last week, i caught the last few minutes of nigella bites. i love watching nigella, as she always has such a great time in the kitchen & at the end of each program, friends come over and share in the best part - the feast! anyhow, nigella was using some tool that i immediately thought would be a great addition in my kitchen. however, i couldn't remember the name and i kinda forgot about it until today...
a co-worker was going through his copy of the tribune this morning, and was going to toss a bunch of sections, including woman news and good eating. okay, easy there, i always love to check these sections, so he passed them over. lo and behold, i'm flipping through the food section and there is a small feature titled "from the test kitchen" and wouldn't you know, there is the tool: it's called a mezzaluna and it would be so beneficial when chopping such things as garlic and even pesky cilantro. i love new kitchen tools!
my new favorite product: stila lip glaze in blackberry. the cashier at sephora wasn't kidding when she said that i'd fall in love with this item! i'm already thinking about which color to go with next ;-)
thanks to jason for the kind plug - with your help i cracked a new milestone. i still can't believe my hits are over 10,000, really just a wonder! you guys are the best & i'm so happy to finally have comments on this site.
happy birthday to lacey - much fun hanging with you this weekend!
my weekend turned out to be quite successful, i must say. friday night was reserved for some relaxing time with friends, still catching up from the excitement of last weekend. saturday, i joined a bunch of the chicago bloggers at the second anon-fed event. afterwards, jes was craving sushi, so a group of us headed down clark street for sushi. aidan, dave, jeff, jes, naz and myself spent a bit of time eating & laughing before my roommates & i continued our merrymaking at a few parties hosted by friends.
it's always nice to spend some time at parties thrown by friends. i spend so much time preparing for our own parties, with all the pre-planning and cleaning that comes along, i forget how nice it is to enjoy a party without all the extra baggage we tend to carry with us when planning the return to armitage events!
lastly, a good weekend capped off with beautiful weather could only be complete with a shopping adventure! yesterday was unbelievable - i couldn't have asked for a better day to spend with my friends walking around the city, spending a little $$$, and capping it off with drinks & appetizers before heading home to watch the the simpsons.
living in a big city, i deal with SUV's much more than i'd like. and, well, we all know how much off-roading is available in chicago, right? um, yeah, little to none - unless you count ripping over the countless speed bumps that keep poppin' up throughout the back alleys & side streets of the city.
as a member of the NRDC - national resources defense council - i receive many email alerts and will usually try to do my part. this time, i'm going to take it one step further and ask my faithful readers to take 2 minutes out of a busy day to join me in sending a fax to your local senators. sound like too much work?
well, it's quite simple, as all you have to do is give your email, name & address, and NRDC will send the faxes for you! our senators are home on break right now, and an actual hard-copy fax is going to make a BIG difference in the coming votes over drilling in the arctic & raising vehicle fuel economy standards.
i hope you don't mind this simple request, it really can make a difference............and in timely fashion, stay tuned for my tirade against SUV's!
in today's food section of the chicago tribune, there is a great article, with a bunch of recipes, about one of my personal favorite comfort foods - mac 'n cheese - yummy!
aidan just emailed me a message about the rare time symmetry that will occur at two minutes past eight on wednesday night:
time and date form a rare triple palindrome -- 20:02, 20/02/2002 -- reading the same backwards and forwards. the last time that date and time were aligned in this way was on the morning of november 11, in the year 1111.
somehow, i doubt i'll be able to say "i remember where i was when the triple palindrome occured" - but hey, it's still pretty cool!
first, made a trip to whole foods to satisfy my current craving - tomorrow after i pick up sj from the airport, we'll have goat cheese & roasted red pepper sandwiches on some crusty french bread.....
then we made a trek over to sam's wine & spirits to stock up for the party. this place is the best! honestly, it's as big as a warehouse, we have yet to explore half the store and they have free samples and tastings all the time. after picking up some jack daniels, we made our way over to a station handing out shots of a new type of rum - red rum with magic. while talking to the woman handing out the samples we were floored by our next discovery......
turns out, sam's is running a sale on chartreuse - only $9.99 a bottle! this stuff usually goes for $39.99, we had to pick up two bottles. now, we don't plan on busting into both at the party, as this stuff is wicked: although it apparently does not prolong life, with 130 herbs and spices infused into a base of 71 percent wine alcohol, it did have many curative powers. then, the carthusian monks became distillers of this medicinal elixir. crazy stuff!
welcome to smellen.com - version 3.0! things are not totally out of the woods yet, but there is a reason why this design went up today....
today is my first year anniversary as a blogger! one year ago today, i stepped into the blog community. i've met lots of great people, i've experienced the good & the bad of this community, and i've slowly come to the realization that i am not a designer.
this design was brought to life with help from the wonderful and talented laura, my pop culture slut ;-) with a few minimal ideas from me, laura busted ass to get this design up for my anniversary. some things are not quite fully functional, but it should be a bit more under control by the weekend. of course, my dysfunctional internet service sure didn't help much, but we managed to make the best of the situation.
comments will soon be in place, and i need to finish up working on some of the sub-pages. for now, archives will remain in the old design - when i have more time & a reliable connection in the evening, i can work on making those look nice & pretty.
February 27, 2002