A Blog about Blogging

Blogs are kind of interesting.  Especially if you get one of those maps, which tell you where your viewers reside.  Because of this, I’ve realized I have no idea who reads this thing.

I’ve tried to analyze some of these places to see if I can deduce who the fans are.  For example, I used to have a very frequent Washington D.C. viewer, who I’ve identified as either Collin Powell or the bus guide from orchestra tour back in ’06.  How they found my blog, I do not know.  Also, my blog even breached the international border last week, and I had viewers in Melbourne and Essen!  I’m sure it was a fluke because they haven’t been back yet.  (That or they didn’t like the blog, but how could that be?) 

Anyway, after a 5-month trial, I am totally converted to blogging.  It reminds me a little of my old Forkaster Newspaper Staff days without the 4-week delay in publishing and madness of layout. 

Come to think of it, the only downside of blogging is there is no giant piñata to smash after every successful post.

[Shout out to my journalism kids & Miss Mary, who are the only people who know what I’m talking about.]

My Worst Nightmare

I've been having scary dreams recently.  Probably because we watched an entire season of Prison Break in about 9 days.  So, every night in the middle of the night I must wake up Scott to tell him about these scary dreams.  When I talk to Scott during these times he is always in the 3rd stage of sleepiness, where he just agrees with whatever I say without listening.  (In stage 2, he disagrees with everything I say and refuses to do anything.  In stage 1, he just rubs his eyes a lot.) 

Anyway, this morning when I tried to tell him about my dream, our conversation went like this:

"I had such a scary dream.  I was at the bridal shower and everything was going wrong.  We couldn't make the hot chocolate."

"You always have such scary dreams."

"Are you even listening?  I haven't told you the scary part yet about the giant gorilla with E.T. riding on his back."

We laughed for a while after that.

Cooking Advice from the Foley's Chef

I never cooked a whole lot before I got married.  I was, however, good at making cookie dough.  I was also good at flipping pancakes.  Needless to say, I didn’t have much experience.

Since this time, I have started to actually like cooking.  Maybe having to do this every day without getting bored deludes me into thinking it is fun.  I’m not sure, but either way—I have learned a lot about cooking things in the past 4 months.  Here are some of my findings:

• If you’re trying to make mashed potatoes, you should chop up the potatoes instead of trying to boil them whole.  Unless you have about 4 hours to kill or are going for a crunchy-texture.  Don’t be tricked into thinking that if you mash crunchy potatoes enough, they’ll become soft.  Because they won’t.
• Some spices are inherently gross.  Just because they’re called for in a fancy recipe, don’t think that the taste of the spice will suddenly be good. 
• Sometimes you should use the Restaurant Rule which states, “If you cannot see this dish being served at a restaurant, that means it is probably bad.”  Specifically, recipes that claim that you can mix dishes/ingredients from different nationalities should be a red flag.  There is a reason why few restaurants serve things like “enchilada pasta.” *I made up the Restaurant Rule, in case you are wondering.
• Avoid any recipes involving 1 T of pepper.  Surprise: it will be spicy.
• Homemade bread bowls are a lot more work than they are worth.  For crying out loud, just make some regular rolls and dip them in your soup.  I know it’s not as cool as carving a bowl out of carbohydrates, but it tastes better and will give you time to do things more exciting than babysitting chunks of dough.  Plus, one bread bowl is like eating a full loaf of bread.  Too much.
• Crock Pots recipes are almost always safe to try.  Be wary of actually turning the crock pot on when you leave for work.
• Soups are surprisingly not that hard to make.  If they call for large portions of cheese, they are guaranteed to be delicious.  I recommend broccoli-cheese or Wisconsin cauliflower varieties.
• If you try to make homemade bread sticks, be careful not to roll them too flat or they’ll end up as tortilla chips.
• You can make stuffed crust pizza by putting some string cheese in your dough.  So easy.
• Fresh spinach shrinks like 50 fold when you cook it.  Just in case you wanted to know.
• Try to cook a ton of new things before your husband has any expectation of your cooking skills.  Then you have a good excuse if things take a nasty turn.