Strawberry Gelato

I’m not a terribly lucky person. I’ve never won the Mega Millions (you might have already figured that out, knowing that I live in a 300 square foot apartment). No one has ever showed up at my door with a big check and a bunch of balloons (though, boyfriend did send me a GIANT birthday card one year). I’ve never won a March Madness pool (yes, this is a game of luck, not skill).


However, recently the tides have been turning on my luck. I might just be a lotto ticket away from moving into a larger apartment! I’ll have to buy some more furniture. Let me give you a few examples of my changing fortune…


What's in there???

While getting milkshakes at Brgr last weekend, I got the bigger milkshake. Boyfriends was ever so much smaller. Who’s the winner? Me! (Brgr makes delicious milkshakes. Delicious, expensive milkshakes!)

On a recent walk to dinner with boyfriend, we passed by a series of discarded scratch-off lottery tickets. Most of them we left on the ground, until we came to the crossword scratch-off. (I love the crossword scratch-off!) Boyfriend picked it up and we stopped, was this a winner? Whoever threw the ticket on the ground failed to realize that they had won! We took it to the gas station on the corner and cashed it in for ten dollars! Winner? The piggy bank!

Pink?  I like pink things!

A few weeks ago I commented on Mardi’s blog, because I love her blog, and was entered to win a giveaway. Low and behold, a few days later I was informed that I was the winner of a whole bunch of strawberries! Mmmm, spring fruit. I never win giveaways! A week or so later I got an e-mail from my apartment telling me that I received a package and that I should come get it before they eat it. I was so confused, eat it?

When I got home I was given an enormous box of California Giant strawberries, the whole box smelling like springtime. Eight containers of strawberries were hulled and frozen, just waiting to be turned into something delicious. Here is the first of many upcoming strawberry recipes. And it is so good…


Oooooo, dinner...



Parmesan Zucchini

I can’t believe that I’ve been living in Connecticut for almost a year now. This past year has flow by in the blink of an eye and I’ve really enjoyed being back East. Sure, there are things I miss about being in Colorado. All my crazy gym friends and teaching classes every week. My expansive mountain view apartment and its separate rooms. The crazy Colorado weather and its wide open skies.

I have come to learn that Connecticut has lots of great things too. I love being able to walk everywhere that I need to go, I haven’t driven in months. The changing seasons here in the East are all so pretty, my parents and I enjoyed going ‘leaf peeping’ this fall. I’ve met some pretty amazing people here too.

Those people I’m talking about are my Monday night girls. My Monday nights used to be full of work, dinner then sleep. Now they are filled with conversations, laughs, good food and chick TV. Being in the chemistry world it’s rare that you find a group of girls and I’ve found a great group.

Each Monday we start by heading to K’s house and making dinner. Last week it was feeling very spring-like and we grilled out. By ‘we’ I mean K cooked and L and I watched. This recipe today comes from last week’s dinner, our delicious and cheesey side dish. The main dish, while tasty, was a little more carbonized than I usually prefer... I’m never coming over and eating free food again K! (I’m just kidding, I’ll be over around 7!)

Cheesecake brownies

I wanted to thank you all for reminding me of the great things that come along with living in a university town. Examples. Most university towns are home to some of the greatest ethnic eats! It must have something to do with the wide variety of backgrounds of the people living and working at the university. While walking down State street you will pass Ethiopian, Laotian, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian, Afghanistani, Mexican and five ice cream shops. Just to name a few. And yes, ice cream is its own genre of food.

They also have the best options for grocery shopping. To go along with the traditional mega grocery store, you can find the wholesaler, the food co-ops (yes, plural), the employee owned warehouse store, the organic grocery and Trader Joes. Love it. There are also multiple Asian and Indian markets. My favorite places to go and buy random food products, often with non-English labels. Just remember your cash, the international markets rarely take credit.

There are also the great events that take place through the year. There is “Kites on Ice” in the winter, Arboretum tours in the spring and Hippie Christmas in the summer. Hippie Christmas you ask? Well, I’m sure that it happens in every university town, right around move-in time. In Madison, hippie Christmas is always the week of August 15th.

The vast majority of leases end at noon on August 14th and you move into your new apartment as soon as you can get keys on the 15th. The night of August 14th, it is very likely that you will find people either a. partying all night, or b. sleeping on their front lawns guarding their stuff. The streets are piled high with some of the funkiest couches you have ever seen and each year I wonder how there can be more 1970’s couches. Do old couches come to Madison to die? Not only do you find couches, but you also find beds, shelves and other furniture, cookware, clothes and the list goes on and on.

Those not afraid of picking through piles on the side of the road view this stuff as gold. The Madison hippies love August 15th. When I moved from one apartment to another in the summer of my first year I put a bunch of stuff at the curb on top of an already huge pile. When I came out twenty minutes later to deposit more hippie gold, my bookshelves were already gone. Way to pounce hippies, I hope your books enjoyed their new home.