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First and foremost, Motion City Soundtrack released a killer single this week called "Inside Out." I highly recommend that you listen to it and buy it. And by all means see it live because it will make you shiver with delight. Weird? I DON'T THINK SO.

P.S. The cover art is rad too!

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My new year's eve plans are SET.

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Pinterest helped me pick out my latest iPhone case. I pinned several while shopping and one of them garnered close to 100 repins, the one I'm now holding that photo above. It felt like a sign, and kind of like a vote. Now that I have a sweet case and I upgraded to iOS7, I feel like I have a brand new phone. This feeling will likely last until the new iPhones begin appearing...tomorrow.

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I think GIFs are the only thing getting me through Fantasy Football this year. I'm losing terribly and it's my singular solace. So far I've been posting a lot of cats and Seinfeld GIFs on the message boards. They are mostly sad reaction GIFs.

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I get listless sometimes without a word from you. And then 4:30 rolls around and my inbox goes from " " to (1) and for some reason 27 words are all I need to brighten up again. My productivity skyrockets.

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Last night I came home and made coconut chicken curry from scratch. It came out a bit bland, but I am going to rev up the spices next time! I suppose I write these things down here for posterity's sake. I have a serious aversion to non-professional photos of food, so you will not see any photos of my cooking projects. All I have for you are words, reader!

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Last night Jesse, myself, and a few friends went 'round to a new bar in the neighborhood. It's selling point was really the fact that it had prosecco on tap. This is the second bar this week I've seen that boasts this feature, and if this is a new trend, consider me ON BOARD.

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I think tonight I'm going on a movie date with myself, one of my favorite activities.

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As you all know, I've been cooking more. Mainly in the interest of not eating processed or pre-packaged foods. I felt really accomplished last night because I made a lemon-walnut pesto, mozerella-stuffed meatballs, and zucchini fries. This is me tooting my own horn because I was all by myself at the time and just did a dance in the kitchen. The invisible hula-hoop dance, of course.

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Jesse arrived late from Chicago last night and had some of the cold (phenomenal) dinner, and then we watched Breaking Bad's latest episode. His first time, my second. What a heartbreaker. What an emotional wollop. What a show that in my eyes started out somewhat mediocre but became a brilliant bohemeth. Is the opposite trajectory happening to Mad Men? It certainly happened to Lost.

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The cold is creeping in. I love autumn, so I was extra-excited this morning to wear my suede Pour la Victoire oxfords. Not that I haven't been freezing all summer in my office's air conditioning. Jesse and I noticed we were both wearing navy shoes on the way back from happy hour this evening, too.

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I've been off my movie-going game. Good thing all the good stuff comes out in the fall, and I'm revving up. I still have to see Blue Jasmine, The Spectacular Now, In a World, and most importantly at the moment, Short Term 12. We'll see when I plan to fit this all in. It may start tonight with one of the above as I head home from work to meet up with Jesse in Brooklyn....

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I'm home now and I can tell you that we decided not to see a movie. After a nice early evening out with friends, we parked it on the couch. I didn't really like Brooklyn 99, but it's a pilot so I should give it more time. I still love The Mindy Project so much. Always. Forever.

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Yesterday I participated in an excercise called 10on10 on Tumblr, in which you post 10 random photos throughout your day - the 10th day of the month. It's a fun little documentation effort, and it's interesting to go back to other 10ths of past years. I saw that I've only participated four times before, and my first one was also a September 10th. I think it's one of those dates that I remember because I always know what date it leads to -- today.

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Last night was a great, inventive double date night! My mister gets all the credit for coming up with the idea: men cook, women relax. So simple, so brilliant! Kelly and I were able to rest, drink wine, hang out with Riggins the dog, and only ever so often yell answers to kitchen questions. We even installed some technology, and as we plugged in USBs and HDMIs we felt like this was the best traditional role reversal night ever.

The men were beyond successful: dinner was delicious. It was four-star, decadent, and fulfilling.

'By golly, boys, you might be better cooks than us. Geez Louise, you may have to do this more often!'

And the pride on their faces shined all night.

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P.S. My dessert was a hit, too!

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I'm nearly done with Junot Díaz's This is How You Lose Her and it's just wonderful and different. It makes me think in Spanish more and now I know I have to check out The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I have a few other books recommended and checked out of my friends' libraries. But, I'm always open to suggestions. Read anything good lately?

Art by Ekaterina Panikanova

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Notes from today so far:

My mother flew to Panama this week and we've been able to communicate via an iPhone application that texts over WiFi. Previously we've always had to use my dad as a go-between (if he wasn't with her). I'd call Dad and ask how Mom is doing and he'd update her on me on their next scheduled call. I'm glad I'm still able to be grateful for new technologies; sometimes it feels like the world is moving too fast to appreciate these relatively minor kind of advances, and some new technologies can be intimidating or scary.

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Mindy Kaling's book gave me a piece of a advice, and now I'm taking it. It's going pretty well, but end-results are still pending. Stay tuned.

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Last night I cooked not one, not two, but THREE Pinterest-found recipes. The execution went well, and two out of three had superb results. The third recipe will be tasted tonight and shall determine whether my success in the kitchen was all-encompassing.

Please note: any time I can cook without resulting in a Jessica Thinks She Can Cook installment is successful to ME. Fully proud of my growing abilities in the kitchen.

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A double date imminent for this evening: the boys will cook, the ladies will drink wine, and we'll see if my dessert turns out. To be honest, living without much sugar has made me only sweeter.

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A lot of my friends are getting sweet, sweet news lately. Is it my turn yet?

 

 

 

Photo by Tim Walker

Jessica Thinks She Can Cook 002

As you may remember from the first installment, reading and interpreting recipes FOR ME is similar to other people reading a foreign-language book with a dictionary. My dictionary is Google. And sometimes Amazon.

Last week I wanted to make a cauliflower-crusted pizza. In order to do so, I needed to stick some cauliflower in the food processor and then microwave it into a softness that would eventually be doughy. The next step of the recipe was apparently critical; here it is verbatim: Place the cooked cauliflower on a tea towel and roll it up then squeeze out as much of the water as possible…and I mean really, really squeeze as you want it as dry as possible.

I'm sure you're reading that direction and know exactly what to do.

I read it and I said out loud to myself, "I don't have no fancy tea towel!" and proceeded to spend close to 40 minutes and a whole roll of paper towels drying out the cauliflower.

THAT'S RIGHT, FOLKS. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT A TEA TOWEL LOOKED LIKE.

After de-watering the cauliflower rather painfully (it was also HOT!), I added the rest of the ingredients, spread the 'dough' on the pizza stone, and proudly stuck that sucker in the oven. I then set the timer, washed the used dishes, and turned to my phone to purchase a damn tea towel on Amazon.

And that's when I realized what a tea towel was, after an Amazon search.

It's just a kitchen towel, guys.

You guys.

I'm an idiot. You're welcome.

I made the pizza again last night! With brand new tea towels! Both times it was delicious, but the second time I was just so much more satisfied. Plus, it didn't take as long.

Until my next pathetic kitchen blunder, au revoir!

This was the second installment of Jessica Thinks She Can Cook. (001)

Stars may collide.

There are about five unfinished blog posts written over the last two weeks in my drafts folder. I looked over them as pieces of a puzzle for the time that passed; they don't really make sense together, but I'll put them together anyway. Consider it a digest of what I would have posted over the weeks. Maybe the end synthesis will bring some sort of connected message through the chaos. Maybe it will just be a jumble of brain thoughts from my noggin' that don't mean a gosh darn!

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My friends in A Great Big Pile of Leaves released their second album today last week, and much like their first, it's brilliant. You're Always On My Mind is a summer fun album and I hope you listen and enjoy because only awesome people will, and I trust that anybody reading here is awesome.

I'm glad such a great group of guys actually makes good music; it would be sad to tell you about crappy music. Instead, I feel very altruistic in my promotion of them to you. You're welcome!

Also, Pitchfork posted about them. As Ty Ty, friend and AGBPOL drummer would say, "BOOM!"

iTunes / Amazon / Sweet Topshelf Vinyl Package!!!!

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When Jesse first told me his band would be on the entire Warped Tour, I probably just said something like "ohhhhh really? That's...interesting..." and looked down at a thread on my jeans intently or stared at a fly buzzing around like I've seen Pee Wee do or laughed and skipped out of the room. Sometimes it's hard for me to hide my emotions. Honestly, it's a great festival, and I went to a few of them a decade or so ago (OLD), but here's what sucks about having a husband on the Warped Tour, since I'm asked a lot:

1. It's two whole months of him gone!
2. You've been to a music festival, right? Does your phone ever work/get a good signal?
3. It's in the summer, in what some might consider unbearable heat. (Las Vegas date of Warped this year had an asphalt temperature that was reportedly 154 degrees, just saying.) Please pair this condition with lack of regular showers.

Take all that together and then you've got Jesse and I trying to talk every day like we do, but sometimes he's frustrated because the tour bus' AC just broke and sometimes I'm frustrated because I just got eight texts from him five hours after he'd sent them. Our phone calls don't work. The e-mails get to each other late. We're shouting "What!?" into our phones from hundreds of miles away.

And it just makes me sigh. You have now seen the window into my frustrations!

However, just as much as it can be infuriating, it's on-another-level-awesome when we DO get a clear signal and/or when he has a day off and we can videochat. [Sidenote: sometimes we'll be videochatting and I'll be talking about things people talk about and then he'll say something to someone across the room when you thought you were only talking to him and he was the only one that could hear you. Then he turns the computer around and the whole band is lounging in the hotel room, maybe they had been listening. Mortification sets in.]

Jesse also enjoys the fun of being on stage, always. I know he's had a great Warped experience as far as the music and the fans and the signings go! And the evening poker games...

And also, sometimes, he takes a plane from Warped Tour to show up for our best friends' rehearsal dinner and wedding! At the rehearsal dinner:

I may...or may not be...excited...?

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SPEAKING OF: Erica and David were married last Friday and it was FUN TIMES! I'm still mildly exhausted from the festivities. Much like Erica used to DJ into the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday nights, her wedding was basically a huge party. 

But first! There was the ceremony, and then dinner. Throughout I was intensely nervous about the speech I would be giving as the co-maid of honor. I'd barely had time to practice in the past couple of days with everything going on, and I had no idea when the emcee would be calling my name. Luckily, I had this chap next to me keeping me calm:

That's my "I'm nervous but hiding it with slight open mouth smile because I actually want to kind of scream" face. Luckily, the speech went well, people clapped, we toasted, I melted into a puddle of relief in the middle of the floor, per usual. And then I could let loose. Like so:

My sense of balance in the photo looks great and also a misleading depiction of my abilities. I probably fell over in the next frame. My legs still hurt, my voice was slightly hoarse. I may be dehydrated. I don't know. The symptoms of having too much fun vary.

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Remember when I wrote about the chocolate mousse exercise? I'll have you know that my cooking is still going strong, and I especially liked having a feast ready for Jesse when he came home last week. My cooking has been so consistent, in fact, that I invested in the above apron. The weekend at home may have kickstarted my cooking streak, but probably also Hannibal. Anyway, I wrote up the recipe for my friend Kelly's lifestyle blog! CHECK IT OUT HERE! And...always check her blog out, it's so cute. [There's even a photo of the finished product.]

I also have the second part of Jessica Thinks She Can Cook ready to go in my head. Thumbs up for my un-suaveness in the kitchen, am I right?!

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You know what? I cry a lot. Mainly at movies, music, tv, etc. I cry when a huge group of people come together for one reason. I may or may not have been known to cry walking down the aisle for my two best friends. I cried walking down my own aisle. So, here's my cry story from a couple of weeks ago.

I was watching this movie that was somewhat relatable culturally, so I was thinking of my family and loved ones a lot while watching it.  There were a lot of heartstrings being pulled. Strings that made me bawl alone on my couch, clutching to my cat. It's based on one of my favorite books, so I knew what was going to happen, and everything that made me cry in the book made me cry in the movie. I don't want to give the name of the movie currently because I might be spoiling it by my next description...

In the film, a husband and wife have moved to the U.S. from another country. Many years pass and they have two kids who have moved out and graduated college. The husband has to go to another state for a business trip that will take a few months. While there, he goes to the hospital for a stomach ache, and calls his wife to let her know. She expects a call later when he gets back to his apartment, but she receives no call. She calls the hospital and is trying to spell out her foreign last name to various hospital workers in order to get some information. Someone figures out who she's looking for and without ceremony tells her that her husband died a few hours ago. She cannot comprehend the news. She has nobody to talk to, she doesn't know what to do. She's alone in the house and she walks from room to room and finally just goes outside to the front lawn in the middle of the freezing night and lays down and screams.

I did the puddle trick again on my couch. This time it was a puddle of grief. But I like crying. I enjoy catharsis. I went to bed smiling after talking to Jesse, my parents, and holding on to Pee Wee. Sad crying usually lets me know that there are things I should be happy and grateful about; it's a reminder. Happy crying just makes me believe in humanity and love and all those good things. I think I happy cry a lot more than sad cry.

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And now for something completely different. Oddly enough I've been listening to Kanye West's new album Yeezus the past few weeks. Yes, surprising. I don't much listen to rap and I've never been fond of West's personality. However, this album... it grabbed me from the start. I liked the sounds. The groom from earlier, David Galea, liked the sounds too but he was more eloquent about it for this piece in a New York street culture blog called Fourth and Sixth. You should check it out. 

Any opinions on Yeezus? I often find myself bopping my head going "I just talked to Jesus / He said 'What up Yeezus?'" and laugh. Just laaaaauuuuugh.

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I have this friend from middle school, Jon Davis...I don't think I've seen him since 8th grade, both of us being military kids and all and moving every couple of years. However, social media had the ability to keep us in touch and now he's a filmmaker, so we have common interests. He posted this short he directed and wrote called Vows. It's embedded above. It's part of an interesting web series about the end of the world. There's not really any need to watch the first five episodes of the series, this being the sixth of Withered World, since they are all capsule episodes. I liked it a lot.

To be honest, I wondered at the end if I was feeling like a happy cry or a sad cry reaction. Maybe both.

Jessica Thinks She Can Cook 001

On Wednesday evening after work I met up with my friend Jaime to see Sofia Coppola's latest film, The Bling Ring. It was okay; it's a desperately shallow film, but I'm pretty sure that was Coppola's intention. I've always loved her style and her subtle, sleek humor which is nicely on display in the film. Afterwards, we grabbed dinner (my favorite kale salad in Brooklyn) and then I headed home for my evening's cooking task: chocolate mousse!

By the way, did you know you can order baking goods from Amazon? Well, YOU CAN. I ordered some Trader Joe's cocoa and gelatin and it arrived on Wednesday. During the movie I was actually itching to carry my loot home and try out the recipe.

Once home, I started my meditative-like routine in the kitchen (cats always pacing around me, quietly, curious), and I was smiling. I also tend to talk to the cats at times. After I had combined the powdered ingredients and the heavy cream for the mousse in a large mixing bowl, the recipe called for me to "whip mixture until stiff peaks form." I was like, yeah, sure, no problem. I stared down at the very liquidy concoction, a bit in doubt as how this milky stuff was going to turn dense.

I got my hand-held mixer thing ready (I'm sure that's the technical term) and then, because I am a genius, as I turned it towards the bowl one of the mixer arms fell into the liquid because I had failed to lock it in place. Angry with my stupidity, I threw the dirty mixer arm into the sink, set down the hand-held part, and screamed at the cats: I'LL JUST DO IT MYSELF!

Because I'm such a novice, I figured I should probably look up that highly technical-looking cooking term "whip." A google search of "how to whip when cooking" let me know that it's basically stirring at an angle that lets air into the mixture. Something like that. Don't take my word for it. I'm Jessica, remember.

[Sidenote: I think I googled at least four times each evening this week about the recipe at hand. Examples of my history this week include "what is cheese divided?" and "what does cream together in a recipe mean?" I digress.]

So, there I was, whisk in hand, ready to WHIP this liquid into STIFF PEAKS. As soon as I started, I sent a spray of the chocolatey stuff around the kitchen. Therefore I had to stop briefly and clean up before the vultures cats took on the task themselves, and then took more care of my sweet, sweet would-be mousse.

At about one minute and thirty seconds of constant WHIPPING your arm gets a bit tired. I hoisted the bowl into my arm and crooked it between my shoulder and elbow and started WHIPPING even more vigorously because it still had the consistency of broth.

"I will do this, I will do this, I will do this," I whispered to myself (and the cats) with clenched teeth.

Five minutes later: "C'mon! C'mon! C'mon, YOU BASTARD! STIFF PEAKS!!!"

Still soupy! I attempted WHIPPING with my left arm. Even less successful and uncomfortable. My right arm was throbbing. I stared at the dirtied mixer arm in the sink and thought, I could probably just wash that and get this over with much quicker...

"NO!" I screamed into the bowl, "I WILL DO THIS ON MY OWN, MOUSSE!"

And so I began again, and wouldn't you know, about five minutes later, arm dead, palms calloused and sweaty--the mixture started thickening! And I started laughing! MANIACALLY. I danced around with my bowl of chocolateness, laughing uncontrollably, stirring even more vigorously, and the cats ran under the kitchen table slightly scared.

Then I beheld: STIFF PEAKS.

I was a success and this sincere retelling tells not one lie; this is how I cook. Quite literally.

Two days later and my arm's still a bit sore, but I consider a workout achieved and I'm going to add that to the recipe:

Note: you may whip with a mixer if you choose (loser), but the whipping of ingredients manually with a whisk has the added benefit of toning one's bicep and even some cardio. Some have been known to reach other levels of spirituality in the journey of manually whipping this mousse.

I think that will work. My friend Kelly has a fun blog and she's asked me to share the recipe over there, so I'll let you know when that's up! That notation will also be included. Also, just check out her blog because there are a lot of ideas, recipes, and cocktail concoctions within! Coctail concoctions!

So, this week I have cooked: a lime butter chipotle steak, bacon-egg-cheese muffins, chocolate mousse, cauliflower mac'n'cheese (no pasta!), and tonight I'm deciding between a couple of meat recipes. All in all, a pretty good week of cooking for me.



This has been the first installment of Jessica Thinks She Can Cook.

Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?

Sometimes it feels like I'm in the business of being sick. It's definitely the most terrible occupation. This past weekend I got to visit my family for Father's Day and when I woke up on Friday morning and felt that tickle in my throat I almost laughed because of course.

We spent a wonderful weekend together, watching movies, talking about books, and enjoying each other's presence. I know that I wouldn't be who I am today without my parents, and I have my dad to thank for my mild to somewhat worrying obsession with film and literature. The true tribute of the weekend lay in the Saturday night viewing of my father's favorite film of last year, Cloud Atlas. I had never seen the movie, my father had never read the book which I loved. After ingesting it into the wee hours of the morning, and sprinkled with lively discussion throughout, I came to finally understand why my dad liked it so much. It has its faults (mainly in some of the rapid editing), but if it's a movie about the cycles of humanity, perhaps its faults can be viewed as meta and kind of endearing? In the glow of my dad's giant television, I indeed came to endear it. And there really are some spectacular visuals and great acting involved.

In the morning when my brother showed up and we were watching my dad open gifts, under the DVDs I gave him lay one final gift: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. As he was able to screen the movie for me, I hope he can delve into the book in the same way.

Later that day we were a state away in New Hampshire with my brother's fantastic fiance and her family, celebrating all the dads. It was a wonderful time cut too short again by my necessity to get home in time for work the next morning. My mom and dad speeded me down to Connecticut (two states away!) to my train, and it was sad to say bye to two of my favorite people.

I was still feeling a bit sick at the end of the weekend, but my mom also sparked something in me that has led me to deem this week a week of bettering myself. In the past this might have meant strenuous exercise, but as my mom and I were making a special recipe of brownies for my dad, I realized I did enjoy cooking and wanted to get more into it. The fact that I've said this several times in the past years (decade?) was just more reason for me to overcome my mild aversion to it.

The good thing was that I felt no qualms about staying indoors after work due to my being sick and so I could proceed with cooking. So for that past three nights I've made three different recipes! Yes, me. Unfortunately, I partake in them by myself and always wish Jesse was here, but he will be at some point. I've found that cooking and following a recipe after work in silence --I haven't even bothered to turn on the television or play music--has a somewhat meditative quality. I am able to zone my focus into the food and I'm enjoying it!

Last night in what I must say felt like a moment of true genius, a recipe called for a whole package of bacon to be fried halfway and then added to the dish in the oven. As I sat staring at the bacon fat left over in the pan, I realized I could just fry the brussel sprouts I had standing by in the bacon fat. And as I talked out loud to myself like I was Bridget Jones (yes, I understand that this is really only that level of genius), I fried the suckers and they were delectable.

Sidenote: must remember to buy an apron soon if this cooking thing keeps up.

My self-imposed week of betterness also involves no consumption of alcohol, upkeep around the apartment, laundry, and a return to my writing. Not just here, but my narrative writing. Last month while traveling I had a spark, a feeling, a wave of inspiration and it's all been formulating in my mind. I've finally started the task of molding it into something with actual words. We'll see where it leads me; I'm feeling positive.

I should also mention that part of the reason for this goal-oriented week is due to the fact that I have the impending and looming and exciting bachelorette for my best friend this weekend! In case it becomes debaucherous, I figured I should be fully recovered from my cold and harvest all the zen I could in the week leading up to it.

Until then, let's see if I can go five for five on days I'm cooking for myself this week!