HIGH: Watching Marshall crawl around like a madman! He is on the move and I can't believe how far he can move all of a sudden. Needless to say, I'm constantly watching where he is off to, which is usually the most dangerous part of the room. Of course.
LOW: Yesterday's projectile vomiting. It's never happened before, and I was completely unprepared for it. All over his high chair tray, all over his lap, all over the floor. I'll spare the rest of the details (color, texture, smell), but you have no idea how desperately I wished Terry was home at that moment.
HIGH: Getting an e-mail from a reader!!! Hi Jen! This never happens, so I'm super excited, and now I have a new friend (like it or not, Jen, we're officially friends now).
LOW: Lots and lots of fussiness from our little dude. Teething? Probably. We can see two teeth up in his gums, but who knows when they'll poke through? It could be a million other things. We'll get through it.
We had a fun lunch date, though!
HIGH: I got to go to UCLA today! I was only there for an hour meeting with my former boss about helping with a reunion, but it was so nice to spend even a little bit of time in my favorite place!
HIGH: The food around here has been out of control lately--in a good way. Ina Garten makes our house a happy home because everything she puts in a cookbook is truly magic. Like this Mexican chicken soup:
And these chocolate peanut butter globs (terrible name, absolutely ridiculous cookie):
And now for some fun, random facts about me as a cook/baker:
1) I am terribly messy when I cook or bake (I get this trait from my mom, who is even worse). Luckily I love cleaning my kitchen almost as much as I love cooking in it.
2) I make a lot of cooking decisions based on how many dishes I'll have to clean. Tons of recipes tell me to mix dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another, and I almost always ignore those instructions. I just want to avoid doing dishes.
3) When I cook, but more so when I bake, I always always always "taste test"--that's what I call it when I eat half the batter every time I bake cookies.
4) Terry says he loves watching me bake because I exude confidence in the kitchen. I don't especially feel like a confident person under normal circumstances, so I love this compliment. He says I'm in my element when I bake. I love that.
5) Recently we took our microwave out of our kitchen. We rarely used it anyway, and I thought the cubby where we kept it would be better as a bookshelf for all our cookbooks. Now I use my cookbooks far more often because they're right in the room with me when I cook.
6) I never measure vanilla. Because can you ever really have too much vanilla?
I feel like I can say the same about cinnamon rolls. You can never have too many.
7) I absolutely hate these kitchen tasks: cooking/crumbling sausage, mincing garlic, washing herbs or lettuce, and washing the cheese grater.
8) I don't cry when chopping onions, unless I'm wearing my glasses. Weird, right?
I am also terrified of slicing spaghetti squash.
9) I think I'm worst at making sauces. They always end up too thick or too thin or too lumpy or too something.
10) Inspiration for making whipped cream always strikes after Marshall goes to sleep, so I can't use my stand mixer. Therefore we have to do it by hand. I say "we" because I start it, but Terry inevitably finishes it because my arm gets too tired.
You turn: Fun fact about you in the kitchen? High and low for the day?
#8 is not at all weird. Contacts protect your eyes so they're not exposed to the onion's pungent scent. Glasses don't offer that same protection. When I worked in a restaurant in high school, I always chopped the onions for my shift leader for this reason. She'd end up with tears streaming down her face, but I could chop them with no ill side effects because of my contacts protecting my eyes.
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