February 21, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
Well, I’d been thinking about posting a recap of our Valentine’s Day dinner at Zelo and then I ended up sick this week. Not sick enough to miss work, but sick enough that my enthusiasm for pretty much everything was decreased. Jenski asked about supper too. So, now that I’m feeling less runny-nose-y and tired, I’ll give you the menu and my impressions.
Overall, it was the best meal I’ve had out probably since our Anniversary supper last July. So, we were due for a good meal. And I think this one beats that one hands down. Thus, I’m hard pressed to come up with a meal that was this good.
Since we’ve been to this restaurant before, I remembered a little bit about the decor. But I’d forgotten how beautiful it is inside. When we walked in, I was struck by the colors and architecture, and the lights which were these wire shapes of different sizes (at least 4 feet long) that had other colored cubes and spheres inside them that had lights inside. They were really cool and unique. (you should click on the link to just see the photos of the decor which come up and rotate right away)
The menu quickly caught my attention, because they had lump crab cakes for an appetizer. Which we ordered right away along with a lemonade for me and a martini for HB.
It is funny to mention a drink, but since I don’t drink caffeinated beverages anymore, I usually really don’t like my beverage with supper very much. Now, there are places with good non-caffeinated drinks, but they are more rare than the wealth of ho-hum ones. This place had awesome fresh squeezed lemonade.
They served us warm bread with excellent soft butter, and then the crab cakes came out. OMG, they were so good. I really love crab. And these were lump crab cakes with no filler and very little material to even connect the crab pieces together. They were just incredible. I fell in love with crab when we lived in Baltimore, MD which is known for crab.
I ordered a salad with goat cheese and balsamic vinegrette. The goat cheese was soft and just sharp enough to complement the dressing beautifully. The greens were mixed organic baby greens and just delicious.
For my entree, I had sea bass (medium well) on a bed of farro mixed with cooked spinach. It was surrounded by a spicy tomato cream sauce that also had pieces of lump crab in it. This time, the crab wasn’t as good as the crab cakes, because the sauce diluted the flavor of the crab. But the sea bass, oh, it was wonderful! It had some spices on it that I couldn’t really place, but were definitely more middle-eastern than anything else. It was cooked perfectly and one of the best pieces of sea basses I’ve ever had. The farro is a grain, kind of like a barley. Mixing it with the spinach gave it a really great flavor.
I was getting relatively full at this point, but I really wanted dessert, because I remembered how good the molten chocolate cake was….
… so of course, I ordered it. To choose a tea, they brought out this tea chest that had a really clever design. It held large test tubes of tea (probably would hold 50-75 ml) so that you could admire the color and composition of the tea. I chose their special blend that had green tea, peppermint (an interesting combo and not one I’ve had before), and some other flavors – I don’t remember at this point. Of course, green tea has very low levels of caffeine in it, but I decided it would be fine to drink it. And it was. Just like before, they brought it out in a little iron tea pot on an iron trivet.
And then the cake came out and it all came back to me. It was definitely the best version of molten chocolate cake that I’ve ever had anywhere. And believe me, I’ve tried a lot. If a restaurant has it, and I’m ordering dessert, I always get it. Even cheesecake doesn’t beat it out. Although, speaking of cheesecake, I think I’ll make one for our B-days this year. HB’s and my birthdays are separated by one week, so we usually have 1 week of dessert between them. I haven’t made our chocolate chip cheesecake recipe in quite a while.
Like I said up front, the meal as a whole was just incredible. I think it might become one of the main restaurants we go to for special occasions. And just think, our b-days are right around the corner! (March 12th for me, March 5th for HB)
And that also means a Wii is right around the corner! 
It was a great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the music. This restaurant plays the one of the best mixes of music. Zelo and Outback probably play the most of the songs that we like. We heard the Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, and others that I can’t remember now that it was a week ago.
And HB and I listened to some Hip Hop on the way to and then variety of music on the way home from the restaurant. The Rihanna, the Shakira song – the one about the hips – Beyonce, Britney (yes, a new Britney song), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greenday and I can’t remember the others again. It was a lot of fun!
February 13, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
This week was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally rough.
(I just made this huge sigh unconsciously, and then I caught myself sighing)
Why was this week so rough? Well, I spent Mon, Tues, Wed, and Thurs night working until about midnight each night and then, like usual, getting up at 5:15 each day. Now, for some people this may not sound bad, but for me, the one who is used to getting 8-10 hours of sleep, this really sucked.
Each night, I would eat supper knowing that I was going to have to gear up and get to work preparing a lecture for the next day. And there was this little part of me that just wanted to take the night off and cancel class the next day. Buf, of course, I didn’t. Because that would be Not Doing My Job. And we all have weeks that suck because they take a lot of work, right? Why should I be the exception to hard work?
In the end, it is Friday, and I made it through. And this weekend, I don’t have to spend a day grading exams which will help me prep 2, maybe even THREE! lectures this weekend. Three would be awesome. I would love to be ahead by a couple of days.
The other things that took chunks of time this week which contributed to my busyness is that I wrote 2 proposals for summer research money. They were both really short, so don’t start feeling TOO sorry for me. But, they had to be readable for the non-scientist, which made it tougher than usual. Plus, for the larger one that I turned in yesterday, I was asking for quite a bit of money; this is “quite a bit” on the grand scheme of school funding at a small liberal arts school i.e. $5000. I really hope that I get 50% of the money at least. I’d be thrilled with all, okay with 50%, squeezing by with 25% or so, and really in a tough spot with 0%. At this point, I can’t apply to national funding agencies, because I’m not a permanent faculty member. Not to mention, national funding agencies want to see some sort of proof that you can do at least a hint of what you are proposing. Thus, I need to get the data this summer to be able to apply for national money in the future.
Conclusion, think good thoughts for me and this committee reading my proposal!
I guess that is all for now. I’m able to write this now, because I left work at 1:30 and came home to nap. I just couldn’t prep Monday’s lecture on so little sleep and energy. And now, I’m feeling more like myself. I think I’ll go eat a snack. A nap, a snack and a weekend ahead to get caught up. Life looks pretty good right now.
Not to mention that HB and I will be going out to eat for Valentine’s Day to a nice restaurant downtown! I’ve been there for dessert back when I was in town for my post-doc interviews, but never for supper. Note: this would be the cake in the picture toward the end of the entry.
Hopefully, the regular food will be as good as the dessert. And if not, well, there is always dessert, isn’t there? 
February 7, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 5 Comments
Kalki (Kelly) posted about her 4 year blogging anniversary and it made me realize that I’d missed mine. She very eloquently states some of the same reasons I blog. I suggest you read her post.
I’m not into Facebook and Twitter. This is my outlet for talking to friends and family instead. I always put my blog address on my Christmas cards just in case someone wants to pop by and hear the latest.
I started blogging on New Year’s Eve in 2004, so I usually think of starting on Jan 1, 2005, because I forget it was officially Dec 31st. I started by back-posting some of my cycling stories that I’d sent as letters to family and friends. My intro post on Dec 31st is one of the few times I made a point of posting my cropped face from the front. That was back when I wore my black-rimmed glasses.
Over the 4 years, I’ve written 564 posts and had 3,294 comments.
I’ve made friends who I never would’ve expected to find. Some of them still blog: – in no particular order -
Squirl
Amber – Ladymadaysia
Ern
Kalki
Honestyrain – honesty-rain not honey-strain.
Poopie
One friend got into blogging more recently that I knew in “real-life” before reconnecting with her via blogging. I met her when I was in graduate school.
Jenski
Others have fallen by the wayside and were blogging ferociously, and then decided to quit blogging. Most of them felt they didn’t have time for it anymore. Some of them still have their blogs up on the internet though.
Ladybug
Closetmetro
Sheryl – Waveofmodulation
Momo
Amanda B.
And others read regularly, but don’t have blogs
TexasSeestor
Mom and Dad
SeaQueen
my mother-in-law reads occasionally
Denise?
BTW: HB fits into a special category – i.e. reads, doesn’t comment, but has a blog that says his name, so I never link to his blog.
I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!
Anyway, thanks to all of you who come by regularly and still connect with me in this unique way.
I’m glad we are friends (and family – as the case may be).
February 3, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
Well, HB bought a replacement vehicle for the Saturn. We went from a plan of getting a used small SUV or used Honda Civic to getting a new Hyundai Santa Fe 2008 (SUV). There was a $2500 rebate that was hard to turn down. And they sold it to him just above the dealer’s price, which made it cheaper than a hybrid.
I really wanted to go the hybrid route again, but I couldn’t quite sway HB to my way of thinking. Financially, they are more expensive than this vehicle. Which is just one way of rationalizing away the environmental impact, I know.
I’m a bit torn. I really think it is beautiful, in a design/engineering sort of way. And it gets gas mileage in the high 20′s, which was my limit to how low we could go. But of course, it is one more SUV on the road.
But, going back to the other positive side, we have a really difficult time squeezing larger purchases into our vehicles. Which, of course, we don’t do very often. And did I say how beautiful the design is?
I haven’t driven it yet. It was late and dark when I got home, and I’d prefer to drive it in the daytime for my first trip out. But it really is nice. AND we managed to fit it in the garage along with my car (the Civic hybrid).
Out of the different colors and packages they had at the dealership, the one on the showroom floor fit the best. So, they jostled it out the door and HB drove it out of the building.
I hope to get some photos this weekend with my Nikon, but it will probably be splattered with salt and crap by then. So, this may be the only photo (taken with HB’s iPhone).
Yes, we are doing our part to keep the economy flowing.
February 1, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 3 Comments
It has been quite a week here.
First, we had our kitchen sink and dishwasher stop draining. The rest of the sinks and showers were fine, so we imagined it was blocked. Sure enough, we had ice frozen in one of our pipes. That was an expensive thing to have fixed ($450). Turns out, the insulation wasn’t really set up right.
On the very same day, when my car started, it sounded like there was something metal rattling inside of it. It got worse each time I started it, and when I started it at the gas station close to our house right before I came home, it sounded like something large had broken loose and was now rattling around when I drove too. It was quite scary to imagine something getting damaged as I was driving.
We took it to get fixed, and I had to get a rental while they fixed it. A gear in the starter had stripped and was broken into pieces. When I got my car that night, I still heard a fainter version of the sound. So, I went back to the repair place and they had a technician ride with me. Right after we heard it and were just on the interstate off of where they were located, my car completely died and wouldn’t start again. Someone came and picked us up, they towed the car back to the repair place, and I got the rental again.
The next evening, they had the new problem fixed. It was completely unrelated and entirely a (fortuitous) fluke that it died when it did. If it had died when I was out in the middle of nowhere MN going to school, it would’ve been bad.
Now, we are looking for a replacement car. I will start driving HB’s hybrid, and he will drive the replacement. We were hoping my car would last until May when his was paid off, but this is just the way it is going to have to be.
On a happier note, I went on a faculty retreat for the faculty that are new and it was really great. I learned new teaching techniques and also got to know some new faculty really well. I also got to spend some time in a hot tub and eat some good food, which is always a good thing.
I also realized I’ve lost about 10 pounds. This is really 6 lbs or so that I had gained and then 4 more from my target weight. But still, really cool. I think it is because I spend quite a bit of time standing in front of the class giving energetic lectures. And the printer is quite far away, relatively. So, every time I print, I hurry down to the printer and back and get my heart rate up just a little bit more than usual. Cool, huh?