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Insert Joke About Cutting the Cheese Here.

I was at the grocery store the other day, and I saw a hunk of cheese.

A hunk of cheese that, it appeared, had no earthly business sitting in a grocery store in Fayetteville, NC.

Sage Derby Cheese

I moved on.

Then I came back.  Then I picked it up.  I stared at its martian green marbles, tried sniffing through the plastic.

Then, instinctually, I set it back down.

No earthly business, I thought.

But I came back again.

It’s just so enticingly green, I thought.  I love green things.  Green is the color of nature.  And dragons.  And travel.  All of the things I love.

(Okay, so travel isn’t green per se, but green is the color of U.S. paper currency.  Which allows me to travel.  So there ya go.)

Green is also the color of mold, which, okay in most cases maybe isn’t a good thing, but I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that mold and cheese belong together.

Just like me and Scott Bairstow.

He just doesn’t know it yet.

So by that logic, this must be the BestCheeseInTheWorld.

So I bought it.  And there, in the store, through the miracle of modern technology, I found a recipe to use it with as well.

Since I had no idea what this cheese tasted like, I didn’t want to risk buying it and have it sit in my fridge for a decade while I, still rife with indecision, decided what flavors would go well with it.

While I was at it, I also did a little background research a la Wikipedia.  Apparently it’s sage — not mold — that creates the marbled effect (hence the name), and it’s pronounced daaahrby — not derby — with a proper English accent, as the British are wont to do.

When I got it home and ripped into the packaging with the ferocity of an 11-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert, (hey — I like my cheese), I actually found the flavor pretty mild.  Nothing to get worked up about.

But the open-faced sandwiches I ended up making with it?

Those are worth mentioning.  And I would venture to say that you don’t need to hunt down Sage Derby cheese to make these bad boys.  Any good melting cheese will do the trick.

They’re open-faced corned beef, cheese, and pickled onion sandwiches.  I found the original recipe here, on Food.com, and it’s everything you could look for in a summer weeknight meal:  it’s fast, and it uses the broiler so you don’t need to heat up the entire house with the oven.

To make them, you will need:

  • 1/2 onion, sliced paper-thin
  • 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp. water
  • 2 Tbsp. sugar
  • Pinch red pepper flakes
  • 4 slices of Irish Soda Bread or French Bread or some kind of thick, crusty bread
  • Mayonnaise
  • Spicy Mustard (like Dijon)
  • Thin-sliced corned beef
  • Sage Derby cheese (or some kind of good melty cheese you know you like)

1.  Slice your 1/2 onion as thin as possible.  This would be much, much easier with a mandoline.  You know.  In case anyone wants to buy me one.

2.  Stick the onion in a bowl, and add 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar…

…2 tablespoons of water…

…2 tablespoons of sugar…

…and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Toss to coat, cover the bowl, and stick it in the fridge.

3.  Preheat your oven’s broiler.

(Um.  I don’t have a photo of that.)

4.  Slice your bread as thick as you’d like.

5.  Spread a thin layer of mayo and spicy mustard.

6.  Remove your pickled onion from the fridge and drain the excess liquid, then add that to your bread slices and top with corned beef.

7.  Slice your cheese thin and add that as the final layer.

8.  Place your sandwiches on a baking sheet and stick ’em 6-8 inches under the broiler for 3-4 minutes.

Watch close — you don’t want to burn the cheese!

9.  Okay, so it looks like boring peasant food, but trust me.  Just take a bite.

Feel better?

Open faced corned beef cheese sandwich with pickled onions

I mean, if I’d slapped a French name on it, like Croque-Monsieur, you’d be all over these puppies.

I know we were.

Two nights in a row.

This Might Be Scarier than Sponge Bob with a Speculum.

I have something to tell you.

It might make you think I’m odd.

But you probably already think I’m odd and you’re still here, so really, that makes you kind of odd.

Which is probably why we get along so well.

Anyway.

It has to do with how much I dread a regular check-up like appointment I have to make with a certain specialist where I sit in an exam room so he/she can stare into certain orifices and pull skin to the side and poke around.  It’s the most uncomfortable thing in the world.  Like an invasion of my entire being.  I don’t know this person.  She doesn’t know me.  Yet here she is, looking inside, inwardly (if not outwardly) judging my hygienic practices and probably how I wear my makeup.

Yep.  I’m scared of the Eye Doctor.

What?

You thought I was going to say something you thought was uncomfortable like Gynecologist or Dentist, didn’t you?

Well.  I have news.  Those folks have nothing on Eye Doctors.

I’ve had the same Vag Guy for the past 5 years.  I’m comfortable with him.  My vag is comfortable with him.  We know what to expect and how long it will take.  There’s no guesswork involved — just some mild groping and a tissue sample.  The entire yearly appointment takes all of 5 minutes for him to get in and get out.  Wham, bam, ThankYouMa’am.

And the Dentist?  Them’s small potatoes.  You see the Dentist for all of 30 seconds at the end of an appointment, and he/she is always super nice in a desperate attempt to make up for the fact that everybody hates them.  It’s the hygienists you have to bond with.  Until recently, I had the same hygienist the entire time we lived here.  Every 6 months, Penny was my buddy.  She taught me how to floss properly, introduced me to Reach Gum Care woven floss, used water — not scrapers — to clean my teeth, and basically renewed my entire faith in the dental industry.

source

Nothing scary about that.

Then there’s the eye doctor.

I abhor going to the eye doctor.

I think I’d rather get a pap smear by Sponge Bob than go to the eye doctor.

Okay.  That’s not true at all.  We all know how I feel about him.

(Seriously, I was going to try to find a funny Sponge Bob photo to put here, and I couldn’t do it.  It was just too scary.  You’ll have to use your imagination.)

Not to belittle the undoubtedly interesting and challenging field that is optometry, but I have to say — it seems a lot less exact than the previous fields mentioned, which involve things like lab tests and visual verification to determine when something’s out of whack.

Unfortunately for them, Optometrists have to depend on the patient for much of their diagnosis.  And I’m sorry, but I’m just not a good patient.

When you shine a light in my eye and then 2 seconds later stick a steampunk machine in front of my face ask me to stare at a lit chart on the wall and ask me what I can read, I feel like laughing because it seems like you must be joking.

You just directed a light into my eyeball and now you want me to stare across the room and read?

I stare at a fuzzy ball, 2 or 3 lines down from the top of the chart, and make a guess.

You grunt, flip a switch, and ask me if the fuzzy ball is now better or worse.

Better or worse than what?

It’s still fuzzy.

You’re asking me to decipher the difference between fuzzy and fuzzy.

I get frustrated.

You get frustrated.

I feel like an idiot.

You probably feel like an idiot.

But hey — at least you’re getting paid for this.

And so it goes.  Four appointments, 3 trial lenses, and hundreds of dollars worth of prescription drops and cleaning fluids later, I have to miss a half day of work today to pay you a surprise visit because I was up all night with an intense headache behind one eye.  Because, I realize, my new prescription is much, much stronger than my old one.  And I can’t see.  And I want to cry.  And I don’t want to see you, and you most certainly don’t want to see me, yet still here we are.

A different doctor every year.

So I know the problem must be me, which makes it even worse.

Always an ordeal.

Always an embarrassment.

I think it might be time to consider Lasik.

What doctor do you fear the most?

 

 

Chicken & Waffles: Like Socks With Sandals, It Just Makes Sense.

Last weekend, a baby and her adorable parents took us to lunch.

See how cute those parents are?

In Durham, NC, there’s a place that, while the menu had grown over time, specializes in exactly 2 things:

Chicken ‘n Waffles.

Say, what?

Sounds strange, but Durham people know that Dame’s Chicken & Waffles is something special.  Which is why we weren’t too surprised to see the gigantic line outside.

Bummed, but not surprised.

How long is the wait?

So we waited.

And we watched people eat.

And we studied the menu.

And we became mildly concerned that we were going to starve to death, right there on the street, watching people devour heaping plates of fried chicken and waffles.

Jesus, my husband has to stop looking cute while holding babies.

We became delusional from the hunger, gnawing on mice and stray appendages.

Have I been reading too much Hunger Games?

They called us just in time.

And all was right with the world.

So I’ll get right down to it.

The place has a great atmosphere — tiny, crowded, and cramped enough to see what everyone else is ordering.

(Pssst – I’ll give you a hint:  Chicken.  And Waffles.)

Alaina and I got started with champagne and lemonade.  You know, to celebrate getting in.  We were going to go with mimosas, but our waitress killed us on the up sell.  The great thing is that they ended up being less than $7.00 each, and we were able to carry our mini wine cooler-tasting bottles of champagne through the Durham art show, taking nips to dull the pain of my poor choice in footwear.

I’m glad our drinks were light, because the meal was certainly not.

First came the sides.

A bowl of incredible fresh fruit — plump, ripe strawberries and sweet, juicy pineapple.  The cheese grits (left) were delicious — not gritty at all, which, in my non-southern humble little opinion, is the only way grits are tolerable.

The spicy greens, while not exactly aesthetically appealing, were divine, if you like that sort of thing.

spicy collard greens

Judge with your mouth — not with your eyes.

And the mac ‘n cheese.  Oh, my.  I could’ve had this as my meal.

mac 'n cheese

But we were just getting started.

On the back of Dame’s menu are several suggested chicken ‘n waffle combinations, including the “Orange Speckled Chabo,” served with a fried chicken cutlet, sweet potato waffle, honey-dijon mustard, and orange-honeycomb schmear, or the “Buff Brahmas,” served with your choice of wings or cutlets drizzled with whiskey cream sauce, a classic waffle, and peach apricot schmear.

The Buff Brahmas.

The verdict?

My fried chicken was cooked perfectly — nice and moist inside.  Unfortunately, it was a little soggy due to the whisky cream sauce, which, while mighty tasty, definitely took away from the texture of the chicken.  But everyone else loved theirs.

Now.

Let me tell you about the waffles.

And the schmear.

What’s schmear?  Well.  According to me, they’re little flavored dollops of mouth exploding gastrogasms.

To Dame’s, they’re flavored dollops of whipped sweet cream butter.

I schmeared my peach apricot schmear all over my beautiful waffle (and I’m not normally a waffle person), topped that with some maple syrup, and died.

Dame's Chicken and Waffles

Then I came back to life to eat some more.

Then I died again.

It. Was. Incredible.

Justin order the “Orange Speckled Chabo,” and we both felt that the sweet potato waffles were inferior to my classic ones.  Though his orange schmear was zesty and delicious.

But mine?  That combination of peach apricot schmear, whiskey cream sauce, and maple syrup was phenomenal.

A plate full of artery-clogging, diabetes-triggering deliciousness.

I wouldn’t take it back for a second.

In the end, we all felt like this.

But it was well — well worth the wait.

Have you had any excellent meals lately?

Dame's Chicken & Waffles on Urbanspoon

Dos and Don’ts of an NYC Day Trip.

DO ride the subway.

It’s not as confusing as it looks.

DON’T fall into the gap, regardless of what the clothing brand might tell you.

The NYC subway is full of helpful tidbits.

 

DO look up.

There’s life up there.

DON’T buy what you can’t afford.

I’m just looking. I swear.

DO reflect.

9/11 Memorial

Rebuilding.

DON’T try to use the Burger King restroom near the 9/11 memorial.

Unless you want to spend an hour of your one day in NYC in line at a Burger King restroom.

DO take the Staten Island Ferry.

Parking is cheap, the ferry is free, and it’s a great way to see the skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

DON’T stop to take photos in the middle of an intersection.

This could have been my last.

DO eat.  A lot.

Never full enough.

 

DON’T assume that all fashion is good fashion.

Camel toe.

DO be grateful for guides who keep you on track.

If it weren’t for them, I’d probably still be wandering around Little Italy trying to pick a place to eat.

DON’T blink.  You might miss something.

You Can Hardly Call It A Tease If It’s Completely Naked, Can You?

If I had a dollar for everything I’ve told you I would post about but have never actually posted about, I’d be able to buy… like… two Starbucks lattes.

Grandes.

But there’s one thing I’m particularly itching to share.

And of course, since it’s still not finished, I can only give you a peek.

A teaser, if you will.

DIY Chalk Paint Dresser

A hardwareless peek.

It might just be because she’s completely naked, but I think she’s pretty sexy.

You?

If Teachers Were Allowed to Carry Flasks, I Maybe Could Do that Job, Too.

The checkout lady at the grocery store thought I was a teacher.

She scanned the glue stick I’d purchased in order to assemble approximately 587 open house invitations for work (okay, maybe it was 120) later that evening, and then asked the question.

“Are you a teacher?”  Big smile.

I looked at the artichoke, thick hickory smoked bacon, 2 bars of salted chocolate, green onions, cauliflower, and four bottles of wine that followed the little orange stick down the moving assembly line counter, like good little students on their way to lunch.

My friend Katie (yes, another Katie), who actually is a teacher, suggested that it must have been the wine — not the glue stick — that tipped her off.

And I have to agree.

Sometimes I think maybe I’d like to be a teacher.  Only not the glue stick-wielding, double line-arranging, hand-holding kind because things like craft projects and untied shoe laces and stalactite boogers make me uncomfortable.

And I have very little patience.

And I wouldn’t have nearly a big enough wine budget.

But sometimes I think I’d like to be the Dr.-preceeding, university-working, wall-to-wall office bookshelf-having kind.

I’m not sure what I’d teach, but I would teach it well.  I’d find a way to reach into the minds of impressionable young people — people who actually want to learn — and mold their pliable little brains into whatever strong-yet-imperfect sculpture I think future generations should uphold.

Okay.

Like my friend Dennis would attest, though he’d somehow manage to avoid the cliché, that’s easier said than done.

Which is probably why I’m not a teacher.

But here’s the thing.

Each and every one of us has the opportunity to teach something every day — whether it’s part of our actual job or not.

From the way we speak to the lady behind the grocery store checkout counter who somehow mistakes us for someone who might choose to hang out with 30 children all day to the way we react when our spouses tell us they dropped and cracked the iPhones they refused to adorn with heavy-duty cases because they didn’t like the bulk, we always have the choice to handle encounters with grace and finesse over short tempers and rudeness.

With the exception of jackass drivers on the roads, I’m rarely rude to a stranger.  Where I could stand to improve is the way I am with the ones I love.

Because, whether we realize it or not, we’re always being watched.

Minds — both young and old — are always being affected by the choices we make every day.

We have the ability and choice to make someone’s day better, or to make it worse.  It’s as simple as that.

And I think, in my obviously thoughtful and optimistic state of mind this morning, that I’m going to focus on making days better.

And maybe the wall-to-wall office bookshelves will come with time.

How about you? What do you tend to choose?

P.S. I lied before when I told you that I imported all of my previous subscribers. I was wrong. This did not happen. And now I’m sad. So please re-subscribe by typing your email address into the “Subscribe to this blog via email” section in the top-right corner of the page, just below the header. I MISS you!

Public Service Announcement. Then I’ll Stop Bugging You Forever. Or Until Next Time.

I thought I should let you know that I actually managed to move all of you lovely email subscribers myself.  Apparently I was not very diligent with my research after 11 hours of headaches during yesterday’s transfer, but today I’ve managed to fix some issues with a clear head.  So, if you were actually nice enough to already re-subscribe, hopefully this won’t cause you to get double emails.  Let me know if you do, and I will fix it.

The people who will no longer get updates, apparently, are my lovely followers from WordPress.com.  (You know who you are.)  So, if you want to continue getting updates for my site, please subscribe via the email subscriber in the top right corner of my page.

That is all.

For now.

Thank you for your time.

Just This Once, Happy To Be Wrong.

Almost six years ago, short only by a month, a boy met a girl.

The boy was scruffy.  Bachelorized.  Severely lacking in the skills of courtship that, if harnessed and properly utilized, could so effortlessly turn “like” into “love.”

He was one of my best friends.

The girl was striking.  Confident.  Recently heartbroken over someone whose name never deserved the ink in her journal, yet strong-willed enough to know that Life has a way of working things out.

She was my cousin.

She still is, I know, so I’m not sure why I’m writing in the past-tense, except maybe because now she — and they — are so much more.

It was at my wedding.  June 2nd, 2006.  My cousin called him the “Red Tie Guy.”

Love at first sight?

Because, you know, that’s what he was wearing.

I like making matches.

I’m not going to lie.

But when he showed up at my bachelorette party just a few days prior (because he’s that good of a friend), Scott asked if there would be any single girls he hadn’t yet met at the wedding.

Because who wouldn’t want to date a guy who goes to bachelorette parties?

And I may have said, “Well… there’s my cousin…”

His blue eyes looked hopeful.

“But she’s too good for you.”

Kicked puppy.

Ugh.

I winked.  He laughed.  But really, it turns out, I was just tempting fate.

Yep, not just one, but TWO guys celebrating the sistahood.  The one on the right has no idea his bachelor days are numbered.

At my wedding they met.  After that they kissed.  Then they dated.

They carried out a long-distance relationship for a seemingly unreasonable amount of time, but they were in love.

Self-portrait by Leah B Photography.

These things happen.

Now, so many years later — so many experiences later — my perpetual bachelor friend has passed me by.

He looks different.

The whole world looks different.

Photo by Leah B Photography.

Now he has a new bachelorette to worry about.

And the thing is, I always knew Leah would make a wonderful mother.

But it turns out, Scottie B., that I’m pretty sure you will not be anything less than an exceptional father.

So listen closely, because I’m only going to say this once:

 

I was wrong.

 

You’re not not good enough for my cousin.

You — the two of you — and now the three — are completely,

exactly,

right.

(Unrelated side note:  I re-vamped the site and there will soon be some changes.  The most unfortunate side effect is that you have probably lost your email subscription if you had one.  If so, please go to the top right corner of the page, just below the header and menu where it says “Subscribe to Blog Via Email.”  THAT’S where you go to re-subscribe.  And I’m not saying it will hurt my feelings if you don’t, but it might turn me into an emotional puddle of helplessness.  So.  If you don’t put your email in that box and hit “subscribe,” all that’s on you. Okay, so apparently I wasn’t very diligent in my research earlier, and I have now been able to transfer all of my email subscribers to my new site. So you’re off the hook. You’re welcome. Unfortunately, it’s still looking like any of my followers from WordPress.com (you know who you are) will have to use the email subscribe option in the top right corner of this page if you want to keep getting updates. And, you know… I’ll miss you if you don’t.)

Catch You On the Flip Side

Okay.  So I’m currently in the process of trying to self-host this site.  It’s slow.  It’s frustrating.  It’s going to require many, many glasses of wine.

Also, I just realized that if you’ve subscribed via email, you may no longer get emails after this post. You will have to re-subscribe.

In fact, you might not even get notice of this post, because I have no idea how all of this technical stuff works.

Anyway.

I’m doing this for various reasons — reasons I will explain in good time.  In the meantime, I hope you will take the time to re-subscribe to receive emails when the site officially switches over, assuming I can even figure out how to set up that capability.

Because you’re like my security blanket, my self-esteem boosters, and my therapists, all rolled into one supportive virtual care package.  Even when you say nothing, it still helps to know you’re there.

So please don’t leave me.

And bear with me while I figure all of this out.

And umm… I’ll get over this whole needy girlfriend phase once I’m back up and running.  Because nothing brings out neediness more than technology problems.  And of those, I currently have many.

I’ll catch you on the flip side!

(I hope.)

UPDATE:  The new site seems to be up and running. Please go to the window in the top-right corner, just below the header, where it says, “Subscribe to Blog Via Email.”  Fill it out to update your subscription so you can still receive email notifications when I post. I won’t spam you. I promise. I’m sorry for the inconvenience!

UPDATE UPDATE:  So I’ve actually managed to move all of you lovely email subscribers myself.  The people who will no longer get updates, apparently, are my lovely followers from WordPress.com.  (You know who you are.)  So, if you want to continue getting updates for my site, please subscribe via the email subscriber in the top right corner of my page.  That is all.  For now.  Thank you for your time.)

Street Walkin’ in Annapolis.

Erin.

I have a secret.

No, I’m not a street-walkin’, stick-legged, glowy-eyed hooker, as evidenced by that last photo.

It’s worse.

Shameful.

Here goes.

I don’t always love to carry my DSLR camera everywhere.

It’s bulky.  It’s heavy.  I have to mess with lens switching and cleaning and worrying about breaking something or expensive equipment getting stolen.

So sometimes, sometimes I just use my phone’s camera.

And you know, it’s not so bad.

It’s grainy.  And gritty.  And dark and unfocused.

But there’s something… raw, you know?

Imperfect.

It’s what I used while wandering the streets of Annapolis.

Not hookin’.