Tag: simplicity

Cleveland does, in fact, rock.

It’s been awhile since I’ve travel blogged.  You know, I mean, for REAL travel blogged.

Cleveland rocks!! At the Lava Lounge in Tremont

I guess that’s probably because it’s been awhile since I travelled.  A menacing schedule and many, many recent life changes have added up to a rather dry spell in the world explorations.  However a number of mini-trips have shaped up this summer and so I’m once again stretching my traveling legs starting off with a weekend in Cleveland.  This simple little road trip kind of blew me away and Cleveland proved itself as a new and surprising place that actually does, as they say, rock**

Or, I should say, Lakewood rocks.

Here’s the thing…. while I did make it into the city limits of Cleveland, it wasn’t the focus of the trip.  On this approximately 36-hour vacay, Julie (my lady friend) and I stayed with friends in the charming suburb of Lakewood.  Typically, charming and suburb are not two words that would ever share a sentence together, however Lakewood is a delightful walking town that purports big trees, chirping birds, unique old homes, and surprisingly the largest gay population per capita in the tri-state area.

Cleveland was all about friends, and food, and wine, and good conversation.  It was a chance to escape from the chaos of life and the NATO summit in Chicago to slow down a little bit.  Expecting something akin to Indianapolis, I found Cleveland to be a more progressive, unique, and hip experience than I ever could have anticipated (in other words, not at all like Indianapolis).  Add to that good, honest, and honestly hip people and there’s not much else to report.  I will, however, say that if ever in Cleveland, I have two off-the-beaten-path recommendations:

Sangria at Properity Social Club

Be sure to make a stop in Tremont at either Prosperity Social Club or Lava Lounge.  Better yet, visit both.  Within a block from one another, these two establishments are locally owned and make for a great evening when packaged together.  Steamed mussels and sangria at Prosperity were followed by a beautiful waldorf salad, mac and cheese, and a substantial wine list at Lava Lounge.  Let it be known that Greg, our server, was hip, chillaxed, but simultaneously attentive and suave.

Good job, Greg.  And good job, Cleveland.

** Apparently, Instagram, my new favorite iphone app, also rocks.  I do believe that iphone photos come out infinitely hipper and better this way, as evidenced here.

When life gives you lemons, make limemade

Life changes, stress, and too much Starbucks have been keeping me up at night and I’m having a bit of insomnia this week.  Last night I woke up around 2am, answered a few emails, took a bath, and made limeade.

Yes, you heard me right.

Insomnia aside, yesterday was a pretty warm day – skirting 85 at times and there’s nothing quite as refreshing as a delightful glass of fresh lemonade on a warm evening.  However, my inability to waste combined with having procured 30 limes for the Produce photo shoot a couple weeks ago (how can I resist when they are 15 for $1???), resulted in my opting for limemade.

And it was good.

Not to get religious on you here, but this limeade might be what happened on the ninth day of creation.  I’ll never go back to that store bought bottle of sugary yellow chemical water.  Trust me on this…….

 Homemade Limeade

Ingredients:

Limes (lots)

Water

Sugar

Elbow Grease

Directions:

Using a juicer, juice limes with a citrus juicer and add to pitcher.  If you don’t care for pulp, pour the juice through a strainer before it goes into the pitcher.  Add sugar and stir until dissolved (the amount depends on your personal taste.  For 1 C. lime juice, I used 2/3 C. sugar and it was a teensy bit on the tarter side… which for me is perfect).  Add water and stir.  Your juice:water ratio should be approximately 1:2.

Store in the refrigerator, but trust me, it won’t be there long.

P.S. If you find yourself with an overabundance of lemons, the recipe works the same way for making lemonade.

Downsizing is hard.

Don’t mess with a woman’s counter space….

The past couple of weeks I’ve been going through a series of life changes.  Sometimes you have to give up a few things in order to grow, and part of my last few weeks has included a serious downsize back to apartment living.

While I can say for certain that I’m in a good place personally, perhaps the hardest part has been giving up my enormous chef’s kitchen for a 2′ x 4′ slab of Formica in my current abode.  While I have every confidence in my ability to cook in a small kitchen (proved, in part, by the mean apple cobbler you see here), I’ll admit that I got pretty accustomed to spreading out.

As Alton Brown has drilled into me, muti-taskers are key, and in a small kitchen this is all the more true.  So the things that I’ve chosen to take with me to the apartment are going to have maximum impact with a minimum footprint.  If ever faced with nuclear holocaust, or a downsize of major proportions, these are the things I would (and did) take with me.

Lauren’s must-haves for a happy kitchen of any size:

  1. An awesome wooden spoon, spatula, and scraper.  Don’t skimp on quality here; break the bank and get the best.
  2. Corning ware.  My set was a wedding gift to my parents in 1975.  Oven, microwave and dishwasher safe (not that I have one of those anymore).  Plus they have lids, so you don’t need extra tupperware.  You can use them for baking, too!

  3. A fantastic mixing bowl.  Do I really have to justify this?
  4. Chef’s knife.  No meal is made without it.  Again, don’t skimp here; get the best and keep it sharp.
  5. A soup pot, a skillet, and a sauce pan.  If they are good ones, you only need one of each.  Will Calphalon pay me if I plug them as my brand of choice?
  6. A french press. The coffee tastes better, and it’s small enough to store in the cupboard.
  7. My vintage, 1st edition Betty Crocker Cookbook.  When times get tough, my mantra is always that Betty knows best.

Loosing my religion: Lent

I’m Catholic, technically,

but fully admit that I’m not at all Catholic.

However, in a moment of religious fervor, I decided that Lent is a pretty good idea.  I mean, giving up something excessive for the sake of understanding that you don’t need it is an exercise in self-control and a reminder that we live in a world of obscene abundance.

My friend Erin is currently sweating it out in Benin, Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, bathing out of ceramic pots.  So, it’s pretty much the least I could do to put the kabbash on the vending machine.

The vending machine and I have had a tumultuous relationship, at best.  We’ve had our ups and downs, but mostly downs.  Nothing from the vending machine tastes good.  Nothing from the vending machine makes me feel good.

After a particularly rough “Fat Ash Wednesday”, I’ve joined up on this lenten hootenanny and sworn off those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad chips, and chocolates, and fruit snacks for the next 39 days.

But really,  I hope this is the Lent that never ends.

Stocking up and making ready

Since December 2, I’ve been living the fantastic life of a housewife.  Working occasionally, blogging frequently, and cooking constantly.  Today, that all changes as I go back to my typical 60-hour work week.

I’m nervous.

When I get nervous, I prepare by cooking lots of food.  That way, even if nothing goes according to plan, at least I’ve got dinner.  It’s winter, so, naturally that means lots of soup.  Lots and lots of soup.  My hope is that these two beauties will last all week and next for dinners.

 

That’s Hearty Black Bean Slow-Cooker soup on the left, and Winter Ham and Beans on the right.  I’ll get you those recipes later in the week.

I was hoping to get a third pot going too, but it wasn’t in the cards today.

That’s right; I said it: we have three crock pots.  When it comes to crock pots, you can’t just have one.  Plus, we have a chili cookout every Halloween and so all those slow cookers come in quite handy.

Living simple is complicated

After returning from a weekend trip away, the cupboard is bare. I always make a point before traveling of using up any fresh ingredients that might spoil while I’m away. But this was a rather whirlwind trip, and it didn’t occur to me that (1) it wasn’t really long enough for everything to spoil, and (2) there was no time before returning to work to go to the store and replenish the bounty.

As a result, the past few days have been really-creative-meal wise. Determined to eat at home and not order food (having eaten in restaurants for the entire weekend), I was nearly brought to tears standing in the kitchen at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night mashing pinto beans by hand into refried beans (for which I have no salsa or chips) with a red sauce made from frozen tomatoes and a slightly past-peak summer squash on the stove, and a mystery casserole in the oven.

Tears of joy, or tears of pain?
Yes.

It feels pretty good to take a pantry of nothing and freezer of next to nothing and make four full days of food out of it. It is envigorating to make things from scratch; if I have one goal in life it’s to make as many things from scratch as possible. And, I feel as though I could definitely survive an atomic bomb or the apocalypse given my uncanny ability to create a variety of meals from dried beans, rice, chicken, frozen tomatoes and slightly off squash.

On the other hand, no one should be mashing beans after 9pm on a school night.

When people lived in a time where everything was made from scratch they had the whole day to mash beans, churn butter, bake bread, whatever. I, on the other hand, am required to spend eight hours of the day with my butt in a chair and have few precious moments between, say, 8 and 11pm to try and “live simply”. I’m not saying I work harder; butt-in-chair is not hard, it’s just extremely time consuming.

So what, then, is the point? Why do I do this to myself when I could, with a lot less effort and a roughly equal amount of money, eat a TV dinner every night? It almost feels like in this day and age, living “simply” is less simple than living a technological, busy-body, microwaved life. Why does everyone say “I’m so busy,” or “I don’t have any time” when we spend SO much time sitting on our butts?

Three days sans cell phone

I am not one to follow technological trends, but I love my iphone. I love even more that I was eligible for an upgrade at the same time that the brand new super fancy iphone is due to come out. So I sold my phone on ebay, bought the fancy new phone, and turned a healthy profit. How tech saavy I am! Well, with some help from my partner/personal IT consultant.

Said transaction worked out in such a way that I was without a cell phone for three and a half days. So many times we say to ourselves, “gosh, what did we ever do before cell phones?” Honestly, I think we did just fine. Throughout the course of the day, I’m usually within fifteen feet of a land line and/or sitting in front of a computer with internet access. I found the change to be, I dare say, refreshing.

This morning, we arrived at a retail store-who-will-remain-unnamed to pick up our “pre-reserved” new phones, and, SIX HOURS LATER, walked out with our new fancy appendages. Oh my, it is so pretty and shiny and fancy.

Worth the wait? Not a chance.
Willing to live without an iphone? Absolutely not.

OK… I know that I’m an all country bumpkin, back to basics, make my own syrup and cleaning supplies type of girl, but seriously-this phone is awesome.

Perhaps if I was living in a place where the pace of life was slower and my personal safety wasn’t at risk on a regular basis then I would be willing to reconsider this position. In the meantime, I’m sold 100% on this little gadget and where’s a techie out there who can write code for the “One Crafty Lady” Ap??