I can't believe how excited that I am that they are featuring coffee - espresso - on Good Eats. In the spirit of that: I found some cool latte art videos on youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw_DALJl-V0

And I love the coffee served up by stumptown roasters: http://stumptowncoffee.com/guides#

How to deal with the aftermath of putting liquid soap in the dishwasher - aka - yes, I am a five year old. So after hitting up the internets I found the solution to my bubbly mess: table salt, veggie oil and vinegar. Worked like a charm. Just ran it through twice. It was even kinda fun to watch the bubbles dissolve as I threw in the salt.

Here's something that I threw together for work last minute. Fonts from misprinted type - the absolutely amazing website of Eduaro Recife.

Who needs new years anyway? New house - new resolutions. I will make more art work and post more. For starts here're some pics from thanksgiving. No finals cause we hit a wicked time crunch but I'll list the menu and my thoughts.

I'd been craving biscuits and gravy from the Paradox cafe in Portland. Since I'm on the east coast I've been looking for a substitute recipe. Ended up making sage biscuits (vegan ronin) absolutely amazing and quick/easy with pumpkin gravy (down home vegan).




Ever since making garlic roasted brussels from VwaV I've been in love. So when I saw a brussels recipe w/roasted chestnuts (smitten kitchen) where the brussels were boiled I was intrigued but sceptical. It had shallots though and my recent fascination with them roped me in. I actually skipped the boiling and just pre roasted the sprouts but due to the saucy nature of the dish they still turned out mushier than I prefer. I roasted chestnuts for the first time for this and my stuffing. It was fun and they were tasty but I was kinda expecting more. Think I've just got to play around more with this recipe and add some personal touches.

I made a no turkey turkey which was alright but I'm definitely going to change it up next time into more of a shepard's pie. For next time I'm going to shred the bottom layer of seiten, substitute the gravy with punk rock chickpea gravy from VwaV, keep the awesome stuffing and add a layer of smashed potatoes.

So just to chronicle this period.... we are just about finished moving out of the farmhouse somewhat abruptly. We had high hopes moving in. The house was a bit unkempt but we haggled the rental price down in exchange for some specific work to fix the house up. 

From the moment we moved in we were forced to deal with additional major problems arising from years of neglect. According to the guy who came out a few weeks in, the septic hadn't been pumped in years. Raw sewage poured into the backyard and leaked from a pipe in the basement creating a mold problem that destroyed many belongings that I had stored in the basement. The "new" gas  stove didn't work - we eventually found that a valve that was broken off was held back with electrical tape.  The water had only two temps. Scalding for short bursts then frigid cold. We made this work for the summer - it was warm enough outside to take a cold shower and we could wash dishes in intervals - thinking we'd fix it as we worked our way through all the issues with the house.

So we scrubbed - I have never seen so much grease. It was on every surface in the kitchen - there was a layer an inch thick on the top of the cabinets. We fixed walls, we painted (over what must have been blood in my room - really gross),  replaced door knobs that were falling off, replaced outlet covers - they were all broken. We installed window locks, cleaned and fixed windows, removed a ton of junk from the basement. Replaced the basement door (rotted through) and repainted it to match the exterior. Replaced the dishwasher, kitchen sink (leaked like crazy), bathroom sink, kitchen lights, replaced parts and repaired the toilet and got the stove working safely.  

We did quite a bit of work outside. The gutters had small trees growing out of them. The yard yielded weird objects as we raked through the large leave piles and cleared the many random scraps of wood. The lawnmower that the landlady told us had been used a week prior ended up having a birds nest in the engine, a bad starter, bad battery and some other issues. So my sweet roommates used a (broken) push mower a few times to mow the massive lawn. We also repaired the garage door, cleaned the interior and power washed and painted the garage. 

Part of the lease agreement was that the landlord was to clean and repair the chimney. Thank gawd we included that. I met with the chimney repair man multiple times at the house. Found out that there had been a massive chimney fire at one point and the fire place was a huge fire hazard as it was.  They ended up installing a wood burning stove insert which was the safest and cheapest repair option. 

We had issues with the super cheap smoke alarms that were in the house before we even officially moved in. We spent a day working in the house and returned the next day to find a note on the kitchen counter from the local police saying that the alarms had been going off - probably from smoke fumes. The alarms went off many times after that - most often set off by steam from a pot of boiling water. 

The last time that they went off was what became my final straw. It was Halloween and I was preparing to go to work. I heard a smoke alarm which was old hat by now; but when I looked around I realized it was coming from the basement. I opened the door and smoke billowed out. 

As I descended the stairs I saw flames shooting off of the furnace. I freaked out a bit. Called work to explain that I'd be late. Then called my wonderful bf who walked me through the steps to get the situation under control. Talk about timing . I was planning on getting someone out to service it the  next week - ended up having to call out of work to get everything "fixed".

After hours of phone calls we got someone out to look at it. The repair man told me that the boiler (furnace whateva) looked as though it hadn't been serviced in 9-10 years. So anyways - he did his thing. When he left we had working heat for the first time and the promise of our first hot shower in the house. 

We had planned to have a Halloween party and since the house was no longer in danger of burning down we decided to go along with it. It was a blast. Weirdest thing that happened was that a girl who had lived in the house as a child came with a friend. She hadn't known where she was going and none of us had previously met. We found out from her that a teenage friend of her brothers had killed himself in the weird walled off closet in my roommates room. Spooky eh?

So anyways - fast forward to the next day. I'm super excited to take a hot shower (we'd been making trips to bf's parent's house cause it had just been too cold lately). Get the previously mentioned blast of hot/frigid drop off that I had grown to despise. Later on in the day realize that there's no heat. My bf manages to get in on after 10+ attempts only for it to go out again. The next few days (weekend) proceed like this. No hot h20 - basically no heat. At the crack of Monday we get a hold of landlords and get a 2nd repairman out. Go over all of the issues with him and find out that the heater core's shot, the unit is illegally rigged and unable to be fixed. They need to replace the whole thing/add a "freestanding" water heater. 

Long story short - told landlords -  a few days went by with no response.  I start to get calls from the landlord to see if the chimney work had been done. She was refusing to pay the poor guy till I got in touch with her. This kinda sent me over the edge. I had been working constantly between my 2 jobs for a few days - had no hot water (for 5 or so months now) - and now was being hounded over something that struck me as just stupid. 

Condensed: I spoke to her - told her we wanted out with our security- she agreed. Told us that we'd have to deal without hot water and to stop bothering her (she didn't need troublemakers in her house!). She must have relented afterwards though. The plumber who we had out to look at the bathroom toilet/disgusting basement pipe came out a few days later and put in a water heater and fixed the health hazard (his words) that was the toilet/pipe.

So if they can fix the major mold problem (it's really bad) someone might get the chance to rent what could be a pretty nice house.  I'm glad that I've had this experience to learn from and grateful that I don't have to deal with it anymore. Just have my fingers crossed waiting on the security.