The thought of someone choosing to attack innocent people in any arena is appalling, but this one probably hits even closer to home for me since I have run races in the past. In our days of ridiculous modern technology, there are any number of horrific images out there to see. I’m sure they still do not capture the terror and awfulness of the real thing, but they are plenty enough to make me shudder. My heart goes out to everyone out there.

Maybe it is too soon to say this, but the one thing I now know (after Sandy) is that people will rally. Already the pictures and video that are available are striking for the first responders and policemen that do not hesitate, but head towards the explosions looking for victims when any normal citizen’s first thought would (and should) be to escape to safety. There may be a few scumbag examples of us, but overall, humankind is capable of amazing feats of caring and strength, and I am sure we will see this countless times as Boston picks up the pieces.

Don’t get me wrong, we actually cook together a fair amount, but it’s usually pretty pragmatic.  So we generally try and go for something a little more … well, romantic on Valentine’s Day.  For the past few years he’s been getting the supplies from Whole Foods so we have some good quality stuff (and he usually picks up a bouquet of flowers as well).  We usually do a few courses, just to amp up the faux-restaurant feel, but we threw things together kind of last-minute this year.  We went with a surf and turf theme: he cooked duck breast, and I cooked scallops with bacon, with spinach cooked in duck fat as a side.

Surf and turf, home cooked-style

The dessert is generally left to me.  One of my favorite restaurant desserts is molten chocolate lava cake (or, you know, whatever combination of similar words the pastry chef decides to call it).  I had read a couple of recipes for lava cake before, and was skeptical since as far as I could tell, they basically made a chocolate cake-type batter and then only half-cooked it.  But it was Valentine’s morning, and I couldn’t really handle dinner without a dessert, so I looked up a simple recipe at allrecipes.com and decided to go for it.

The recipe calls for a muffin tin, and extra-large paper muffin cups so that the cakes can be taken out of the tin easily.  Humorously, I only had a mini-muffin tin, and my husband could only find regular-size muffin cups, so I figured the proportions were about the same.  I was a little skeptical when I poured the batter.  And even more skeptical when I took the cakes out of the oven, before flipping them over.  I mean, the things looked pretty ridiculous.

But, when I put them on the plate and broke them open with a spoon — and tried the resulting gooey chocolate — I had to admit, the results were pretty good.

Molten inside after all!

It was easy, too!  Definitely a great ending to a home-cooked Valentine’s meal.  And once I’d made the batter, all I had to do was throw them in the oven, so we had them again the next night, too.  And now that I am thinking about them, and looking at the pictures, maybe we will have them again some night soon in the future, as well …

When we came back it was only a couple weeks before Christmas. In the past couple years we have gotten a tree, put up stockings, and really gotten into the festive feel – but this year we were jetlagged and felt too rushed to do it, which was a little sad. We did, however, get a corny little tinsel tree from Target (well, I say little, but it’s actually 5 feet) which is kind of fun. Terra our cat has historically gone crazy when we get a real tree – the first year, when she was only six months old, she definitely climbed way in it and looked at us pitifully when she realized she had no good way to get out! I understood all those stories about calling firefighters to get your cat down out of a tree … Anyway, she seems pretty entertained by this tinsel one as well, and has knocked it down a time or two, though the shenanigans weren’t quite as good as with a real tree.

My brother and sister-in-law usually come down to my parents’ house and we all celebrate together. This year they were last-minute unable to travel, so we decided to go up to them. They also are redoing their kitchen, so we all decided to stay in a hotel. We are actually headed over there to unwrap presents in just a few minutes! But the hotel is pretty empty so they nicely upgraded one of our rooms to a suite, so all six of us will fit comfortably in there. My mom even brought a tree:

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

My husband grew up on the West Coast, and never went apple picking as a kid.  I grew up over here on the East Coast, and probably only went apple picking a couple of times when I was growing up.  I’m sure we would’ve gone more often if my brother and I loved it.  We did not.  I mean, it was fine.  Sure, apples.  Trees.  Nice.  But I’ve never been too into it.

My husband, on the other hand, has adored apple picking ever since the first time he went.  I kind of tune out when he starts rhapsodizing about why … something about apples being super crisp and delicious when you pick them right off the tree?  The beautiful fall air?  I don’t know.  Now I go along with him every single year (sometimes more than once per year), and we have been to quite the variety of orchards together.  Usually, I am kicking and screaming because all that outdoor air and fresh fruit is hazardous to my sanity, although it’s admittedly good for my health.

Some of the apple orchards, like the one we went to last weekend, have animals to prove they are part of a farm.  For example, this is a mountain goat.  – I’m sure that’s not true, but since he was standing on a couple things, I decided he was probably at least mountain-esque.

For some reason, last weekend’s excursion wasn’t quite as terrible as I’d imagined.  (I seriously didn’t agree to go almost until he was heading for the car, and the deciding factor was a couple of other friends who were meeting us there.)  There are a lot of side attractions with apples: namely, the farm store, which has apple donuts, freshly baked breads and pies (we got a lemon bread that was so delicious! Must look for a recipe), other farm fresh vegetables, and other random tempting items.  Apple donuts, by the way, are the only type of donuts that I eat, and the only time I get to eat them is at an apple orchard.  I don’t even know if they actually are different than regular donuts, but they are delicious.

The farm stores usually have bags of fresh apples in case you are too lazy to go pick them yourself (exhibit: me), but of course my husband would never stand for that, so off we went into the orchard to pick them ourselves.  At first I was a little annoyed, because there was an entrance fee for the orchard, which I have never experienced before (usually, you just pay for however many pounds of apples you pick).  It was only $2, but still!  It seemed ridiculous.

But, to be fair, the apples were super delicious at this place.  Maybe it’s because we made it in September when apple season is in full swing — we usually don’t go until mid to late October, which I think is kind of the end of the season.  (Oh my God, listen to me.  I sound ridiculous.  It’s all my husband’s fault.)  The price per pound of apple was also a little less than usual, so I suppose that offsets the admission fee, particularly when you get over nine pounds of apples like we did.  And yes, I am referring to nine pounds of apples for just my husband and me.

And the apples were also quite large.  Humorously so, even.

Exhibit B.

We have a ton of these giant apples in the fridge, and while I don’t normally like apples, these taste pretty darn good.  So, I will admit … maybe apple picking isn’t the worst fall activity to be forced into year after year.

Anyway, over the summer I discovered Kristan Higgins, who writes comedic romances, and promptly went on to read like 6 of her books.  Of that, I think my favorite is still the first one that I read, Until There Was You (ironically, the last paper book that I read!).  Although, to be perfectly honest, it is just a tiny bit hard for me to keep her books apart, because they are all very similar — but on the other hand, that is exactly why I went through a bunch of them in a row.  And going through a bunch in a row probably didn’t help my cause, either.  In Until There Was You, there were a lot of things that shouldn’t really have worked for me.  The main one I can remember is that the main character’s kind of catchphrase/substitute curse word was “bieber,” which just seemed really hokey at first.  But for some reason, the character still grew on me, probably because Higgins writes really great protagonists.  They are hysterically funny, spunky, openly “lame” at times (it’s not like they necessarily go out every night and have a billion friends to make you feel bad about yourself, they spend time alone at home with their cats or dogs, too), and I think they are the driving force behind her novels.

I honestly don’t remember the relationship between the two main characters that much, because it was a while ago that I read the books.  But all of her books do follow a bit of a pattern, with a big embarrassing and satisfying gesture that finally cements the love between the two of them.  It’s the kind of thing you picture at the end of every romantic comedy movie, and it’s nice enough.  I think the reason her books appealed to me is that there were actually moments when I would laugh out loud, and I still got all the warm fuzzies that I want from a romance novel.

I think I’ll miss the weather the most.  That, and going to the beach.  And the pool, for that matter.  And being able to wear shorts and a tank top all weekend (is that just part of the weather, though?).  Oh, and flip-flops.  And the long daylight hours.

Well, you get the idea.

One thing we did a lot of this summer was grill.  I have to say “we,” because I generally let my husband take care of all the grilling.  He likes to play around with it and occasionally get a little fancy.

For example, here we have burgers and some corn. But for the burgers, my husband will usually buy some decent-quality, flavorful meat (he can go on and on about the best kinds, but honestly, I’m not sure I’m paying that much attention when he talks about it …) and grind it up in our Cuisinart, and make patties himself.  Plus, as you can see, we added bacon to these burgers.  Bacon right off the grill is pretty amazing.

As for the corn, the one in back is a little charred, but it’s super delicious that way.  Halfway through the summer, we started trying a method recommended by Real Simple magazine (can’t find a link online).  Basically, you half-shuck the corn, pull off all the silks (the stringy things), and soak the whole thing in water for 10 minutes or so.  That way, it won’t burn on the grill and still gets to cook in that husk for that extra flavor.

Because it’s a communal grill shared by everyone in our apartment building, we usually use aluminum foil, but don’t judge.  Surprisingly, you can still get grill marks!  Not as easily, but I’ve seen it happen.

My baking has decreased greatly since I’ve basically been letting my husband do
a whole lot of grilling to fill our stomachs, but last weekend I did make some chocolate chip cookies with these chocolate chunks that I got for my birthday.  The chocolate chunks were good, but honestly, they weren’t too different from regular chocolate chips.  They weren’t really even any bigger.  I wouldn’t buy them, but it was nice to try out a different ingredient that I got as a gift of course.

I’ve tried a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipes, and my favorite is still the good old standby from Nestle Toll House.  My only tip would be to take out the cookies in the recommended time even if they don’t fully look done, because just like everything else in baking, they’ll continue cooking for a while and you can always leave them on the baking sheet to help it cook even more.  It’s easy to use the Toll House recipe since it’s always on hand — I usually have a giant bag of Nestle chocolate chip cookies hanging out in a drawer somewhere.  Plus, every time I make the recipe, I can make myself laugh by remembering that awesome Friends episode (not a lot of time for reminiscing?  Here’s a short version).

And now, I’m going to have to watch a bunch of really random Friends moments on YouTube.

I think I watched more of the Olympics than usual this year, and maybe I’m just getting old and soft or something, but I found it ridiculously inspiring.  So many young athletes – kids, really, let’s be honest — who have trained their whole lives with the utmost dedication and accomplished feats I could never even imagine trying.

Although, it made me really want to see what that balance beam was like. I have pretty good balance and am flexible, so it seemed like something I could at least conceptually have tried.  On the other hand, I am a terrible jumper.  For example, we once had some silly festival in college, with a moon bounce and everything, and I went in with a few of my friends.  It was just us, so we started doing silly things.  A couple of my friends did some pretty good flips (to be fair, one of them was a pole vaulter for our college team, so I guess it’s only to be expected that his flips, both forwards and backwards, were totally solid).  One of my girlfriends, who’s about as athletic as I am, did pretty well too — probably got about three-quarters of the way around and landed on my back.

I tried it, and landed on my face.  Yep, didn’t even manage to land on my head or anything.  So I suppose that should show me that I couldn’t do a forward flip on solid ground, let alone a 4-inch balance beam.

Well, it’s the Spice Girls reunion, so I guess that will be all from me.

Turns out my husband had fed her, so her bowl was basically overflowing.  But then I heard a little buzzing over by the window, and it made sense — Terra was whining at a fly.

The first time she saw a fly in the house, she basically just pawed at it (super-fast!) and smashed it against the window on her first try.  Then before I could even say “Wow!” she stuck it in her mouth and ate it.

Gross, but I have to admit, impressive.

Even with this bug (which, by the way, was outside), Terra kept leaping up to see just how close she could get (the answer: much closer than I expected — but she still couldn’t jump through glass …).

Well, I guess I’m glad she can still hunt down her own sustenance even if I forget to feed her.

We got to see some pretty good fireworks displays this July 4th thanks to the Macy’s display for New York City, and a high rise apartment with a great view of the Hudson River where the fireworks barges were.

One thing that was awesome about our location was that we could see the barges where they were actually releasing the fireworks.  I hadn’t realized how many “low” fireworks they set off, which we’ve always missed in past years from being at ground level with them.

It made for a nice evening.  And, I have to say, watching the fireworks every year for the past 7 years has made me feel a little more patriotic — you can only watch beautiful bombs bursting in air, set to  “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood, before you really start to appreciate all that our country has given us

It turns out, if you were curious, that apple butter isn’t really butter — it’s concentrated apple sauce.  And it is pretty delicious on its own just spread on bread or toast.  But we had a whole jar, so I didn’t know what to do with the rest of it.

I found this recipe for apple butter bars that is really simple, just needs oats (did I mention I also have a big can of oats that I’d been wanting to use up?) and all the typical stuff (flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, butter, and of course, apple butter).  Basically, you just mix up all the ingredients except the apple butter to make a crumb mix.  Then you layer half of it in a pan, spread apple butter on it, and then top with the rest of the crumb mix.  Super simple.

The only thing was this recipe called for a 9×9 pan and a cup of apple butter.  My jar of apple butter was on the small side, and I wanted to save a little, so I decided to halve the recipe.  Of course, I don’t have any 4.5×4.5 pans — I used to have a bread pan that might have worked, but we downsized our apartment and the bread pans, which I have used around 2 times in my life, didn’t make the cut.

So, this isn’t the prettiest result, but it worked:

Okay, you probably can’t even tell what’s going on in this picture.  I lined half the pan with aluminum foil and folded up the edge halfway to make a barrier, so I would have about half the pan “space.”  Then, in case the whole thing had a tendency to spread while it baked, I put some balls of aluminum foil in the empty half of the pan, to try and take up that volume.

I don’t think it would’ve worked for most recipes (like cakes or anything that was actually liquid-y), but since the bars were pretty solid and didn’t need to rise or spread out or anything, it was okay.

Um, I also didn’t have any cooking spray, so they were a little sticky and crumbly coming out of the pan.  But it was an okay end result.

And I have to say, they taste pretty delicious!  I mean, it’s kind of a foolproof combination of oats, butter, cinnamon, and apple butter, so that wasn’t too surprising.  I highly recommend it if someone gives you a jar of apple butter and you’re just not sure what to do with it.