Tagine Fever!

So, Paul's birthday was a couple weeks ago. His parents, my in-laws, brought over his gift - then we watched the Vanderbilt game and went to McCabe. I'm so sorry everyone can't have the Mother-in-Law experience I do. She's seriously one of my best friends.

After they gifted Paul, there was a large Williams-Sonoma box they said was for me - they'd found it while walking in the mall. It was a TAGINE! I don't remember if we'd registered for it or not, but it was very welcome nonetheless because I've definitely considered one over the years. Additionally, there was tagine spice and an apricot sauce, both from W-S. We were surprised - and all set :)

So last night we got around to trying it out. I bought a whole chicken (which meant we had it for dinner last night, lunch today and Joannie had it for lunch today, too) and prepared it according to the instructions on the aforementioned sauce. Sorry if the pictures are a little bright (I'm no Pioneer Woman!) but trust me, they looked and WERE delicious!

So here we are - in four pictures that you'd have to smell to believe!


brown the seasoned chicken (in batches) first...


then pour the sauce over it...



doin' it's thing... for an impossibly long hour and a half! Luckily, we had this to tide us over.



...and the finished product - serve with toasted almonds and basmati rice, and you've got dinner! Thanks again, y'all! :)

The BEST Super Bowl Ad!

Father had an awesome homily yesterday (based on, as usual, the day's Gospel reading) about how many commercials during the game will be inundating us with messages of who they think we are or should be - a discerning consumer (e.g., TV selection), too much (weight loss/working out), too little (restaurants), etc.
He exhorted us all to remember that Jesus said we ARE salt -
we ARE light - not that you will be or could be or if you only had enough x or y it'll happen - but that WE ARE. Just so wonderful.

But we watched the ads anyway, if for nothing more than we like ads. I'd like to think we're not swayed by them. Paul would disagree, but then again, he does have to corral me at the "impulse" stations in the checkout lane at any store we go to. Paul also had a great observation last night that the cost of making one ad and paying its airtime would feed the entire nation of Eritrea for a year. And he's probably right.

The ads weren't that great this year. I think the latter half of the game made up for it. The football was better then, and we made these (I'd NEVER had a sloppy joe. These were excellent!)
Thankfully, too I missed Christina Aguilera's flub earlier in the broadcast because I was at the grocery store.

But this ad was the greatest, and lo and behold there's actually a fantastic story to accompany it. It's cut off for some reason; you may have to click it to see the full screen.

Here's the story. The child, who is simply adorable under his Vader gear, is actually a heart patient at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles.

Thought(s) for the day: Sacrifice and Humility vs. Self-love

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it:

and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."

Matthew 16:25

"Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glorifies in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God... the one delights in its own strength... the other says to its God,

'I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.'

Psalm 18:1 and St. Augustine's City of God

"World history... is a struggle between two kinds of love - love of self that ends in hatred of God, and love of God that ends in renunciation of self. The second love is the redemption of the world and of the self."

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Co-workers of the Truth

Thursday Evening Adventures!

Last night I:

• got a haircut
• ate a hotdog
• saw incredible live music
• cleaned blood off my dog after she mutilated a rabbit

Yeah. Now you're interested.

We'd long planned to go see the Tony Rice Unit with John and Sarah Beth at the Belcourt. In fact, it was Bugs and Lana's Christmas gift to Daddy. Tony Rice is amazing. Just sample the tracks from this album (or this one) if you don't believe me - but when have I ever lead you wrong before?
(don't answer that, actually)

So after my haircut, we were getting ready to go have dinner at the awesome Dog of Nashville before the show. You can see exploits from the 'Dog over at Joannie's blog (WOW, two "hat tips" in a week, Joannie!) but it is really, really good and highly recommended. Get the onion rings!

I hear Paul yell from outside, and, sure enough, Bugs has cornered, killed and maimed what we estimate to be a 5+ pound rabbit. We can make estimations because Paul was trying to wrestle the rabbit's leg from Lana's mouth with his grill tongs. It's every bit as disgusting (and hilarious) as it sounds.
Hey, at least the Bukus was sharing.

They like to share, although they act like they don't. They're nothing but parasites, actually. She'll give her sister a rabbit leg, so long as she can lean on her when she gets lazy.
Very symbiotic (although they're the same species...)
(so whatever that word is)

Anyway, to make up for that disturbing story, here's some YouTube videos of Tony Rice. The first two are with Larry Keel, who is awesome - Paul used to see him all the time in college and we saw him when we were in Lexington for Paul's 10-year reunion last fall. They're playing Miles Davis' All Blues, which if it's not one of your favorite songs, it should be.





And here's one similar to what we heard last night:





So, on another, happier note: If you've made it this far, please say a prayer for the success of this weekend's St. Thomas Aquinas Theological and Catechetical Formation Program. Several of our friends and co-workers will be presenting and I know they would appreciate your prayers, as well as prayers for good weather, all the speakers and attendees, and that God would be glorified as we examine the writings and example of His servant Pope Benedict.

March for Life 2011

A great time-lapse video of last week's March for Life. Nashville's wasn't that large, obviously (nor was it outside...) but this is amazing. The Franciscans who made the video said it took the march an hour and a half to pass their cameras.

(I guess here's where I give Joannie the hat-tip!)

"Relax. Don't Worry... Have a Home brew!"

These words are found throughout this book, one of Paul's Christmas gifts. My boss is an avid home brewer, and it's something Paul's always been curious about. After seeing Paul's reaction to the book (pretty enthusiastic, if a little hesitant!) I took the opportunity to set him up with his own home brew items for his birthday last week. With the guidance of my boss, I was well on my way to either delicious homemade beer or a kitchen nightmare. Thankfully, no one was harmed in the making of the beer, although Elle supervised her Daddy and Uncle Paul's antics and occasionally wept... loudly... for their efforts.

This will be a picture-intensive post, in case you couldn't gather - I'm going to try to recount the events as best I can, and hope that Paul (nor my boss) laughs too loudly if I get something wrong. Paul and Jon did it right, and that's what matters... right?

Well, before we do anything you have to look at my flowers.

Okay. Very pretty. Now, here's how it all went down, more or less:

The carboy being sanitized in the guest bath tub. EVERYTHING, as you can imagine, had to be sanitized. Ladies: If you're ever thinking of doing this, be sure you have regular bleach on hand. Paul was pretty miffed that he was going to have to sanitize his manly brewing supplies with "springtime fresh" bleach, but luckily we had some normal ol' clorox so he was spared.


Let's get the party started! My boss said Paul definitely needs a "brewing buddy", and it SHOULDN'T be me. While I got to stir a little bit, and really get in the way trying to get dinner on the table for our guests, Jon filled the role a lot better than I could...


...although, if you know these two, it was still total shenanigans.

Here are four successive pictures of what happened next involving the crystal and chocolate malt extracts. Later, we added hops to the mix. We're using Willamette Hops, as in Willamette, OR, (which was great because we picked up Jon some unbelievably delicious Blue Cheese from that region for his birthday earlier Saturday, at Corrieiri's - but I digress) and in case you need to be reminded of the pronunciation:

Cursing and beer making... the blog has definitely taken a classy turn in 2011. Anyway:

Starts out innocent enough, in muslin bags.

Getting a little color to it...

OK, a lot of color... and starting to get real warm, too...

Time to SQUEEZE all that flavor out. I've already mentioned how classy the blog is in 2011, but I guess this pic gives opportunity to do it again.




Adding the nut brown extract. It had to warm up for a while in warm water in the sink - it was a six pound pouch of oozy gooey stuff that kind of tasted like sorgum. Oh, and the hops tasted like having a wheat stem in your mouth. You think I wasn't going to taste all this first? Don't worry, I was careful not to mess with the sanitizing aspect of things!

But at this point, you really have to stir, stir, stir for an hour with the mix just at boiling to keep it constantly combined. We all took turns eating dinner and then stirring, so we broke the aforementioned "one brew buddy" rule from my boss, but it was for the sanity of all involved on their first time brewing. I managed to bake a couple batches of fresh cookies during all this, too. Oh, it was nightmarish. Never again will I cook and brew at the same time... and I'm looking at you, Dr. Smart, I know you advised me not to and I should have listened!


Then using a big funnel, the mix got from the brew pot to the carboy. I wasn't there for that part, but I did follow Paul (and take video!) (that you may or may not ever see!) moving it to the big closet.


In the closet... with our other junk.


In the closet this morning after he added the fermentation lock and yeast.

In two weeks, we'll be ready to bottle beer (in sanitized bottles, of course). And I must say, it DOES really look like beer, so I have every anticipation of us bottling it (and getting pizza as we do so... wow, just to say it again, I SO didn't listen to my boss and thought I could cook at the same time. Not fun in our tiny kitchen!) After the beer sits for about another two weeks, we can drink it... and give it to the people who all know about it and want to try. Most of the brewing supplies I got here, and it wasn't a terribly costly setup considering. This batch is in a 6 gallon carboy and ought to yield two cases of beer. While this will be a "brown ale", the mind (well, Paul's mind!) boggles at the possibilities - and with sites like this, I think we've inspiration aplenty!

We'll definitely keep you all posted on the first Downey-Gaston brewing adventure!

Pinkberry Party!

A few weeks ago, Paul and I were in Pinkberry and registered for a Pinkberry Party. Who knew that Paul would actually win, and so close to his birthday, too! You can imagine it was a pretty surreal experience to have them set up in our living room last Friday.





And you know I am my Mother's child - I have to have pretty flowers for every event, no matter how small :)