Happy New Years Eve!

Got my pot of Black Eyed Peas simmering on the stove to serve on New Years Day. I am anticipating being a tad bit too tired to cook tomorrow since we have plans tonight (dinner and then Bob's show at Antones!) and I think we will be out pretty late...or get in early....depending on which day you are measuring from!

Wishing everyone a year of peace, happiness and dreams fulfilled in 2009. Now get your black eyed peas cookin' to bring you extra luck!

A funny thing happened

Know what that is? How about this, below? I got stuck in a carwash this evening! LOL. No, not kidding. This'll teach me not to go through a carwash again! I pulled in, it started, it went for a little while and then the spray arm just stopped right in front of my car. Had to back out, lock the car and go in to the shop to tell them the carwash had broken. Apparently it was not the first time today.

I am usually so particular about washing my car by hand, but this evening I decided to go to the car wash at the Chevron station after filling up the tank. While Steffi and I were out shopping the other day some bird(s) pooped on my car. I just couldn't stand it anymore and didn't have time to get the hose out and wash it myself. Besides, my hands are still healing from all the dishwashing from Christmas and I haven't bought any rubber gloves yet to keep them from getting chapped. Seriously, I have been smarthing Climb On Cream all over my hands for days now trying to recover. It is a miracle substance formulated for rock climbers to heal their scrapes and scratches and it does wonders for chapped Christmas-dish-hands. Really, you should try some. You can get it at Whole Foods in Austin.

This was fortuitous because Mike was complaining he was bored that I hadn't blogged in a few days. I said I had nothing to blog about. Now I do!

I will so need a nap today!

Lights out at 2:01 a.m. and the TV turned itself off probably 15 minutes later. I can't even remember what I was watching at that hour, oh yeah - E! news. Tom Brady got engaged to his girlfriend. There were white roses and a private jet. That was the last important Entertainment News clip I remember seeing on the TV before I fell asleep. Choco started mooing around 6 to be let out. Ugh. No number of "lie downs" and "go back to sleeps" would keep her from pursuing whatever was calling her from outside. After letting Choco and Topher out, I did doze until 8:15 before finally starting the morning coffee & newspaper routine.

Why was I up until 2 you ask? Well, we had a fun evening at Poodie's Hilltop Bar in Spicewood, TX. One of the last authentic honky tonk bars around. And boy was it fun. Mike and I have been there a number of times to listen to various Texas legends play. Poodie is Willie's (as in Willie Nelson) road manager and can always attract great musicians to his namesake bar. Occasionally even Willie himself shows up and plays unannounced. Last night's headliner was Carolyn Wonderland. She is just terrific and has a great new CD out - Miss Understood - that Ray Benson helped her produce. We brought Meg, Steffi and Kerry Lynn with us and they had such a great time they had to admit that Mike and I occasionally did pretty cool stuff. The warm up band was Blues Mafia and while they looked like teenagers, they were really pretty good. We all agreed that it was worth checking out their Myspace for more info and downloads.

Carolyn plays with only a drummer and a keyboard(er? ist?). She herself plays a variety of small, medium and large stringed guitar-family instruments, a trumpet and she occasionally whistles a tune. All 3 of them manage to smoke while playing. It is sort of fascinating watching Carolyn's cigarette stuck between the strings and the neck of the guitar and wonder what will happen if she sings long enough for the embers to reach a string?

Her vocals remind me of Janis Joplin -bold and rich and a bit Texas twangy. I highly recommend her Miss Understood CD, especially Bad Girl Blues (written by Bruce Robison), the title track Miss Understood, Still Alive and Well, and I Live Alone with Someone Else. Actually all of the tracks are good.

That's a diet coke in front of Stef. I had to call Poodies in advance of our arrival to ask permission to bring a minor to the show. She had a special wristband announcing she was a minor and was not to be served alcohol. Beats the big black X that many clubs ink onto your hands. Steffi was a good sport and enjoyed several dc's until I gave in to others' suggestions that we treat her to a rum & coke. Just one, mind you.

It is starting to look like it will rain sometime today. Perfect excuse for a nap. zzzzzzz

Merry Christmas!

We had a lovely day. Good weather, good food, great friends. Too many presents. Steffi has the "annual photo" on her camera so I will add that later.

Mike had the camera in his hands for a few minutes and I think he took this of himself :) Silly Mike!


I will mention that the cranberries DID NOT gel and instead we had cranberry soup. It actually tasted ok and some of us put it on our beef tenderloin and it was good. In addition to the tenderloin and cranberry "soup" we had Leslie's mashed potatoes, 2 versions of the sweet potato casserole (marshallows for the "kids" and a grown-up version with pecans), green beans with toasted almonds, and bread. After dinner I made peppermint mochas (yup, a mocha espresso with peppermint syrup, whipped cream and crushed candy canes - just like Starbucks makes!), coffee, and Una's famous Christmas pudding. I really should have used my camera more so you could visually enjoy all of this. Everything was yummy.

The day was so busy that we forgot to sit down and enjoy our stockings! So we will have those to do today.

And then there was the clean up.... I am not sure we have had this massive a mess before!

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas!!!

PS. Here is the annual photo. Steffi's fancy camera managed to get us all blurry, but you get the idea.

Christmas eve

I planned the day to stay busy so that the thought of you-know-who coming tonight would not be constantly on our minds. I started the day by wrapping and was almost done by the time Stefanie woke up. Stef had offered to help me with the day-before cooking so that is what we did together once she was awake. We made the cranberry mold (haven't yet checked to see if it has gelled or not), the sweet potato casserole and cleaned and cut the green beans. It will be nice to have those out of the way tomorrow. Around 2:00 we decided that we'd better start making cookies, but then we noticed that the mixing bowl was in the dishwasher and it looked like it wouldn't be done for another 45 minutes. So out we went for our last minute grocery shopping. Did you know there is NO peppermint ice cream this year? At least none left. Going to plan B - making my own peppermint ice cream looked like an impossibility because there must be a shortage of candy canes - there are NONE of those left either! But we found some other red and white minty things that I'll try to use. Steffi won the "eagle eye" award for finding the peppermint syrup which was on my list and I had all but given up finding.

I finally put the bows on the staircase.

And set the table for dinner tomorrow.

Stefanie and I were able to get 4 trays of M&M cookies in and out of the oven before it was time to go to the Christmas Eve service at church. That just leaves me to finish about 12 more trays. Most of the service is inside and there is lots of singing by the choir and the congregation, some bell ringing and the pastors tell the familliar Mary, Joseph and birth of Jesus stories. We end the service in candlelight singing carols and proceeding outside. The very last song we sing is Silent Night. It is a lovely way to prepare our minds for the real meaning of Christmas.

We came back to the house and I read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to Steffi and Duncan. The children pictured in the book we have look just like Steffi and Duncan did around ages 3 and 4. It used to be the last thing we would do before bed so now we just modify it to be the last thing before they go to their Dad's house for the night. I quickly did another 4 trays of cookies before going over to Mike's for dinner with his kids. Mike had made some absolutely delicious chicken parmesan. Obviously he has been holding back his cooking skills from me! Katie has an 8 a.m. flight on Christmas morning so their routine was adjusted to do a partial exchange of presents with each other. It was really fun to experience their traditions and I am beginning to get excited to see how our different family ways of doing holidays will meld together next year.

When I arrived home, it looked like Santa had just been there!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas today!

Busy Weekend

I am glad it is Monday. Now, how often does anyone say that?! The weekend was great, actually, but it was pretty busy and it will be nice to "just" do my conference calls and emails and other work at the office.

You already know about the Bob show on Friday night. I am still thinking about how great that was. Saturday Mike and I hosted his renewed annual holiday party for his leadership team. We were expecting about 35-45 people so there was a lot of preparation on Saturday. We served chicken parmesan, green beans, a meatless spinach & shells pasta, fusilli with a spicy sausage-pepper-tomato sauce and french bread. I made both pastas and lots of people asked for the spicy tomato sauce recipe. We made it up years ago as an easy meal for after skiing or cold evenings when we needed something hearty to warm up. Here's the basic recipe and you can substitute and enhance with whatever else you have on hand or like in your sauce.

Sausage Pepper Tomato Sauce Recipe
ingredients:
crushed garlic
olive oil
peppers (red, green, yellow) cut into strips (or frozen bag pre-cut)
sausage, your favorite flavor, 1 package or 2-3 medium links
tomato sauce (1-2 25 oz jars)
spices like red pepper, oregano, italian seasoning
red wine
pasta (1 pkg)

Sautee the garlic in olive oil in a large pan. Add peppers and sautee until tender. Remove from the pan and place in a separate bowl

Cut your favorite sausage into medallions, I do mine thin - about 1/4 inch. Brown these in the same pan that had the garlic & peppers. You may need to add more oil. Drain excess fat.

In a large sauce pan or stew pot, add the sausage and garlic pepper mixture along with your favorite tomato sauce - homemade or store-bought. I used Whole Foods 365 Roasted Red Pepper for Saturday night but sometimes I make my own. Add spices - crushed red pepper, oregano, whatever you like. And red wine, always the secret ingredient in sauces :)

Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for at least 30 minutes.

Serve over your favorite pasta. I like the corkscrew kind - fusilli - because it looks nice on the plate, but any kind will do.

On Sunday, Stefanie and I went to church. We hadn't been in a while and it was great for her to see her friends who are also just home from college. I love my church. It is comfortable and welcoming. Both kids attended the preschool there and we all have fond memories of the playscape area that greets you when you walk from the parking lot toward the front door. The lesson this Sunday was about about Mary. The Children's lesson was about Chrismons - the Christian symbols that decorate the Christmas trees near the altar. I have heard these lessons on this 4th Sunday of advent for many years. The Christmas pagent was that afternoon, but this year I had no children cast as angels or shepherds to watch so no real reason to go. I was reminded of the year that Duncan was one of the shepherds and had to wear a(n unused!) cloth diaper on his head because we forgot to bring a white dishtowel. Improvisation at its best! He didn't know the difference and may be surprised when he reads this! Now I am looking forward to the candlelight carolling service on Christmas eve.

In the afternoon I made a big pot of chili that we will have on Monday night with Mike's and my kids. The big highlight of the afternoon was the Redskins beating Philadelphia!

Sunday night Mike and I went to the Saxon Pub to see the Resentments. He had seen them in the past on the Sunday before Christmas and they did many Christmas songs. Last night was great, but was just their usual set. Maybe they did 2 holiday songs. They were missing Steven Bruton, but Bruce Hughes, Scrappy Judd, and John the drummer were there and Joel Guzman showed up for the second half to play his accordian.

Then Monday morning came way too fast...I need another day to recover. Oh wait, there's a convenient holiday this week and I can sleep late. Yay!

The Best Bob Show Ever!

Last night we went to a DVD taping of Bob Schneider at the Paramount Theater. It was the BEST Bob show I've ever seen. Mike agreed with that too. It is not a secret that I am IN LOVE with Bob. Always have been. If I hadn't met Mike, well... one can only imagine. I am not alone in this lust for Bob. You should hear the conversations women have about him in the ladies room! Okay, back to the show.

I purchased the tickets the day they went on sale and got orchestra level center seats in row S. Not bad on the seating chart. However when we arrived we were sitting right next to the recording equipment and the whole management team for the recording was right behind us. We knew after the first two songs that they were going to talk through the entire show so we asked if they could have us reseated. Which they very kindly did. To row D - just 4 rows from the stage!

We were on the left side near Harmony, the long-legged base player who must have been wearing a wig because real hair just doesn't look that way. It was impossible to not stare at her legs and be jealous that she can get away with such a mini skirt.

Bob has a new CD coming out this spring. I hope the DVD gets released at the same time - it will be cool to watch this show again. The whole show was 2 1/2 hours with the first hour mostly being his older music and the second half dedicated to his new material. The new stuff is really. really good. Bob played the only Christmas song he has written - "All I want for Christmas is my Methadone" and I guess because this was a recording session for a spring release he didn't play any of the traditional Christmas tunes that you'd expect at a holiday show. The Tosca String Quartet played in the background as did 3 horns for some of the songs and the usual Jeff Plankenhorn on guitar and Rafael Gayol on drums.

Excellent show. Can't wait for the CD/DVD!!

Good day / Bad day

Last night the kids and I celebrated my birthday by going Christmas shopping at the mall. We had a lot of fun and Steffi even baked me a cake from scratch! and they sang to me. After we got home I finished putting ornaments on my tree - a full tour will be in a future blog.

Earlier this week I had been in New Jersey and New York visiting our regional office there and several of our city and suburban stores. I tell you the hot bars and prepared food venues in those stores are far superior than what we have in our "flagship" store in Austin. The store in Tribeca has shish kebab crepe venues that are out of this world yummy. We sure eat well working at Whole Foods!

On Monday it was actually HOT in New York. We took the ferry over from Edgewater and here is what it looked like from the upper deck. A gorgeous day!I was way overdressed in my cashmere turtleneck and winter jacket. I think it got up to almost 70. After visiting the stores and finishing up our bizness, we had a drink at a place in Union Square called the Coffee Shop. Then we walked to dinner at The Redhead. Both of these are really cool places and I would highly recommend them. The Redhead offered an appetizer with sausuage imported from Kreuz's market in Lockhart Texas (best bbq in Texas!) and a homemade peanut brittle with bacon (which I bought a jar of to bring home to share). Check out the menu on the Redhead link above.

After dinner my colleague suggested walking 5th Avenue to look in the windows. Remember Mike and I had been in that area on Saturday night but the crowds were too thick to see everything. It was still about 70 degrees and quite a nice evening to stroll along and look at the sights. Here are a few for you. I think this is the building with Tiffany on the 1st floor:

Here is one of Trump's towers

Just a small wreath above the Donald's main entranceAnd his modest tree in front of a multi-story fountain


We walked past and into The Plaza. Those are real flowers, of course and Baccarat crystal above.

And the ceiling above the Palm Court dining room there

Back outside, there's this great big 3 dimensional snowflake hanging above the intersection at 5th Ave and another street (that I forgot to make a note of.)

Now that I am going through my photos I wish I had taken more from the department stores. Bergdorf Goodman was just fabuous. There was a separate window for each month of the year with decorations that you just wouldn't believe. I have never seen these windows before, but this year's had an animal wildlife theme with foxes, wolves and other furry critters dressed up in BG clothing in elaborately decorated scenes. I think I was intimidated by the professional photographers taking pictures. I think these next two are from the Saks building and I took these for guess who?

Can you imagine wearing this dress?!

So that was Monday. Tuesday was a completely different story. It was about 30 degrees when I woke up and snowing! Good thing we did our touresty stuff Monday night. Anyway, I checked my direct flight home and it was cancelled due to weather. Whether it was weather in Newark or weather in Austin (which was also bad) wasn't specified. They had conveniently rebooked me on a 5:30 through Houston arriving just after 10 in Austin. Not so bad and it gave me more time for my business visit. It allowed me to have a delicious pasta lunch at Osteria in our recently relocated Milburn store. While we were there it started snowing again!


The weather didn't look like it was improving so my colleague dropped me at the airport around 2 so I had plenty of time to make my flight. When I checked my bag, the flight was already showing a 15 minute delay, so I attempted to get on 2 earlier flights through Houston but they were oversold. I only had a 40 minute layover in Houston so when the flight was delayed even further and I would certainly miss the connection there, I rebooked onto the last direct flight to Austin at 7:30 that would get me to Austin just after 11 p.m. That would have been fine, but the story is not over....

We did board on time, but by 7, the snow and ice was coming down significantly harder and as we sat there I watched it build up on the wings and eventually coat my window. We taxied somewhere. The captain finally came on and said that we were in line to be de-iced and anti-iced and that we were behind several international flights with large aircraft that took a little longer. Not to worry - the deicing area could process 5 airplanes at a time! Then he came on and said we could move about the cabin and use our electronic devices until further notice... one of the runways had been closed and the deicing line wasn't moving. After about 2 1/2 hours we finally got out turn to be deiced. After my window was clear I watched the whole process. The guy was very thorough maybe because I was giving him the eyeball from my window! We inched toward the runway and the captain announced that it was a normal process to turn on the AC to clear any excess deicing fluid from the vents before take off and that we should not be concerned if we see some vapor from the AC. OMG - he turned on the system and the whole cabin filled with thick smoke (vapor) so much that the captain came on and said that his cockpit had also filled with smoke and he could not see to fly. Uh oh. When he tried again, if the same thing happened we would have to return to the gate! By now it is 10:00 local time and we had a 4 hour flight ahead of us. This news was greeted by moans from everyone on board. The good news is that when the AC came on again it was fine, so we took off around 10:30. We landed in Austin at 1:47 a.m. (2:47 Eastern time). I still had to drive home, let the dogs out, etc so bedtime for me was around 3 a.m. Let's just say I didn't set my alarm for 6:30...went into work for a short day and came home to "rejunenate my creativity and problem solving skills" (ie., take a nap) before going out with the kids. I can't complain - it had been a good trip overall and I got home safely.

Surprisingly not freezing cold and a WIN for the Jets!

On Sunday the Jets played the Bills. Mike was nervous as usual on the days leading up to the game since the team had to win this one to even make the next game worth playing. Fortunately the day started off well with an ablsolute superfeast in a nice warm tent and then ended happy for the Jets. The in between parts - between the tailgate and the end of the game - not so pretty. It was an ugly game with all kinds of interesting twists and turns. Besides the gift that the Bills gave the Jets in the 4th quarter, it was surprisingly not miserably cold in an open stadium in NJ in mid-December.

I am not a sports writer and I am sure that by now if you were interested in this game, you would have already read the reports and watched the game or highlights. So I'll focus this blog on the other highlights of this day.

First of all, no one will ever starve hanging out at the Clifford's tailgate party. Nor will you ever go thirsty. And this year if you are male, you need not walk all the way across the parking lot to the public port-o-potty (which you will have to ask others, ahem Jimmy!, for pictures of).

Mike and I arrived around 8:30. The tent was already upand the cooking had begun. Check this out - Jimmy had 3 separate propane tanks to power the grill, an oven and a heater. And two tents with walls. These were real luxuries in this weather and I didn't see any other tailgators with such fancy comforts.

Peter brought a Playstation for the younger boys to play in the backseat of the car and plenty of ring dings for the kids (that mostly the grown-ups ate). The adults restrained themselves until 9:30 a.m. before cracking open the ice chest, but then there was no holding back.

By then we had finished "breakfast" of fresh biscuits baked in the oven with bacon from the grill. Delicous! The mid-morning meal began cooking as soon as the bacon biscuits were served - cut sausage medallions, grilled peppers and onions, chips and queso. Lunch was cousin Johnny's homemade turkey chili along with Jimmy's grilled brats and sausage on rolls. Johnny is a fireman in the Bronx and gourmet chef and everyone really enjoyed his chili on this chilly day. All of these meals were consumed within a 3 hour timeframe. Like I said, no one goes hungry!

For my birthday Mike gave me a Jets jersey with my name on the back. To keep it balanced, he had also bought me a Redskins hoody which I removed before taking this photo. Because it's December I really wanted a Jets Santa hat so we bought one from one of those guys who sell knock-off gear in the parking lot and usually run faster than the parking lot security guards.

Peter's son Peter Ryan got his face painted on the way into the stadium.

We had a special guest in the row in front of us!

I had had my heart set on getting a green Jets Santa hat and I ended up finding the very last one in the team store on the complete other side of the stadium. Can you believe I have all this Jets gear now?! Well, seeing as the 'skins are done for the year, I am out of excuses and might as well dress up and root for the Jets. :)

Walking back to our cars we saw that someone even brought a Christmas tree for their tailgate! Notice the beer cup tree-topper.

After the game Jimmy cranked up the gas heater and we found ways to amuse ourselves while waiting for the parking lot to clear.

The sunset was gorgeous. You can just see a hint of it in the background of that photo. All in all it was a really fun day and we were so lucky with the weather.