Movies

I haven't seen most movies it seems, but I did a fair bit of catching up this past weekend. From Friday to Sunday I watched:

Jewel of the Nile
Robin Hood (the new one with Russell Crowe)
Jennifer's Body
Balls of Fury
Kung Pow- just the end of it, I love that movie.
The Watchmen
Coraline
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

I had a headache, so I sat in front of the TV all day Sunday and we watched a movie with my free netflix subscription Friday & Saturday nights after snowboarding. =)

I'm a winner

The annual Utah Court of Appeals Chili Cook Off is a serious matter, complete with written rules, typed out voting ballots and strict codes of chef-anonymity to ensure against  heckling and lobbying the voters... everything you'd expect from a contest run by Judges. This year's eighth annual chili cook off was no exception. I enlisted myself as a chili cook- one of six- and already went down in the chili record books as the first intern who actually cooked for the contest. Other records were broken too- this year resulted in the first ever first place tie and second place three way tie. Leading the pack with eight votes each was, you guessed it, my chili. I tied this other guy Brett, who was the reigning champion from last year. He doesn't use a recipe and decided to throw cocoa powder into his chili broth this year, it was pretty amazing! The three way second place tie went to the three Judges who cooked- all of which hoped to break the Judge losing streak that spans the entire life of the cook off. That's right, no Judge has ever won and this year three, an unprecedented amount, participated as chili chefs and despite having strength in numbers, all three today were out-chilied. 

My winning recipe, which I have to name for it to be recorded in the chili record books, is a three year work in progress. Rob started cooking it in Brighton, I guess he got it off the Internet, and we each slowly modified it for our tastes and for our pantries until, it became what it is today- a total winner. 

And now you can all be winners too: 

Ingredients: 

• 1lb ground beef
• 1lb ground pork
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, I prefer to slap-chop it, but dicing works too.
• 1 large bell pepper, diced, chopped, whatever you like
• 1-2 Serrano chilies (omit if you don't want any heat, or at least omit the chili seeds)
• 1 14oz can crushed tomatoes
• 2 14oz cans diced tomatoes (OR 3.5 cups of diced fresh tomatoes, about 7 of the on the vine tomatoes)
• 1 6oz can tomato paste (Rob uses seasoned tomato paste, I haven't tried that yet)
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 2 12oz cans of dark red kidney beans, drained & rinsed
• cilantro, about half of a bunch from the grocery store, chopped. Use the remainder, un-chopped, for garnish by just using the leaves hand picked off the stems.
• 0.5 teaspoon cayenne powder (omit if you don't want any heat, add more if not hot enough)
• 1 tbs sugar (I start with one tbs & add more later if necessary)
• 1.5 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• dash of Worcestershire sauce
• olive oil for coating pot 

Cooking Instructions:

• On medium heat, heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a large (4 quart or larger) pot.
• Combine onion, garlic, bell pepper, Serrano chilies and simmer until onions are translucent (about 10 minutes)
• Raise heat to medium-high
• Add meat, cook until browned
• Add remaining ingredients and mix together in the pot.
• Once a simmer is reached, turn heat down to low.
• Simmer uncovered for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
• Serve garnished with cilantro, also good with cheese sprinkled on top and to eat with tortilla chips in place of a spoon. 
• Makes about 2.5- 3 quarts of chili. Also freezes really well. 

Pottery, split peas and cumin and more

February was a month full of creativity and snow. Here is what Rhys & I did in February besides snowboard every weekend at Snowbasin and/or Brighton....

Rhys's Birthday at the Sushi School with the help of a groupon...

I don't think I have a future in sushi-chefery, the nigiri was the only one that came out decent for me!












Rhys's birthday/Valentine's gift was a paint-your-own pottery ceramic jar for us to save our spare change for future fun. I painted an Indiana Jones kitteh on the bottom too, to make up for the I can has kitteh mug Rhys broke like a total jerk.

<-- Slow cooker inauguration with split pea soup.














 Rhys preparing his second batch of homemade beef jerky, plotting which piece he'll eat first.

I was bored the other night so I whipped up four dozen six spice oatmeal raisin cookies that were actually one spice short, I didn't have cloves in the cabinet.... I also baked a banana bread a few nights ago and made Rhys a sticky date pudding for his birthday cake!

Utah is weird

• Utah governor declares he will continue his campaign to eminent domain all up in the feds:        About a year ago, Utah legislators passed a bill basically allowing them to reclaim federal land for the state, essentially through eminent domain powers. This may sound pretty ridiculous to both lawyers and non-lawyers, largely because it is, but Governor Herbert, in his state of the state address this month, ramped up the 5th amendment rhetoric, as though there were a chance in Zion...

• Utah <3's guns. The Utah Legislature names an official state gun... a semi-automatic, Browning M1911. This is only made less weird by the fact that the gun's inventor, John M. Browning, was from Utah. 

• The largest bridal show in Utah is held annually at Provo High School, a city 43 miles south of Salt Lake where the population is about 98% LDS. The Wedding catalogs available at the High School hosted show conveniently allow brides-to-be to order both their prom and wedding dresses at the same time.  

• Guns and pets: "... and who better to decide what's reasonable than someone willing to club a collarless cat to death..."

• Utah Rep. Chaffetz & his love for concealed weapons, gets a shout out two days in a row in Doonesbury:

So, Whaddya Want?

So I started a part time waitressing job at Elizabeth's English Bakery & Tea House. It's just a few blocks from the house & not quite a full-on waitressing job. It's more like a cafe, it has a limited menu of bakery items, some other lunch type foods and basically just tea. The servers have to prepare the food- make the little cucumber sandwiches or heat the meat pies, as well as prepare the drinks and bring them to customers.

Now that I've finished my second week there, averaging about 14 hours a week, I think my table-side manner has improved a bit.

Because it's more of cafe than restaurant, people come in, look in the pastry cases and we greet them as they browse the treats and look at the chalkboard menus. It's a little ambiguous if we're waitresses, there's no one seating them, no official paper menus and people don't leave us good tips as though we were true waitresses, so my first day was kind of feeling out what is expected of me in that respect. It was pretty busy, it was a bit of a trial by fire. I noticed one girl had been sitting at a table for a few minutes & it didn't look like anyone had taken her order. The servers don't have sections really either, it's a team effort and the staff just divides and conquers based on where help is needed. So I went up to this girl, and as I'm walking there, a friend she apparently was waiting for arrived. The girl that was waiting sees me, and sees that I'm coming to take her order, so I can't turn around at this point! We made eye contact, she knows I'm coming, but at the same time she stands up to hug her friend and before they can even sit back down, I'm standing next to then and I just blurt,

"So do you know what you want?"

Obviously not, the girl hasn't sat down yet.

Idiot.

And how about a, "Hello" first? Geeze.

Anyways, I think I've improved my approach since, I at least haven't done that again!

SLC DMV

So I decided to get a Utah Driver's license... largely because it gets me locals-only deals on lift tickets.

So I finally cleared my busy unemployment schedule to dedicate what I assumed would be a long & frustrating afternoon at the DMV. I've heard that people who commit suicide are reincarnated as hateful DMV employees. It rings true, for the most part, at least in Massachusetts. Here, everyone at the DMV was surprisingly pleasant, cracking jokes, smiling. Chipper as hell really. Maybe it's just a ruffle in their magic Mormon underwear? Maybe it's because their office is located on the state fair grounds?

Anyways, I had to take a 25 question, open book, multiple choice driving test to get my license. Rhys did it a few months before me and came home bragging he got 100% right. So, I'll be damned if I get one wrong. I wound up spending an hour answering the stupid quiz - 100% right, first A++ they had that day! BOOYAH!

I was then awarded my giant, notebook size, temporary paper license. Extremely ridiculous. You'd think if they ultimately fit all that same information onto a license-sized card, that they could do the same for the temporary license rather than force you to fold this thing 8 times before it's wallet sized and then cram the now half inch thick wad of paper into your wallet.

Anyways, I look like a battle-axe in ruffles. I'm not sure if it's better than my very butch MA ID photo that is now full of holes to tell the world I'm officially not a New Englander anymore! =(

Also, I totally lied about my weight.

Flush

Is it just me, or is it like really weird to talk the on the cell phone in he bathroom AT WORK in a COURT?!?

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