretty upset from all the craziness with the fires in and around my hometown last week. But today we are going to talk about bread.

Cobalt and I have been enjoying fresh bread from a local bakery. But then our friend K gave us a jar of sourdough starter and a recipe so we could try it ourselves. So on Friday night, we rolled up our sleeves and started the process. It’s long. Most of the steps aren’t really time consuming — just add some flour here or some water there — but there is a very specific order to things… and there are a lot of six-hour wait times. Also, there are a lot of steps where you only keep a little bit of the dough/starter and toss everything else, which Cobalt and I found wasteful. Oh well. Let’s get to the details!

Anyway, so on Friday night before we went to bread bed, we fed the starter. Turns out it eats flour and water, which is good because I don’t know if I could afford to feed a starter that liked steak or sushi. We got up on Saturday morning and took a little bit of that fed starter and fed it again. Same diet. Then on Saturday afternoon, we mixed some of that starter with more flour and water plus yeast and salt to make the actual bread dough. On Saturday night, we split the dough in half and set up an experiment. One loaf got to proof at room temperature and the second loaf got to proof in the fridge.

On Sunday morning, the room-temp loaf was huge. Waaaaay overproofed. We spent the morning quoting Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood from The Great British Baking Show. But we baked it anyway. And it didn’t turn out too bad (Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood would say otherwise, I’m sure ;)). It still looked and tasted amazing, which is what really counts. Plus it crackled as it cooled, which we found heartwarming. It reminded Cobalt of a line from the movie Ratatouille: how the sound of the crust will tell you how good a bread is going to be.

It was a bit flat but still delicious. :D

Tarantula was very curious about our baking. We’re starting to wonder if it’s the smell of yeast. She was intrigued as we set up the overproofed bread Sunday morning and even more intrigued during its photoshoot an hour later. Crazy cat. You’re supposed to be a carnivore!

Endlessly curious…

The fridge-proofed loaf turned out much better. We baked it on Sunday afternoon and it just looks lovely.

Yay bread! We saved some of our starter so we’ll definitely have to make more soon. Maybe even next week? What fun recipes should we try next? So many options…

This one hit a little too close to home

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Yesterday, a good chunk of my hometown burned down. My parents and their house are currently safe (at least when I wrote this in the evening of 10/9) but many of my friends lost their current and/or childhood homes.

It was so hard to work yesterday. My heart and my mind were back in California, and I felt helpless two states away. I was constantly reloading the local news site, checking Twitter and Facebook for updates, and texting my sister and my childhood friends. My heart is broken, you guys.

Also I have a vicious cold that keeps pretending like it’s going away and then coming back with a vengeance.

So that’s all for today, folks. Back to photos next week.

Apparently Tarantula likes cinnamon

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It’s been a rough week, you guys. There is so much going on right now, and I’ve been feeling super anxious. It helps to make my kitchen an absolute mess while I bake something delicious. Unfortunately I get the idea to bake something after the sun has gone down so we have some less fancy iPhone pictures for you today.

Two weekends ago, in honor of Fall, I decided to make apple cinnamon rolls! I have a tasty cinnamon roll recipe from an old version of Joy of Cooking (apparently my version is too healthy to have the recipe for something so buttery…). Then I scoured the internet for how to make them apple-y. Turns out it’s easy. Just add chopped up apples!

So the kitchen turned into a cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter mess while I rolled out the dough, painted it with tastiness, and sprinkled apples everywhere. While I was bustling around, Tarantula showed up, apparently very interested in what I was doing. She even stood on her hind legs to try to get closer to the dough! CAT! Go away! I shooed her away because I was pretty sure cinnamon isn’t great for cats. But she didn’t get the hint. She spent the rest of the evening hunting for cinnamon chunks in the kitchen… even after I cleaned the whole room and hid the cooling apple cinnamon rolls in the microwave.

She was back at it again the next day when I was trying to photograph the completed rolls (see that pic above). Who would have guessed that she liked the way cinnamon smelled?

In other baking news, this past weekend Cobalt and I made Smitten Kitchen’s red wine chocolate cake. After we’d served a few pieces, the cake started to look like a pac-man.

For some reason, Cobalt decided to spread the whipped topping across the cake like it was frosting…

That’s all for today! What do you do when you have really bad anxiety?