Al's and Alpacas

Marisa, Rachel, and myself are all great fans of the WB television series Gilmore Girls. I find that I reference the show on a daily basis, and we generally watch at least a couple episodes a week. In the town of Stars Hollow where the Gilmore girls live, there is a restaurant called Al's Pancake World. However, we learn that after the first couple days of pancake making, Al discovers that he isn't an expert pancake maker, and decides to switch to international cuisine (although I don't think he is expert at that either...), that he switches up on a semi-regular basis. Anyway, he had already printed enough napkins with the restaurant name on them to last a lifetime, so the name stuck and the cuisine changed.

One day during some musing about dinner and Gilmore Girls, I suggested to Marisa that we have a different ethnic food variety every Friday night, we would learn a couple phrases, listen to native music, and call it Al's Pancake World night. This is the basis of our Friday night dinners. (Although this week it had to be pushed back to Saturday.) Our first was fondue night, and this week we had Burmese food!

After her sophomore year at Whitman, Rachel led a GlobeMed trip to Burma to meet the organizations that they support, and to learn more about the culture and society, as well as the organization. While she was there, she had a variety of different Burmese food, and returned with a cook book from a restaurant called MoMo and BoBo's.

We selected three recipes: Potato Curry served with flat bread, a banana-lime beverage, and Burmese Tea Cakes. We all loved the curry and banana drink, but there was a mixed review on the tea cakes. Here are some pictures:

Curry and Banana drink! We often get so excited about eating that we forget to take a picture...

Our Tea Cakes steaming...this took a bit of ingenuity!

Tea Time!

Like I said, the tea cakes received mixed reviews. I really loved their spongy, moist texture! It reminded me a lot of bread pudding. The flavor was a bit lackluster; Asian desserts are often not too sweet. The smell was rather rancid though, like that of sulfur or rotting eggs. No one experienced any stomach issues post-tea though, so it must have simply been some sort of chemical reaction between the ingredients.

Marisa and Rachel on kitchen duty.

The serious and the sillies.

Rachel found a recipe for scones and wanted to try it out this morning, so we bought some fresh strawberries at the farmers' market (I was amazed they still had berries available!). The scones turned out wonderfully, and were a big hit in the house this morning.

Strawberry, lemon, poppyseed scone with a hot cup of English breakfast tea!

Then this afternoon we went to an Alpaca farm, and had a great time looking at alpacas (laughing at alpacas), drinking apple cider, and perusing the alpaca yarn and clothing. Fun was had by all!

Almost done! This afternoon I had a work BBQ (I work at the college bookstore) at one of our managers' houses, and was instructed to bring a dessert. After much deliberation I decided to share my Austrian culture by serving apple strudel! (Maybe not the best idea, as this is not something I have made before.) It turned out quite well, and I think people really enjoyed it!

I hope everyone has a great week -- happy fall!

Ketchup Week

It has been a crazy last week and a half, with Rachel's mom and grandma visiting, an exam and a paper, and the bustle of daily college life, I feel like I've had hardly any time to share my life with you all (mainly Marisa' mom...).

This is going to be mostly a visual update of what we have been up to the last eleven days. Thanks to Rachel for sharing your photos with me (and the rest of the internet).

Delicious beet salad inspired by Brasserie Four in Walla Walla, and captained by our very own Purple Moose.

Served with our bi-monthly quiche. We are all very fond of quiche.

Don't they make a lovely pair??

Taco Tuesday!

Hanging out with Zo - sometimes you just need some kitty time.

Burger night! Meat courtesy of a local farmer.

Served with assorted fingerling oven fries.

Excited about FOOD!

Getting a little nutty...

Zoe time for Rachel!

Look who's doing ballet! What a lovely sewing job... ;)

Tonight we went to hear the President's Own United States Marine Corps Band playing in Cordiner!

#SousaForever

Amused and Confused: Life with Rachel and Zoe

Rachel often starts to tell a joke, stops halfway through when she realizes it isn't going to make sense, then continues for the benefit of those listening. Often times this leaves Marisa and I amused, if not a bit confused. Hence our new motto: amused and confused.

Rachel also loves to confuse people by saying or doing things that don't make sense, just to get a reaction. It's a game; we all have our things.

I actually think Zoe might be in on the joke. She will often run around the house like a crazy, especially in her evening active hours. Sometimes she will crouch at the line between the linoleum and carpet dividing the kitchen and dining room, then dash forward about 10 feet, as if she is practicing dashing for some sort of track event.

Anyhow, between the two of them, there is plenty of laughing by all.

Sometimes we lay on bags...

That's perfectly normal, right?

Little Miss in the big chair

Sharing is caring!

Is that a lion or a Rachel?

Here's a combo deal: Rachel decided the sunflowers needed sunlight, Zoe decided the sunflowers needed company.

When Fridays roll around, sometimes a little treat is the perfect way to say goodbye to the week and hello to the weekend. What's more fitting than this little cinnamon-y, caramel-y, doughy, warm nugget of deliciousness?

Snickerknoedel for all!

And when Monday rolls around, it helps to have a fast yet delicious meal to look forward to!

Salad rolls and peanut sauce!

As I prepare for bed, I will leave you with a picture of a sleepy kitty - goodnight!

Thank You, Rachael Ray

We had three meals this week inspired by Rachel Ray! I would say it was a huge success, and I think Zoe would agree. Although RR must have some sort of magic kitchen that cooks food incredibly quickly, because the recipes came out of her 30 Minute Meals cookbook, and I estimate we averaged about 50 minutes to an hour. Nevertheless, we had some great dishes!

Tuesday night we made vegetable fritters with an arugula spinach salad, topped with a tahini dressing. This was my first experience deep frying, and other than the oil taking 30 minutes to get to temperature (one of our burners is not very trustworthy) they were simple and delicious.

We forgot to take the picture until we were almost done eating, oops!

Since I don't eat meat, Rachel prefers to minimalize her meat intake, and Marisa is all about the meat, we have had to be creative with our dinner concepts. We've been able to make it work pretty well! Rachel and I will eat tofu or garden burgers (depending on the ingredient that suits the dish best) and Marisa tends to eat chicken. I wonder if she is tired of chicken yet...

Anyway, Wednesday night was one of those protein option nights. The dish basically consisted of a raisin, red onion, celery, wine sauce over (insert protein of choice here) with mashed potatoes (expertly crafted by Rachel!) and asparagus.

It was actually pretty funny shopping for this dish. The recipe called for a dry white wine. However, as none of us are particularly alcohol enthusiasts, we weren't exactly sure what kind of wine that would be... We ended up deliberating for a while, contemplating which bottle was the most attractive, which was the least expensive, which wines were local, etc. Before we realized consulting the internet would be helpful. The bottle we settled on seemed to work well in the context of the meal!

We managed to take a picture before we started eating this night!

 Zoe and myself on Wednesday night - although she doesn't particularly live to be held, she doesn't resist much, which we all appreciate!

New Whitman College hoodie courtesy of Whitman College Bookstore!

Our final Rachel Ray meal of the week was the closest to a thirty minute meal. The recipe was for a Black Bean Stoup, and included red bell pepper, yellow onion (we opted for a Walla Walla sweet, of course), black beans, corn, stock, seasonings, lime juice and cilantro. Yummo! We doctored it up with some celery (left over from last night) and tomatoes. We also served the stoup (cross between a soup and a stew) with some nachos (Marisa's handiwork).  It was a delightful southwestern meal!

Cheesy goodness :)

Isn't that beautiful?!

Rachel and I (and Zoe?) finished off the celery with one of the best ways to eat celery: ants on a log! Who would have thought a weird stocky vegetable with raisins and peanut butter would be so scrumptious?

Zoe inspecting.

Being a cat is exhausting, especially when there is so much interesting food to examine!

Zoe resting in one of her favorite locations. I think it's because the bunny is there to keep her company!

Happy dining to all, and to all a good night!

Can We Glean Boboli?

Marisa is the queen of Boboli pizza and necessity is the mother of invention. And that is how we ended up using scissors to cut pizza. "It's the best way," says Marisa, and although this may not hold true in all instances, compared to our plastic pizza cutter and dull knives, this did prove to be the most effective method. 

And she looks cute doing it!

 Friday night means let us bake!

Blackberries and nectarines married in lemon juice and cinnamon.

A crusty creation of oats, pecans, butter and brown sugar.

Great until the last piece!

Rachel is passionate about making a difference in the community, and is always looking for ways to volunteer and get involved. The trouble is, sometimes she double-books herself; take this for example:

This year Rachel led a summer community service orientation for a group of incoming first year Whitman students. On their SCORE (Summer Community OutReach Excursion) the group had the opportunity to go gleaning! Gleaning (you may recognize the term from the Old Testament story of Ruth) happens after farmers have harvested their fields but have remaining crops available in the fields. In the case of Rachel's SCORE, the farmers contacted Whitman Glean Team to come glean, and the crops are given to Blue Mountain Action Council (BMac) which distributes the produce to local food banks.

Rachel had so much fun gleaning with her SCOREos that she insisted we all sign up for the Whitman Glean Team listserve (a means by which to be notified of all future gleaning excursions). Marisa and I like to please Rachel, so we signed up. Lo and behold, before a week had passed we received emails about two gleaning outings this weekend. I was unavailable for the first, but had no excuse to not sign up to glean corn on Sunday. Rachel was overjoyed (not an atypical Rachel emotion) and quickly shot back an email signing the two of us up. Marisa opted out.

Unfortunately, in Rachel's excitement and haste, she had failed to confirm her availability with her calendar. In a moment that I can liken to that of a dog with its tail between its legs, Rachel approached me to share the bad news. Thankfully Rachel had procured a stand-in (Marisa to the rescue!) and after I reminded Rachel of the spaghetti feed incident (the last time she had signed me up then bailed) Marisa and I let the matter go.

We enjoyed a quick corn glean in a slightly dried out, very overgrown corn field. Much of the corn was inedible, being either dried out, covered in bugs, too small, or infested by corn fungus (known as huitlacoche and used a lot in Latin American cuisine). However, we were able to collect a fair amount for local food banks!

Now I will leave you with a ferocious-looking picture of an incredibly tame cat.