Sorry About the Lack of Posts

Ditto from the title of the post. I started the first of two courses to complete my MBA last week. The courses are six weeks long, and I'm considered a full time student with the weekly course load. Since I'm actually still working full time, and going to meetings, and resolving to cook more and eat out less, I've been pretty busy.

But April 15 is my very last class for the very last course! I'll be done! At this point, I don't care when I receive my degree - I just want to be done with the classes.

This is after I took a year off. I started and dropped the same two courses about six times. What's the definition of insanity? At that point, I realized I didn't have enough concentration to finish the MBA, get out of the Coast Guard, find a new job, deal with my continuing depression, and figure out where I was going to live.

Now, the dust has settled a bit. I'm pulling out of the depression, I found a new job, I stayed in the DC area, and I got some concentration left to finish the program.

Not sure what I'll do on the last day. (Other than pay the $400 I owe the Federal Government for last year's income). But in the mean time, I'm counting the weeks. 10 weeks to go!

You Can't Go Wrong With Bacon

Last night I got a wild hair and decided to make the New England Clam Chowder with Leeks and Bacon recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Soup cookbook I previously mentioned. I've made a few recipes from it, but I've never messed with shell fish before other than shrimp.

The ingredients are pretty basic (like most New England food) so I gathered leeks, red potatoes, bacon and light cream from the supermarket. The first one I went to, that is. Two grocery stores later (the last being the fancy Harris Teeter on Duke Street) I found 3 dozen fresh clams. I went with the littleneck clams since they were cheaper and if I screwed up the recipe, I would waste less money.

I followed the directions (I always do the first time), and found the soup to be tasty. A few problems - other than the leeks and bacon, there were spices and boiled red potatoes. Yuck. Potatoes are my least favorite starch and this includes (french) fried potates. (And in my experience, just about anything fried tastes good. Case in point: Fried pickles. Delicious.) Depsite watching the simmering broth like a hawk, I think I broke the cream because I had to simmer to potatoes for 15 minutes in it. The soup still tasted good, but the consistency was a little off.


I rooted around Williams-Sonoma's website and found another recipe that calls for adding the cream at the end and simmering for 2 minutes (enough to heat it up), and adds celery, onions, Worchestershire sauce, and pancetta. Next time I'm in the mood for clam chowder, I'm going with this recipe instead.

On the up side, I still have tasty soup for the rest of the week. I experienced steaming fresh clams for the first time, and they tasted so good (I snacked on one before adding to the soup), I'm encouraged to cook more fresh shell fish and maybe try a Linguine with White Clam Sauce.

Bon appetit!

I'm So Trying to Justify Buying This ...

I love Williams-Sonoma. Some people might think this is cooking snobbery, but I blame my Aunt Betty who gave me my very first WS cook book (titled: Soup) when I was 12. Sure, I didn't actually make anything out of it until I graduated college, moved into a house with a roommate in Port Angeles, WA, and when I got snowed in for three days by myself, I cooked up a storm. But the Sweet and Sour Cabbage Soup with Flanken and Greek Chicken and Lemon Soup with Orzo came out quite tasty, thank you very much.

I got Williams-Sonoma's sale email a few days ago, and I keep trying to justify buying the Bialetti Hot Chocolate Pot. It's 20% off! Just pour in some milk and chocolate, and voila! Hot chocolate! Fantasies of sipping a steaming cup of hot chocolate with whip cream on top danced before my eyes. (How can there be steam if whipped cream is topping the cup? Oh, details, never mind.) I even had a flash of inspiration this morning walking into work through the slowly drifting snow that I could pop that sucker on my desk and have hot chocolate at work! Of course!

But slowly, reality settled in. I don't even have a place to put this particular kitchen gadget (and I do love my kitchen gadgets). In fact, I put together a mini cabinet to store a bunch of my kitchen stuff since the new kitchen had half the space as the last kitchen. And do I really need a hot chocolate maker? Aren't I trying to lose weight? How often would I actually use it?

Reluctantly, I closed the Internet page and slowly let go of dreams of snuggling onto my couch, sipping a cup of hot chocolate ...

Sometimes I hate being a responsible, practical adult.