granny panties

Firstly: Claire I am glad that you have taken the initiative and straight up posted our emails. This is perfect evidence for the fact that blogging is a titillating exercise in self importance and once begun runs the risk of becoming a highly addictive behavior. Counter-note to the above: Hyper self-awareness is not so much fun as blogging about granny panties.

Let us blog on!

So my hands down movie, the movie that I will watch in sickness and in health, in bliss and in heartbreak is Mostly Martha. (Future blog post: the travesty that the American film industry has made of this movie). In Mostly Martha there is a scene--which if I were more technologically savy I would have found a way to link into this blog--where Martha (an incredibly sophisticated and highly controlling chef) wakes up in the morning. She rolls off of the couch where she had fallen asleep and wanders into the kitchen wearing....granny panties! Voluminous, white, cottony, drawers that drape her happy backside rather than squeezing into all of her lady curves. She is sleepy and dazed as she stands in the kitchen surveying her gorgeous array of cookware and never have I seen a woman look so real, so comfortable, so right as that scene. And that is the best argument I have for granny panties.

That being said, granny panties are also like your favorite movies. Perhaps not an everyday experience but one that should be enjoyed on a regular basis. Like on summer's days when you are making brunch or right when you are going to get your period and everything feels all squeez-ey and too tight any way.

So, send me those voluminous drawers sissy-bear...

for everyone's general amusement

Here's some recent correspondence between dear sissy-boo and i:

CLAIRE:

i cut my hair at the place around the corner from the bookstore. i told her i wanted an "ear length bob" and i got a chin length monstrosity AKA the anna wintour look all over again (i don't understand. do stylists like giving terrible haircuts? if i wanted to look like anna wintour* I WOULD SAY THAT).

the above will probably be blog post number one from moi.

*if you don't know who she is just google images and you will instantly get the idea.

WAVERLY:

Hey there bear,

So do you still have your hair or did you shave it all off? I think that the last time you got it cut in California you said that it looked like anna wintour and we looked her up. Oh gurl, so the hair saga continues. Maybe your hair has been possessed by anna wintour and you need to have a hair exorcism.

CLAIRE:

i still have my hair, haha! i'm actually coming around to the haircut. it always looks better when it hasn't been blowed-dried into submission.

oh, i accidentally bought some underwear that is WAY too big....do you want them?? haha. i can send them in the package with your hiking boots.


AND i started reading Twilight at work. for purely anthropological reasons. i will def be blogging about it!**

WAVERLY:

Ooo, please do send along the extra large pairs of underwear.
Reason number 2 why I love having a blog with you: I now have a place where I can wax poetic about granny panties. This blog might just turn into a documentation of all of the correspondence we have ever sent back and forth. But because I think that we have amazing correspondences, that might not be a bad thing.

Waverly, if you're reading, I took that as an invitation to post all of that nonsense.

**this is true. stay tuned!!

A Cookie I Would Like You to Make

Rosemary* Butter Cookies

*Neat fact that I discovered thanks to Martha Stewart: Rosemary is the flavor/smell/herb of remembrance, love, loyalty, and friendship

Ingredients
1 cup of room temperature unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg and 1 large egg white (beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups of sifted all purpose flour
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 cup fine sugar

Directions
Put butter and granulated sugar in a bowl and beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy (about two minutes). Mix in the whole egg and vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour, rosemary, and salt and mix until combined. Halve the dough; shape each half into a log. Place each log on a piece of parchment paper and roll up. The logs should be 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Place in the freezer for an hour. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F and brush each log with beaten egg white and roll in sugar. Cut into 1/4 in rounds and bake until edges are golden, 18-20 minutes.

Don't Crowd Your Mushrooms

So remember how in Julie and Julia she says that it is really important not to crowd your mushrooms? Well, Mz. Child is right.

I was making dinner with Sara last night and she decided that she wanted to make this heart-stopping steak dish. You are going to love this: You take about 6 tablespoons of butter and sautee garlic in it. While the garlic is being sauteed you sear the steaks. Then you pour the garlicky butter all over the steaks and put them in the oven until they are cooked to preferred done-ness.

What is the best compliment to buttery, garlicky steaks? Mushrooms of course.

I bought crimini mushrooms at the little corner store beside Sara's apartment and couldn't help feeling a little like I was in the movie. I have learned that you are not supposed to get mushrooms wet so I brushed off the caps, removed the stems, and sliced the mushrooms rather thickly. Then I plopped about a tablespoon of butter into a pan. The pan was on high heat and when the butter started to foam I dropped the mushrooms in, giving them plenty of room. In a few minutes they were a roasty, toasty brown color. To add to their deliciousness I poured in a little red wine. When you don't crowd your mushrooms, the taste doesn't change all that much but the texture, the mouth-feel if you will, is so much better. They are chewy and juicy and more essentially mushroom-y than mushrooms that have been crowded into a pan and forced to touch their neighbors.

Anyway, just in case you were wondering whether it was a bunch of hooey I thought I would let you know that it's not.

This is just to say...

I'm the proud new owner of a (damaged, therefore free!) copy of the Gigi's Hudson Valley Mediterranean Cookbook!!

Pictures of Hodge-Podge-Lodge Birthday Extravaganza to come...