April showers bring Mayo powers!

     So...tonight we made mayo.

     Since moving to Seattle, we've done a lot of things that have made me feel a little like a dirty hippie:  we compost all of our food waste (when Rowan can remember it), we recycle all of our recyclables (when Rowan can remember it), and to top if all off we just bought a bunch of "new" stuff at the local Goodwill.

     But tonight we made mayo.

     While browsing the Internet for solutions to my aloe allergy (which has become an issue, *grrr*), I came upon a recipe for "quick, easy" mayo, which was high on the list of things I wanted to do, because GMO canola is almost unavoidable if you don't want to pay $10 a bottle for 5 oz. of mayo.  So while browsing a few other pages about how to make homemade deodorant and shampoo (which I'm totally not going to do by the way), I decided we were going to make said mayo.  It seemed really easy.  All the recipe called for was egg yolks, olive oil, sugar, salt, ACV, lemon juice and dijon mustard.  Basically, stick it all in a cup and stir it up with an immersion blender.  It was advertised as "fool-proof", taking no longer than 30 seconds!

     Fool proof my ass.

     The first attempt was a runny disaster.  We basically made eggy salad dressing, which I guess is fine but it tasted far too mayo-y to be good for salad dressing.  After attempting the author's "fool-proof" save (and wasting another egg), we tossed it out. I was grumpy and disgruntled.  I read the blog comments, and I clearly wasn't the only one who had trouble with this recipe, so I googled it.

     Turns out there are a lot of things that people think you need to do in order to make mayo.  Here are a few of my favorites:

• Leave the eggs out overnight so that they reach room temperature before adding them to the mix.
• Add each ingredient one at a time, starting with the egg and ending with the oil, very slowly, mixing completely between each step.
• Add everything but the oil in a bowl.  Mix thoroughly. Add the oil (all 1 1/2 cups of it) a drop at a time while whisking constantly.

     Needless to say, none of these thing seemed quick or easy, and the last one may have required a second set of arms (seriously. A drop at a time), but the woman had made mayo! She had pictures to prove it! In desperation I searched for "easy mayo."  I happened upon a video that appeared to have an immersion blender in it as well.  This video, in fact.

    So, I asked Rowan how many eggs he was willing to sacrifice to my mayo endeavor, and having been given a non-committal shrug, I MADE MAYO.

SEE! I made mayo. 

     In appearances anyway.  The real test would be does it taste like mayo?

    In short, the answer is maybe?  I don't eat a whole lot of mayo plain, so when I stuck my finger in it to try it it tasted... mayo-y...I guess...  It has an unpleasant tang at the end of the taste, and the olive oil we use turns out to taste kind of yucky on its own, but it was mayo!

     Rowan suggested that we put it on bread, because both olive oil and mayo are gross alone but better on bread.  So we did.  ...and then he suggested we add cheese, because why not! So we did!
   
     He bravely took a bite!

He tastes the mayo!

    After chewing for a second (all to the rapid fire clicking of my phone's camera) he decided...

He decides!

   ...it was tasty!

     So we both ate cheese sandwiches.  And then pulled the remainder of the whole chicken we had in the fridge and made chicken salad because now we have just over a cup and a half of mayo to use in 3ish days...

   But that's not the point.   The point is I can now make mayo.  Whenever I want.  As much as I want (we will be halving the recipe next time...) and I can use whatever oil I want.  I can fill it with GMO canola, or not, because I'm the one making it....and that's awesome.

I have knit a sock.

Well, not really...but I did knit two hats, and I am knitting a sock.  It's proving to be ridiculous.  Not hard exactly. Just ridiculous.  I've kept myself from the blogging world because the holidays tend to fill me with the kind of rage that can only be found in disgruntled retail workers, and that just brings everyone down, but with Rowan's bullet post, I felt left out.  So here:

I am knitting a sock.  I will post pictures after Christmas so those who are receiving said sock (and other knit goods) don't have the surprise ruined.  See you in a few days.

:)

Banana Orphans

In light of the fact that we haven't exactly...updated....in a while, here are some random thoughts for padding!  You won't find nuggets of truth this truthful (truthy?) anywhere else folks.

Whole Foods is turning me into a heartless monster.  Breaking up a bunch of bananas feels about as bad as separating a family, but what choice do I have?  Stop stocking up on pea-green bananas please, and I won't have to pick through for the needle in a haystack yellow ones.  I abhor the folks who pick all the meat out of the soup containers, but I'm not magnanimous enough to take one for the team in this case.

A Sherlock Holmes movie should not feel like a sequel to Roadhouse.  I recently re-watched the 2009 film, after forming absolutely no opinion on it the first time.  I think my initial apathy resulted from being mildly pleased that Watson wasn't portrayed as a bumbling fool, and thus ignoring the myriad faults that fill the rest of the running time.  I mean really, when your first scene involves the pair choking out a thug with all the realism of a WWE match and proceeding to kung-fu fight a horde of bad guys, you clearly weren't out to make a Sherlock Holmes movie.  Even if you can forgive the traditionally explosive opening scene, the need to make Holmes into a UFC fighter for the young male demographic is pervasive.  Boooooooo.  That concludes my insightful critique.

If you read my last post (and let's be honest, you didn't), you may recall I was planning on applying for graduate school.  Well, mission accomplished!  Sort of.  I'm going for a non-matriculated admission at UW, meaning they should rubber-stamp me in.  I did take the GRE of course, and will probably apply for REAL studentship the following year with a new recommendation or two.  In the meantime, though, I can be a bum until at least 2014, and that's a conservative estimate.  Hooray for status quo!

Verbalize!

I've been thinking lately.  That in itself is a surprise, but the topic of my vain attempts at cognition is the significance of talking (or writing) about our goals. In the Twitbook (patent pending) age, a whole lot of unnecessary "sharing" goes on.  I'm not a fan of self-indulgent, "Look at me!" behavior, so if I'm going to broadcast something to the world, I would prefer it be devoid of any ego-inflating, attention-seeking impulses.  In other words:

BAD: "I want to lose 10 pounds!"

Translation: Tell me how thin and attractive I already am.









GOOD: "I'm going to quit smoking."

Translation: I'm (probably) going to quit smoking. Any friends who smoke are dead to me for the next 2-6 weeks.









BAD: "I'm going to cut out Facebook for a week."

Translation: I'm way more popular than you, so I need to shut down a line of communication due to overflow.  (Better not risk more than a week though, or no one will remember me and my hilarious status updates.)


GOOD: "I'd like to get into grad school."

Translation: Once I get around to it after a few months or years, I will apply to grad school.

Okay, so maybe that last one isn't so "good" after all.  It's one of mine, and I think it illustrates how even the "good" shared goals can go bad - the act of sharing in itself FEELS like progress, even though it isn't.  The more people you tell, the more certain you and your social circle become that this is going to happen, yet its actual likelihood is unchanged.  It becomes a part of your self-image without any work on your part.  I'm at some risk for that myself, but I'm hoping to channel the positive aspect of "sharing".  I'm posting this goal so there's a bit of accountability for me...I HAVE to go to grad school now, or else abandon this illustrious blog in shame!

As to WHY I want to go, that might be reserved for another post.  It's not terribly interesting, except in that I wouldn't have remotely considered the possibility two years ago.  What could be a bigger waste of time than a life of academia, pumping out meaningless rhetoric all day long?  Well...maybe it's fitting that I take my time-wasting abilities to a professional level.

Putting the UP in yUPpies!

So here it is! After months of brooding and pondering and deep, deep thinking, I present to you our first blog post!  Ok. So maybe months really means several weeks...and deep thinking amounts to passing mentions and many repetitions of "yeah...we should probably start working on that blog we were so excited about..."...but the point is we finally got here.

First, a little bit about us:

I am Amy: a chronically Disney singing 25 year old who spends most of her days and, if dreams count, many of her nights as a cashier at a local upscale grocery store.  He, as you will find out when he gets around to posting, is Rowan: a 23 (or is it 24 now?) year old who, I'm pretty sure, just lifts weights and trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so that he can eat the entire cake (without sharing).

This is (ideally) our blog about our decision to move from Baton Rouge to Seattle. Who knows what it'll become!  Now, I'm going to let Rowan take over and say his piece :P


Rowan (noun): Once a world famous viola prodigy, Rowan's immense talent was drained away in an instant following a poorly thought out gamble with Beelzebub.  He is now reduced to a life of minimal work, moderate exercise, and excessive electronic entertainment.  Despite this, he has kept his noble chin up and agreed to help write what the Albuquerque  Tribune will one day call "The Best Blog Ever Written" (Feb. 2016 issue).   He is currently studying to be a Space Marine.

Well with that introduction out of the way, why am I interested in moving to Seattle?  I have heard the weather is fantastic (and believe it or not, I'm mostly being honest about that one).  Amy and I both have relatively mobile jobs, so what better time in our lives to pick up and settle down elsewhere on a whim?  Also, the upcoming ordeal of driving 2000 miles with 3 cats and a rabbit in our car is the sort of crucible out of which we can only emerge stronger - I would liken it to climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen.  ANY oxygen.

Assuming we survive that, we're both looking forward to a lot of opportunities that Seattle has to offer.  It will be my first "big" city, and by comparison Baton Rouge is truly a city in name only.  And with more people around, the chances that two weirdos like us will actually be able to "fit in" somewhere is bound to increase, right?  All I'm asking for is a club dedicated to Judo, bad movies, League of Legends, philosophy, karaoke outings, Internet memes and brownies.  I can even compromise and replace brownies with cookies...just no raisins, dagnabbit!  Anyway, here's to hoping.  I think we'll spend a post or two introducing the menagerie we keep here as well, hopefully with video evidence of the mayhem.  Ka'plah!

P.S. UP = urban professionals...the two aspects of yuppiedom we currently lack.  Amy thinks it's superfluous to explain this, but I think that even super-geniuses like yourself sometimes need a helping hand. Did I mention you're extremely good looking?  Take care now.