Honeymoon Day #1: July 1

I thought I'd copy the journal I kept during our honeymoon onto here so I can add pictures. That's what I was really wishing I could do while I was writing it, so. Plus then people who aren't on Facebook can see pictures and read about our trip, if they want to.
So, here goes!

Day 1
     Happy 4th of July! (I wrote this entry on the 4th of July) The 40th anniversary of Bahamian independence is on July 10th. I hope there's something fun happening. Shavonne, our hotel manager, is going to let us know.
     I'm going to try to do a quick recap of our trip before I forget things. We left San Francisco at 10:15 on Sunday night. We landed in Charlotte around 6 am and took off again around 9:30 or 9:45 I think. We ate bagels at the Great American Bagel Bakery. My jalapeno breakfast sandwich was not spicy.

     We landed in Nassau around noon. I slept more on the second flight and I think Mark slept less. I discovered that the way to keep me calm during the turbulence is to be half asleep. Or all asleep, of course, but that wasn't the case.
     We hung out in the domestic terminal of the Bahamian airport (Nassau airport I guess) which was funky. Pretty much exactly what I would have expected if I'd thought about it real hard ahead of time.
     We thought we were gonna go on like a medium sized plane, which I was surprised at because at one point Mark told me it was gonna seat 8 people. I was happy though, until they took us to a smaller plane than the one we were looking at. It fit 20 people and we had to walk down the aisle half bent over.

      We could see the pilots until they pulled their curtain. I was scared until we took off and it was actually quite smooth. We could see the sea and other islands the whole time, which was nice. I took pictures.

     Turns out we were making two stops and the first stop was actually closer to our hotel so we debated trying to get off but we had a rental car waiting for us at Stella Maris, so we stayed on. Landing was rough and I was wishing we didn't have to do it again but I survived. They took one of our bags off the plane at Deadman's Cay but luckily Mark saw it and got up and told them it was ours.

     Turbulence, even though there was a bit more of it when we got underneath the clouds, was almost easier to handle in the smaller plane because it was more understandable. In the end we were glad to have landed about an hour north of our hotel because it was nice to see a lot of the island right away. And we weren't too tired to drive. Well, Mark drove. Probably too much excitement. We rented from Omar, who does lots of things, I have since found out. He gave us a Mustang! We have named him Macho Camacho.

     We were on a very bumpy dirt road yesterday and I thought he deserved a name for his efforts.

     We got to Gems at Paradise probably around 5 and checked in. Shavonne talked to us a lot and by that time I was losing it. We got into our room and finally collapsed on the bed around 5:45. We slept until 6:30, when we had to get up and get ready for dinner, which was at 7. We were the only guests at dinner. I had jerk-style grouper and he had jerk-style chicken, both with Bahamian peas and rice and salad. It was good, and a lot. We still have leftovers in the fridge, plus two other boxes since then. Everyone seems to serve a lot of food here.

     After dinner we went for a quick dip in the sea but it was getting dark so we headed back to the room.

End of day 1 :)

I had a lovely weekend a couple weeks ago and I wanted to share it. This semester I've been observing at Alternatives in Action High School. They have a couple of co-directors and one of them is an awesome guy who owns property in Ukiah. He takes up to twenty students at a time for weekend trips, and as many adults as want to come. When I went, we had a really good adult-to-student ratio - I think it was 12 adults and 17 students. The director's parents-in-law live on the property and some of their family friends stopped by on Saturday night as well, which was also cool. They're the kind of family I love - musical, natural, calm, happy...well, they seemed happy, anyway. :) Here are some pictures from my weekend:

In the front yard

A little country decoration

The outdoor kitchen

Some of the family instruments

One of the students playing a drum in the main room of the barn

A couple of the students hanging out at the fire pit

The art teacher and her husband and dog

The cottage on the property, with its' outdoor bathtub :)

The hiking group

Hike destination: waterfall

A beautiful view we ran into by getting temporarily lost :)

This is when I discovered I love manzanita trees :)

Heating up the pizza oven

Tired puppy

The director's brother-in-law (I think)

The director's mother-in-law, who lives on the property, teaching a couple of the girls how to make pizza dough

One of the students helping a family friend shell bay nuts

One of the students on the pond

The students' pottery getting ready to be fired

Some students hanging out by the fire pit with a couple of musicians in the background

A teacher with three students getting pizza ingredients ready

Family & friend providing the soundtrack

My fellow observer with a family cousin rolling out dough

The school director pulling the fire out of the oven

Pizza, ready to be cooked!

 That's all I've got :) We ended up doing some drama therapy exercises after eating pizza and it's too bad I didn't get any pictures of it, but I was busy participating. It was a lovely weekend even though I got tired of being surrounded by people I barely knew. I definitely want to go back up to the area with Mark.

Afterlife

I had a nice conversation with my friend Rob yesterday about spirituality, and I want to share it here so I don't lose it (just a warning, not all of it is genius):



Rob: I just heard a great quote:
“If God is the frontier of what we have yet to understand in the universe to you, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.” - Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Erin: I think it’s too early for me to fully comprehend that. (this was at like 8:15 in the morning)

Rob: You should read it later then. Have you heard of that scientist? He’s one of my heroes.

Erin: No, I have no idea who that is. Why is he one of your heroes?
I think it’s just taking me a while, it gets better every time I re-read it. I’m not sure I completely get the comparison though.

Rob: He’s a brilliant scientist and a big advocate of science education. Which is important I think, as I think our society is getting more and more ignorant and stupid. In fact, he said that the quickest growing segment of the home-schooled population is from parents who don’t want their children being taught evolution. That’s frightening to me.

Erin: Oh yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. So I forget, are you not religious/spiritual at all?

Rob: Not really. I subscribe to what I call the “Church of I Don’t Know”….there may or may not be a God, but if there is one I doubt that humans can understand it at all. More than likely, what I think would happen when you die is that you just go to sleep. That sounds fine to me. :)

Erin: Ooh. That does not sound fine to me. I hope there’s an afterlife.

Rob: Do you think you need to “worship” to get to that afterlife?

Erin: Not really.

Rob: I think it’s more important to just be good. :)

Erin: I think so too. I guess I haven’t decided how I think we get to that afterlife. I just assume we all go there. I don’t think I distinguish between good and bad people. Check this out!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html

Rob: That’s interesting. :)

Erin: Gives me hope :)

Rob: That’s good. :)
So you think you’d go to the same afterlife as say, Hitler?

Erin: Well, he’d be nice there. That’s what the afterlife does.

Rob: Hmm. Interesting. :)

Erin: And he would feel very bad about what he’d done, and he would do something extra good there, like…take care of all the kids who died before their parents or something.

Rob: That’s a good plan. I’d approve of that. :)


I think I might have ended up figuring out what sort of afterlife I believe in. I didn't realize it until this conversation. :) It's kind of a nice feeling.

This is why I want to have a daughter :)

Red-and-Yellow White Bread

This is my latest loaf of bread. I posted a picture on Facebook and one of my friends asked for the recipe, so I thought I'd put it on here so I can link it to Pinterest as well! I'll actually contribute something semi-original to Pinterest! Well, the recipe isn't mine, but the blog post will be, so I figure that's semi-original.

Sidenote: also, seriously, watched the first episode of Homeland last night and I'm obsessed. I can't stop thinking about it. Mark said the second episode would be my reward when I get my homework done. :)

On to bread-making! So the recipe came from page 614 of The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins. Here's a picture of how it came out:

It looks so pretty! And it tastes good too, luckily. Be warned, it takes about...two hours and 45 minutes to make. I didn't realize that when I started it at 8 pm on Thursday night, so I ended up getting it into the pan and then putting it in the fridge to finish the process later. I didn't end up remembering it until late Saturday night, so I took it out of the fridge and then it was too cold to rise, so I left it out overnight and finally baked it Sunday morning. It seems to have turned out fine, I don't think all that waiting hurt it any. I felt it was okay to do that because of this little blurb from page 615 of the cookbook called "Bread Shouldn't Knead You." (yes, this cookbook is very clever):

"We used to think of bread baking as an all-day chore. Not that it took all our time, but we thought we had to be there with it. Then we discovered bread needed time, but it didn't really need us. Bread making will fall into your schedule. You can mix the dough in the morning, go play tennis or run errands," (sidenote: I want these authors' lives) "come home to punch it down, shape it, and leave it to rise again. If the rise is going too fast, put the dough in the refrigerator to slow it down. Cold doesn't kill yeast - heat does. When you are ready for the bread, just take it out of the refrigerator to continue its rise."

So I felt okay leaving it in the fridge like that. I learn something new every time! Okay, and what we've all been waiting for:

THE RECIPE

(straight from the cookbook)

We've added egg yolks for a richer flavor and spiked the taste with a bit of cayenne. They both add color, too, to this sandwich bread, perfect for slicing and toasting.

1 package active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/4 teaspoon sugar

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

5 to 6 tablespoons milk

  

1. Stir the yeast, warm water, and sugar together in a small bowl. Set the mixture aside until the yeast starts foaming, 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Combine the flour, salt, and cayenne in a large bowl. Stir in the yeast mixture, butter, egg yolks, and enough of the milk to form a mass of sticky dough. Let it stand for ten minutes.

3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes. If the dough is sticky, sprinkle it lightly with more flour as you work.

4. Lightly oil a large bowl and turn the dough in it to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl loosely with a kitchen towel and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

5. Oil a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan.

6. Punch the dough down and shape it into a loaf. Press it into the prepared pan. Cover it loosely and let the dough rise until it nearly fills the pan, 45 to 60 minutes.

7. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

8. Bake the bread until it is golden and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped with your finger, 35 to 40 minutes.

9. Remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

1 loaf

So, my experience was that I used all 6 tablespoons of milk. I used almond milk, which seemed to work fine. I actually haven't made any bread with regular milk yet though, so maybe I'm just used to the way it comes out with almond milk. Either way, it works fine. I've eaten four loaves of bread made with almond milk so far and enjoyed every one. I also didn't let the butter cool to room temperature, so it might end up being even better if you did that. I can't think of any other specific tips, so if you have any questions, please ask! And enjoy!

Food and Love

So...I want to tell you guys about the night I got engaged. :) When I took these pictures I didn't know it was going to be the night I got engaged but I was excited to use them in this post.
It was our two-year anniversary and Mark surprised me (or tried to surprise me, but I was pretty sure about where we were going - and very happy to see when I was right!) by taking me to Chez Panisse! Any foodie in the Bay area (and many places beyond) would understand my excitement.

Okay, so here's dinner, in order:

Cherry tomatoes. All by themselves. The food here is so simple. Oh, and it's prix fixe.

Summer squash tart with dried cured olives and mesclun

A white wine the (server? sommelier? we weren't really sure!) wanted us to try and we really liked it

Pacific grouper with new potatoes, green beans, and sauce bourride

Mark's expression while eating fish, which he doesn't even normally like (this is a good expression, although it might look like he's in pain)

Grilled Wolfe Ranch quail marinated in juniper with polenta, Little Gems braised with pancetta and roasted porcini mushrooms

My view of the kitchen. This one's going on Flickr!

Very happy. And full.

Cloud 8. Cloud 9 comes later :)

Cloud 8 1/2 was when we got to tour the kitchen! Too bad the quail chef's face is blurry

There were some ladies having dinner in the kitchen. They were friends of Alice's I guess, and there were no tables available, so they got special treatment :)

They were all so nice!

I guess I forgot to take a picture of dessert. It went too fast. This is coffee (specially blended for Chez Panisse by Blue Bottle) with cherries and mini biscotti)

Here's cloud 9! This picture was taken about 2 minutes after he proposed on Indian Rock, by a bunch of high schoolers who were very excited for us. :)

He put pink sapphires on the sides because pink is my favorite color :) (and yes, I painted my nails after the fact)

Hand over my heart, which this ring is connected to :)

Food sites I want to remember

http://pastoralplate.com/
The pick-up sites for this CSA are not convenient for us, but what is convenient is that I can just order whenever, I don't have to subscribe to a monthly service. So I figure if I ever know I'm going to have some free time on their next delivery day and I can drive to go pick stuff up, I can order.

http://www.zerocater.com/
Our company is so bad at ordering food. Someone always forgets to pay ahead of time and then the admin person designated for pick-up ends up having to put it on their credit card, or someone forgets to order in time, or someone couldn't figure out where to go...this place would just be so much easier.