Winning at the Weekend: Skiing and Running!

Weekends are my favorite! And this weekend -- involving skiing, long running, and a hedgehog -- was especially awesome. 

It started eaaaarrrrly on Saturday when I got up at the crack of dawn (ok ok, 6:45 am) to load my stuff into a car and get on the road to New Hampshire for the day. A group of eight took the day off homework and reading and Somerville/Medford/Camebridge life and things and escaped to the mountains! 

It was a Saturday in February (dun dun dunnn), so the parking situation was ugly and the lines were a bit long, but by 11ish we were on snow and loving life and sunshine and hero snow. We skied at Loon Mountain (which is not bad at all!) until we were the last ones on the snow and sitting on the very last chair at 4:20. 

We were only out there for a day trip, so we drove back that evening -- a little bit sore, a lot tired, and very pleased with ourselves. By the time I got home it already felt like I'd had a whole weekend...but nope, there's another day! 

After stretching, some quality foam roller time, and a very deep sleep, I awoke Sunday ready for my next project:  LONG RUN! 

Oh hey I have not really blogged about this yet -- mostly because I haven't really been blogging at all, and also because I don't want to jinx the things -- but I'm marathon training again! I registered for The Boston Marathon way back in September and am finally feeling good and on my way. Yesterday was my longest run to date: 15 miles. 

Route details here.

Much like skiing the day before, the conditions were perfect. Warm (50ish) and sunny and not windy. (Dear Boston, Can the rest of winter be like this please? Ok thanks. Love, Mollie) And the miles felt fine! I think we averaged around 7:50 pace, and all felt great until afterwards when post-post-run omelet I lounged on my couch and "reading for class" immediately became "napping."

[One sec -- let's talk about my post-run omelet: Cremini mushrooms, garlic, spinach, jack cheese, adobo sauce, avocado, ketchup, sourdough toast. It doesn't get any better than that.]

And then I ended the weekend eating all the snacks and watching the Super Bowl with a bunch of Seattle fans who have a pet hedgehog THAT WAS DRESSED UP AS A SEATTLE FAN. I know guys. I know. 

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Shrimp Enchiladas with Roasted Poblano Sauce

Every Wednesday RoommateRachel and I host a dinner party. The guest list (8-10) is a mix of our friends, people we want to be our friends, and people we think should be friends with each other (also factored in is food preferences, schedule, frequency of invite/re-invite etc.). It's a different mix every week, and has been a great way to get to know new people here at school and bridge the Business-focus/IR-focus divide (RoommateRachel studies International Business).

And we take Wednesdays seriously. It's our chance to take a break mid-week, do something creative that doesn't involve Power Point, and spend time with friends not on-campus, not involving group projects, and not thinking about any work that we "should" be doing. Because the only thing we should be doing on Wednesday nights is this:

Alright so they came out a little messy, but that is one of each
(shrimp and butternut squash) with tomatillo salsa in the middle. 

Usually I make dessert and Rachel handles the meal, but last night we switched things up. It is COLD here, so we decided on a semi-tropical/warm weather-ish theme. I made a delicious dinner my mama made for me over winter break: Shrimp Enchiladas with Roasted Poblano Sauce. 

To account for hungry grad student appetites, I doubled the recipe and made a shrimp version and a butternut squash and cheese version (oh hey vegetarians I got you covered!). These enchiladas are what I would call California food: heavy on the fresh vegetables, whole wheat tortillas, with a little bit of Mexico mixed in, and some spicy kick. I served them over a simple salad of spinach, black beans, and red onion with lime/olive oil dressing, plus chips and tomatillo salsa (which I cannot take credit for but it was goooood).

So without further ado, the recipe is based on this one from Annie's Eats. You should make it -- you will love it.

Shrimp Enchiladas with Roasted Poblano Sauce 

*No-shrimp version in brackets
Total time: Approximately 1 hour...but if you factor in all the veggie chopping/shredding, give yourself an hour and a half.

Sauce ingredients:

• 2 poblano peppers
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp. unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth or veggie broth
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• kosher salt and pepper, to taste
• 3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt, or some mix of the two (I did 50/50)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Filling ingredients: 

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 tsp. oregano
• dash cayenne pepper (or more, if you like the heat)
• kosher salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 cups green cabbage, shredded
• 2 carrots, peeled and shredded
•   (or you can use pre-packaged cole slaw in place of shredding your own cabbage and  
•   carrots)
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (found in cans in the market), finely minced (seeded if you fear spice), or 1 tsp. chipotle powder (tip: freeze extra peppers in ice cube trays & store in freezer bags)
• 1 pound shrimp, peeled, and deveined, and chopped [OR 2 cups butter nut squash, cubed in 1/4-inch squares]

To assemble:

• 10 to 12 (8-inch) whole wheat flour tortillas (you can use regular or corn tortillas if you prefer)
• 2 cups shredded monterey jack cheese [you will need an additional cup if you're doing the butter nut squash version and want to put cheese inside the enchiladas]

Directions:

1. To roast peppers: Preheat oven to 475 degrees F. Place peppers in a medium baking dish. Bake, turning every 6-8 minutes until the skin is blistered over most of the surface, about 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl, cover, and let sit 15 minutes. When cool enough to handle, peel away the skin and discard. Remove the stem (and the seeds and ribs too if you don't want it to be spicy). Coarsely chop the peppers and set aside.
2. To make the sauce: Melt butter in a medium saucepan, then stir in the chopped poblanos. Mix in flour, cooking briefly just until golden, 1-2 minutes. 
3. Whisk in the broth, adding a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add garlic powder. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Let cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture bubbles and thickens. 
4. Remove from heat and stir in the sour cream/yogurt and cilantro.
5. To make filling: Heat 1 tbsp. olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, oregano, and cayenne; cook until onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Stir in cabbage and carrots [and butternut squash]; cook, stirring occasionally, until veggies start to get tender (about 7-10 minutes).
7. Stir in chipotle peppers.
8. Stir in chopped raw shrimp; cook for about 2 minutes, stirring, until the shrimp start to get pink (don't worry about cooking them completely now because they'll finish in the oven). 
9. To assemble: Lightly grease a 9X13-inch baking dish. 
10. Place about 1/2 cup filling down the center of a tortilla. Roll up tightly and place in prepared pan, seam-side down. Repeat with remaining filling and tortillas. [Sprinkle shredded cheese on the filling before rolling up.]
11. When pan is filled, pour the poblano sauce over the enchiladas. 
12. Sprinkle with cheese.
13. Bake until bubbling and slightly golden, 20-25 minutes. At the end, turn off the oven and turn on the broiler for 2-4 minutes (watch them) to get the tops nice and brown. Sprinkle with additional cilantro. Serve immediately.

Weekend Report: Birthday and Bollywood

I know I say this every time I write now, but, hello! It's been too long! School kicked into gear hard, I dropped off the face of more than just the internet earth, and this silly little blog that used to be my favorite thing to do every morning fell by the wayside. I miss it! So here I am, back again. Let's pretend like I never left. Ok? Ok.

This weekend I revisited another one of my favorite things from my past life (i.e. pre-school): baking epic birthday cakes!

The only picture is blurry...sorry. Just pretend it's purposefully Artistic.

Friday was looooonnnggg -- I had class starting at 7:30 am, and then a big presentation at 4:30pm. Ick. Needless to say, I got home feeling like I'd been to war. So I made a beeline for the kitchen, cranked up my favorite song, and made frosting.

I'd made the Red Wine Chocolate Cake the night before, in a quick break between readings, and plastic-wrapped and froze the three gorgeous layers. Friday was creativity time: I had an idea for Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting that involved straining the raspberries, because yum (also, straining = no seeds). And it worked! It worked SO WELL. Forgetting the day behind me and looking forward to the birthday party ahead, I danced around the kitchen licking the beaters and marveling in the fact that frosting can be sooooo good!

Raspberry Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz (1 block) cream cheese at room temperature
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature
• 1/2 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon rum
• 1/3 cup heavy cream
• 2 ½ cups powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Microwave the raspberries, then puree them in a blender. 
2. Pour the raspberry slush into a fine sieve, and push it through with a spatula to get all the raspberry and none of the seeds.
3. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, vanilla, rum, raspberries, and cream until smooth.
4. Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth. If it's too thick, add more cream; too thin, add more sugar. 

Like the out-of-practice blogger I am, I totally forgot to take pictures of this gorgeous masterpiece. But trust me on this, it was beautiful! And everyone agreed that the cake was delicious. And that perhaps baking cakes should be my post-grad school backup plan (you know, in case this whole International Relations thing doesn't work out.) And the birthday girl (HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!) said that I won at her birthday.

What else this weekend? Four of my friends hosted an Inaugural Movie Night on Sunday, because they have a projector! Like the whole huge set-up: big screen and sound and everything. Their living room is literally like a movie theater. 

To start off what I anticipate will be a series of projector-supported movie nights, we watched Barfi! a Bollywood hit. I've actually never watched a Bollywood movie before, and it was hilarious! Like the style of a Charlie Chaplin film, with plot elements from The Notebook, and just a smidgen of the Borne movies thrown in there too. Completely silly, and thoroughly entertaining! There were not epic dance scenes, which I thought was a requirement of Bollywood, but the whole movie was set to music with very little talking, so it was kind of like watching a 2-hour dance scene.

And with that I conclude my Weekend Report. Hopefully I'll be more regularly blogging soon!

Best of the Week #116

I looked out my window this morning at 15 inches of snow, heard my roommate mention that it was feels like -20 when she was supposed to leave for work at 5 am (it feels like -14 right now), and thought hmmm so what was it that made me think moving to Boston was a good idea???

I'm not going out there to take a better picture.

Flashback to my brilliant* (*not brilliant) idea of running outside yesterday. There were maybe 4 inches of snow on the ground and more coming out of the sky, but my street was reasonably scraped off, and I knew that it was only going to get worse, so sure, why not run? I regretted that decision SO HARD. I know now that Somerville is significantly better at snow removal than Cambridge -- a lesson I learned by slip-sliding five miles through the snowy snowy streets of Cambridge, only to return to Somerville and see that it was far less bad here. (Still bad though.) All the while I was mentally raging against snow and Boston and New England in general. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

The good news is that school was canceled today...the bad news is that we are going to make it up on Sunday, and therefore will have class six days in a row next week. Le sigh. Pre-session course. I did this to me.

In other news, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope your 2013 ended well and your 2014 is off to a good start. If you recall, 6x6, LLC, LOTR-Emily, and I dubbed last year The Year to Be Brave. And we were SO BRAVE last year. In so many ways. The four of us spent most of this past year on completely different continents -- Hawaii, US or Asia (Me), Sweden, and South Africa -- made and started some major life decisions (jobs, schools, etc.), and tried many many new things along the way. What’s next? Now that we have been brave and made decisions and taken chances, it’s time to have fun and excel at the things we have chosen to do. So welcome to 2014: The Year to Be Awesome.

Alright enough chatting, let's do Best of the Week!

“31 Biggest Dog Fails Of 2013, It was a ruff year.” This one is what will happen to me if I go outside today:

29. This dog who forgot how to dog.

Love:

• "You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.” ― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran

Insanely cool but also kinda creepy: "Best Video Of The Day? MIT's 3-D Remote 'Touching' Device."

• What it does, The Associated Press writes, is allow a person in one location to move an object somewhere.
•  "while it's debatable whether we'll ever be able to teleport objects or people around the world at the speed of light, the inFORM system from Tangible Media Group at MIT might be the seeds of the next best thing."

"40 Astonishing Photos That Won Awards In 2013."

• 32. Honorable Mention, Places - Andrew Lever - ‘Cows And Kites’. “I was driving along the beach highway when I noticed the bulls sunbathing on the empty beach. I initially thought I was seeing things, but no it really was sunbathing cows! I had to park my car a fair distance away and that meant a long walk along the beach in 35-degree heat. It did not matter because I had to get the shot! When I got closer to them I was careful not to spook them so I crawled on my stomach on the hot sand to get a good picture of them. Mission Accomplished! It was worth the effort!” - Andrew Lever

To the horror of most of my friends, I love looking over edges. And mountains. So I'm pretty sure I would love this: "New Glass Room in French Alps Offers Amazingly Scary View." It is incredibly deplorable that I have never been to Europe.

• On the uppermost terrace of Aiguille du Midi, Europe's highest mountain peak, sits a glass cube that looks like it's suspended in mid-air. Now the tallest attraction in Europe, the structure has five transparent sides made of three layers of glass binded together. Of course, when you step into the box the most vertigo-inducing feeling will come when you look straight down through the glass floor to the dizzying view 3,395 feet (or 1,035 meters) below.

"Scientists say great novels can change brain's biology"

• A great novel can produce measurable changes in the brain that linger for at least five days after reading.
• “The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” Berns said.
• “We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically.”

Calling all nerds who love food! Aka me. “The 8 Nerdiest Food Articles of 2013.” I’ve read The New Yorker’s “Fire Eaters: The Search for the Hottest Chili”

Ok one more nerdy thing: "Finding Big Data’s Place in Conflict Analysis."

• The key question for me becomes: is there a role for Big Data in conflict analysis? Is it something that will empower communities to prevent violence locally, as Letouze, Meier and Vinck propose? Will it be used by the international community for real-time information to speed responses to crises? Could it be leveraged into huge datasets and used to predict outbreaks of violence, so that we can be better prepared to prevent conflict?
• ...the volume of data coming out of a region goes down as violence goes up; what we end up with is information that is shaped out of the conflict itself. If we rely on that data to be our predictor of conflict likelihood, we have a major logical problem – that data is endogenous to (part of) conflict. 

Well, alright. One more. "Happy Birthday, J.R.R. Tolkien: The Iconic Storyteller’s Little-Known, Gorgeous Art." Did you know he illustrated his books? I had no idea! My copies of LOTR and The Hobbit are the old ones, so they have his illustrations!

• ...few realize that Tolkien, who self-illustrated many of his famous works, was as much an artist of pictures as he was of words.

Kinda silly ("25 New Year’s Resolutions Every Person Should Actually Make For 2014"), but I particularly like # 24: Stop being so shallow. Next time you find yourself judging someone based on his or her appearance, imagine the person standing in front of you saying, “I’m beautiful.” You’ll start to believe it.

Ha! Go Napoleon? "10 Lines From Napoleon's Love Letters That Sound Like Crazy Texts."

• 1. In a letter to Josephine a few months after they married, Napoleon wrote, “I don’t love you, not at all; on the contrary I detest you – You’re a naughty, gawky, foolish slut.” And that was just the first sentence.
• 6. Napoleon goes on to let her know that he is nothing without her. “Without his Josephine, without the assurance of her love, what is left him upon earth? What can he do?” We should note that he was the Emperor of almost all of Europe.
• 10. Napoleon wrote to his brother of his failing love for Josephine. "The veil is torn…It is sad when one and the same heart is torn by such conflicting feelings for one person… I need to be alone. I am tired of grandeur; all my feelings have dried up. I no longer care about my glory. At twenty-nine I have exhausted everything."
• What makes this one so embarrassing? The British intercepted it and published it in all their newspapers, humiliating Napoleon. Like a teacher reading your note out loud to the class for shock value.

This collection of "No" gifs embodies exactly how I feel about snow (when I'm not skiing). And starting school again. And the massive stack of reading (of the un-fun variety) I have planned for today.

Alright that's all for now. Stay warm out there friends!

Happy New Year!/Goodbye California I will miss you!

I can't believe it's over. Winter break I mean. And actually, 2013 too!

A lot happened this year -- I ran my first marathon (remember the marathon!?!?), quit my job, traveled for two months in Nepal and Southeast Asia, moved to Boston, and started grad school! Overall I'd say it's been a pretty solid year of many many things. What's up for 2014? Who knows, I'm psyched, let's find out!

So now I'm about to leave warm and sunny California behind and head back to Boston for a pre-session course that starts the 2nd. Ugh I know, I did this to me.

It's so unseasonably warm here, my tree is incredibly confused.

But to prepare for my future of all-school-all-the-time, I spent my last two days of vacation doing lovely California things. On Sunday I met up with a couple Fletcher friends to tour vineyards around Sonoma. And on Monday, for my final warm-weather run this winter, my dad and I went to the lakes at Mt. Tam for a 10-miler around Bon Tempe and Lagunitas.

And I finished it all off with some quality time with my favorite little man who is absolutely hilarious, spends all his (waking) time frantically running around and wiggling like a crazy person, loves dancing to dirty dirty rap music, and will probably soon be really talking!

Like I said, it has been quite the year. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU!!!

Cake of the Week: Greek Yogurt "Cheesecake" with Honey-Walnut Baklava Topping

Anyone else feel like they ate everything this Christmas? Oh I have no regrets. I'm just saying that after a steady diet of Christmas Crack and Christmas cookies and cheese and crackers and delicious mama-made meals, I could/should spend some serious time with fruits, veggies, and healthier desserts. (Note that I say healthier desserts, not no desserts. Who do you think I am? No desserts is crazy talk.)

What is not crazy talk? Greek Yogurt Cheesecake.

This is a healthy dessert for reals -- nonfat Greek yogurt, eggs, and a little sugar -- that is all! And it is insanely easy to make. And it's actually really smooth and creamy and delicious. Really I am blown away by how good this is. 

I made this for a Greek-themed dinner party back in the fall. Greek desserts are too hard for me on a weeknight (or ever -- I'll leave baklava to the pros), but I wanted to make something relevant to the theme. So I searched around for a dessert involving Greek yogurt, and then made up a honey walnut baklava-esque topping to go with it. 

I made the Graham cracker crust no problem, and slid the cake into the oven, praying to the baking gods that it did not deteriorate into a watery mess burning on the bottom (always a risk when trying something new). Well my prayers were answered because it came out looking a-ok and I was elated!

And I'm happy to report that it tastes good too. Definitely nowhere near as rich and creamy as a regular cheesecake, but it also doesn't give you that stomach-achy oh-jeez-I-ate-too-much feeling after a slice. I will definitely be making this again and trying out different toppings.

Greek Yogurt Cheesecake with Honey-Walnut "Baklava" Topping

Ingredients (cake):

• 1 1/2 cups crushed Graham cracker/crumbs
• 1 cup sugar, divided
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 4 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 3 cups plain or vanilla Greek yogurt (I used non-fat.)

Ingredients (topping):

• 1 cup honey (I used wildflower honey and it was amazing)
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cups walnuts, toasted and finely chopped

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. In a medium-sized bowl, thoroughly combine Graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, and melted butter. Press into the bottom and a little up the sides of a 9" springform pan and bake for 10 minutes. 
3. Beat together eggs, remaining 3/4 cup sugar, vanilla, and flour. Gently whisk in the Greek yogurt.
4. Pour into hot crust and bake for 45-50 minutes or until barely set in center (just a little jiggly when you shake it). 
5. Cool cake to room temperature on wire rack, then refrigerate at least an hour (or overnight) before serving. 
6. For the topping: 30 minutes before serving, combine all topping ingredients in a small saucepan on the stove. Simmer until thickened, approximately 15 minutes. Spoon over each piece of cake before serving. 

Enjoy and feel good about yourself!!!

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Me, Amy, and the rest of the family here in California!

Tough Love and Skiing

A couple days ago, I swished into the lift line, bent to unbuckle my boots, and looked up to see a weathered and familiar face. Dirk? Hi!!! Do you remember me??? It was my coach from elementary school and junior high -- one of the most influential coaches in my life, and one I haven't seen in probably 12 years.

I'll rewind to give you some context: my mama and I are up in Tahoe for the week, skiing with an intensity only the two of us can conjure. (For reals -- 70 runs in two days. Yes we count.)

The first day on snow is always a little bit dicey. It's like dusting off the cob-webs that connect my brain to my hips, knees, and ankles and reminding them how to coordinate a smooth turn. Like riding a bike, it comes back. But unlike riding a bike, skiing takes significantly more focus to bring it back. Back in the day (i.e. high school), my first day on snow was usually in November and only after an intense couple weeks of drills and training did I feel good in my boots and really ready to race. I don't race any more, so now about five runs suffice to re-instill my confidence in my edges and trust in my skis and faith in my own ability to save myself if things go wrong.

View of Lake Tahoe from Mt. Rose.

So anyway, I was at that point, feeling pretty good towards the end of our first day, when we ran into Dirk.

When Sister1 and I joined the Northstar Ski Team in 1994/95 (I was in 3rd grade, she was in 5th, and Sister2 was child-care-aged), we were terrified of Dirk. Everyone was terrified of Dirk. He was intense, and mean, and scary, with a low gruff voice and a death stare that could literally make people cry, and coached the competitive "big kids" (which at that point meant 4th-7th graders). By the next year I was shyly trailing at the back of his pack, just hoping to keep up, keep improving, and earn his respect. 

He was an ex-Marine and ran his team like a drill sergeant. (This all sounds a lot harsher, thinking back on this now...we were 9 to 12-year-olds!) 

• Skiing in a snow storm: You're cold? You want hot cocoa? Stop whining and give me 50 hop-turns, that'll warm you up! 
• Learning to pole plant: I want you to imagine a bunch of little bunnies running alongside you when you're skiing. Now every time you initiate a turn, I want you to STAB THE BUNNY! And the next turn, there's another bunny on the other side -- STAB THE BUNNY, COME ON STAB IT!
• Sitting on the chair: Get'em up! Come on lift your skis up straight and hold them like that. Quads burning, he would then use his poles to push on our skis, creating resistance for "extra fun." 
• When one of the boys sassed him: Oh shut up and stop being so ugly and stupid. 
• In the team locker room: Stop horsing around. Give me 20 push-ups. Oh come on, those were sissy push-ups, give me 20 more. Now who wants to arm wrestle? 
• At the end of the season: I want you to go home and start working now. And work hard all summer, so that next season at the first race, you can stand in the starting gate and look around and say, Hey, you know what? I've worked harder than everyone else and I know that I am the strongest, toughest, fastest kid on this mountain. 

So clearly Dirk was tough. But he loved us. And we loved him. I remember epic powder days that ended in even more epic snowball fights, five kids tackling Dirk and him somehow prevailing and stuffing all our coats with snow. This classic quote, repeated almost daily: Put on some sunscreen, you don't want to look like an old catcher's mitt by the time you're 30. Or playing Tag down the mountain -- one ski, no poles, trying to catch Dirk dodging at high speeds through the trees (for reals, it is a miracle I survived my childhood). And all the time he spent -- literally 9am-4pm -- carefully teaching us the technique and tactics we needed to be ski racers.

Like many a CA December, not a whole lot of snow here right now...

When a coach like that praises you (Well well well, looks like you might be starting to ski like someone who might maybe get good at this someday!) it is like the best thing ever. And as an athlete, you learn to see criticism as praise, because if you're worth criticizing, then you know that your coach thinks you have the potential to improve. I don't know if he planned it this way, but it was all about teaching us work ethic and high expectations. Coaches like this expect a lot because they know you can give a lot -- they think more of you than you think of you, which ultimately results in you expecting more of yourself. And even though I am no longer a ski racer, the attitude Dirk taught, and the self-competitiveness he instilled, has stuck with me. 

I read an article recently bemoaning how young people these days can't handle criticism -- that the everyone-gets-a-trophy mentality means that everyone loses. This has not been my experience at all. Dirk was not the first tough-love teacher I had (oh flash-backs to Ms. Zora in ballet!), nor was he the last, but running (/skiing) into him the other day made me realize what a huge influence spending four ski seasons with him had on my life. 

We rode the chair with him and his son, briefly caught up on things (26, grad school, sisters are good, etc.), then skied away. 

Mama: We're on a program -- this is run #39. 

Dirk: Nice! 

Just one word, but clearly he approved. 

Literary Bite: Tinkers by Paul Harding

Tikers by Paul Harding is a Pulitzer Prize-winner, and one of those books that you've probably seen around. I don't regret reading it (it took less than a day), but I can't say I particularly enjoyed it. The actual story parts I liked, but overall it's mostly artistic nonsense -- prose-y, as my mama says.

Tinkers is, loosely, the story of three generations, fathers and sons, taking place mostly in the wilderness of Maine, and mostly inside the characters' heads. There's an underlying theme of clocks -- time ticking away, people as clocks, gears out of place, clocks wound too tight -- embodied in the insanity, epilepsy, and impending death of the three men (a preacher, a tinker, and a clock-repairer). The story itself is not chronological, and jumps from character to character, so you have to pay attention!

Framed partly as a deathbed vigil for George Washington Crosby, a clock repairer, the book wanders through time and consciousness, describing in fine-grain detail its rural Maine setting and the epileptic fits of George’s father, Howard, an old-time tinker who traveled the countryside by wagon. (NYT)

I had the sense that I was reading something beautiful, but beyond my grasp. Like getting glimpses of someone else's dreams and hearing descriptions of things I couldn't possibly see. There were times when after reading a few pages I had no idea what was going on, but then after skimming back, I realized that was because there really wasn't anything going on.

I'd be interested to meet the author, just to interact with the kind of mind that produces writing like this. Does he just like the way some sentences sound? Or is there a deliberate purpose to every part, and I'm just not smart enough to get it?

It's quite popular...Tinkers made NPR’s best debut fiction, The New Yorker magazine’s list of reviewers’ favorites in 2009, and is an indie bookshop "darling" -- aka this is a book I should like. But I didn't. I only finished it because I was comfortable on the couch and it was too short to quit. I'd be interested to hear what other people liked about it.

Cake of the Week: Tex-Mex Chocolate Cake

Once upon a Wednesday, not too long ago, RoommateRachel and I decided to engineer an escape from the cold winter weather and fix a fiesta! Yes, we're about five months from Cinco de Mayo, but in my life Mexican food is always welcome. And Tex-Mex? Oh hello tacos and fajitas and chimichangas and most things Americans think of when they think Mexican food, yes please!

Dinner consisted of fajita filling-stuffed quesadillas on habanero-lime tortillas, black bean salad, and homemade salsa and guacamole of course. And how to end such a feast? With a Tex-Mexican Chocolate Cake!

You may be familiar with the Texas Sheet Cake -- a buttermilk-based culinary concoction the size of Texas (that's an exaggeration, but it is traditionally baked in an 18x13" jellyroll pan). Or perhaps you've made the acquaintance of one of the many chili powder-spiced Mexican chocolate desserts out there?

Well after a dinner of Tex-Mex, I saw only one possible course of action: unite the vastness of Texas with the heat of Mexico. Everyone wins! The frosting is to die for, the cake is moist and spring-y (not crumbly), and the chili powder gives a hint of something extra-special. Well. Let's just say that a group of 10 consumed this whole cake no problemo.

Recipe Notes: 

• I don't have a jellyroll pan, so my cake was made in a 9x13" brownie pan. It worked fine, but it took a bit longer to cook.
• This recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of chili powder. My chili powder, I'm sorry to say, does not have much kick, so my cake only hinted at an aftertaste of chili. If your chili powder is better/fresher than mine (it probably is), then maybe lay off the chili a bit...or expect a spicier cake! 

Tex-Mex Chocolate Cake

Cake Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 4 heaping tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter
• 4 heaping tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray an 18x13 sheet cake pan, or a 9x13 pan. 
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, chili powder, and salt.
3. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Once the butter is melted, whisk in cocoa powder. Add boiling water and turn up the heat to medium. Allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds and immediately turn off the heat. Pour the cocoa/butter mixture over flour mixture, and stir.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into chocolate/flour mixture. 
5. Pour into prepared pan. If using an 18x13 pan, bake for 20 minutes; if using a 9x13 pan, bake for about 35 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. 
6. When you take the cake out of the oven, make the frosting: In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Whisk in cocoa powder until thoroughly combined. Add milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar whisking until all ingredients are fully incorporated. 
7. Pour over warm cake using a spatula to spread the frosting all over the cake. If your cake is particularly dome-y, then slowly pour the frosting in the middle of the cake and let it run towards the outsides. 
8. Let cool completely before serving at room temperature. Enjoy!

Literary Bite: Winter Break (Fun) Reading List

Well hello friends! I greet you from the wonderful world of Winter Break, a truly magical three weeks of relaxation during which I anticipate doing not a whole lot and loving every minute of it.

After finishing my exam last Thursday, I wandered around Davis Square, slightly dazed and definitely brain-dead. I meandered my way into a bookstore (I swear there's some sort of magnetic field around bookstores), and was immediately overwhelmed. I wanted to read this one and that one and that one and that one -- basically, starved for fiction, I wanted them all. And then it dawned on me, like a marathoner at a breakfast buffet: I'm a student, school is over (for now); therefore, I can have them all! I smiled to myself (or maybe visibly, like a crazy person/student who just finished exams...same same, right?), anticipating the fiction binge upon which I was about to embark.

And here I am four days later: cuddled on our couch in Tahoe, sipping chai in front of the fire, appreciating the pretty little tree we decorated today, and already almost done with my first book (Atlas of the Unknowns).

It's a short one, just 320 pages to ease me back into the joys of fun reading, and prepare me for the deep depths of the reading rabbit hole I plan to inhabit this vacation. (Ok, pause for full disclosure: I have been reading fun books while in school, they just take me four times longer than normal because so much of my brain-space is occupied by more serious academic endeavors.)

Before leaving Petaluma, my mama stacked a smorgasbord of books for me to sample. I have exactly 17 days until school starts again.

Winter Break Reading List

• Atlas of the Unknowns -- Tania James
• Excellent Women -- Barbara Bym
• East of Eden -- John Steinbeck
• The Art Forger -- B.A. Shapiro
• How it All Began -- Penelope Lively
• A Sense of an Ending -- Julian Barnes
• tinkers -- Paul Herring
• Lunch in Paris -- Elizabeth Bard

Have you read any of these? Any recommendations of other books that should make it onto my list?

Best of the Week #115

Dear First Semester of Grad School,

Love,

Mollie

Oh that’s right! I dropped off the face of the (internet) earth just before Thanksgiving, and now, one gargantuan project, one paper, and that damn exam later, I’m finally resurfacing. I currently feel some combination of relieved and overwhelmed -- I have learned all the things, analyzed many things, written a few looong things, and presented a thing. I cannot believe how much happened in just one semester! And how much more I know! And how many new things I can do! And now my brain is tired.

But for reals, this is how I felt as I finished my Role of Force 3-hour comprehensive exam exactly one hour ago:

(And clearly I mean "swagger" in a functions of force sense...)

If all goes according to plan, I will soon be sleeping in Sister 2’s apartment in Mill Valley, CA, looking forward to three whole weeks of no required work. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve also been having a lot of fun along with the schoolz. As far as I can tell, grad school is about working crazy hard with crazy smart people, and then going to/hosting house parties. I am a fan.

But I am also a fan of pure 100% vacation. So to kick this one off right, here is your Best of the Week/month. I have been compiling this list for a while, so get psyched!

On a serious (-ly awesome) note:
“There is no passion to be found in playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” -- Nelson Mandela

I want to marry this guy. For reals. BEST of the week. (You can read the poem here.)



Two parts hilarious, one part horrifying. "This Smart Bra Will Stop You From Eating Your Feelings. Ladies, Rejoice!"

• According to the BBC, the blueprint “contains removable sensors that monitor heart and skin activity to provide an indication of mood.” The bra takes your EKG and feeds it to an app on your phone, which then counsels you to avoid the refrigerator, because you’re stressed, or to go ahead and cross the kitchen threshold. (You’re calm! You can handle it.) 
• On the other hand, sometimes you think you know what you’re feeling but you really just need your bra to brasplain it to you, otherwise you will eat all the things.

I want to go to here so bad. So bad. Baikal Lake, Siberia, that is.

Satellites are just so freaking cool. “I'm Not Just Gaming, Ma! I'm Helping The World's Farmers”

• Here's how it works: Go to the site, and you see a satellite image with the question, "Is there any cropland in this red box?" 
• "We know, for example, in Africa, there are huge yield gaps. This means you could produce much more food in certain places in Africa, but we don't even know where exactly the cropland is," Geo-Wiki's project lead, Steffen Fritz, tells The Salt. "So because we don't know where the cropland is, we don't know where the best investments could be made in terms of increasing production. So the first step is a very good cropland map."

For Sister2: "Amazing Goats Climb a Near Vertical Dam."

"5 Maps That Could Help Solve Some of the World’s Most Daunting Problems"
Incredible maps on slum infrastructure in Kibera, financial services in Nigeria, and disaster planning in Jakarta's Flood Zone, to name a few.

• Enter Spatial Collective and Map Kibera. These two organizations, a company and a nonprofit, are mapping a Kenyan mega-slum called Kibera—the name is derived from a word meaning “jungle”—according to how its 200,000 inhabitants actually navigate it. The maps started with crowdsourced landmarks important to locals: water taps, schools, pharmacies. Residents with Internet access were invited to add to an open source map; others contributed data by SMS or attended community workshops, where they wrote on giant empty maps.
• Spatial Collective overlays these community-generated maps with official data. One project tacked on sewer-line data (depicted here) from Nairobi City Water to find the most valuable spots to build new public toilets. Another mapped community-reported crime data to help the World Bank understand where to place safety interventions like lamps. These kinds of projects make Kibera more legible to its inhabitants and to outsiders.

I am very confused by the fact that this exists...but happy it does. "Russian Army Choir performs "Get Lucky"" Seriously, this is a must-watch.

How are climbing holds made? Well now let me tell you!

• Chances are, if you’ve elected to read this article, you’re a rock climber. Another assumption is that you have most likely climbed at a climbing gym or at least have an understanding of what a climbing gym is. These facilities come in all shapes, sizes and are made up of a variety of materials such as fiberglass, plywood, concrete and plastic, to name a few. While every gym may look different, there is one thing that nearly all climbing gyms have in common; they all use climbing holds.
• In recent years climbing has become one of the fastest growing sports in the United States. In 2013, climbing had a 25% increase in new participation with 1.6% of the entire population taking part in Sport Climbing, Bouldering or Indoor rock climbing.
• I caught up with Peter Juhl, shaper and owner of Brooklyn-based, hold company Urban Plastix, to talk to him about how his company and where he sees the future of the climbing hold industry heading. 

I know this is old news, but I love this version of "Royals." "Florida State University AcaBelles Rock Lorde's 'Royals' A Cappella."



For those of you still in school: "Finals Week, as Told by Will Ferrell & Zach Galifianakis." My personal fave:

"The best examples of street art in 2012 (48 pictures)"

"What Eating Can Tell You About The People Around You"

• 2. If Someone Tries Something They're Afraid To Eat...They'll also try things they're afraid of in life. Like ballroom dancing, sky-diving, learning a foreign language and speaking in public. These people are fun. Eat with them.
• 5. If Someone Chews With Their Mouth Open...... They think they are above you and that the rules don't apply to them. (No seriously, this one is science.)

"English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet"

• Linguists are calling it the "prepositional-because." Or the "because-noun."
• You probably know it better, however, as explanation by way of Internet—explanation that maximizes efficiency and irony in equal measure. I'm late because YouTube. You're reading this because procrastination. As the language writer Stan Carey delightfully sums it up: "'Because' has become a preposition, because grammar." 

This is so cool. I mean really, SO COOL. It's a dynamic map of Africa, showing ALL OF THE DATA on fatalities, heat-map style. Below is a screenshot, if you go to the site you can hover over each incident and see details. (#NerdAlert.) The main site is here -- well worth exploring.

This is exactly how I feel about meetings. "Paul Graham Explains Why Meetings Thwart the Flow of Creativity."

This is amazing. Particularly relevant since I spend a significant amount of my morning writing every single thing I have ever known about nuclear doctrine. "Time lapse map of every nuclear explosion ever."

• Each nation gets a blip and a flashing dot on the map whenever they detonate a nuclear weapon, with a running tally kept on the top and bottom bars of the screen. Hashimoto, who began the project in 2003, says that he created it with the goal of showing”the fear and folly of nuclear weapons.” It starts really slow — if you want to see real action, skip ahead to 1962 or so — but the buildup becomes overwhelming.

On a much less serious note, this corgi knows exactly how I feel about being done with school!

To all my Fletcher friends (an any/all other students out there), GOOD LUCK WITH FINALS YOU ARE CHAMPIONS!