The Virginia Blogs: Up Your's*, Martha Stewart.

I've been trying to find new and interesting things to cook for dinner. One cannot live on steak'um and hamburger alone. The majority of these aren't bad.
They go into regular rotation, and we merrily move along. Not Tonight.

I find them in various and interesting places, usually from either a friend or at Epicurious. On occasion we also get a few from a magazine. Real Simple, Kraft Foods, Martha Stewart Living or Blueprint. This one was, clearly, from MS.

It was called Barley Risotto with Shrimp and Peas.

First, let's start with the barley. I've cooked barley exactly once, and that's including tonight. I had to start soaking it last night.

Then, shrimp. Our local grocery store had shrimp on sale, buy one get TWO free. Great. I grabbed three bags and I should have know better. THey were shell-them-yourself-and-take-out-the-second-vein-on-your-own. I got home at 4:30 and starte shelling the stupid 1/2 lb I needed right away. Took me nearly 40 minutes. Grr.

Next, I chopped the onion. Then I started on the chicken stock. SIX cups of chicken stock. It was more than I had in the house, so I cheated and used buillion. Fine. I started cooking the stock into the barely.

And cooked the stock into the barley.

And cooked the stock into the barley.

AND cooked the stock into the barley.

AND COOKED the STOCK into the BARLEY.

AND COOKED THE STOCK INTO THE BARLEY.

AND COOKED THE STOCK INTO THE BARLEY!

Ms. Stewart reports that it takes about 35 minutes to cook the stock into the barley.

Ms. Stewart is either a) a magician, b) a liar.

It took me nearly an hour and half to cook the 6 cups of stock into the barley. I was pissed. It was now nearly 7 p.m. I super hungry and super tired and just wanted to eat.

I tossed the rest of the ingredients in and cooked it up. I slopped in into some dishes and called Tom to the table. I looked at him as I sat down and I said, "This better taste good for all the damn work I put into this."

There were a few silent bites from both of us, and I looked at him.

"What do you think?"

Silence. Then, "I'm not loving it."

I sighed. "Neither am I. What don't you like?"

Tom: "This... uh... creamy texture."

Jenn: "I would call it gooey."

Tom: "That would work too."

Jenn: "Wendy's?"

Tom: "Yeah, that'll do."

I rescued the shrimp from the rest of the "risotto" and threw the remained in the trash-- right on top of the recipe.

I'll find some nice jarred alfredo and have myself some fettucine and shrimp.

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*Actual words used may have varied.

The Virginia Blogs: OMG. OMG. SNOW. OMG.

*Insert Virginians running around waving their arms in maddness here.*

I woke up the other morning and it was very quiet. Very quiet. I rather liked it, as usually I'm awakened by a neighbor blaring their music* or horns being honked for pick-ups. I got out of bed, took my shower, realized I had not bought Tom a Valentine's card** and tried to leave the house early.

I got my lunch together, threw on my coat, and opened the door 20 minutes early!

"Oh, how pretty. It snowed."

Since we haven't had much snow to speak of in the past two years, anywhere I've lived, I've forgotten what snow-quiet sounds like. This was it. This was snow quiet in Virginia.

First, let's deal with the fact that I didn't have my snow brush in the car. I had to take everything out of the car when they came to ship it. Second, I had a container of mini-cheesecakes in my had and I couldn't find the damn door handle.

After I freeze my hand off attempting to open the car door, I thing to myself, I have no idea where that snow brush is, so I'll use my coat sleeve to clean off the car!

Brilliant!

About 3 minutes after I start***, my coat is soaked from wrist to shoulder, there is snow in shoes, my hand is frozen and I'm not doing a really good job of this, I decide that this was not so brilliant after all.

I shut off the car, I get back in the house****, I change my coat and I spot the snow brush laying on the floor next to the couch.***** I grab the snow brush, lock up the house again and finish the job properly. I hop in the car and off I go.

Here, I should mention that there is NO SNOW on the streets at all. A little ice here and there from where it melted and refroze, but nothing you can't handle with a little caution.

Nothing I can't handle.

Everyone was driving at about 10 miles an hour. The traffic was backed up everywhere. I started to head for the Walgreens to get Tom's card, but about one block down the road, I realized that it was a bad idea to try and do that right now. I turned around and headed back for the road that takes me straight to work.

Dead stopped.

I shut off my iPod and turn on the radio to see if I can catch a traffic report. Did I ever.

Four of the eight exits I would have passed on the highway were shut down. The road I had been heading for to get his card, shut down. The bridges? One stuck open, two other shut down. And the road I was on? Completely blocked because the other roads were shut down. Plus a major accident by the bridge that was stuck open.

I called in late and stopped to get the card anyway.

So, please, Virginia, if you could. Don't freak out at snow. It's just snow. You get ice storms down here that are about 1000 times worse than snow. Just drive carefully.

Sheesh.
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*Oh, yeah. Six AM and someone has a beatbox going somewhere in the court.
**It's very hard to buy your husband a card when you can't run out because he's there and if you run out he'll want to go with you.
***and about 2:50 after I realize that the snow if 3" deep on my car...
****Let's not talk about the front door know and how getting it to do what you want it to takes about 5 minutes each and every time.
*****You know. Where I put it so I would remember it was there.

The Virginia Blogs: Honey! I Found Your Socks in the Fridge!

Or- Having a Moving Company is the Best and Worst Thing Ever.

Part of the deal I got when I took my new job was that we would be relocated at their expense. The moving company would come in, pack us up, move us and unload into the new place. We also had an option to have them unpack as well. Sounds fantastic, right?

Well, you’re mostly right. We opted out of the unpacking option because as it was explained to us, “They will take everything out of the boxes and put it on any available flat surface.” Uh, no. Thanks. I can move boxes, I can’t move individual crap around.

They came in on Monday, and started packing the house. One upstairs, one in the kitchen and one in the den. And by 3:30, nearly our entire house, save the furniture and our bedding. We had to sleep with the closet light on because there were so many boxes in the way we couldn’t turn it off.

The moving crew showed up the next morning about 8:30 and finished up the little things that they didn’t get to the night before. Like an entire closet downstairs. As soon as they had gotten that stuff in the boxes and (mis)labeled, they started loading the truck. They took about 6 hours to get everything we own into a moving truck.

Clearly, we don’t own much.

As they cleared out, we started cleaning. I had done a major cleaning about a week before; this was just getting up the dust and cat fur* that we couldn’t reach before they moved things. It took about another two hours for us to get the place cleaned and emptied from the stuff we had to take with us.**

And then we loaded up the cats.

If you EVER have to move your cats more than 6 hours, seriously and honestly look into a pet mover. For six very long hours, Sarabi, Henri and Motley meowed and meowed and meowed as though we were skinning them alive. The Dying Cat Choristers. We knew this was going to happen; they act like we’re killing them when we used to take them the 5 minutes to the veterinarian.

Into the car and off we go. We’ve done this drive at least 3 times in the past two months. I will never know how people drive for a living or make drives more than 3 hours on any kind of regular basis. One of the first things I did was check how much airfare from here to North Jersey would be***. We get down to Tidewater about 11:30 p.m, which all things considered, wasn’t bad.

We unloaded the cats, brought in the two coolers that had food and blew up the air mattress+ and got down to the business of sleeping. Got up the next morning and the movers were here at about 8:15.

Oh, yes. I should note here that the shower wasn’t working at this point. Yeah. Thrilled about that.

The movers get here and they start moving everything in. They were done and gone by 11:30. And we were left with this:



Wee.

One of the first things we did that morning was to go and find a storage unit somewhere. Most of the stuff in the furthest corner was stuff that had originally come out of our other storage bin. We had to get it out before we could start really unpacking. So we got it out to the bin and called it a day. We were really exhausted.

The next day the fun began.

Here’s what you don’t know about moving companies. They pack the boxes. Right, you’re thinking. That’s the point. But that’s not just it. They PACK the boxes as they are packing. So something that might be labeled, oh, Photo albums may actually have only 2 of the albums in it and the rest could be hats, shoes, dry goods and a clock.
You know this is going to be a problem.

A word of advice. If you’re going to have a moving company, see if you can get them to give you a few boxes to pack before they get there. Otherwise, you will find your socks in your fridge.

Ok they weren’t really in the fridge. They were however in the box with my pasta and cheez-its.

We’ve found lots of things that shouldn’t be where they were. Shoes in with the livingroom stuff. Cooking utensils in the linen closet stuff. Just stuff everywhere. While the majority of the stuff was where it was supposed to be, it was just frustrating to find things that were supposed to be somewhere else when you were either upstairs and it needed to be downstairs.

However, when we move again, we WILL hire movers. Hell, I’ll deal with socks in my fridge as long as I don’t have to pick up that china cabinet.


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*My lord the cat fur. Taught me a lesson about not moving the bed twice a year.
**Dad, you may want to check the suspension on the back of the Land Cruiser.
***$440 for two people roundtrip. Not too bad, but also not something we’re going to do all the time either.
+Please note that if you have an air mattress, make sure that you have a blanket above and below the occupants. Otherwise, it’s just freakin’ cold all night long.