Raspberry Meringues

When I was teaching a crazy amount of group exercise classes (nine a week, I’m exhausted just thinking about it!) I loved my Fridays. Friday was the only day a week that I didn’t have any classes to teach. It was my favorite day of the week because Thursday mornings I had a 5:30 am class, but Fridays I got to sleep in, ahhh. Sleep. Friday was the ultimate lazy day, or at least as lazy as I can be. I’m pretty sure I have adult ADD.

This is how lazy Friday would go. Alarm goes off at 6:00 am, BOING! I’m out of bed and off to the shower. Unlike boyfriend, who enjoys watching an episode of Saved by the Bell before hitting the shower, I like to wake up with hot water. This is where I start to plan my to do list, which I promptly forget once I start blow drying my hair. My brain has some holes in it. I’ll forget everything on my list once I sit down to eat my cheerios and watch the second Saved by the Bell episode. Oh Slater, how I love your muscle shirts.

Then I’m off to work. My hilly drive to Boulder made me very happy. The sun rising behind me and the moon setting over the Rockies, lovely. Heading into the lab I try to remember what exactly I was planning on doing for the day. Something having to do with chemistry, right? The next ten or eleven hours is when this chemistry would happen. Yes, I said ten or eleven hours. The life of an academic, it’s fun! Come to grad school where the days are long!

Lazy Friday ends with a trip to Wendy’s and a stop at the Redbox. No working out at night, just eating French fries, watching a movie and usually, doing laundry. Oh yeah, I’m exciting, I know how to party. Now, since we’re being ‘good’ this month, I thought a trip to Wendy’s was not the best way to celebrate lazy Friday. So, I made you some cookies. Light, airy and fruity cookies. Plus, they’re pink!

2011 Foodie Resolutions

So, I have been thinking about what I want to accomplish this year.  Aside from getting a "real" job and escaping academia, becoming a "grown-up" and possibly moving in with my favorite person, there is food to think about!  Last year brought many firsts, including deep frying, candy making and homemade bread.  The plans for this year are as follows...

1.  Become an accomplished candy-maker.  I will determine what I need to complete to become "accomplished," but I think this requires at least 15-20 candy recipes this year.  Waistlines beware!

2. Complete the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge.  I have taken on four of these recipes, how many does that mean I have left?  My own rule is to complete them all in one year, alphabet thrown to the wind.  Why would I need to do it in alphabetical order anyways?

3. Destroy the notion that "Chicken is boring."  Chicken is so NOT boring!  And I will prove it to you this year.  You may have noticed that I have never posted a beef recipe.  This is because I haven't eaten a steak, hamburger or roast in over fifteen years.  I'll explain this someday, but not today!

So that's it.  I'm looking forward to this year.  It is going to be sweet, yeasty and amazing.

Lentil Chili

Well, that’s what it sounds like if you listen to the news right now. The vast majority of Connecticut schools had cancelled classes before a single flake of snow fell. Libraries, community centers and childcare centers, all closed. Is everyone being overnervous, or am I just hard to impress? The weather channel suggests that we will get between 18 to 24 inches of snow. Is that a lot? Nah.

I can count the number of snow days I experienced as a child on one hand. This is not because I lived in sunny Southern Florida or tropical Hawaii. I grew up in the northtowns of Buffalo, NY. Snow capital of the United States! In reality, Buffalo ranks ninth among cities over 50,000. There is a town in New Hampshire that averages over 200 inches of snow per year, Buffalo averages only 93. Anyways. You’re thinking, “All that snow, now snow days?” There are reasons that all the Western New York children are constantly disappointed.

Problem #1 – Snow Plows! The Atlanta airport has one snow plow. The driver most likely learned how to plow in Buffalo. Every year there is a plowing convention held in Buffalo, where drivers learn the fine art of snow plowing. This means that the snow plow drivers in Buffalo are good at what they do, much to the chagrin of schoolchildren everywhere.

Problem #2 – Winter is long in Buffalo. Some years, snow starts falling in October and will keep coming until long into spring. There is the occasional blizzard, the ones that make the national news, but these are rare and usually only happen when Lake Erie is unfrozen. So 93 inches of snow, spread out over 5 months equals lots of snow, a little at a time.

So our 18 to 24 inches of snow might keep me from heading to work, maybe. My boots only go up to my knees, and I don’t own any snow pants (I recently destroyed a pair while tubing). Just in case the grocery stores are wimps, I decided to prepare myself a big pot of lentil chili to last me through the onslaught of snow. I’m going to enjoy my piles of snow while eating bowls of chili, knowing that if I was still in Buffalo, I would definitely be at work.

Health tip?  Eat the rainbow!  Don't eat the snow.