Europe Trip Itinerary

We finally have nailed down some critical elements of our trip, like let's say, hmmm... where we're going to sleep while in Paris! Unfortunately, the couch surfing didn't pan out as I had hoped, but we found a very reasonable B&B through Good Morning Paris. We are staying with Marie-Christine, her daughter and doggie in her apartment in the Latin Quarter! The room looks cozy, we'll be sharing a double bed while we're there. She'll prepare a traditional French breakfast for us everyday and it will cost about 74 Euros a night, which is very reasonable. We're not too far from the metro, so I think we're in a good location! We'll see if that's accurate when we get there.

So far, our schedule is looking somewhat like this:

• Sunday: Arriving, stopping by Marie-Christine's to drop off stuff, maybe going to Versailles?
• Monday - Tuesday: Traditional sightseeing, hitting major stuff like Eiffel Tower, L'Arc de Triomphe, the Seine, cafes, museums...
  
• Wednesday: Reservations for the fixed price lunch at Taillevent, recommended by a friend and this place has its own entry in "1,000 Places to See Before You Die." Unfortunately, just this year, they were downgraded from 3 stars on the Michelin guide to 2 stars, but I bet it's still fabulous. We'll also do more sightseeing and probably a walking tour of the center of Paris.
• Thursday: I'm taking a three hour cooking class at Olivier Berte's school at 10:30 AM. We're preparing a starter, main course and dessert and then we get to eat it with wine. I've never been to a cooking class before, so I thought this would be a good one to try. Probably hit up a lot of museums too. We're buying a museum pass, so we'll be able to get into all of them!
• Friday: Last minute sightseeing and then catching a train to Belgium!

We'll be in Belgium from Friday night through maybe Tuesday morning(?) and the only real "plans" we have are going to a psytrance party on Saturday night and then going to Amsterdam on Monday to meet up with some other gamers that will be in town.

And then by Tuesday, we'll be somewhere in Germany and by Wednesday, in Essen! We're scheduled to attend an English demo of Agricola at 2 PM on Wednesday before the fair actually opens. Meeting James at noon on Thursday at the fair and already planning to eat LOTS of meat with my favorite doctor and the Warfrog guys when I get there! I can't wait! I am really starting to get excited about the trip now!!

I'm Ready for Fall

Have you noticed the days are getting shorter? I left a meeting a couple weeks ago at 7:30 PM and it was dark. It made me do a little happy dance inside... Why? Because that means fall is on the way! I love summer, but really, I think I have a thing for all the seasons (shhhhh...). Each and every one of them brings something special to the table.

Fall is football, soup, socks and jackets! It's blankets and roasts and cookies!

And you wanna know what happens when I have "free" time? And I haven't been to Costco for a while? And I'm tired of eating out all the time and I've been jonesin' to cook? And I've been missing autumn?

I come home bearing a big, giant, beautiful red 8 quart Le Creuset French oven... I'd been really wanting one of these last year, but could never find one big enough at a store. Finally! This cherry red French oven is mine! I can't WAIT to cook in it. I hope to have more pictures this fall of beautiful, delicious meals in it!

Cookies

One of life's great joys is cookies. They're easily portable, not too messy, totally yummy and come in a billion different configurations. They are without a doubt my favorite thing to bake.

Over the weekend, I baked some chocolate chip cookies with macadamia nuts. They were delicious!! I can't wait to bake more! In fact, I am thinking that even though I'm gaming, I will bake some more cookies in between turns or something. I just can't resist!!! Plus, having that gorgeous Kitchenaid stand mixer just makes it so freakin' easy. There's really no excuse NOT to make them.

I'll post some pictures and a recipe tomorrow of whatever gets made.

Awesome Thanksgiving

We had an awesome Thanksgiving! I broke one casserole dish as I was drying it, but other than that, no major disasters!! In fact, everything was beautiful!

Here's a picture of my awesome turkey:

Roasted Turkey

This turkey was from Shelton Farms and it was a free-range, antibiotic/hormone-free turkey. It was delicious! And it was 24 pounds!! I could barely lift it into and out of the oven!

Here's a picture of the first table of side dishes:

Side dishes

We were all hungry by the time dinner was served, so a lot of it has food missing. Let's see we had yams with pecans, green salad, orange jell-o salad, pumpkin pie, vegetable crudite, M&Ms (peanut and plain, dark chocolate ones), green bean casserole, broccoli-mushroom casserole, deviled eggs (made with blue cheese and bacon), mashed potatoes, and yellow squash casserole.

Second side dish table

On the buffet, we had the turkey (beautifully carved by Stephanie R.), cranberry salad, creamed cornbread stuffing and bread stuffing.

I forgot to take a picture of it, but for dessert, we had four different kinds of cheesecakes (Snickers, 3 Musketeers, Reese's PB cups, Midnight Milky Ways), pumpkin pie, apple pie and pecan pies. All desserts were homemade and delicious!!!!

After dessert, we played some Guitar Hero (what else?) and had a great time with that. Shane played some Skipbo with various people too.

Here are some Guitar Hero photos:

Erin and Travis playing Guitar Hero

Erin and Steph playing Guitar Hero - hard song!

Steph playing Guitar Hero - we failed and got booed off the stage!

Dave and Steph playing "Rock this Town" - most likely since it's "our song"

All in all, a super fun evening with great food and great friends. Last year was the first year I didn't do Thanksgiving strictly with family. I think these last two Thanksgivings have been the best ones yet! I expect they will only improve in the future.

Cranberry Side Dishes

I have two cranberry dishes that I make every year for Thanksgiving. The thing I love about both of these recipes is that they can be made a day or two in advance, so I usually make them Tuesday or Wednesday night so they're ready to go on Thanksgiving. I found both of these recipes in a Martha Stewart Living magazine (the one with the chocolate turkey on the cover I believe).

I usually make Martha's Cranberry Orange Sauce which is basically just taking 3 cups of fresh cranberries (12 oz.) and cooking them in a pan with 1 cup of sugar over medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries begin to pop (about 7 minutes). Then add 1 cup of water and simmer until slightly thickened (about 4 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in whole segments of 2 satsuma mandarin oranges. Let it cool!

The other one is a recipe for Cranberry Orange Relish. I modified it to my tastes and ever since the first year I made it, it has become a staple at my Thanksgiving table. When I saw it, the first ingredient that really piqued my interest was the jalopeno! I love spicy food and I don't think I had ever eaten a real cranberry, so I just decided to go for it.

Here's the original recipe and I just put all the stuff I omit at the bottom of the ingredients list and marked them as (omit).

Cranberry Orange Relish

Cranberry Orange Relish

Makes 2 cups
This is an easy addition to the Thanksgiving menu since it doesn't require any cooking.

2 cups fresh or defrosted frozen cranberries
1/4 cup diced red onion
1 large jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 blood oranges or navel oranges, peeled, sectioned, and cut into 1/4-inch pieces, juices reserved
2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger (omit)
1/2 cup sugar
2 stalks celery, peeled to remove strings, cut in 1/4-inch dice
1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped (omit)
1/4 cup pecans, toasted, broken in pieces (omit)

1. Place cranberries in food processor, and pulse to chop coarsely, about five pulses. Transfer to a medium bowl.

2. Add onion, jalapeño, lime juice, orange sections and juice, ginger, sugar, and celery; mix gently. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Just before serving, add mint and pecans, and toss to combine.

Here's a picture of the ingredients before mixing it up:

Cranberry Orange Relish - "Before" picture