Booorring...

boorring me. Fall's creeping in, and while I love this time of the year, it turns me into a homebody. As opposed to my usual on the go 24/7 self. Ok, it turns me into MORE of a homebody. Which means there is really not a hell of lot interesting to report. I voted two weeks ago. Urban Outfitters opened a branch in Hamburg so I bought a belt. The Guitar Hero and I spend a great night here and ate the most wonderful food here. I burnt the hell out of my tongue yesterday on some tea. Umm, yeah. That's about it.

On the other hand, sometimes no excitement is a good thing. It means I'm not some shitheel manager or politician responsible for fucking up thousands of jobs and investments or, even worse, one of the many now worried about making ends meet because of the idiotic moves made by a lot of shitheel managers and politicians.
I'm thankful for that.

Potpourri

Belgium was great - had a good time and some great food. And, at the Brussels airport, found the navy blue dress I had been seeking. Score!

Since I've returned, life's been a lot of running around. Lots of work stuff going on, started rehearsals for a new production, some friends got married. The Guitar Hero and I got rid of a lot of stuff and he rearranged the living room so I know longer feel like our living room is overwhelmed by superflous pieces of furniture. I'm kinda of a clean and simple lines type of gal when it comes to home decor.

Tomorrow evening I'm having some friends over for a girls' night in and clothes swap and baked up this delicious apple cake. Yum yum. Go bake some yourself.

The weather's turned cold and rainy and will most likely stay that way for the next six months so I'm returning to my hermit habits of staying in and cooking and watching Dexter and huddling under afghans. If needed, you'll know where to find me.

Shopping update

So I went downtown yesterday in the high hopes of picking up a dress or two for a conference next week. I had found this gray empire dress and this black wrap dress and this light gray t-shirt dress plus this blue one on the Esprit online site and thought, I'll try these babies on, maybe purchase one of them and hurry back home before the crowds drive me mad.

Apparently, the Esprit shops in Hamburg do not carry the online Sortiment because they didn't have crap in the way of dresses. I ended up slogging my way through masses of slow-walkers for two hours and came up with nothing. Arrgh! Dresses are all over fashion spreads this fall and yet nobody's carrying anything for the Doctor.

On the positive flip side, the useless shopping trip forced me to clean out my closet today. I have a few ideas in mind and, as an added bonus, have a huge bag of clothes to give away. Which means there's room in the closet once I finally find something I like. Even if I have to order it online!

Another boring post

I decided to post although I have nothing of particular interest to report to the wide, wide world of readers. Let's see what I can come up with:
- Saw The Dark Knight. Excellent.
- Been very lazy with my WiiFit workout schedule. Need to get back on a daily routine so that my back doesn't feel like I'm 80.
- Have been re-arranging the living room in my head and am looking at furniture. Feel like the room is way too cluttered, so we're getting rid of one of the sofas and replacing it with a chair and ottoman. I'd personally like to get rid of both sofas but baby steps, people, baby steps. The Guitar Hero's job in all this is to find a new TV.
- Auditioned for a play in the first time in almost a year. It felt so good to act again.
- Am breaking in new shoes (metallic purple ballerinas bought on sale) and have the gaping hole on my heel to prove it. Why oh why must I have weirdly shaped feet?
- Am off to Belgium next week to a conference and am having wardrobe issues. May have to go shopping this afternoon (on an over-crowded Saturday, the horror) to solve that problem.

Retail therapy is calling my name so I'm off, peeps.

Best chocolate chip cookies ever

So a couple weeks back the web was all over this article in the New York Times and people were baking up a storm. One of my favorite internet cooks, Orangette, put her stamp on the recipe and I thought, hmm, I need to see if it lives up to the hype.

Thursday afternoon I finally got around to mixing up a batch of dough. Last night (24 hours later) I baked four cookies. And they were good. Damn good. This morning (some 40 hours later) I baked the rest and we tried one for breakfast. OH MY GOD. These are the best chocolate cookies ever. The Guitar Hero agrees - he claims it was the best cookie he's ever eaten in his thirty-odd years on this planet.

This is what they look like just out of the oven:


And here's a close up of one fine specimen:


My two cents to the recipe:
- I followed Orangette's recipe and just used one type of flour (in my case, plain old all-purpose flour).
- As I am out of chocolate chips and will be till the next trip to the States or a well-meaning care package arrives, I chopped a couple of bars of dark chocolate (60% cocoa, Herrenschockolade for the German speakers). Worked just as well as chips would have.
- I should have skipped using a mixer as our cheap-ass piece of shit didn't do a great job of making the butter and sugar creamy. Had to use old-fashioned arm power. If I had a Kitchen-Aid (cough, birthday present, cough), I'm sure my poor little arms would have been spared.
- I halved the recipe as I didn't have enough flour, sugar or brown sugar (see care package above). My half recipe made 21 good-size cookies, so I'm thinking the 24 the full recipe makes must be some big-ass cookies. Like as big as my not-very-small ass.
- Follow Orangette's tip to let the dough warm up for 30 minutes before scooping. Mine was very hard just out of the fridge. Also, my dough was very crumbly, which I first thought would equal messed-up cookies, but everything turned out fine (see above pics).
- Sea salt, sea salt, sea salt, I think I love you.
- Wait the full 36 hours before baking. It is totally worth it as the cookies do indeed develop a caramelly flavor while sitting in the fridge. They honestly taste like something you would pay money for. In a good way.

In short: bake the damn cookies already. Your taste buds will thank you for it.

Vacation pics

Will wonders never cease - I've got pics up within a month of our vacation. I rock!


This was the view from our terrace - what a view for breakfast!


Digital photography's effect on the economy - this little camera-shaped one-hour photo place has long shut down. But I thought it was worth a shot for historical purposes.


Lifeguard stand on the beach. The water was incredible - not too warm, not too cold, just right. And no algae and jellyfish!


My only pic of myself, taken at the airport just before our flight home. Notice the huge zit on my forehead. That's what I get for using children's greasy-ass sunscreen.

Life in the slow lane

We're back and to put it succintly, our vacation was great. We just chilled, doing tons of reading, eating and going to the beach. As I feared, snorkeling didn't work so well for me. Too complicated. Proving once again anything beyond walking is too much hand-eye-foot coordination for the Doctor. But the Guitar Hero got snorkeling time in and even learned to scuba dive. Yay, Guitar Hero! Next time we need a week or two to re-coup, we know Fuerteventura's the place.
Some things we learned while there:
- I only rock at Yahtzee every other night
- Check the map listing the gas stations BEFORE setting off on a road trip across the island.
- Salted butter and baguette make a great breakfast.
- And bread and aioli and papas arrugadas with mojo sauce make a great dinner.
- Read the label when buying orange beverages. Orange drink is NOT orange juice.
- My high school Spanish is still good enough for me to understand the Spanish InStyle. Marie Claire, on the other hand, is somewhat more difficult.

And the best lesson:
- We can spend 10 days without internet or tv and not kill each other.