Late{ly}

During our Thanksgiving calls with our family, Mark and I realized that some people were missing our posts. In general there haven't been posts because not much is happening. I also forgot that it would be a little more time consuming to run our little apartment alone. Sharing responsibilities (grocery shopping, vacuuming, cooking, doing the dishes, dusting, laundry, the list goes on and on) made life easier. I don't take as many photos because I'm usually multi-tasking--often I'm cooking or cleaning while looking at some Greek.

An example of what happens when I try to cook, photograph, and study at the same time. The above picture was the goal.

This was the actual result. It tasted good, but I just didn't want to spend the time making it look perfect. I plopped the scallops on top of the puree, watched the puree flatten out, tossed baby greens on top, and hastily dumped some sauce on the whole thing. I still think it looks okay, just not great. I couldn't get photos of the process because I was too busy cooking, studying, and cleaning up as I went.

Mark's company lets him visit Chicago for a week or so at a time. Thankfully, we haven't had to use much of his PTO because they will let him work from the house or go into the Chicago office. The first time he visited, we made ravioli, celebrated seven years of dating, and studied Greek. Mark likely knows at least a few nouns and verbs from the first units of the textbook.

If it looks like this was fun to make, that's because it was. You might not be able to tell from the photos, but these are fairly large.

You might not be able to tell from the photos, but these are fairly large. A single raviolo and sauce is enough for dinner if you've had a salad or bread beforehand. Bonus: when you cut into one, the yolk runs out and mixes with the sauce.

When he left, I got back to studying Greek all day, everyday for too long, on most days. I put together something that is kind of like a draft of a dissertation prospectus. Mark got back to the grind of making the rush hour commute to his Dallas office without the help of Chicago's cheap and convenient public transportation. As easy as it is to complain about buses and trains in Chicago (they can be packed, late, and nauseating), public transit here is cheap, gets you where you need to go, and gets you to walk a little every day. In Dallas Mark is getting reacquainted with the hassle that is needing to focus on driving and dealing with traffic. This is all very exciting news, we know.

During another one of Mark's visits, we hosted an early Thanksgiving dinner for a few friends. We set out some cheese, meats, and pickles, and tried to finish cooking everything before dinner time. We made creamed corn, regular dinner rolls, Parker House rolls, mashed potatoes, salad, brussel sprouts, and an apple pie. We did something strange to a turkey (note: either soak your bird in buttermilk OR brine, do not do both), and had no time to make dressing or gravy. Oops. I feel bad about the turkey, but Mark and I make killer side dishes.

The beginnings of turkey noodle soup, where I turned all the weird tasting turkey into magic. You can't go wrong starting with sautéed garlic, carrot, onion, and celery, then adding a mix of 3 parts chicken stock to 1 part veal stock. If you have the time, try making your own stock (recipe for chicken and veal).

A couple of weeks later, Mark and I headed down to Waco for the last Baylor home game of the season. We lucked out on tickets, as dear friends had sold their tickets to us several weeks in advance. We ran around town, stopping by shops to get some new Baylor gear and visiting old friends. The new stadium is beautiful, and the game was great. But the best seats in the house are those where you are sitting with your friends, and we missed the camaraderie of going to the game with our usual group. It's harder to go to games together when people are spread across the country and you buy tickets off of two of the people who should be yelling next to you. Next year, we'll figure it out.

Even after seeing friends post pictures of the stadium and seeing it on TV, we were still a little stunned to be there.

When I first got to Baylor, I could not imagine that our football team would be Big XII champs two years in a row.

Christmas cards are...late. This year I sent out a recipe, so I might as well also share the blurry cell phone pics of the card here. Whenever we make this, we have to hide some away before a party to keep some of the leftovers for ourselves. Enjoy!

If you click on the pictures, you'll actually be able to read the recipe.