My grandma’s birthday was last week. I asked if she was had any grand plans for the following year, her 80th. She hadn’t thought of anything, so I suggested we go to Paris and her eyes lit up (this is ostensibly to make her happy on her birthday, but I also realized I could kill two life list items at once: Take my Grandma on vacation and Have a photo of me taken while standing under the Eiffel Tower.)

We are saving up!

I’m currently dreaming of cheese, red wine, maracons and baguettes.

photo by “danske“, from Flickr

brown sugar and molasses; the foundation of love

Beef + Bulgar Chili

1 cup of bulgar wheat
2 cups water, boiling
evoo
2 cloves of garlic, minced
one small onion, chopped
one red pepper, diced
1 pound of beef, ground
one 28 oz. can of tomato purée

The Love:
4 TBS brown sugar
2 TBS molasses
4 TBS cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp. dry mustard
2 tsp. honey

In a medium bowl pour boiling water over dry bulgar wheat and set it aside for about half an hour, until the water is mostly absorbed. In a big stock pot, drizzle some olive oil and sauté the onion, garlic and pepper until the onion is soft, using medium heat. Add the beef and cook it until it’s medium rare. Add the tomato purée and cover. In another bowl, mix up the Love with a whisk and scrape it into the pot using a rubber spatula. Dump in the bulgar wheat when it’s ready, and then let the whole thing simmer until you get really hungry from the smell and have to have some, about half an hour or whatever.

Vegetarianize it by doubling the bulgar and skipping the beef. You can veganize it by doing that and swapping the honey for maple syrup.

Normally I’d take a photo of more stuff in the process, but I got so wrapped up in paying attention to the steps, and writing, that I spaced (this is my own recipe, and I wrote it as I was cooking).  The final product looks just like chili.  You can use your imagination.  But that combo of brown sugar and molasses, I thought, was just too beautiful not to share.

Praia Piquinia 27/08/09 15h17 by Christian Chaize, print for sale in two sizes at 20×200.com

Bad-ass of the week goes to this Australian grandma. She fended off a shark attack with her fists, despite massive blood loss. Get well soon, Ms. Trumbull!

It’s about time those Teabaggers Googled “teabagger“!

Excellent advice for new bloggers.

The cutest farts ever, by way of a very small human.

Kim Pye never stops wowing me with her creativity. She made her own Lara bars.

30 little kitchen tips that will make you feel all levels of brilliant.

May your weekend be full of hugs (as mine surely will be).

Preeti had me over for lunch and made an elaborate stuffed mushrooms and pizza feast. For dessert she “whipped up” a raspberry buttermilk cake from Smitten Kitchen.  She brushed off my fawning as “no big deal”.

Carrot Creative celebrated a year’s worth of Digital DUMBO events by creating this potent whiskey-based carrot cocktail and topped them with gummi carrots.  Where the heck do you find gummi carrots?!  Aren’t they cute?

The Lost season premiere party at the Bell House had cans of Tecate masquerading as Dharma Initiative beer.

Sometimes we get behind in the dishes.

Phil played a “Farewell East Cost” show at a tiny coffee shop in Connecticut.  Then he took off for LA where he is, I am assuming, much warmer than I.

I’ve wanted a new makeup bag forever – my old one was really ugly, but it was a only a dollar on super “this is really ugly” clearance, so I stuck with it for years and gave up finding another one.  Then a few weeks ago I found Sugar Sweet Beet, an Etsy store run by a 28 year old mom of three in Michigan.  Forking over my cash to Target for a makeup bag didn’t appeal to me, but supporting a woman-run business is right up my alley, so I got one.  I also ordered a business card holder for my Hey Brooklyn cards.  When they arrived I was thrilled with the quality and left her a glowing comment on the feedback page.

“Now,” I said, “you need to start making Moo card holders!”  (I made Moo cards for my blog even though my Hey Brooklyn cards are full-size.)

She wrote me back saying she’d make her first Moo card holder for me, on the house, and here it is.

Both card holders fit a whole big pinch of cards from the box.  I’m used to holders that only hold twenty or so.  These would be perfect for fancy people who print their business cards on thick stock.  I like the coordinating fabric on the inside, too.

The makeup bag comes in four sizes; the biggest three stand on their own.  This is the medium, and is just right for holding my every day things (my old ugly bag is now hidden under the bathroom sink and holds my special occasion makeup.)

You can select your own fabric or choose from the pre-made things she has, and for $1 more you can have a name embroidered on the inside, too!

The prices are really reasonable.  This makeup bag was $10 and the business card holder was $4.50.

Go forth and support small business!

Occasionally I’ll be eating something and then look down and be like, “Why the hell am I eating this? This has loads and loads of calories and zero nutrition. It isn’t even good! I do not need this!” and then I KEEP EATING IT. And I have no idea why. Do you know why I don’t know why? Because there is no scientific reason why.

I like science a lot. I like rationality, precision of speech – I don’t do “emotional” well. So it kind of sucks that my “get healthy” kick has to involve emoting and “feelings”. Bleh.

I know what a calorie is – the amount of energy it takes to raise one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. I know that it takes 7700 calories to burn one kilogram, or 3500 to burn a pound. I know we evolved to prefer fat and salt (hello, Fritos!) and that eating trees is out of the question for us because we can’t digest cellulose.

But I have no idea why I keep getting Cheesy Bread from Dominos.

I very much like this Twill Cargo Zip Jacket from Old Navy.  It comes in a few khaki-ish colors, a pale yellow and a navy blue, too.  $40

Really quick post – I am so excited to announce that today is the first week of me being regularly featured on the Skint each Monday! The Skint is a daily listing of free and cheap things to buy, see, do and eat in New York, and I’m spicing it up with a link to my weekly Hey Brooklyn interviews. Here is the first one!

This connection is excellent for me because they’re a great website – I’ve turned to them often when figuring out weekend plans – and they have a wide readership, so more eyeballs on me! You know I’m such an attention hog.

water color from I Wish Everything Had Pockets, in honor of all the snow we’ve gotten this week.

I was fascinated reading this list of people who disappeared mysteriously on Wikipedia.

This lace tealight project is one of those craft projects I want to do but never quite get around to doing. Maybe you will? Here’s another take on it.

An article by Mark Morford in the SFGate summed up why it might be a good idea for all of us to STFU.

What to do with all the paint chips you stole from Home Depot.

I’ve been changing my Twitter background each month using wallpaper from different artists around the web that make designs you can use for free. These are good Valentines Day ish ones from Ollibird.

This satirical list of 43 Ways to Simplify Your Life had me laughing!

Happy weekend!

Part of the beauty of blogging is opening yourself up to the world. This is what people point to as the worst of blogging, too, (“Why do you want everyone to know you made a cake?!” or “Why do you want the world to hear about your emotional issues?”) but that mentality doesn’t jive with me. I love it when someone shares about their day – even the little things like a new cake recipe – or talks about what they’re struggling with because I learn so much about my own self, even if what they’re talking about isn’t something obviously related to my life.

Sharing like this was something I used to to do better than I have been currently. I curbed it on purpose because I needed to be less heart-on-sleeve for a while, but it’s been lonely to not write my feelings. And so, these are my feelings: I am happy mountain climber. This life, if it’s a mountain, I’m in the middle of it. I can look down and see all of these unbelievable rock formations I’ve gotten over, and I look up and can see others that seem insurmountable and I keep loosing my footing, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” and think I can’t get through them, but then I remember those really scary rock formations I’ve already gotten through and I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I actually can totally do this.” So I’m happy, even though it’s hard, and I’m still climbing.

I had a series of incidents a few months ago that devastated me – I’m being vague because it involves other people and would be tacky to disclose telling info, ok? Someone was unbearably unkind to me, and it crushed me for a while. I’m just now starting to fluff back up again. And, you know, there’s one thing I’m really good at, and it’s not letting people who don’t matter get me down. But this person matters, because they are woven into the fabric of my life whether I like it or not, and the incidents were so troubling that I had to do something I’ve never done before: I sought medical help to get through. I lost sleep, and hair(!), and confidence in my ability to maintain the level of grace I expect of myself. I stopped eating well (although I managed to not stop exercising, which helped tremendously), and eventually emailed my doctor, a huge step for me, and asked for help. I am a big believer in “save yourself” ala Iyanla Vanzant but this time I just couldn’t do it alone, and Rob couldn’t help me by himself either (though, bless him, he tried) and so I said to an outsider, “Help me” and OH MY GOD THE WORLD DIDN’T COME TO AN END.

I know; you know that. But it shocked me.

He ended up not prescribing anything at my insistence, and that was a mistake (I’m really not good at this “ask for help” stuff). I just didn’t want to feel like “Oh, I’m one of those people who needs drugs now.” even though I read all of Heather Armstrong’s posts labeled “depression” and should, therefore, know better. But just talking to someone helped, even though it felt weird.

I’m better now. I managed to save myself with a little bit of help. It was harder than it needed to be, and I won’t make that mistake again. I’m learning. And I’m getting fluffier.

picture via flickr user Ripis