Chicken and Herb White Pizza

First, I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes!  Well, my blog would like to thank you for your birthday wishes.  And really, writing without having all of you out there to read and chat with would just be no fun at all!  I can't believe it's been a whole year since I started Wilde in the Kitchen. 

I remember the first time that I got a comment from someone that I didn't know and how excited I was.  I thought "I've made it!"  Then there was the first time I broke ten pageviews, fifty, one hundred, one thousand!  I look back at some of the crazy recipes that I've posted, the oddball stories that I've told and the unusual pictures that I've taken.  Everyday is exciting when writing a blog and I've got to thank you all for following!  You've made it all totally worth it.

On other news, I'm going on vacation!  It's my first, official as a member of the workforce, vacation, taken with earned time off!  As of October 4th I had been at my job for a full 90 days and gained access to the use of my days off.  Sure, I took vacations when I was a graduate student and as a Postdoc, but this is different.

As a member of the academic working class, taking vacations is nerve-wracking.  You realize that the longer you stay away from the lab, the longer you'll be there.  For every week you take off, you add a week to your tenure as a student.  So, you try to minimize vacations (especially if you have a crazy boss) (which I didn't!  Hi former bosses!) and feel bad when you are away.  Toward the end of your vacation you are edgy and want to get back into the lab.  Gotta run that reaction!  Let me at my chemicals!

Now that I've made it into the real world, I've worked hard and earned my vacation days and I'm really going to enjoy them!  This Thursday morning at 1:00 am, boyfriend and I are boarding a plane and flying halfway around the world.  We're heading to Thailand!  We'll be spending half of our time in Bangkok, then heading south to Phuket for some fun in the sun.  Well, hopefully sun, it's the tail end of the rainy season and it's been raining and flooding in Thailand.

Worry not, I've got you all set up for some delicious meals while I'm gone.  I'll try to pop in and update you on our trip through Thailand, although I'm not promising anything...  I tend to fall asleep early when I go on vacation...  All that sun!  Here's hoping for lots of sun, not only for boyfriend and I, but also for the people of Thailand, stuggling to clean up the flood waters.

Mini Reeses Cupcakes

If my blog were a person, it wouldn't be my friend anymore.  You might be asking why this is the case?  Well, I kinda forgot it's birthday.  And I'm not just talking a few days late here.  My blogs birthday was way back in July!  I feel like such a terrible blog momma, how can you forget your own blog birthday?  I'll tell you how...

July 6th I began my new job.  While my new job came with the perks of evenings and weekends off (something that I haven't had in almost eight years), it also came with lots of new information that I had to cram into my brain.

June 30th I moved in with boyfriend.  After seven years of living long distance and making it work that way, boyfriend and I decided to give a go of it and live together.  While things have been working out grandly, he takes up a whole bunch of my time, in a good way of course.  We go out and do things on my newly free weekends.  Also, while I cook two or three times as often as I did before, I've been going for old favorites of mine, rather than striking out with something new each night.

July 1st I bought my first monthly rail pass.  A monthly rail pass to where?  Why, to New York City.  This makes it extremely easy to just hop on the train and head into the city on these newly free weekends.  What happens when you go to the city on the weekend instead of spending time in the kitchen?  You wind up celebrating your blogs birthday three months late.

I'm sorry blog, I love you!  Happy birthday!  Have some cupcakes!

Caramel Brownies

Once upon a time I lived in a cold, frigid land with howling winter winds and a lack of parking in the university center.  The evil professors took all the parking for themselves and left the poor, lowly graduate students to take to public transportation.  In the bright and sunny days of June, July and August, there were none happier than the graduate students as they waited for the busses to come and whisk them to work.  However, as the summer gave way to fall and the trees shed their leaves, the temperatures began to drop as well.

One early winter morning, a bright-eyed first year graduate student bounced out the door in a fire-orange wool jacket, ready for the day ahead.  Only this was not any normal morning, it was the morning of her first Midwestern winter and the graduate student was ill-prepared in her beautiful orange coat.  While her faithful coat protected her from the milder winters of the East coast, it was no match for the winds that tore down the streets. 

The graduate student was no longer bright-eyed, instead she was chilled to the core, red-nosed and buried under layers of sweaters and scarves.  Week after week the winter winds grew stronger, the temperatures plummeted and the graduate student realized that her orange coat would not be enough. 

Armed with her trusty credit card, the graduate student ventured out to find the coat to face all winters.  One that would stand up strong to blustering winds and laugh off snow as it came pelting down.  Searching store after store, the graduate student tried on coat after coat.  Short ones, long ones, puffy ones and sleek ones.  None seemed up to the task of providing her the protection she needed. 

As all hope was dwindling away, the graduate student found it, the perfect coat.  More down-filled comforter than jacket, just the right length and the perfect mocha color.  This coat would allow the graduate student to not only handle the Midwestern winter, but conquer it. 

The blanket jacket protected the graduate student as she waited for her early morning bus and it kept her warm in the evening hours or her return trip home.  The years passed and the jacket provided just the right amount of warmth when the graduate student moved to the milder winters of the Colorado Rockies and it hugged her tight on her long walks home from the lab when she moved back to her beloved East coast.

As the years passed, the blanket jacket became thinner and thinner, yielding its downy filling to the hands of time.  As the graduate student prepared to make her way out into the real world, she realized that it was time to say goodbye to her longtime companion.  The corporate world is no place for a blanket jacket.  Packing it up with loving care, she sent it off to the hands of the Salvation Army, hoping that someone would love it just as much as she had.

Now don't worry, the story doesn't have a sad ending.  While wandering her new hometown, the former graduate student found a new coat.  A beautiful, plum-colored, wool coat, perfect for her new life in the real world.