Like the T-shirts say: Life is Good.

Ahhhh. Today we're feeling glad not to be taking off for greener pastures or bigger cities or more exciting endeavors, but rather just enjoying the company of one another and the cats. And, of course, doing some coooking--a weekend wouldn't be a weekend without a little food prep. We got up late and made a batch of waffles, making enough to freeze because we had a gallon of milk of questionable integrity and I have it on good Internet authority that such things are fine to use in waffles, pancakes, or anywhere else you'd use buttermilk. Then, after a walk to and through the Eastern Market (on our first deliciously cool fall day in Washington), we made pesto, Matt charred some chilis and made hot sauce, and we celebrated by slapping some of that pesto on grilled cheese sandwiches. Tonight we're actually going out--to a restaurant called Matchbox, compliments of a gift certificate from our good friend Hannah, whom we are actually stopping over to see after dinner. I know what you're thinking--two social events in a weekend, let alone in the same evening--aren't we getting a little ahead of ourselves? To which I would reply, that's why it's a good thing we slept in AND took a nap today.

Otherwise, right now Matt is reading and I'm furiously wrestling with the urge to bake cookies or use up the rest of that milk in a batch of Banana-Walnut Pancakes instead of work on a writing assignment (present blog post excepted, of course) that's due in a week or so. We're also working our way through a pot of coffee since the idea of a second nap is appealing, but probably not entirely prudent at this point in the afternoon. The cats are in the windowsill enjoying the fall breeze, and we're all basking in the kind of peaceful afternoon that doesn't come quite as often these days, but which makes us feel so happy and thankful to be a newlywed/cat family.

What are we up to?

To sum it up...not really all that much, but I'll give you a random smattering since our weekend is intentionally uninteresting so that we can recuperate from our past travels, and gear up for school and work, which is definitely ratcheting up in intensity for both of us.

The Counting Crows' performance at Farm Aid was incredible, we can now fairly say. We're sorry we missed it, but don't know whether if we had it to do over again, we would have done it any differently. It was just too damn hot. But the band looked and sounded phenomenal and we're really itching to catch them by themselves around here soon.

The traffic in DC has become astronomically worse as Congress is back in session and a variety of other people seem to have flocked back to the city...so we've decided to ride the subway together mornings and evenings instead of Matt driving and dropping me off/picking me up, which is what we have been doing. At this point, it' s about the same length of time, nobody has to grapple with road rage, it saves a little money--and, as we like to say, it's greener that way. We get on together in the morning around 7:45 and Matt rides with me all the way to school, then continues on several more stops into Virginia where he catches a bus to work. In the evening, he calls me when he gets on the train, I leave school for the Metro, and meet him on the last car of the train. It all seems so foolproof now that we've done it all of once, doesn't it? Although, I think we both had second thoughts when our train this morning was stopped and delayed because some kid had decided to hop the turnstile.

Also pursuant to our objective of spending more time at home and less time in traffic, we've been working on shopping and cooking in 2-week rather than 1-week cycles. This necessitates some tricky figuring as far as what has to be made early in the cycle and what can be made late, and I'm sure there will be some trial and error associated. We're trying to incorporate a couple of meals each week that we can make ahead of time (such as on the weekends) and refrigerate or freeze; most nights we don't get home until around 6:30 if we're lucky, eat around 7:30, and by the time we get ready for bed a little after nine, the evening is pretty well shot. Friday nights, we'll plan to either try something new or eat up leftovers; and on the weekend we'll cook something more time-consuming, along with the stuff we want to prepare ahead. So far, we've been really happy with the fact that most things we cook translate into about 4-5 servings, which is perfect for dinner and then lunch at school/work the next day. Anyway, as with all new endeavors on which we embark, you can be sure we'll keep you posted as to how it goes.

Philadelphia and Farm Aid

Okay, so King Tut wasn't actually physically at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (hence, in hindsight, the cleverly worded "The Treasures of King Tut" exhibition), but we did enjoy the opportunity to see more ancient Egyptian stuff than we've seen in one place before, as well as an all-too-brief glimpse at Philadelphia. The town itself was old and beautiful with a lot of green space; very reminiscent of all the things we liked about Boston. It's also surrounded, not by suburbs, but by genuine small towns with local eateries priced accordingly. For dinner, we split an incredible sausage pizza, served on paper plates with no utensils in sight, at an excellent hole-in-the-wall before enjoying the scenic drive down to camp in the Delaware Water Gap--probably our second-favorite part of the trip, despite the fact that we did get a little trickle of rain while we slept and it was too wet to make the famous Boy Scout Three-Match Fire. We don't care what anybody says about New Jersey; the part that we drove through, and slept in, was gorgeous. As Kip would say, "See for yourself."

The next morning, we shipped out around 7am to drive to NYC, which was actually a shockingly smooth and traffic-free drive, but not without making a pit stop that resulted in our very favorite part of the trip; breakfast, at what we have come to regard as an East-coast rarity: a true greasy spoon. Rose's Place, serving mountains of eggs (and actually cooked soft and wet, just like I asked for!), homefries, big hunks of sausage, toast (rye and raisin, respectively), excellent coffee, and all for around $5 a person. Nor were they stingy with the half-and-half, which is something of a pet peeve of ours. We were actually very proud of our frugality the entire trip, spending less than $13 total on each meal, for a grand total of under $40. Of course, this savings was very quickly eaten into by the almost $20 we had to spend on tolls, but we can only control so much.

On to Farm Aid. Despite the pleasure we gleaned from being in the (veryclose) company of an eclectic mix of country fans in daisy dukes and cowboy boots, former Deadheads, unwashed hippies, and the Pottery-Barn set hoping to catch a glimpse of Dave Matthews, we threw in the towel before we got to see the Counting Crows (though, unfortunately, not until after we had to sit through the Nelsons, Jr, who tried to pack country and metal and just about everything in between into a set whose only vocals seemed to be "Uhhhhhhhhh"). The only reference I've heard to their performance is buried in the article linked to above, and it doesn't sound like we missed a ton. By the time we had sat on the ground in the scorching heat for over three hours, the prospect of doing it any longer just wasn't balancing with the prospect of maybe getting to hear them play, for a little while, especially after the ass-kicking sunburn we received the weekend before. Likewise, the water in our Nalgene was getting very low and very warm, and we couldn't stomach the prospect of paying $6 a bottle, especially at a festival purported to celebrate the underdog and grass roots. So we packed up our stuff and promised ourselves that the next time the band comes within 100 miles and the tickets are less than 100 dollars, we'll go for it. (It's probably good we set that limit, because they're in NYC next week for a very small, already sold-out show for which tickets on Craigslist are starting at almost $400).

But, we enjoyed the experience and were happy we went; we got to see New York again, hear some live music, eat some organic flatbread pizza ($5 per person, which is more quality food than you can usually buy for twice that much at any concert or festival I've ever been to)... and boy, did it feel good to get back to some air conditioning.

But in the meantime...

...since I have been a recalcitrant poster lately, and mostly because posting is a more attractive option than buckling down and briefing the cases to be found within the less- fascinating- than- it- is- expensive Problems in Contract Law, which is what I should be doing, I thought I'd bridge the gap between now and when I can show off pictures of us baking in the heat at Farm Aid by offering a book review. Reviews, actually, in that there are two of them...not so much in that they offer much in the way of actual content analysis.

I mentioned a long time ago that we'd begun reading books together. This means aloud, to each other, and substitutes for the time we used to spend watching reruns of Six Feet Under or Arrested Development or otherwise multiplying our indebtedness to our local Mr. Movies. It also makes a useful bedtime routine for those of us who may have retained a night nurse's resistance to physically "winding down" in the evening (as my mother would call it). We've tried a variety of books, some of which lend themselves to it better than others, but none we have found so far have done so as well as the books by Bill Bryson.

A Walk in the Woods (or as I like to call it, for obvious reasons, The Bear Book) was the first of Bryson's that we read together. Not only was it witty and entertaining (Bryson has a very dry sense of humor that makes sense when you consider that he has alternated living his adult life in Britain and on the East Coast), it also rekindled (for Matt) / initiated (for me) an interest in nature and camping and general good old doing-without in the wilderness. It was this book that ignited our desire to go to the Delaware Water Gap, where we camped this weekend, alongside the Appalachian Trail--the hiking of which, by Bryson and a companion, forms the basis for the entire book. It's not a particularly sensational book, but it made us laugh, and want to camp and hike, and also raised awareness for certain environmental tragedies currently befalling the American landscape.

We're now in the midst of Notes from a Small Island, which Bryson has written about a trip he took through Britain. I find this to contain an even more incisive and hilarious degree of wit than the first book. Upon meeting a fellow boarder at a house where he's staying for the night, Bryson remarks about the person's name, "But it was one of those names only British people have – Colin Crapspray or Bertram Pantyshield." I had to put down the book and laugh, hard, for a good five minutes. It reminded me of when my brother used to hear me laughing out loud at books I was reading in bed by myself, and yell across the hallway what a nerd that made me. Ah, some things never change; but I actually do post these specifically with my brother in mind, because I think that the casual style and exceptionally dry wit of these books seem like something that would appeal to him. To anybody, really--we highly recommend them.

We need another weekend to recuperate from this one!

Hey, I'm just checking in from school to let everybody know that we are back, safe and sound, but that I don't have access to my pictures just now and so I'll probably update on the happenings of our weekend later tonight. For now, suffice it to say that we had a wonderful but EXHAUSTING time (and that's with coming back a good 5 hours before we had planned!), so we came home and fell into bed about 9:30 last night and had to drag ourselves out at 6:30 this morning to carry on those insignificant portions of our lives (AKA work and school) that seem to take place more or less routinely between weekend adventures. So--check back soon, more to come!

Happy Labor Day!

Today Matt and the cats stayed in and slaved over house and home, while I went to work from 11 in the morning until 7pm. It's a nice shift because it doesn't throw off my sleep schedule in either direction, and I still get home and have a little evening left. Work went really well, and I came home to a spotless house and one of the best dinners I've ever had--Matt had made tamales, which are always a favorite, and this time, in addition to sour cream and homemade salsa, we had leftover pibil which he had the brilliance to grace them with. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. What a husband! And then, what better to chase away the burn of a few too many tamales with spicy pork, than a dish of semifreddo? Nothing that we could think of, so that's what we had. The semifreddo ended up with more the consistency of a permanent milkshake, which I'm not sure is what's intended, but we aren't complaining. We feel like one could almost decrease the honey from 3/4 of a cup to a 1/2; the flavor isn't overwhelming, but it's certainly a very, very rich presence, especially in the presence of all that butterfat. Yum. Life is so good, even if I did temporarily forget that this morning in my despair over the fact that the (eczema/dermatitis/staph--it depends on who you ask) under my nose hasn't gotten any better... but. You can only ask for so much in life.

From Tom Philpott at Grist, an excellent source of environmental news, commentary--and, occasionally, recipes.

Honey semifreddo
3/4 cup raw local honey
3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
2 cups chilled heavy cream
A pinch of sea salt

With a whisk or electric mixer in a small bowl, beat the honey and yolks until thick and pale. Set aside. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. In a large chilled metal bowl, whip chilled cream and a pinch of salt until cream holds soft peaks. Gently, carefully fold in the egg yolk-honey mixture until fully incorporated. Gently and carefully fold in the egg whites until fully incorporated. Transfer to freezing container and freeze for at least four hours.

Yields about a quart and a half of semifreddo.

Note: To adapt this recipe to other flavor schemes, replace the honey with about 3/4 cup raw organic sugar, whipping it into the egg yolks. Fold in other flavorings at the end: ground nuts such as pistachios, cooled, melted chocolate, loosened with cream, fruit purees, etc.

And last but not least, here's Patches helping Matt practice the horn.

We're back!

Sweaty, sandy, and sunburned (oh, so sunburned), but we're back. As promised, here are some pictures of Assateague Island:

We left DC around 8 in the morning and got to Assateague before noon. We enjoyed the lovely, scenic drive (and the opportunity to drive over 55 for a change!) and decided that anybody who lives in DC and claims "we don't live near any good beaches" needs to move to either Iowa or Wisconsin to get a perspective on what it's like not to live near any good beaches. When you can leave after breakfast and get there before lunch, it's near enough for us!

From there, we checked in at the ranger station and hiked down the beach to our campsite. That's a three-hour hike. In the sand. And the sun. Anybody who's never walked on sand for three hours is missing out on a real treat. I can't complain, because Matt carried the tent and all the other gear (though he let me try it on for several yards when we hiked back today) while I just carried a backpack stuffed with clothes. He did his best to pretend that this was a fair division of labor, but I told him it was like when my family went to Disneyworld when I was two and my mom gave my brother and me our own "suitcases" to carry. They were lunchboxes.

The ocean was beautiful and the perfect temperature, and we saw plenty of wild horses within the first hour. We hit just one real sticking point, which was that the park literature had specified that there was a fire ring at our campsite and so we had brought onions and potatoes along for dinner, but when we got there--no fire ring. The idea of eating raw onions and potatoes wasn't especially appealing, so we did what anybody else would do: talked to strangers. We (okay, Matt) struck up a conversation with a very friendly native Marylander who invited us to share his family's campfire and also entertained us by catching a baby sand shark. AND I saw my very first shooting star, something I've waited ages for. I told Matt, just when I thought our lives were as perfect as they could get, we go to the fricking seashore for the weekend and see shooting stars and wild horses! I've never actually sat down and made a list of things I want to do before I die, but if I have, those are two things that would have been on it--in addition to seeing King Tut and a live performance of the Counting Crows. I feel like a lucky, lucky girl.

Other than that, we got up this morning and hiked back (which seemed to go much more quickly) and stopped and had breakfast/lunch at a local place near the island. The breakfast was so-so but the cream of crab soup was AMAZING. And, because a post wouldn't be a post unless I showed you what we had for supper, here it is: Stir-Fried Vegetables with Coconut Curry Sauce.
The semifreddo is in the freezer at present, but I'm a little worried about it because the recipe only specified "heavy cream," so I bought what the label called "table cream," but I think now that Matt was right and I should have bought "whipping cream," because I was unable to form the requisite soft peaks while beating. We'll see.

And lastly, in case you all have emulated our example and have been using homemade rags, but wonder "How do they keep those old shreds of underwear smelling April-fresh all the time?" --here's your answer.