Bonus Delicious -- rice noodle soup

The only thing that New Seasons (boutique grocery store) sells for less than Fred Meyer (utility grocery store... although the one Ian and I go to is the only LEED certified grocery store in the state) are Thai Kitchen instant noodles.

And I love them, for 89 cents, a meal/snack in just three - five minutes. All you have to do is boil water!

Ian is trying to turn me onto their "homecooked" counterpart which involves more than just boiling water, and turns out acceptable, but not as delicious. I don't know how to make delicious home cooked noodle soup, I think I must be missing a key ingredient.

It is like magic though, how all the little bits turn into one bowl of yum. The noodle soup is very much "the whole is more than the sum of its parts."

Lots of different pieces. . .

Turn into delicious noodle soup.

While I'm not writing off from scratch rice noodle soup, it is going to take a couple more tries to convince me it's better than my easy and cheap Thai Kitchen rice noodles.

Bonus Delicious -- EAT A SALAD

I remember when I ate salads almost everyday. I would unpack my lunch at my desk and coworkers would say "Wow, that looks great! and so healthy..." I would eat my salad with lemon juice or a bit of olive oil and vinegar, and I liked it that way.

At the time I was vegetarian, maybe pescatarian. And I rarely ate any dairy. There have been some physiological changes in me since those days, and I'm out of the (very good) habit of just throwing together a salad for lunch.

These days I still have to trick myself a little with those tastier tidbits an omnivorous palate is used to having around. A bit of cheese, some torn bits of meat, and salad dressing. (Though I happy to say I use less than the suggested serving size)

Lately, the only time I've been eating a salad is when it is the path of least resistance. If a salad is the easiest thing to make, then it wins. Sometimes I forget that all the odd bits and ends in the fridge could even become a salad! Ian suggested I make a pretty "EAT A SALAD" sign to hang on the cupboard as a loving reminder. It's on my list of things to make (I'm currently working on my first sock puppet).

Making salads always reminds me of my step-dad David. He puts together an amazing salad. You could eat a David Salad for days. He could make you salad everyday for a week and it would be different everytime. Today you get olives, tomorrow you get garbanzo beans and artichoke hearts...the next day there are beans and peppers. These days, when I get all the fixins on the counter and my salad seems to be missing an element, I find myself wondering "what else would David put in here?"

photos of before now: chicago photo booth

I can probably count the number of times I've been in a photo booth. The first was at Pinball Pete's in East Lansing. I was wearing one of my dad's shirts and I was so excited to be in a magic machine. That strip resides with ms. Sarah Gardiner (btw if you're reading sg, could you send me a copy of that strip? that would be awesome). Sarah is actually in possession of most of the other photo strips I've been in and is responsible for my having copious pictures of the last two years of my college days, something I am really grateful for.

The following photo strip is from around 2003. It was a lot of fun and I was feeling particularly devious because it was only noon. Not having been a big tailgater or hair-of-the-dog kind of person, I never really drank while it was light outside.

Photo booths are so much fun. I also really like the phenomenon these days of having a "photo booth" at a wedding which is sometimes an actual photo booth and sometimes a pile of dress up costumes, a back drop and a professional photographer.

At one of the two weddings I've been to in my adult life. From Left to Right: more hand guns, Dustin Farnsworth, even more guns, Rachel Dominguez- Benner, hand guns

bonus crafty -- more little boxes

I still have a cache of things to mention from the time of my mom and step-dad's September visit. On my mom's to-do list for her trip was to learn how to make a box like the one I made for Paola's samples.

Because the box would have been delicate in traveling back to Michigan, mom said she would like to make one that I could use and leave it with me (bonus!). I decided I could really use some organization for a set or journal signatures I had made and written in a while back. After 10 minutes of dedicated searching, I finally found them and I set out to take measurements and figure out the dimensions for our new boxes. I originally used a template found here (which is a little confusing when they talk about cutting off corners, yet gives a good run-through of the basic technique). After making Paola's box, I have a good grasp of the steps and can free form with ease.

I made two sets of all the bits so mom and I would be making the exact same box, and we set to work.

we had to keep adjusting the table top because it's still just resting on the shelves below "oh! I forgot we can't lean!"

drawings -- chipmunk

bonus delicious -- sinnimint chocolate chip

Is "sinnimint" already trademarked? If not, I'm filling out the applications because the dessert Ian and I came up with the other night needs some legal protection. It's that good, and dangerous.

Most times our dessert consists of an apple or caramel rice cakes, or jello, all pretty wholesome. Occasionally however we get a wicked sweet tooth and splurge on ice cream and/or treats. My favorite brand of ice cream is Haagen Dazs' new line called "FIVE." For any of the flavors there are just five ingredients. Usual suspects on the list: skim milk, cream, sugar, egg yolk and then the flavor.

They are starting to release so many flavors that I am having trouble remembering which ones I've tried. While in front of the ice cream section at our grocery store Ian asked which flavor we should get and I said "mint, no chocolate I always like chocolate, lemon, no! oooh caramel." At some point I settled on mint long enough for it to make its way to the cart.

My new favorite ice cream.

We almost made it out of the snack aisle too but something was itching our brains. Mint ice cream is great, yet would be even greater with a bit of cookie.
"All of those have too much junk in them," I said when Ian was looking at the oreos.
"what about the pepperidge farm ones?"
"Maybe the milanos, or hey those coconut ones, or that one."
"so, basically any of them"
"I really just want a thin chocolate wafer, that would be perfect."

Then an idea struck Ian and he grabbed my hand. We whisked away from the cookie aisle to the . . . refrigerated aisles? After a little bit of hemming and hawing between pre-made cookie doughs, we decided TollHouse probably knows best and we just wouldn't read the label too hard.

Later that night I won "brilliant idea of the night" when I said "we could just bake two of them in the toaster oven."

No need to bake the whole batch when you have a toaster oven!

The rest of the magic was all Ian. It was his idea to use the cookies as a crust in the bottom of our little dishes.

This ice cream is really minty, and thankfully, no green dye in sight!

It was also Ian's brilliance to sprinkle left over cinnamon sugar on the top of the little scoops of ice cream.

delight in a dish.

I have a feeling this month is going to be quite desserted. In the middle of September I had already decided that October's new dish for goal 101 would be caramel apples. I'm also waiting impatiently to hear how Lindsey Loo's adventure with this pumpkin tiramisu turns out. If it goes well I may just request an encore when Ian and I are in Dayton during our epic November road-trip.

Other news on the radar? Carmen is coming to visit in early November, just before we head east. Ian is really going to finish my new cutting table next week. I'm sewing up a storm for Bike Cozy so the show can continue during our road trip (currently trying to scrape together enough money for a netbook).