Poem I Like

I heard Garrison Keillor read this poem on his Writer's Almanac feature on NPR this week and liked it. I thought I'd share it:

Poem: "To My Yugoslavian In-Laws" by Debra Gingerich, from Where We Start. © DreamSeeker Books, 2007. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

To My Yugoslavian In-Laws

If we could speak,
I would tell you that we have
trees here too, and rivers.
I know how to hammer
a nail. Transatlantic phone calls
are expensive, even for us
with our two cars, dishwasher
and American salaries. That he
will not get lazy or forget
about the ways he needed to make money
during the war, the merchandise
exchanged in dark corners of Turkey.
He is still thankful for good health.
He passes on every kiss
you tell him to give me.
I would admit that he misses
the stone beaches of the Adriatic,
he accepts the Atlantic's murky water
as part of the compromise. He thinks
Lancaster's streets are too vacant
at night and there is no place
to ride a bike. Also, that I wouldn't take
your name and will never
believe the wine in the cup
turns to blood. That he and I can't
agree on a slipcover for the couch.
That there is no perfect place
for anyone.

Baking with my New Tart Dish

I'm really excited about the tart dish I found at Tuesday Morning because 1) it's gorgeous, 2) I've been looking for the perfect tart dish for a couple of weeks now, and 3) it's a brand called Appolia made in northern France. I got an awesome deal on a dish that usually costs around $60, but I got it for $25. In order to break it in last night, I made and baked a sweet tart dough and this afternoon I made a two-layered filling. The bottom is honey roasted peanuts in caramel, which is topped by a chocolate genache. All the recipes came from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. I only made two mistakes in the process: 1) I didn't "coursely chop" the peanuts -- oops! and 2) I burned my finger on the hot caramel -- dangerous! We'll be taste testing after dinner.

Cream of Tartar Allergy?

Is it possible to be allergic to cream of tartar? I think this might be the cause of my allergies in recent years. A couple years ago I broke out with an all-over itchy allergic reaction after making a souffle for dinner, which called for cream of tartar. The allergy lasted a long time, and I weened myself off allergy meds so I wouldn't be dependent on them. Yesterday, I made a caramel sauce for a quickie stroopwafel. The sauce wasn't thick enough, so I added cream of tartar to thicken it. Today, I started itching. Another issue with the cream of tartar is that I used it in a copper core sauce pan. The whole pan is not made of copper, just the heating core, but I came across many warning not to use cream of tartar in copper cookware because it is used as a cleaner of copper. Ugh! I hope I don't have copper in my system. Anyone need some thick caramel sauce? Let me know if you've heard of this allergy.

Cool French black and white postcards

I saw so many of these in Paris, and I should have bought more of them. I love these unique photos.

Finally, some Europe pictures to post...

I worked out some of the kinks in my PC to Apple conversions of the Europe pictures, and I have these from our final night splurge. Dirty Dancing, the musical, is only playing in London, so we coughed up the cash to go. It was such a well choreographed performance, including all the movie scenes and more. I can't wait for the musical to come to the U.S. We had to go grocery shopping for breakfast stuff right before the musical, and we had it under our seats the whole performance. Kind of a funny detail to remember. We had the time of our lives...

Maybe I don't have to boycott Starbuck's after all...

Jeff helped me research the whole espresso machine thing, and we found out that more important than the brewing apparatus is the grind. A burr grinder is truly necessary to make great espresso (and coffee). I decided to check out Starbuck's selection of espresso equipment, since I had over $100 worth of cards weighing me down in the middle of a Starbuck's boycott. They had a grinder sticker priced at $125, and I figured I'd get rid of my cards buying it. It ended up being on sale for around $50 -- SWEET! Now I feel like I got my $25 card back. Anyway, I bought a stove top espresso maker and already had a milk frother to make espresso drinks. We tried it tonight, and it works great!

Borders "Party" Disappointing, but Harry Potter Book Exciting

My wonderful friend Allyson agreed to go to the Torrance Borders "biggest Harry Potter party around" on Friday night. Borders promised a 15 foot snake cake, which I never saw, a life size checker board, which amounted to red tape on the carpet, and books at midnight, which I didn't purchase until 1:30 a.m. I felt bad for dragging my good friend there, after promising so much excitement, but I was glad to have checked out one of the "midnight madness" parties since I don't foresee another book release party happening in the next decade (this is the last Harry Potter book, of course). We agreed that it was a cool thing to be taking place over a book, not a movie or video game. One cool moment occurred when the staff rolled out a ceiling-high stack of boxes wrapped in black paper, and everyone oohed and aahed, "Those are the books!" and starting snapping photos (I couldn't pull my camera fast enough to catch it). I've not yet finished reading the novel, partly because I want to take it slow because its the last Harry Potter. (Though I'm thinking of re-reading the series after I'm done with this one).