Short post

I know that everyone that reads this blog already knows this info - but I do want to mark the event.

I love the size of the post race smiles -- great work everybody!  I'm so proud of you all.  K&B, you were definitely an inspiration to me during the race.  When it was hard and I was getting tired, I knew you were behind me - working just as hard! - and it was motivation to keep going. 


Half marathon in 2012 (sub check), half marathon PR, and run the Napa2Sonoma half marathon -- TRIPLE CHECK!

I'm running another half in October - anyone want to join me??

Super meal

We've decided to try to make one meal a month at home from the awesome book Katie got us for the wedding: Ad hoc at Home.  This month we dove in head first - we made four different recipes from it! (And two other awesome things...)

Meatballs with Pappardelle

First stop, the super amazing cooking store in Napa to get meat grinder and pasta maker attachments for our KitchenAid mixer.  Now that we've made the investment, we're really motivated to use it again in the future!

Let's watch the meal progress, shall we?

So, I've already checked off item #1 "Bake bread", but I feel like this actually counts.  Can you see how awesome this bread looks?  Because it was awesome.  And so amazingly easy.  If you own a dutch oven, and like bread - this will cost like $0.75 to make this beautiful loaf.  Do it!!  Anyway, this turned into both garlic bread and the bread pudding for dessert.

I thought I took better pictures than this!  Oh well, no action shots.  It definitely took us a while to figure out the past roller, but we had a pretty good system by the end.  We made the dough the night before, rolled them super thin, and cut them into (a million) individual pasta pieces.

 

We rolled each sheet and cut it into 1" slices, then unrolled to boil.  "Rustic hand-cut pappardelle" as Chef Keller calls it.  They're not supposed to be even.  Which is good, because they weren't :)

 About 40% of our pappardelle.  And yes, each little roll is ONE PIECE of pasta. 

This took us over two hours, I'm not gonna lie.

This is a delicious blend of four different meats, stuffed with cheese and baked - and about a half cup each!  The grinding your own meat was hard and gross, but I feel good about the quality and the texture of the meat. 

Finished product!  We also made a super delicious oven roasted tomato sauce.  SOOOooo good and very simple ingredients.  Call me for the recipe :)  And what a great excuse to drink a fancy wine.  And for dessert, I was too tired to take pictures apparently, but Bananas Foster Bread pudding (made with my fresh bread) might have been the tastiest dessert ever.  Highly recommended...

So four Ad hoc recipes!  Pasta dough, Oven roasted tomato sauce, Sachet (to season the sauce), and Meatballs with Pappardelle.  It was over four hours in the kitchen, but a really great way to spend an afternoon with the hubby and a delicious meal (with plenty of leftovers!) to boot.

And for checks... #2 - make pasta & #13 - (3/15) Ad hoc recipes.

Which part of this meal sounds the tastiest??

This won an Oscar?

So to get through the ambitious number of documentaries I put on my list, I basically just choose award winners from Netflix.  Some are more successful than others.

Man on Wire won the Oscar for best documentary in 2009. 

It tells the story of crazy Phillipe - a French guy who in 1974 devised a crazy plan to (*totally and completely illegally*) place a wire between the newly erected World Trade Center Towers in New York and WALK BETWEEN THEM. 

My problem with the movie -- well, you know the end.  He succeeds.  Or there wouldn't be a movie.  Or a movie poster with him walking between the towers. And the people are all kind of weird and nuts.  And.  After six years of planning, he and his buddies work all night to string the cable that he walks on and during his feat, they take still pictures and have a video camera but are TOO TIRED TO FILM IT.  Ok, first of all, you're a bad friend, second of all ... all this build up and we only see a few photographs.  Wah-wah... (that's the defeated noise).

Overall, not a great way to spend 90 minutes, but there's not much on t.v. during the weekday afternoons anyway. :)

He made it look so easy... have you ever tried tightrope walking??