Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Hurray for Layaway!

I miss the nostalgia of simpler times from my childhood and it seems like I was probably a kid when I last heard the term layaway. With so many Americans swimming in bills and drowning in debt I could not be more thrilled to see the Kmart marketing a tried and true tactic for troubled pocketbooks. Kmart is reviving layaway.

I want to give Kmart a retail hug. A reverse boycott… a supportcott!!!

For the rest of 2008 Kmart will be the recipient of my discount retail dollars. Join me in this blue light brigade in support of their layaway program and honor the pay now and get later priorities of our parents and grandparents in favor of the get now and pay later mentality that can be an express checkout into trouble.

Monday, October 20, 2008

My Kind of Town, Chicago Is.

I just got back from my first grown up weekend in Chicago (I’d been before as a kid [Great America] and in 2000 on a 14 week project in the suburbs) and an awesome stay at the Brown B&B.

The hospitality of the proprietors is eclipsed only by their company—and perhaps their adorable four-legged bell-hop Jackson. We had bluebird weather and the most amazing city as a backdrop to our exciting agenda. I would upload pictures but I am on the couch but my camera is two rooms and my feet still hurt.
  • Friday: An early morning flight had me in the Windy City in time for a brownstone stroll from Kate’s to lunch. Then a city tour and wine and snack replenishment before settling in one of Chicago’s fine pubs, Halligan Bar where the Guinness flows freely for $3 a glass. We spent a while there then dined on pizza.
  • Saturday: A leisurely breakfast and coffee was the fuel we needed for a Chicago Segway Tour along the lake front. It takes a while to get the hang of it but dang it is fun! And makes shocking use of every little ligament and tendon in your feet and ankles. Sunshine and the 7.5mph wind in our hair (top speed) plus a spicy Mexican lunch and strong margarita’s at El Jardin CafĂ© required a nap to recover. We dined at Calo Ristorante for dinner where we had the most amazing lobster ravioli. And tiramisu take out dessert for later.
  • Sunday: A 12-minute stroll to the Addison El station, directly behind Wrigley Field, where we picked up the Red Line to take us to Soldier Field for the Bears versus Vikings. I had heard ahead of time that Bears fans could be, er, um difficult but that was not the case. We found ourselves surrounded by good humored fans who tolerated my purple pride. Dinner at Vines on Clark and it was time to pack and brave the traffic to O’Hare.

My quality time with Kate and Jason at the Brown B&B had come to an end but memories that will last a lifetime, pictures that I’ll share soon and cravings that will haunt me until I can visit again.

Monday, October 13, 2008

This Week in Pumpkin: Pumpkin Bread Pudding

You know you really love to cook when you pop out of work during lunch to drive 35 blocks to a bakery to pick up and ingredient for a recipe. So when my Friday workday pinched my cooking timeline ahead of the dinner I was going to there was no way I was going to let $8 in brioche go to waste.

Enter this fantastic Sunday half-time snack. It followed roasted squash soup and roasted chicken breast and was enjoyed side by side with four of my favorite meal companions--Mom, Lance, Sarah and Sophie.*

I am including a link to the original recipe but posting the recipe with my superior modifications.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding
2 cups half and half
1 15-ounce can pure pumpkin
1 cup (packed) plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom (kw tweak)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon orange zest (kw tweak)
10 cups 1/2-inch cubes egg bread (about 10-ounces)

Vanilla Caramel sauce
1 1/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 small vanilla bean split lenghtwise (kw tweak)
1/2 cup whipping cream
Powdered sugar

For bread pudding: Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk half and half, pumpkin, dark brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon and vanilla extract in large bowl to blend. Fold in bread cubes. Stir in golden raisins. Transfer mixture to 11x7-inch glass baking dish. Let stand 15 minutes. Bake pumpkin bread pudding until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare caramel sauce: Whisk brown sugar and butter in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Scrape seeds from bean with a knife into cream and add to pan. Whisk in cream and stir until sugar dissolves and sauce is smooth, about 3 minutes.

Sift powdered sugar over bread pudding. Serve warm with caramel sauce.

*Dad is out of town hunting.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Peak Season

As soon as the gourds begin to swell and dot the landscape with orange my palate turns to all things pumpkin. Yesterday was an excellent example of my autumn weakness—two of my three meals contained a pumpkin feature. The graph* below is an illustrative example of the dramatic spike in my consumption.



Last year I made a special effort to test one new pumpkin recipe a week… this year I will endeavor to do the same and keep you posted on the winners. This week’s rundown was anchored by my annual favorite Bruegger’s offering, their pumpkin bagel with pumpkin cream cheese. So good, my annual Bruegger’s consumption probably mirrors the graph above. Oooh sooo good.

*Maximum of 21 on y-axis representing approximate weekly opportunities of three meals per day times seven days in a week.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Adage Snobbery

Okay... there are a few topics that inspire true snobbery on my part and adages is one of them. There are so many to choose from and they are such a colorful depiction of a situation that using them inappropriately is like using the orange crayon to color a banana.

One of the most frequent (and annoying) infractions I hear is interchanging/misusing the two clarified below.
  • elephant in the room n. A very large issue that everyone is acutely aware of, but nobody wants to talk about. Perhaps a sore spot, perhaps politically incorrect, or perhaps a political hot potato, it's something that no one wants to touch with a ten foot pole.
  • 800-pound gorilla n. An overbearing entity in a specific industry or sphere of activity. A seemingly unbeatable presence always to be reckoned with; whose experience, influence, and skill threatens to defeat competitors with little effort.
Come one people... get your exotic animals and their fictional social situations straight.