Our life in Seattle: Family Visit, Baking, Electronics and Puppies!

Good thing I'm keeping busy on the weekends because my food service rotation is going to feel very very long. Its only been two weeks and I'm 100% sure that a career in hospital food service management is NOT in my future. I was pretty sure already, but now there is no doubt. There is little room in a hospital for promoting the type of eating that I believe in. Its wasteful of resources and full of processed food. In an effort to save labor time, many hospitals make very few foods from scratch anymore.

My parents visited again this weekend. We went out to their favorite breakfast spot, Esselon and then back later in the day for coffee. They can't get enough of Esselon! They have never been to Smith College Art Museum, so even though I've been before I went straight to my favorite paintings and stared. I couldn't find images of the exact paintings, so here are some by the artists I like.

by Camille Pissaro

Village on the Banks of the Seine. 1872 by Alfred Sisley

An out of doors study, John Singer Sargent.

The South Ledges, Appledore by Childe Hassam. American Impressionism

On Saturday night we went out to for some mediocre Indian food in downtown and then to the Calvin Theatre to see Ira Glass. He might be coming to a theater near you and I highly recommend seeing him if you can. http://www.barclayagency.com/glass.html. He is truly gifted at telling stories. Although I guess if you have never heard of him and you are not an NPR listener, it may not be the same experience. In that case I suggest listening to his weekly radio show and you will be hooked. I learned from his show how he structures his stories, so maybe I can make my blog posts more interesting by taking some tips from him.

Did you think you were going to get away without some flyball talk? Nah! So Anyway, my favorite things about flyball are having a happy dog with a job and the team aspect. Coming to a new part of the country and getting started with flyball is awkward at first without a team. Now that I have been here for a few months, I am excited that Indy and I found a team that has invited us to join them until we leave next summer. It will be especially fun because she is going to be on a really fast team, faster than any team that will happen with Jet City Jumpers anytime soon. Speed is definitely not my top priority (although it does make it more exciting) when it comes to flyball....its about the people and the dogs having fun. I'm very fortunate to have met such awesome flyball people here in Mass and to be able to go back and join our flyball friends in Seattle next year (that is of course if they let me back on the team after being mavericky and racing with another team).

This weekend we had a scrimmage, where Indy had a chance to practice with her new team and her new handler. Somehow I managed to schedule my next three vacations during flyball tournaments, so Amanda is going to run Indy for me. At least Indy gets to travel while Im traveling!

Since I have so much time on my hands when I'm not doing something with Indy or interning. I have been working on my baking and cooking skills. On Friday I made banana bread, not that exciting but I found a really good recipe on foodnetwork.com and I bought bananas even though I don't really like them and am trying to not buy them to support local agriculture, so I ended up with almost rotten bananas that I felt bad about eating. I promise.....no more bananas and I'll even swear off mangos! Don't mess with my sugar, chocolate, coffee or spices though, that would be crazy.

Yummy Buttery Banana Bread

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for preparing the pan
1 cup sugar
3 very ripe bananas, peeled, and mashed with a fork (about 1 cup)
1/2 cup toasted walnut pieces and a few handfuls of chocolate chips (everything is better with chocolate)

Directions

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl, set aside. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a liquid measuring cup with a spout, set aside. Lightly brush a 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan with butter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or with an electric hand-held mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually pour the egg mixture into the butter while mixing until incorporated. Add the bananas (the mixture will appear to be curdled, so don't worry), and remove the bowl from the mixer.

With a rubber spatula, mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the nuts and chocolate chips and transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Turn the bread out of the pan and let cool completely on the rack.

There is no good segue for this topic so I'm just going for it.....I am really frustrated with the limitations of my camera, so with the help of Kenneth (my father in-law) I decided to get a Nikon. Im pretty sure it will be the D60 or D80 . So watch out for some better photos soon!

While I'm at it I wouldn't mind a Canon VIXIA HV MiniDV HD Camcorder. Just as soon as I get a job (not in food service management)....this will be the first thing I get. I think Ben and I would regret it if we didn't have videos to record our life together. Its only $541 on sale from $900.

We just got a picture of pregnant Dare. Her pups are due on 1/22! Isn't she pretty? Ben is patiently waiting to find out if his new puppy is in there! I' m expecting some major blog contributions from Ben if he gets the pup. So we can watch him/her grow up.