Photos from Assateague Island

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A gift from the meat gods

I have a meatball problem. I made this meatball recipe a while ago and went nuts over them. I made them again last night and I can't seem to escape them. Since I can't stopping telling people about these meatballs, or thinking about these meatballs, or, in fact, eating these meatballs I should just give you the recipe and shut up.

This is the meatball recipe from Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence with a slight variation--and you don't even have to be on ludes to love them. I could be wrong, but I suspect that if you're like me and you're at all a human being and you eat meat (or even if you don't), you will probably love these meatballs.

If you live alone, half the recipe. You'll still probably be able to eat it all by yourself.

1 1/3 cups bread crumbs
1/2 cup milk

Mix these two together in a large bowl and put aside while you collect:

1 chopped onion (or if you think onions are disgusting, like I do, a chopped shallot)
6-8 chopped, fresh basil leaves
4 Tbsp. parsley
4 chopped cloves of garlic
10 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
1 lb thawed ground beef

Squish all this stuff together and form into balls. Heat about 3/4" on olive oil in a frying pan while you pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. I fry the meatballs on all sides for about 10-15 minutes so that they're brown on the outside. Then I stick them in a baking dish (with the hot oil) and bake for ten minutes. Turn 'em once, bake em for ten more minutes.

At this point I take them out and put them in homemade sauce, because homemade sauce is mmmmmmmmmmmm, drooooooooooooooool.....

I guess I'm so excited about these partly because they're wonderful, but also because ground beef generally makes me want to boat. There's just something about the texture and the idea and the fact that it's of largely unidentifiable origin. So any recipe that redeems ground beef is a thing of beauty. Oh Amy Sedaris, thank you.

mmmmmmmmmmmm, drooooooooooooooool.....

Oh yeah...

Tim and I saw James Carville walking down 19th street at lunch today. Yup. We live in DC.

Oh Baby.

It's not really a matter of what's going on in my life. It's more a matter of what's not going on.

Tim and I had two loaded weekends in a row. Tim's Grandma and Papa came in two weeks ago and we "golfed" on Potomac Island. Anyway, they golfed and I drove the cart--since a golfer I will never be. It was a great sunny, breezy day and such a nice visit, especially since Tim and I have been sort of secluded for so long. We both miss being able to just go to Plano for the weekend. Family should never be so far away.

Last weekend Tim and I went to Assateague Island with a group from GW. If you read "Misty of Chincoteague" 8 times as a pre-teen, that sentence alone probably made you a little goose-bumpy. If you didn't well, the simple story is that we went camping on the beach which is amazing and wonderful enough, but the best part is I GOT TO SEE THE STARS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TWO MONTHS. It was grand. There were also horseshoe crabs, dolphins, wild ponies, white sand, s'mores, sea shells, hikes and riding in a car--beat that if you can.

Next week, Versha, Rhagen and Courtney are coming to stay in our tiny apartment and nerd it up at the newspaper conference. Drooooooool. I anticipate a great deal of insanity. I also anticipate Tim hiding at the Library in order to avoid said insanity.

Two weeks later we're going to San Francisco to visit my crazy friends from France. I haven't seen these people in over two years and I'm psyched to see them again.

For Thanksgiving, my Dad and Grandma are coming out to spend the holiday in DC. It will be interesting to see how well we pack ourselves into this tiny apartment for a week. Even though I wish I could go home for the holiday (for every holiday) I'm thrilled that they'll get to see our apartment.

Then, as if it could get any better, Jared will probably come out the following weekend. Honestly, that says it all right there.

If that wasn't enough though, today my wonderful, beloved best friend called to tell me that she's pregnant. I could not be happier for her--she seems so ready and so well. It's a great thing. It's a weird feeling when people starting getting married. It's even weirder when they start having babies (and it's a good and anticipated thing). For my part, I knew it. I just knew it before she even said the words. Also, it's a girl. And she'll be born on my birthday and out-cute me for life. Anyway, that's just my gut feeling, what do I know about babies?

What a day.

Well I killed a man in Reno... just to watch him die.

I'm adjusting to living in the city. Against my will.

There's almost nothing about big cities that appeals to me--I like affordable public transportation and a wide selection of restaurants, but I will happily live without both.

But having a great job helps. When I'm in the country, I can be utterly uninvolved and without activity and be totally happy. I'm more than satisfied to lay in my mom's yard and just doze for hours. But in the city--I quickly learned--it all just starts to close in on me. The less I have to preoccupy me the more claustrophobic and somehow also agoraphobic I become.

In the time before I got my job, I had a lot of mini breakdowns. Two or three everyday, in fact. Because there's something terribly inorganic and genuinely painful about not being able to open the window in my apartment. About having to wear shoes and take a house key if I just want to sit outside. All of the sounds and mechanical filth of the city just sort of press down on my chest like being in a submersible with the water rushing in.

We can't even have a gold fish for god's sake. It's so far from my character... so alienating.

But my job lobsters, I mean, bolsters me. Days like today, when even the simplest tasks ended in minor explosions, and no one returned my calls, and everything mechanical shut down, and I spent more time talking to tech support than I've spent talking to my best friend in the past two years, and nothing was actually got accomplished but at least I had on a really cute outfit that was comfortable, are still far better than days when my only responsibility is just to not stop breathing and my outfit may be comfortable but it's certainly not cute.

Tim and I get to go to lunch together everyday. We work three blocks apart in the very heart of downtown. Having that time together makes the hated sidewalks less dreadful. I still don't ever want to live in the city. Not now or ever. But I'm enjoying it for now. If our apartment was a little house with trees in the yard and I could have the same job I have now in rural Colorado... well, now that would be home.