The view from here

Update Time

So we're looking for vacation ideas for this year.  I'm thinking one week in Europe (or another country) and one week on the back of the motorcycle, touring our local areas (New England).  So far, the list includes Spain, Italy, Scotland.  I'd love to go back to Belgium, but I think we should try someplace new this year. 

Your thoughts?

Upcoming Menus

Found a new cookbook today, well, I found it on the baking rack where all the cookbooks live, but it was buried under a pile of BBC Good Food magazines. This one is One-Pot, Slow-Pot and Clay-Pot Cooking by Jenni Fleetwood. I picked this up at Borders for $5.99. Looking through it, coupled with the colder weather we're having and the leavees turning colors, inspired us to make a list of recipes we'd like to try from this book. So far we have:

Mediterranean Leek and Fish Soup with Tomatoes
Chinese Chicken and Chili Soup
Moroccan Spiced Lamb Soup
Pan-Fried Ham and Vegetables with Eggs
Pork Ribs with Ginger and Chili
Cauliflower with Tomatoes and Cumin
Fish with Spinach and Lime
Seafood Paella (we had this tonight, using Italian Sauasage and Shrimp and Basmati rice instead of Spanish short grain rice, still very good)
Baked Sea Bass with Lemon Grass and Red Onions
Mediterranean Baked Vegetables
Truffade
Baked Scalloped Potatoes with Feta Cheese and Olives
Tagliatelle Baked with Mushrooms, Gorgonzola and Walnuts
Honey-Baked Figs with Hazelnut Ice Cream
Spiced Pears with Nut Crumble
Lemon Surprise Pudding

Unfortunately, I have to go on a business trip for 4 weeks, starting Sunday, but I'll be home every weekend which means that we'll be cooking up a storm. In addition Dan needs to start putting up pickles for Winter.

Work to live/Live to work

Do you Work to Live or Live to Work? There's a movement underfoot in the U.S. to afford employees the same rights that employees in many European countries have, regarding Vacation and work weeks. And before someone says that the U.S. has higher productivity standards than other countries (which may be true) there is the fact that other countries have a higher standard of living and quality of life than the U.S. (which is true) because they know that the whole point of living is to have a life.

For a view into a world-wide quality of life survey head here .

And before you say that small businesses or any business for that matter, can't operate without their employees working 50-80 hours per week, keep in mind that working that many hours leads to increased stress, which leads to burnout, fatigue and ultimately sickness, which decreases productivity.

So take a look at the work to live movement which advocates reduced work hours and increased vacation time for Americans so that we can reclaim our lives.

My favorite reads

My favorite magazines, in no particular order:
Utne
BBC Good Homes
Travel and Leisure
Frommer's Budget Travel
National Geographic Traveler
Fine Cooking

School again?

Yep, it's school time again. Nope not for any kids (we don't have any) but for me. I'm starting the Master's in International Business program at Southern New Hampshire University this fall. Along with husband, house, work and other activities, I'm enrolled in two courses for the fall term (September - December). That means that I'll be spending my weekends doing coursework for my Managerial Accounting and International Management classes. The textbooks are 99.00 each, used!!! I wouldn't mind spending the money, IF we used the textbooks fully, but we don't. I've actually had classes where I never had to crack open the required textbook and still did well in class.

I'd like to do a double or triple major - International Business (as you can tell from some of my posts, I'd love to live overseas and this way I'd get paid for it), Logistics Planning (how to get a product from the drawing board to the assembly line to the consumer) and either HR management (which is what my bachelor's degree is in) or Spanish (which I took 6 years of in elementary, high school and college).

Hola! Mi nombre es Chandra. Vivo en New Hampshire pero naci en Memphis. Estudiante espanol para seis anos en la escuela pero no tengo ocasion de practicarla mucho. Mi marido no habla espanol. Trabajo para Liberty Mutual.

I've also joined a spanish conversation online group to practice my spanish writing skills. If you're interested in learning another language, head over to http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/ which is a great free resource for learning spanish, italian, german, chinese, french, etc.

What's for dinner 8/29

After perusing a meditteranean cookbook, Dan has decided to make dinner today. On the menu are:
Chicken with garlic and lemon and Spanish new potatoes. He's also considering frying plantains for dessert. This is the first weekend since his chemo started in May that he's felt up to cooking, which is a shame since he is sooo good at it. I'm the kind of person who follows a recipe step by step, but Dan, well food just speaks to him and comes alive.

So far so good, the chicken is in the oven and he'll be finishing the potatoes in the next 20 minutes. I think we'll need some good music to go along with dinner, maybe Jonathon Pascual.

Chicken with garlic and lemon:

Chicken thighs, 8
Chicken stock, 2.5 cups
lemon, 1 peeled and sliced thinly
olive oil
butter
salt
pepper
garlic, 20 cloves sliced
flour
paprika (we use a hungarian hot paprika)
dry white wine

in saucepan boil stock, add garlic and simmer 40 minutes. Meantime, fry chicken in butter and oil until brown both sides. Set chicken aside in casserole pan. Add flour to remaining oil butter in pan and make a paste, add wine and paprika, taste, add salt and pepper to taste. Add chicken stock (save the garlic) and simmer and stir until smooth. Arrange lemon slices and garlic over chicken, pour stock mixture over chicken and bake for 40 minutes.

We forgot to get crusty bread to go with this meal but I think we'll be okay. Tomorrow it's my turn, and from the same cookbook I've decided on Italian prawns with asparagus and orange salad.

My real life awaits

Motivational speaksers, psychologists (or psychology majors at least) and new ageists tell you that you should visualize the life you want in order to make it happen. So that's what I'm about to do. In addition, I'll chronicle what really happens in my current life.

Welcome to Chandra's real life:

8:00 am: make love on 1200 thread count sheets in the king size bed with the wrought iron head/foot boards.

real life 6:00 am: push the sleep button on the alarm clock just enough times for me to be certain that I'll be 5 minutes late for work. Stumble out of our queen size bed, moving carefully so as not to cut myself to ribbons on 150 counts sheets

9:00 am: Sit out on the deck overlooking the mediterranean ocean, eating a bowl of fruit and using my wireless internet service to read the world news online.

real life 8:30 am: run down to the cafeteria at work and hope that the usual grill cook is out and someone else is manning the grill so that my cheese omelet won't be runny. Grab a cup of water

10:00 am: Tidy up the spacious and fantastically furnished apartment before walking to the town centre to do some shopping at the local specialty shops.

real life 9:00 am: Wonder how I got suckered into this job of training people who don't want to be trained. We have a new policy of hiring only college graduates, yet is seems as though I spend the day working with small children.

noon: Hop on a train and head to another region of the country or to a totally different country, for research for my career, travel writing. Spend the day living amongst the locals, shopping in the local markets, having an early evening meal, before heading home on the train. Who knew you could traverse an entire country or countries in little more than 3 hours? and for so little money.

real life noon: run out to the local mega chain store to browse the mass produced and mass marketed "fashions"

6:00 pm, Stop by the local butchers market and pick up aged beef, freshly made sausage (without all the fillers) or maybe a freshly killed chicken, the produce market for tomatoes that taste like they did at my grandmother's farm, the cheese shop to pick up freshly made, unpasteurized cheese and the bakery for artisinal bread, for our late evening meal.

real life 4:00 pm, Stop by the local mega grocery store to buy food that has been shrink-wrapped so that you are no longer able to associate it with the animal it came from. peruse the disappointing cilantro, the withered zucchini, the flavorless tomatoes, the unbreadlike bread.

7-9 pm, take a stroll along the plaza for exercise, to socialize and marvel at the spirit of humanity.

real life 7-9 pm, run through every channel on the cable lineup, debate using the gym contraption in the basement, but decide it's too dark, cold, damp, spidery, scary and lonely down there.

10:00 pm: make love on 1200 thread count sheets in the king size bed with the wrought iron head/foot boards.

real life 11:00 pm: fall asleep with the tv tuned to the cartoon channel, dreaming about my real life.

Note: As soon as Dan is doing better, we'll get to work on part of the real life, I'll leave you to guess which part.

Musical Interludes

I love music, in most of it's forms (with the exception of rap, hard core rock and Dan tells me, hard core country), but I have to say, the current state of music in this country is dire. There's little artistic talent out there(what you now have are performers who have their voices and their creativity piped into the studio and manipulated) and every song seems to be about sex......

So I've decided to give up listening to commerical music radio stations and am dedicated to finding my music via other sources (plus this gives me more time to listen to NPR in the car). I'm looking to friends, independent magazines (Utne), NPRs All Things Considered (which has great music between stories and which you can find on www.npr.org), flyers in music stores and bookstores to provide me with sources of good music.

Recently Jonathon Pascual, a flamenco guitarist, performed at Borders bookstore in Concord. It was incredibly beautiful music and I picked up his CD. That was my first cd purchase in years.

What I'm listening to now:
Oleta Adams: Everything Must Change, Love was spoken here
Etta James: Son of a Preacher Man, Sunday Kind of Love
Isaac Hayes: By the time I get to Phoenix
Darryl Hall: Cab driver
Crash: Dave Matthews Band

I heard the following song over the PA system while at TJ Maxx and I must say I love it. I finally found out who sings it and what the song is, from students in the training class I'm currently leading.

Maroon 5 She will be loved

I don't mind spending every day
out on your corner in the pouring rain
look for the girl with the crooked smile
ask her if she wants to stay awhile
And she will be loved
And she will be loved
And she will be loved

If you know of any other music I should look into, leave a comment.

What was decided

We finally decided on vietnamese pho for dinner. Using leftover beef tips from the night before I dabbled with one our of favorite foods, producing a wonderfully rich, spicy beef noodle soup.

4 cups of beef stock
1 cup of water (to soften the blow)
leftover cooked or raw steak, sliced thinly
peppercorns (5)
fish sauce
ground ginger (fresh), tsp
cinnamon stick
bean spouts
hot chile pepper (I used jalepeno)
cilantro, fresh
any thin noodle, preferably rice noodles
onion slices
green onion, chopped
limes
hoisin sauce, hot chile sauce

simmer the beef stock with peppercorns, tsp ground ginger, cinnamon stick and tsp of fish sauce. Place beef in serving bowls. Boil water to soften noodles in. Place softened noodles (only takes 3 minutes or so) in bowls with beef. Top with Soup mixture. Serve all other ingredients on tray to be added to soup as desired by those being fed.

This warms the soul and fills the stomach

What's for dinner

Dan is a phenomenal cook (one of those people who don't have to follow a recipe) and off the cuff can come up with goat cheese and tomato quesadillas cooked over the grill. Tonight was to be a melange of crab meat, cilantro, sriracha hot sauce, bean sprouts and lime juice, encased in a rice paper wrapper, a combination which appeals greatly to me since I have a deep suspicion that in a former life I was the love child of a union between Thai, Vietnamese and Mexican parents.

Alas, it didn't work out, due in large part to inferior crabmeat. Now we're on the hunt for our evening meal, no small feat since we live 30 minutes from a major grocery store and the country store down the road from us is only good for subs and whoopie pies.