Blythe Spirit

Easter in Madrid

GOAL!!!

I love Mighty Girl‘s habit of setting birthday goals. Goals make me want to make a list or a spreadsheet, or a Post-It mural. Coming up with new ideas for the future and imagining what might happen during the next twelve months excites me.

Resolutions, on the other hand, are boring. They tend to be vague and unmeasurable hopes, like “Be nicer,” and “Eat less sugar.” Goals are really supposed to occur at a certain time and place, like “learn to cook a decent steak for Fathers’ Day” and “throw away all greying white clothing before springtime.”

Instead of amorphous New Year’s resolutions that begin and end at a time of year when my creative energy is exhausted, I’ve decided to set some goals. I’ve come up with a few things I’d like to get accomplished before my birthday in April, when I’ll put together a real live list of stuff I want to do in my thirty-eighth year. One of those short-term goals is to either stop half-assing this blog or shut it down. Sometimes I think it’s time to move on to something different, and other days I know I’d really miss it. Maybe I just need to find a reliable babysitter.

We’ll all know the outcome on April 14th. See you then.

Festive

I can’t come up with a way to capture the sheer Christmasiness (add that to Urban Dictionary stat) of Nurnberg this time of year. The Christkindlesmarkt is big and smells like spiced wine and grilled sausages and gingerbread, and choirs are singing and people are walking around the red-and-white striped awnings wearing cozy mittens and scarves. There are so many people, in fact, that taking a decent picture is impossible for an amateur like me.

The big market with stalls selling pottery and ornaments and toys and even strange dolls made out of prunes is the big attraction where all the tour buses spill their passengers. The children’s market, around the corner and down the street is just as charming and crowded, but many of the people are shorter so it’s easier to take photos. These ones still don’t capture the magic, but maybe they give you a glimpse. Just imagine eating a hot cone of fries smothered in garlic sauce and listening to children exclaiming over the Eisbahn (model winter railroad) while you look at them.

Like Popeye

I met Heather when we were both five years old and her family moved to town and bought our house. We played Barbies and went on to put on plays in her attic, found our own cake-decorating business, and go to the prom with two boys named Mark. We were bridesmaids for each other and since I don’t have any brothers and sisters she is probably the person in my life besides my parents who has known me the longest.

Heather lives in North Carolina now and I’m not sure when I’ll get to see her again because we never seem to be in the same place at the same time. But I think of her whenever I make her spinach lasagna which is easy and works every time. I usually cut the recipe in half, and make it in a square pan.

Spinach Lasagna
1/2 lb lasagna noodles
1 (26 oz) jar spaghetti sauce
1 (15 oz) container ricotta cheese
1 (10 oz) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 lb shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 eggs, beaten
chopped parsley

Prepare noodles as directed on the container. Combine ricotta, spinach, 1/2 cup mozzarella, parmesan, & eggs. Mix well. In a 15 x 19 baking dish, layer 1 cup sauce, half the lasagna, half the remaining sauce, all of the spinach mixture, the remaining lasagna, and the rest of the sauce. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until bubbly. Uncover and top with remaining mozzarella and parsley. Bake 15 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Refrigerate leftovers.

This is not a holiday gift guide.

This is a list of things I use every day that I love love love. I suppose if you know someone exactly like me, you could give one of them to her as a gift.

Reisenthel shopping bag
This bag folds up into a little pouch that I hang on the hook next to my house keys. I take it out with me every day, and I use it to hold bananas or baby food or gummi bears after I’ve bought them.

Microplane Grater
In my past life, I never zested citrus fruits or grated my own Parmesan cheese or garlic or ginger. And now I do, because this thing makes it easy and the clean-up doesn’t make my knuckles bleed.

Case Logic TBC-4 Camera Bag
I ordered this bag sight unseen after reading the Amazon reviews and recommendations so I wasn’t sure it was going to be just what I needed. The Amazon reviewers are lovers/haters but they didn’t steer me wrong this time. Despite it being advertised as a camcorder bag, it fits our Canon Powershot S3 IS just perfectly, with room for cords and batteries. AND the little carrying loop fits nicely over our stroller handles.

Moleskine Weekly Planner + Notebook
I bought this when I felt disorganized but didn’t have enough going on to fill the kind of planner I used to use when I had a job. I am now a Moleskine convert and just opening and closing the little leather cover of this thing gives me joy. Yes,I’m a freak, but this planner makes me happy.

Baby Rear-View Mirror
This allows me to see Theo while I drive and he rides in his rear-facing carseat. I feel comfortable allowing him to screech in the car because, with this mirror, I can tell he’s just annoyed, not injured.

Ladies’ Day

My international women’s book group shares a Thanksgiving meal each year. It’s such a nice way to mark the day that isn’t a holiday around here. We ate turkey and mashed potatoes made by Americans, veggies by a Romanian and a Filipina, soup by a Colombian, sweet potatoes and stuffing by Germans, and trifle by an Englishwoman for dessert.
(see photos of the lovely ladies below)

THEO’S BREAKFAST SOUNDTRACK: 80′s Hits Stripped : Various Artists

Yum-Day

I am evangelical about good scones and these are pretty great. Try them and you’ll become a disciple too.

Lemon Ginger Scones
(adapted from The New Best Recipe Cookbook by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated)

2 cups (10 oz) all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cold unslated butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes
2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 cup heavy cream

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 425 degrees F.
2. Place the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl or the workbowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Whisk together or process with six 1-second pulses.
3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender, or your fingertips and quickly cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few slightly larger butter lumps. If using a food processor, remove the cover and distribute the butter evenly over the dry ingredients. Cover and process with twelve 1-second pulses.
4. Add crystallized ginger and lemon zest. Stir in the heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork until the dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.
5. Transfer the dough and all dry flour bits to a countertop and knead the dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Flatten into a disc about the size of a round cake tin, then cut the disc into eight wedges. At this point, the dough can be refrigerated up to 2 hours. (I refrigerate it overnight so I don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to make these for breakfast.)
6. Bake until the scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before serving.

THEO’S BREAKFAST SOUNDTRACK: Violent Femmes: Violent Femmes
Lemon and ginger require spicy background music.

Furth Apfelmarkt

St. Andrews, Scotland

Turkey Lurkey

I made a dish from one of Rachael Ray’s cookbooks last night, and like everything I’ve made from her recipes, it was fast and tasty and I even ate the leftovers for lunch today. And I normally hate leftovers. I suspect that I should be thankful that I don’t have access to American television because I watched five minutes of her new show last month and she annoyed me so much I had to turn the channel. And it would be tragic if I had to give up using her cookbooks because every time I opened them I developed a twitch due to her sub-par interview skills.