Melyssa-with-a-Y

Did you know that I have lovely things hidden away in my fridge/freezer? No, it's not (always) science-project-style growth -- but I sometimes forget that the stuff is there. Yesterday, I found a small bag of spinach that had to be cooked post-haste. Voila! Spinach with garlic and olive oil! (mom's quick recipe) This afternoon, I took the pork loin out of the freezer, to see if I could maybe come up with something to make for dinner. Voila again! Cooking Light's Smothered Pork Chops with Thyme . (I had pork loin, not chops, but same basic idea.) Add some brown rice, and you get a well-rounded, home-cooked meal. And to drink, Timbuktu Small Block White (Chardonnay), which I got at World Markets and stuck in the fridge for just such an occassion. (I think I bought it because I liked the car on the label.) :) In the meantime, when I haven't been on the phone with a newly-discovered Nice Jewish Boy*, I've been knitting Widdershins socks. (can't knit and hold the ph...

First comes the news that, according to some Rabbis in Europe, pot should not be smoked at Passover . D'oh! I know the rules about not eating bread, or anything with leavening (or anything that puffs up when you cook it, like corn or rice), but the rabbis saw fit to add hemp seeds to the list, so marijuana is definitely out. [Besides, would you really want to have the munchies during a week when tortilla chips are prohibited? I didn't think so.] Then, it seems that an enterprising Rabbi in New York decided to turn a school bus into a matzah oven . Seems he's been using it for a few years -- and as long as he can recruit an engineer to help him set it up, and move it 10 ft. away from the house, he can go back to using it! Oy vey. Most matzah tastes bad enough without the added aroma of old school bus. Finally, if you have little kids coming to your Seder, and you need a cute way to explain the 10 plagues on Egypt (heh. I used "cute" and "plagues" in the ...

I went home for the weekend, for the annual political memorabilia show that I organize. (Odd, but the co-chairs of the National Capital Chapter of APIC live in Austin, TX and Harrisburg, PA. The age of the Internet!) To save some dough, I flew home via JFK on JetBlue. I forgot how much I love JetBlue. I watched some Food Network, a little Bravo, and the NCAA basketball tourney on my flights. [Hours 1-3] The flight from JFK to DC was delayed a little, but Bryan picked me up and we still made it to dinner at Colvin Run by 8:15. Norman made me drink red wine. (He really twisted my arm.) It was a lovely Pinot Noir. Bryan and I both had the tuna 3-ways appetizer. (Teri, you would LOVE this.) And then he always has the duck for his entree. Always. I had a decidedly southwestern-style chili-rubbed pork loin and stuffed pepper. Norman had a blue cheese salad and then lobster consomme. Then we had dessert. The boys had chocolate mousse with banana ice cream. I had a chocolate-peanut-b...

... at least if you're a Republican in Congress. It seems House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming -- but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change , Gilchrest said. (Gilchrist, having more than half a brain, couldn't say that. Good for him.) Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a research scientist from Maryland, and Michigan's Rep. Vern Ehlers, the first research physicist to serve in Congress, also made cases for a seat, but weren't appointed. [ Ehlers is my one GOP player on Fantasy Congress ! :) ] "Roy Blunt said he didn't think there was enough evidence to suggest that humans are causing global warming," Gilchrest said. "Right there, holy cow, there's like 9,000 scientists to three on that one." It's called a Bipartisan committee for a reason. Really, I know it's always a little crazy in...

As I was driving back home to pickup my laptop this morning (need... more.... coffee...) I heard a news blip on NPR that was a little bit shocking. It seems that Hooters will shortly be opening in Tel Aviv. "I strongly believe that the Hooters concept is something that Israelis are looking for," Ofer Ahiraz, who bought the Hooters franchise for Israel, told Reuters Monday. "Hooters can suit the Israeli entertainment culture." (Reuters) From the article, it sounds like they will be avoiding Jerusalem and very religious neighborhoods. I can just imagine the Orthodox Jews flipping out about the skimpy little waitress outfits. Oy vey. * and the answer is yes, wings can be kosher, as long as you don't eat them with creamy dressing. But the Hooters wings won't be kosher anyway.

Friday night Alex took me out for a belated birthday night. We went to a Cuban restaurant on 6th Street. We had mojitos (he'd never had one), I had ropa vieja with platanos fritos, and he had a traditional Cuban pork sandwich. I haven't had good Cuban food since my business trips to Miami in 2002-2003. This was excellent. We had to take our desserts "to-go" ... which is fine with a coconut empanada, but not so good with the flan. (So he gave his flan to another diner in the restaurant.) We'll definitely have to go back there. Then we went to Esther's Follies , but it wasn't the regular comedy show, it was the Latino Comedy Project . It was hilarious. We laughed SO hard -- fortunately A is not bothered by the fact that I laugh really loudly -- he was louder than I was! There were some anti-Dubya jokes and songs (there's one white guy in the group, so he got to be Shrub), and some fake "commercials," which you can see on their website. They did...

Saturday night was our monthly Supper Club dinner. We hemmed and hawed about a topic for weeks, from Irish foods (corned beef and cabbage, potatoes, beer....) to "Hamburger and Pickle Month," before we settled on Easter and Passover foods. I made a wonderful Moroccan Lamb dish that I originally discovered in mom's New York Times Passover cookbook. It's like Passover lasagna - layer of matzah, then ground lamb with tomatoes and spices, then roasted eggplant slices, and repeat. It's pretty labor-intensive, since the ingredients have to be cooked before you layer them. (I have noticed that I manage to pick the most labor-intensive dishes for supper club!) I held on to the recipe because the lamb with tomatoes filling is really tasty, and I thought I would make it even when it wasn't Passover. Hm. I forgot that ground lamb is not inexpensive. The rest of the menu: devilled eggs and kulich (Russian Easter bread), smoked fish spreads (with matzoh), mini macaro...

Yes, I am a geek. I know this, and I freely admit it. But sometimes it is more blindingly obvious than other times. And my geekiness spans a wide array of topics. Today, for example. I learned how to log in to our supercomputer at work, so I can have an idea of how many jobs we run at any given time, and how many processors each job is using. It's an interesting data point, which may be useful when I go out and talk to people. But mostly I just thought it was really cool! I sometimes wish I had taken more computer science courses in college, but then I probably wouldn't have been able to spend a semester in Spain. Then, I went and logged in to Fantasy Congress . ( MZ pointed me to this site, knowing full well that I'd get hooked !) My team ("Austin Rocks") is the #1 team in the Texas league. You will notice that I have picked a lot of Dems. All but one, actually. Vern Ehlers is my one Republican team member, and he's a big champion of Science, so he gets a ...

Wouldn't you know it? As soon as 'Inconvenient Truth' won an Oscar, a right wing hack organization issued a statement saying that Al Gore's family home in Tennessee uses "more than 20 times the national average" kWh of electricity per year. ( I refuse to add the link to this drivel to give them more traffic!) And who picked it up and ran with it? The Drudge Report, of course, Rush Limbaugh, and many other "anything-liberal-is-bad" news organizations. On the HuffingtonPost, David Roberts gives some pertinent talking points to refute this ridiculous allegation. Here are my favorites: The Tennessee Tax Dept. does not consider the "Tennessee Center for Policy Research," which roughly no one had heard of before this, a legitimate group. It's run by a long-time right-wing attack hack, and its only registered address is a P.O. box. Why is everyone in the media taking what it says about Gore's electricity use at face value? Gore's e...

Last Friday, a bunch of us watched An Inconvenient Truth . Very timely, as it turns out, since the movie won an Oscar on Sunday night! I had a flurry of thoughts as I watched it. One, I should have watched this movie long ago. (duh) Two, I wish I could ride a bus to work or use some other form of public transportation. But at least I go from place to place quickly and don't sit in traffic, adding to the carbon dioxide problems. I am going to go to the website and try to offset my carbon emissions . $9 a month is pretty affordable to help the Earth, even a little bit. Three, I miss Al. It's hard to explain. I worked for him in the Senate ('91), went to NYC for the convention in '92, worked again in the VP's office ('93), for the '96 campaign and the '97 Inaugural. I went to high school with his daughters. As I sat there listening to him give the global warming presentation, I couldn't help but think that if he had won in 2000 (who am I kidding, he D...

Sunday night was Oscar night, and my birthday! and that's all I needed -- a great excuse to have a party! For the party, the food had to be themed according to the Best Picture nominees. (I had a good three weeks to think about this, after all...) Babel: Since the movie takes place in Morocco, Japan and Mexico, I had plenty to choose from. I served chips and guacamole and salsa. Letters from Iwo Jima: Sushi (I went to World Markets and got nice chopsticks) Little Miss Sunshine: Fried chicken (first big scene in the movie, they have fried chicken for dinner) and biscuits and cole slaw The Departed: Samuel Adams beer and Boston Cream Puffs (couldn't find the pie) The Queen: Walkers Butter Cookies and Sticky Toffee Pudding (yum! from a mix at World Markets) We also had Oscar ballots, so everyone could try to choose the winners. I wrapped up some goofy prizes, (most correct answers, best picture, best director, fewest correct answers) but by the time the Oscar show ended, ever...

• A-Available/Single? Available. • B-Best Friend? Kelly. Since we were 4. That's nearly THIRTY YEARS! Yikes! :) • C-Cake or Pie? Cake, please. Yellow, with chocolate icing. • D-Drink Of Choice? G&T • E-Essential Item You Use Everyday? Does the Internet count as an item? • F-Favorite Color? Red. • G-Gummy Bears Or Worms? Bears. Or sours, if I can find them. • H-Hometown? Washington, DC. • I-Indulgence? Pumpkin spice latte. Once a year. • J-January Or February? February. Birthday month :) • K-Kids & Their Names? None, but I'm making a list of names with Y's in them for future reference. • L-Life Is Incomplete Without? Laughter. • M-Marriage Date? see letter A. • O-Oranges Or Apples? Apple, if we're talking pies. Orange if we're talking Bowls. • P-Phobias/Fears? Spiders and things that go bump in the night. • Q-Favorite Quote? Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did - only she did it backwards, in high heels! • R-Reason to Smile? My nieces. • S-Season? ...

My 33rd year (technically, it was my 34th year, if you consider that a person's first year is between birth and age 1) was a pretty good one. It was something of a roller-coaster, but overall I'm happy with the way it ended up. There were weddings ( Ryan & Becky, Stu & Jenny ), babies ( Max K., Callie W., Cebrina B., Gabriel C., Claire B .), trips ( Orlando, Tampa, LA/SD, Boston ), and a BIG MOVE (and an awesome road trip with my cool cousin M.). I've made new friends, found some old friends again, and lost some friends along the way. I surprised myself by learning to knit new things ( socks, cables ), cook new things ( chicken lettuce wraps, avocado-tomatillo salsa ) and build new things ( bookcases, desks ). So, now that I'm 34, I will: Meet some of babies mentioned above; travel to new cities; see more live music here in Austin; knit more new things (socks with cables!); cook more new things; meet more new people; and have fun at my job. I will also fina...

or, "If you follow the flock, you could end up a lamb chop." or, "If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes." Yes, Dad. I know, Dad. (those were my responses.) All of that started at a very early age, along with a small collection of buttons that said "Question Authority." When I was in high school, Dad cut out a paragraph from a newspaper interview with Margaret Thatcher . She said that her father had taught her "never to do things because other people are doing them; do what you think is right and persuade others to follow you." The last line of the paragraph (which I still have to this day) said, "It was a tough upbringing." I guess all of Dad's insistence on "go your own way" and "question authority" has managed to force these concepts into my subconscious. I firmly believe that just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't mean there isn't a better way to do it...

Newsweek, in a bid to garner some of the audience that enjoys all of those makeover shows (including my personal fave, What Not To Wear ), decided that Kim Jong Il needed a makeover for his 65th Birthday. So they asked some well-regarded designers (though not as well known as Versace, Hilfiger or Armani) to give him updated looks. The results are, well, frightening. Go to the Newsweek website and click on the link to "Fiercing the Veil", in the lower right. (You can pause the audio as soon as it starts, or you can listen to why the design ers chose the looks they did. ) Here's a sample. (Is that a rocket in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?)

I made chicken pot pie! Four of them, actually. Weight Watchers individual-sized chicken pot pies , in little ramekins. Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven: Aren't they purty? And when I cut one open, it looked perfect, and tasted just as good. The topping is easy, made with Pillsbury biscuits sliced in half. Slicing the biscuits in half is probably the hardest part! I used the knife that attacked me to cut up the chicken, and at that point I remembered that cutting up chicken was precisely why I bought the new knife... the others were much too dull. It worked beautifully. AND, I cleaned it and put it away without incident. Phew. Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful Saturday... I went to HCW and picked up another skein of the white yarn so I can finish the flag socks. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't leave HCW having only bought one little skein of yarn. :) I got six skeins of 3 lovely shades (2 of each, not 6 of each!) of Berroco "Lo...

Ok, that just sounds weird. Almost as weird as the thought of Tony Danza playing the role of Max Bialystock in the Producers . As one columnist said, "I wish that was a joke, but it's not." I get it, he's a song-and-dance man. I wish I could say confidently that he's a good actor, but with only Who's the Boss as reference, who knows? Having seen the Broadway production more than once (with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick) :) , I just wonder how the audience will react -- particularly to a skinny Max. Many of the jokes are funnier because Max is a bit... zaftig. But if Susan Stroman thinks he can do it, then I wish him well. After all, Matthew Broderick's first run was really a direct channeling of Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom in the (original) movie . It took him a while to make the role his own. So good luck, Tony. (oops, I mean, "Break a leg!") While we're on the subject, Uma Thurman as Ulla in the new movie ? AWFUL. I will say that Will ...

MZ sent me this "Spell with flickr" site today. Write your name (or whatever other text you like) in the box and click "spell." You get something like this: But wait, there's more! Once you have your word spelled out, you can refresh the page and get all new images, or you can click on each letter individually to see different versions.

When I was working at the Council on Competitiveness two years ago, we produced a little 8-minute film explaining how high performance computing affects everyday life . [Most of you know this, because I have forced you to watch it at least once!] DreamWorks Animation was on our Advisory Committee, and they very kindly offered to help us put the video together -- and we got to use the "Psychotic Penguins" from Madagascar in the film. March of the Penguins came out around the same time, and then Happy Feet . So these little tuxedo-clad waddlers are everywhere! My mother decided that as long as I was going to be associated with this HPC video, I should start a collection of penguins. I'll admit, I didn't fight her very hard on this, because a) penguins are cute, b) I work in an industry where the penguin symbol is well-known , and c) she's not really serious. Right? I momentarily forgot that I come from a family of collectors, and no matter how hard I fight th...

because apparently I have a really sweet slice! heh. Last weekend I bought a nice new chef's knife. My old one was a Betty Crocker piece of crap and I never used it -- the blade was strangely serrated, which isn't at all how a real chef's knife is supposed to be. So I got a gorgeous Kitchen-Aid one with a red handle . I never understood when chefs said the knife should be heavy and feel good in your hand, until I held this one. And boy, it works well. I cut up those green beans in a flash on Tuesday night. Cut up everything else in sight, too, including my finger! OUCH! It wasn't so much in cutting the food, it was in cleaning the knife that I did damage. Instead of wiping off the knife from the back, I had the blade facing the sponge. (My ever-supportive father said, "I thought you were smarter than that." Thanks, dad. :) ) This knife is probably sharper than any other I have ever owned -- which only makes it worse, because if that's the case I definitel...