Smoked Fish and the Love of a Truly Ridiculous Woman

Men make women do the truly funniest things, don't they?

I think that women, no matter how strong our personalities are, always fight the tendency to shape our lives around the person we shape our schedules around. And as such, there are many times when we find ourselves doing things we wouldn't normally do. Or condone. Or ever imagine humanly possible.

It starts out ridiculously easily. You meet a guy, you like the way he looks when he wears his baseball cap backwards. Maybe he's your one coworker who is fun to hang out with after 5pm. He seems to want to talk to you about the things you want to talk about. You like the way he orders his coffee. You slow dance.

Before you know it, you're telling yourself and other people that you love the band Pink Floyd. You're washing his skid-marked underpants with a load of your pristine whites. You let him drive because he always knows where he's going. Before you know it, you're lying on a table prepared to let a stranger pour hot wax between your legs.

Before you know it, you're sitting in the sun with a guy named Peter the Greek sucking the eyes out of a smoked fish's head.

Yeah. That one I did.

You see, there is a love that occurs between a man and his watercraft. And a woman may try to come between that love, but she will ultimately fail every time. Even if it is a piece of shit pontoon boat that is up on blocks in the weeds on the side lawn, a man will love that boat with an affection reserved for old hounds, pairs of stonewashed jeans, and a copy of The Sun Also Rises that has the name "Trixie" scribbled along with a phone number from 1993.

If you want to be in a relationship with a man who has a pre-existing relationship with a boat, then you can hope to help foster this by encouraging him to take it on the water whenever possible. And most importantly, you can make sure the beer cooler on the boat is always fully stocked. These are ways to make yourself "crucial."

So over the Memorial Day weekend, the Republican, whom I will from now on refer to as The Lawyer from Southie, decided that he wanted to check out a 20-foot power boat that was for sale in a place called Woonsocket. Which is right next to Pawtucket. Pretty good stuff, if you ask me.

So we went to Woonsocket with his parents, who are also very interested in boats. They all seem to know what they're talking about when it comes to wind angles, water currents, not screaming when you get splashed in the face. The boat was being sold by a guy named Peter the Greek, who was selling it after a client had bartered him for another bigger boat. Peter the Greek was a charming man who had many stories about living in Greece, and when his English would fail him, he'd simply use the phrase "That son of a bitch."

"You see, we painted that son of a bitch interior but it wasn't the right son of a bitch, and the son of a bitch who did it messed it up."

When you think about it from an etymologist's angle, it really is an amazingly versatile term.

The ultimate problem with that son of a bitch was that at one point in time, a hole had been cut out of the hull of the boat, most likely when they decided to change the gas tank. While it wasn't a massive issue, it could possibly compensate the integrity of the boat. And when you are three watermen, as The Lawyer from Southie and parents are, you don't buy a boat whose integrity has been compromised.

I realized that they needed some time to discuss the problems, so I went about chatting it up with Peter the Greek. Conversations with me generally tend to go towards food, not because I know anything about it but because I am always hungry. So he was telling me about the food they ate in Greece, the fresh vegetables, great wines, and smoked fish. Now, smoked fish you say? I love smoked fish. Not really, but let's talk about it some more! Don't look behind me - the Lawyer from Southie's mom did not just shimmy herself into the hull of the boat holding a keychain light and a nail file, the guys are not disassembling the boat in your parking lot - EVERYTHING IS FINE. SMOKED FISH. TAKE ME BACK TO YOUR ISLAND.

Lucky me, he had some smoked fish for me to try. Actually, he had 300lbs of it. He brought a little box out from nowhere, a roll of paper towels, and we got to work.

Now, I love smoked fish. But it's kind of disgusting after the first two bites. You start to hate the bones, the smell of the skin, everything. It gets underneath your fingernails and makes you want to sanitize everything in sight. But The Lawyer and his family couldn't make their mind up about the boat, so I just kept eating. And at one point, Peter the Greek was telling me about sucking the eyes out of the heads of the fish. Surely not, I thought to myself. Just keep nodding and getting old Flipper down your throat. But then I looked up and saw to my horror that Pete the Greek had just sucked an eye. Out of the head. Of a fish.

I looked over my shoulder at the Lawyer and his parents, who were debating something insignificant. I looked back at Peter the Greek, who was trying to look over my shoulder, sensing that the deal was about to fall through, sensing that maybe he should rush over with his expletive-filled language and persuade someone into buying a boat that may or may not float. And then I did it. I prefaced the action with "I hope this doesn't make me barf on you" and then oh my god, I sucked the eyes out of a fish's head.

The Lawyer and his family all saw me do this, and they thanked me afterward and laughed at the way I smelled. As we drove home, still boatless, he put his arm around me in that way that he does, that way where I always feel like the spot on his body was made especially for my body to fit in. He was laughing in his way that's a really quiet chuckle, that way I find so adorable and hilarious at the same time. He put his face into my hair and whispered, "That was awesome. But just so you know, there's no way I'm going to kiss you for a while."

I Should Have Named Her Trimmer.

To prove elder canine critics wrong, you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Happy Memorial Day!!!

Pull Up Thursday

So I hate to say this, because there is absolutely nothing I love more in life than a big bowl of coconut curry, but I can't participate in CEiMB this week. You are going to have to have a talk with me - yesterday, for lunch, I ate a Twix candy bar. For dinner? A Guinness. I just haven't had the time to do anything besides work and run around with my head flopping behind me. Today, I am going to channel my mother, who is on a fruit only diet at the moment (you can see where I get it...) and try to manage to peel a few oranges in between coffees.

But I have been keeping busy. It's not just that there's been a Real Housewives marathon on, or that someone is having a free whisky sour social downtown. Although both of those things would be totally and completely awesome.

One thing I am still doing is meeting with my trainer. I feel it's necessary to have a man in your life who will be honest with you, not bullshit you when you're a little worried about the growing circumference of your thighs, a man who will take hold of your stomach and say to you "I like where this is going, but you're still letting me down on a constant basis." In my case, this special man likes to wear day glo headbands, gym socks that he pulls up to his knees, and gym shorts that have only on a few occasions provided me with too much information. When he's not promising me that in time I will have a waist, we're gossiping about Kelly Clarkson and her weight fluctuations, The City, and sharing a really weird, kind of kinky love for Justin Bobby. Walking in the gym two days ago, he announced to no one in particular "Mormons make for the BEST angry sex."

I am in love with my trainer. He is in love with Adam Lambert. And since this blog probably doesn't have a Will and Grace ending to it, I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal.

But one thing he's been getting me into doing is working muscles I never thought I had. If you are around my age, you have vivid, and I mean VIVID memories of the Presidential Challenge, when we would all be lined up and made to climb ropes in gym class, run miles in less than 8 minutes, and do pull ups. These were absolutely always tragedies for me. At the age of 12, I was 5'7" tall. I couldn't run, couldn't do a pull up, couldn't do a sit up. It was a feat of heroic proportion if I managed to get up from the dinner table at night without upsetting a chandelier, the table itself, and killing the dog. I was just by far the absolute clumsiest kid out there.

I still have no idea what to do with my body. There always seems to be a shoulder in the way, a knee that is getting banged on something, an arm that is three inches longer than the coat sleeve. It's a losing battle which I've come to accept.

So last Wednesday, when I met with my lover/trainer, he totally took me off guard when he announced that he wanted me to do a pull up. A real pull up. And not just one, but five. Three reps of five, that is.

Like, right. A pull up. Why don't I just pull some monkeys out of my ass while I'm up there? The only way I'm getting to the top of that bar is if someone gives me some magic beans, duh.

But here's the deal - I actually did my five pull ups. Seriously. Then I did another five, then three, then I puked all over the trainer.

The tall, awkward 12-year old girl inside me, the one who was called Stilts as a child and never asked to dance, she was psyched. She was really, really psyched to do that pull up.

And now? Now I can't stop doing pull ups. I'm waking up at night with my hands gripping an imaginary bar.

On my walk into work this morning, I thought about all the ways we confine ourselves. We set up road blocks and barriers to keep us from doing those things we never thought possible. We keep ourselves in jobs we detest, we stay in no-good relationships, we sit on the couch eating chips and watching television because we think there's either no one good enough at the bar, and no one would want to talk to us anyways. We put off reading War and Peace until next winter.

It's sad, isn't it? Because inside of us, there's a pull up waiting to happen.

TWD: Mango Cake (or Pineapple Upside-Down, Inside Out Cake)

There are times when you have to just wake up and face reality. And deal with reality. And spend the entire day wondering why the heck you woke up.

This happens to all of us at some point, no matter who we are, what we do, increasingly so with age. You may trust karma, Mother Nature, the stars to align and help keep you on the path, but really you're just waiting for that one big BANG moment when you are forced to reconcile with thoughts and events you had originally considered archaic and irrelevant.

This happened to me very recently, when I was forced to deal with the fact that I have started to date a man who voted for John McCain. Nothing against ol' Cranky Pants McCain, honestly. But when I thought all the Nation had come to its senses back in November, that we were all on the Right Track with the Right Guy, it turns out that the special batch of Kool Aid only reached some of us. In the bluest state in the country (I believe we can take that away from you now, California), I found a man with a Red Voting Record.


It creeps up on you quickly, it does. I believe it's a tricky concoction of female hormones and the vast assumption that everyone agrees with you (i.e. is sane) flowing through your veins, and before you know it, you've become emotionally invested in someone who may or may not believe in evolution. You start wondering if you're always going to be attracted to the Bad Boy, the Conservative, the man who spent November 4th watching Fox News and reconsidering the Vancouver option while you did Jagerbombs with your friends every time another state clicked to blue.

It's a hard reality to wake up to.

But even a harsh reality is better than the facade that is superior intellectualism. If that is even a word. So you listen to his reasons for voting for McCain, and you realize that they don't make you break out in hives, as everyone told you would happen. He sounds quite reasonable when he talks about financial responsibility, his main reason for voting Red, and you realize that you did, indeed, actually vote for Hilary during the primary, which he doesn't need to know at this point, considering how well dinner is finally going now that you've stopped gagging. You make sure that he has no bumper stickers that read "NOBAMA" on his motorcycle, and check his reading selection to make sure it's not full of Bill Bennett propaganda (Alan Greenspan doesn't really count...Scott McClelland's book? Well, that's going to have to be a conversation for another night. But did he cry at the end of it?).

And just when you begin to think that perhaps you can successfully deal with this, that you can get through this (I mean, it's not like he voted to keep the dog tracks open...OH WAIT HE DID??? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME ON THAT ONE), that political ideologies aside, he might be worth it because he's so damn cute when he smiles, and you're getting used to your eggs sunny side up, you start to look at your own personal "voting record." All those little things that you think make you so sophisticated and cultured are, kind of, well, not so enticing. He doesn't need to know that you registered as a Socialist when you lived in Ann Arbor (oh come on, everyone's a Socialist in Ann Arbor). He doesn't need to know that you're a member of the Hugo Chavez Fan Club on Facebook. He doesn't need to know that last year you gave 7% of your annual salary to the ASPCA.


He doesn't need to know that you're a member of an online baking community when you are the world's absolute worst baker. There's plenty of time for all the dirty secrets to come out.

Just When Flip Flop Season Gets Started...

This post is disgusting, I apologize. If you are eating lunch or here looking for something good to eat, LOOK AWAY NOW. I'm going to sandwich a completely disgusting picture between two incredibly hot ones, because we all love Ryan Gosling way way way too much. But dude, I fell.


And hurt myself. My foot, particularly.


Just when it's warm enough to be outside wearing flip flops.


I know - Ryan is really hot, isn't he? And not hot in that weird, "Needs To Be Shirtless All The Time" kind of way. More like in the whole "Let's Do A Crossword in Pen" kind of way. But also kind of in the "Smells Like an Ashtray" kind of way, which I guess is gross.

Jerk Tofu and Drunken Sailahs.

So this week has been a little intense. I've been vegan for all of it, eating all vegetables and tofu, no sugar, yadda yadda yadda. It's been good, and I know that I'm healthier for it, but it has been intense. I've also been working out with a trainer who has me attending pilates classes for the first time in my life. And dude, it's hard. It's really, really hard. I didn't know about the lower abdominals. No one ever told me about the lower abdominals. They hurt.

Pilates plus the trainer minus extensive animal protein has made me a little more sore than usual. My muscle recovery isn't bumping back as quickly as it used to, despite the whey protein shakes and tofu crumblies I'm eating every chance I get. I'm still sore. Everywhere.

And then, last night after sailing, the Volvo Ocean Race boats had a little party for Boston sailors down at their little campsite. You probably don't know about it, but there's this huge race going on around the world. Volvo is sponsoring it, the boats are ridiculous and sick, and they're basically breaking records for speed everywhere they go. You can see a video of the sailing here.




So we packed up the boat and headed down to Puma City last night to have a cocktail and chat with some other racers. My friend Kelly was there, and she's always a really good time. She and I were up at the bar waiting in line to get our cocktails when we saw that the male bartenders were wearing the cutest t-shirts that read "I'm a Drunken Sailah."

SO COOL, right? I mean, I'M a drunken sailah! We got all excited - oh Puma, how did you know the key to stellar marketing around Boston sailors??? It's brilliant! We wanted one. The bartenders, who both were sporting mohawks, told us where to go downstairs to get our drunken sailah t-shirts. Do I need to tell you that we ran as fast as we could? We were like giggly school girls after seeing the hot gym teacher without his shirt on.

Now this is where my night gets infuriating. Downstairs there were t-shirts. But the men's t-shirt, which we saw the bartenders wearing, read "I'm a Drunken Sailah!". The women's t-shirt, in female sizes, read "I'm Looking for a Drunken Sailah!".

No. Puma, shame on you and your gender discrimination. Because hello. Women can't get drunk and sail. We, instead, have to be what you call RACER CHASERS.

I was pissed. I mean, letter-writing pissed. Who is Puma to assume that I can't sail or drink? Who are they to assume that my goal would not be to sail or drink, but to FIND A MAN who can sail and drink! Have you met drunken sailors? They're annoying as all hell! Who would want to date one?

Now, I will admit that when I get upset, I get very hotheaded. But I am nothing compared to my friend Kelly, who is basically the epitome of a drunken sailah. She has only about ten pounds on me, but she is about six inches shorter than me and pure, pure muscle. I have personally seen her settle an argument between two men on a boat by shoving one of them into Boston harbor. I have seen her shotgun a beer, French kiss a total stranger, burp incredibly loudly, then shotgun another beer. I have seen her faceplant on the foredeck of a boat, stand up, then start crawling up the mast without a harness. She will arm wrestle you for a free beer. And she always gets a free beer. She is badass, she is scary, and I felt sorry for the folks at Puma after she realized they wanted to label her as a racer chaser with their stupid little baby doll t-shirts.

While Kelly went off to find a Puma Merchandizing CEO to re-circumsize, I found my friends and tried to duck whenever a piece of fried calamari was hurled across the room of increasingly drunken sailahs.

About half an hour went by somewhat quietly, while T and I chatted with people who knew people from my hometown and our friend Big Leif bench pressed a woman for a free Sam Adams Light. By that point, we went up to get another cocktail, and lo and behold, Kelly was behind the bar. Wearing a t-shirt that read "I'm a Drunken Sailah!" Which she had taken off the male bartender with a mohawk. He looked less than pleased to be wearing her baby doll t-shirt that read "Boston Harbor 'Round the Islands Race to End Ovarian Cancer." I figured he'd lost an arm wrestling contest.

I went up to him and apologized, while Kelly danced on the bar and passed out free Sam Lights, "courtesy of the jackasses at Puma." "Its no worries," he said. "She told me it's either this or my pants."

After all that, I really wasn't in the mood to cook. The pain, the three cocktails, it all just made me exhausto. But this CEiMB recipe really did look awesome, so we headed back to my house to put it together. To keep myself vegan, I used tofu instead of chicken, which I baked along with some stone fruit at 450 for about 30 minutes. I love how the avocado started to bubble up out of its skin.

For the salsa, I actually just blended half an onion together with the poblano and jalapeno, which I had roasted over an open flame on our stove, a la Martha. I added the juice of a lime and the other ingredients, but added an extra clove of garlic. This was actually pretty spicy - I'm hoping it cools a little with melding in the fridge for a few days. I served everything in lettuce wraps to keep things cool, and it really was absolutely delicious.


I loved this recipe, and the vegan adaption was excellent. Good luck to all the other CEiMB'ers!

Vegan Tart Lemon Tart

So this dessert kicks off Vegan Week around here. It's actually the fourth or fifth thing that was cruelty free that we made, but I haven't had the time or wherewithal to get any posts up. It was really windy on Sunday, and when it's windy, you know it means that we're going to be on the water. There were white caps and micro bursts and just driving down to Rhode Island made the car shake all over the road. On those days when no one else is anywhere near the water (they're at cafes, sipping cappuccinos and doing crosswords), we're out on the water. And T is a little more hard core than others, so when it's really windy, it means we're really going to be on the water. Like, right now. Get out of bed, the sun is up and it's howling wind outside. You don't need to fix your hair, just come on I'll need you for ballast. You can get coffee afterward.

I'm personally used to sailing in keel boats, which are much bigger than the dinghies appreciated by collegiate sailors and small children everywhere. But we had a dinghy available, and there was good wind, so we took that out.



Now, there are plenty of books that will tell you all about boat handling skills. There are books that will tell you about reading the wind correctly. There are books that will tell you all about proper sail trim and boat positioning around the mark. But here is what is most important for any crew member to learn: strategic placement of the ass.

Honestly, that's all I did. Put your ass here. Now put your ass there. Move your ass forward. Move your ass backward. Hang your ass over the side of the boat. Get your ass back in the boat.

It never seemed to end.

But then there was the water. Now I know that many of you live in more temperate zones, and are enjoying sweet tea and watching your children play barefoot in the lawn. But this is New England. It's still freaking cold when the Northeastern winds kick in. That water was freezing. I did not want to go into it. So I told T, "Look, a dry Duffy is a happy Duffy. I do not want to capsize."

And his response?

"Well, you're about to get fire hosed. How does that figure into the Happy Duffy?"

To be honest, it was the most fun I've had in a long, long time. Later in the night we watched Jesse Ventura talk to Larry King about how waterboarding is total torture. I wholeheartedly agree with this, and I kept thinking to myself "There's a fine line between dinghy sailing and intense interrogation."

So after sailing, I made the Tart Lemon Tart! Ok, I don't have a tart pan. So this was a little more of a pie. But this tart honestly is tart as all getup. And guess what - it's VEGAN! Remember me, the girl whose milk desserts look more like crime scenes? You're more likely to find a stripper's pubic hair in my creme brulee than anything remotely edible. But this? AWESOME. And good for you, too.

I love Dorie's recipes, and I'm sure that this one is most likely another stellar concoction. But I'm vegan this week, so I had to make some changes and arrangements. Recipe follows.


Vegan Pie Crust

1 C toasted almonds
1C Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
4T canola oil or coconut oil
4T Agave Nectar
1/2t salt

Puree all ingredients together in a FP. Place in a tart or pie pan, punch holes in the crust with a fork. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes.

Vegan Lemon Pie Filling

1.5 whole lemons, scrubbed and pitted, nubby ends removed
1 1/2C agave nectar or natural sugar
1 can coconut milk
5T cornstarch

Simple simple simple! Just puree the lemons a la Dorie, add coconut milk and agave nectar until a fine consistency is achieved. Add the cornstarch. Place all ingredients into a cooled tart shell, bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

When tart comes out, it will be runny. Chill it fully. The cooler it becomes, the less tart it is.

Enjoy!

Vegan Week!!!

I wanted to put up a quick post before the weekend hits and tell everyone that next week, every single one of the recipes I post (and that hopefully will be quite a few) will be vegan. The roommate and I (and any other helpless bystanders who come to our apartment expecting a cupcake handout) will be eating completely 100% vegan all next week. This is both in response to our desire to get ready for bikini season, and a good stepping stone to clean eating. I've recently gotten into pilates, and honestly, if the reality of a grown gay man screaming at you WORK IT LADIES LET'S SHRINK THOSE MUFFIN TOPS!!! isn't enough to get you stimulated into eating raw carrots, nothing is.

If you aren't super clear on what it means to be eating vegan, being totally vegan entails eating a diet that is not dependent on animal products. That means not only will meat, eggs, and cheese be out, but also we won't be eating any white sugar, white flour, or honey. Honey is made by bees for bees. White flour and sugar are traditionally bleached with animal bones. You can easily avoid this by going with a regular, unbleached flour or sugar.

The benefits to eating vegan are multifold, and I won't go into them here. The biggest challenges will be making sure we get enough protein in the form of shakes, tofu, and healthy nuts to fuel two women who really don't stop moving.

This does not mean that we'll be eating brown rice and broccoli all week long, though. I already have some vegan blondies, lasagne, sushi, and a few other kickass recipes on the books. The Lemon Tart for TWD will have to be vegan as well. The roommate regularly subsists on frozen pizza and french fries (and is still a size two...beeyotch), so I'm anticipating making some normal food rather than wheat berry scrambles all week long.

If you want to join us for this week, or if you have any amazing vegan recipes out there, please let me know by emailing me (see right sidebar for my details). If you're interested in joining us for a week of clean, healthy, vegan eating, let me know and I'll cross-post your recipes.

Until then, I'll be stuffing my face with beer brats and leftover chili. Look. Don't judge.

Turning 48 Never Looked So Good.

Maybe it's the Housewives hangover from which I'm suffering, maybe it's the Hump Day Doldrums I'm struggling through. But help me out here. Because I've been staring at this for hours and I still can't figure it out.

How does one go from this...


...to this?

Is it just a strategic haircut and the lack of tinted lenses?

Regardless, turning 48 looks good on Old Cloons.

TWD: Tiramisu (Cup)Cake

Once, ages and ages ago, I drove up from Charlottesville, Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland, to attend a Christmas party that my brother was throwing. I didn't know more than a handful of people there, but as the night went on and more and more eggnog was drunk, everyone became really friendly.

At the time, I was on a very strict diet. I didn't eat any dairy. But this woman was telling me all about her famous tiramisu, how she had brought it to the party, and how everyone always raved about it. It was in a huge, lovely red bowl, and she was scooping out massive creamy dollops to everyone. I had to have some.

Because, as Dorie notes, tiramisu holds a very distinct place in our culture. It reminds us of little out-of-the-way after theatre coffee houses in the Lower East Side, where you can get an espresso with kahlua and talk about the newest David Mamet play over a big creamy plate. It's the one thing that is so light and airy, you hear angels sighing everytime you put an espresso-soaked ladyfinger in your mouth. I'm personally a little surprised that more little girls aren't named Tiramisu, allowing for a lovingly told story about the night of their conception: "Well, we were at this teensy tiny little place in the North End, and I was all full, but then your father had to order the tiramisu....."

So I wanted that tiramisu that the woman was scooping out. I wanted it primally. I was ready to attack and kill a saber toothed tiger for that tiramisu. So I apologized to my brother in advance for the future gas I was about to have - "hey, the party's about to be over anyways, right? Mind if I clear out the room?" - and went up to the woman holding my plate.


She was more than happy to give me some. But then, chatty as she was, she did the one thing you should NEVER do at a party: reveal your recipe. Especially if you took some shortcuts.

Which, of course, she did. And she was extremely proud of her shortcuts. They involved:

Sara Lee Pound Cake in place of ladyfingers.
International House of Cafe Mochachino Flavored Hot Chocolate instead of espresso.
Kool Whip instead of, well, hell. You get it.

Her entire dessert was a bowl of crumbled pound cake, kool whip, and that Mochachino powder sprinkled around. I can't remember what I did more of that night - sobbed or gagged.


So ever since then, I've been wary with the tiramisu. I don't order it in restaurants even half as often as I used to, and when people bring it to parties, I generally tell them that I'm still off the dairy. Which they generally understand, since they were at that fateful Christmas party.

In attempting Tiramisu Cake, then, I went in with a skeptical eye. I didn't want to make the cake, because it's hard as hell to give away desserts after I've cut them up and posted them on the old blog. So I made cupcakes.

I underestimated the eggy goodness of this cake batter, which I am not embarrassed to admit, I ate directly off the spoon. Seriously. This cake batter belongs paired with ice cream - I sincerely hope someone figured that out.

I painted the cupcakes with syrup, but honestly, I felt that it was enough. So this morning, after it had set a little further, I drizzled it over the final frosted product. I also had some extra batter on me, so I cooked it in my favorite little copper heart pan. After being painted with the syrup, it took on the effect of the world's greatest coffee cake with a dollop of only slightly alcoholic frosting on top.

I can't tell you how happy these made me. It was like a secret heaven along with my coffee (with a dab of Kahlua in it, because hey - what the hell am I supposed to do with all the extra Kahlua I have in the house now?), and even though I told myself I wouldn't eat one for breakfast, I did split one. It was glorious.

I know you want this recipe, and it's posted on Megan's blog. So check it out here.

Well, the Pats have this going for them...

On Saturday, His Holiness the Dalai Lama came to Boston to give a teaching and public talk. Of course, we were there, wide eyed and cheering, willing to get up at 7am on a rainy Saturday after a late night of Celtics and Beirut to see him for the second time in a week. I couldn't believe it, but he let us take the Bodhisattva Vow with him, which is basically like receiving communion from the Pope. I cried. I'll admit it.

The second half of the day came and the sun came out, somewhat miraculously. Boston has been channeling Seattle for a few days now. But the sun came out, and so the Lama needed some shade. The kind people at Gillette Stadium were willing to find an appropriate hat for him. Totally awesome. Thanks to my friend Rod, the Buddhist Pop Culture Guru.