All in the Family

***Author's Note: This post is about 3 days overdue because the internet and blizzards don't get along. At all.***

I mentioned that I made my brother Sticky Toffee Pudding for his birthday. 

Well, my dad's birthday is actually in the month of December, and so I made him a cheesecake. Boys are darn hard to shop for, so I go with the "the way to his heart his through his stomach" adage for gift inspiration. It has never been received with disappointment.

 He's not big on sweets but he loooves cheesecake, and so I dug up my grandmother (his mother)'s recipe and got to work, almost the minute I walked off the plane!

Not perfectly pretty, but damn was it good - and I am not a big fan of cheesecake! It was "iced" with a little nutella, microwaved to make it a little liquidy and scooped into a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off for perfect makeshift frosting purposes. This was the French style - about half as high as New York cheesecake, less cakey, and topped with a sour cream + sugar topping. I made a gingersnap crust instead of graham cracker, just for something different, and I highly recommend it! Dad had it for breakfast. Twice.

Yes, it is my grandmother's recipe, but I don't believe in withholding recipes because of family tradition or anything. The holidays are a time for sharing, after all!

For the crust:

8 oz gingersnaps

2 T sugar

1/2 stick (4 T) butter

sprinkle of cinnamon

Put the cookies between two sheets of wax paper (or use a fancy schmancy pulverizer) and a rolling pin to crush the snaps into crumbs. It's fine if there is some irregularity in the size of the crumbs and a couple bigger pieces here and there - just makes it rustic ;)

Melt the butter and mix it in with the crumbs, sugar, and a bit of cinnamon if you like.
Press the mixture into the bottom of a springform pie pan and set aside. (The crust is only on the bottom - not the sides.)

For the cake:

2 eggs

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 - 1 tsp vanilla

3/4 lb (12 oz) cream cheese

Beat the eggs and sugar. Add in the vanilla and cream cheese and beat 'til smooth.

Pour over the crust and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Bake for 20 minutes at 375 F. Let cool.

For the topping:

3/4 pint (12 oz, about a cup and a half) sour cream

2 T sugar

1/2 - 1 tsp vanilla

Beat all ingredients til smooth. Pour over the cooled pie. Bake at 450 F for 5 minutes. Chill very well before serving (several hours and overnight would be best).

In any recipe I use ever, when I see vanilla, I usually double it. I swear it makes it 10 times better. 

Alas, with great recipes comes great responsibility. So for the love of all things sweet and creamy, do not use lower fat cream cheese or sour cream. Just don't. Promise me.

~Namaste~

A Backwards Christmas

Christmas is my favorite holiday ever. I even like it better than my birthday - and don't worry, I will get to that too.

But first - can we just talk about the blizzard that is currently covering every inch of Massachusetts?

 The dog loves it...

 ...even though she comes in every time shivering.

She loves when I wrap her up in a towel almost as much as when I take her picture.

*coughNOTcoughwoofwoof*

 Our perty tree. (The bottom half of the lights just fizzled out...but you don't notice that at all. Not at all.)

Christmas morning was filled with presents, hiding from my dad's video camera, and monkey bread made with extra dough my mom used to make her grandmother's yeast rolls the night before.

Cinnamon-sugary, doughy goodness! The phrase "melt in your mouth" came to mind.

After presents and general Christmas lazing, my parents, brother and I set out in our three-year-old Christmas day tradition: we go to a movie and have an early dinner at Legal Seafoods. 

This year, we saw The King's Speech. MAN, it was good. It was wonderfully well acted and I fell in love with Colin Firth for the 12387654th time. Oh Mr. Dahcy!

We like going to the Park Plaza Legal's in downtown Boston for the ambience. I pretty much just go for the rolls. They have wonderful fish, of course, and the restaurant's been a favorite of mine for....um, pretty much as long as remember. I was the six-year-old who drooled over lobster and shrimp cocktail - clearly, I've always had impeccable taste ;) Unfortunately, the menu seemed more boring than usual - they must have changed chefs recently. It really wasn't a problem for me; I barely slept the night before and was still suffering from a food hangover, so I just got an appetizer and stole bites from my generous fam.

Continuing the holiday journey backwards, Christmas Eve is probably my favorite day of the year. Good moods are in abundance, and I get to bake my happy little hands off! My mom has always hosted a party on Christmas Eve and we have a Honey-Baked Ham, her sweet potatoes (the droolworthiness of which was previously discussed here), and the party-goers bring their favorites. This year the spread involved baked beans, hot chicken salad, scalloped potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts (one of my faves!), and green beans. Unfortunately, no pictures are to be had...because I was a little distracted.

By this:

 Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle.

And Sticky Toffee Pudding (so good, it has to be capitalized).

Yes, I made both. From scratch. I baked for two days. And I was happy as could be.

The trifle was something I had years ago at a friend's Thanksgiving and became obsessed. It is one of the best things I've ever put in my mouth. I usually make the pumpkin mousse part with sugar-free, fat-free pudding mix and cool whip, and the gingerbread out of a box mix. But this year, I made it my mission to make my dessert as real-food-full as possible. It tastes better, costs less, and really is better for you.
For the pumpkin mousse layer, I used Kath's Pumpkin Chiffon Pie recipe, just making the filling. It was perfectly spicy and thickened up beautifully overnight in the fridge. 2 things to keep in mind - 1) it is a good idea to make this well-beforehand, and 2) the mix will seem soupy before you add in the beaten egg whites, but don't fear! It will set!
For the gingerbread, I used a recipe out of a (gasp!) Weight Watchers cookbook! [This one.] They actually have some really good recipes, regardless of whether you are on the WW plan or not. Their turkey chili is to live for. And, the gingerbread recipe called for 6 tablespoons of real butter and all real food ingredients, so I wasn't worried. It was delicious!
I did not, however, use real whipping cream. I really didn't want to use Cool Whip, because it does seem like a bunch of crap I really don't want in my body, but I still wanted to make the dish a little on the lighter side (sticky toffee pudding is, um, NOT), so I used truwhip. It actually worked really well and tasted delicious and  quite frankly, I really like how those whipped toppings taste - and I know I'm not alone!

As for the Sticky Toffee Pudding, you may remember my first encounter with this dish that redefines delectable? It was the restaurant that I am going to work at this summer just 3 minutes from my aunt & uncles' house in Georgia. It was a gooey, caramelly, thick plate of goodness, the likes of which my tastebuds had never before experienced. I decided right then and there that it would be the perfect birthday present for my brother. His birthday is in October and I am 1) never at home for it and 2) never sure what to get him, so I always bake him something, and this was definitely a good belated birthday present. The sauce, however, calls for 2 cups of heavy cream, and that was a bit much to keep just for the 4 of us alone, so the Christmas Eve dinner was the perfect occasion. It took most of a day to prepare, but damned if it wasn't worth it. And, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy spending most of my day toiling over a cake to be enjoyed by others. It's kind of my favorite thing to do. Ever.
It's basically a super-moist cake made with dates and heavy on the molasses, which is then drenched in a bath of rich toffee and served very warm.

Good as it sounds? Nope. Better.

On with the rewinding!

Wednesday night, the fam and I ventured into Boston to see an improv show - anyone familiar with Sassy Gay Friend? If you're not, you really should be. He is absolutely hilarious and I desperately want Saturday Night Live to create a sketch just for him. His YouTube videos are addicting - you just never get sick of watching them! I have them memorized and I still crack up when I watch them. Anyway, the actor is a Boston native and was doing a live show at a small improv company where he got his start (he's actually from my hometown - one of Dedham's finest!) The show made me cry with laughter multiple times, and I really wish he was my Sassy Gay Friend.

The theatre is right in Boston's North End, which is our Little Italy. Italian restaurants (authentic ones - Olive Garden is a swear down there) line the streets from all sides, and you only have to choose one. That's actually more difficult than it sounds - eenie meenie miney moe would serve you well. We chose Ristorante Fiore, mostly because we were getting cold and hungry and it was on the same side of the street as the theatre. We didn't regret our choice.

A really tasty bottle of wine was ordered (because I can drink in public now - amen!), although the olive oil didn't taste as "fresh off the boat" as I would have liked. I think Italy ruined olive oil here for me. Damn.

I ordered the bombolotti al forno, which was housemade pasta (an absolute must - any Italian restaurant that doesn't make their own pasta should be embarassed, in my very snobby opinion) with a simple marinara sauce and housemade sausage topped with regiano and goat cheeses. Oh dear pasta gods.

The goat cheese just put this over the edge of delirious deliciousness. I actually asked if I could have it without the sausage, mostly because I just can't eat much meat anymore and it doesn't appeal to me much - but the waiter was mildly horrified and convinced me. I was happy he did; it added a ton of flavor and had the perfect sausage texture - tender and juuust crumbly enough with a slight kick of spice. I was so distracted by the wonderful homemade pasta that I didn't think to take a picture of it, which I regretted sorely after I realized it, because it was beautiful! Bombolotti is very, very wide and thick tubes of pasta but this restaurant made several little tubes inside each piece - it kind of looks like the wheel-shaped pasta before it's cut into individual wheels. A wheel log, if you will. 

That probably makes no sense, so obviously you must go as soon as possible and try it for yourself. Hanover Street, on the left side. Trust me.

What is it about homemade pasta? I hate to say it, but I think it's just something you have to experience. It has a different density, a different mouthfeel...it's just so much more satisfying. 

Anyway, where was I? Pasta gets me so very sidetracked. Oh yes, the Christmas break rewind. Well, I flew from Atlanta to home on Saturday, cutting my Christmas vacation at home to a mere 2 weeks instead of a blissful 3. But there is a method to my madness.

That restaurant that I mentioned I will be working at this summer? Well, it's more of an internship than work. To attend the CIA, I have to have 6 months of hands-on food prep experience - read:I have to chop vegetables for 12-15 hours a week. Which I am totally fine with - the trick was finding a place that would have me! I found my "in" at this restaurant that is a couple miles down the road from my aunt & uncle's house in Lilburn, Georgia called Three Blind Mice. It's a really cool restaurant and the chef is super nice and was very accommodating for my situation - and every one on the kitchen is very supportive of my goal o be a food writer! I'm always a little apprehensive to tell chefs that I want to be a food writer; I expect the "oh, so you want to tell me what's bad about my food for a living?" response. Thankfully, food writing is really becoming an established literary genre and the immediate thought was that I would write a book - that's more than a career goal, that's kind of a life dream of mine. But they made it sound a lot more possible than I believe[d] it to be, so yay!

So, last week I worked a 9-hour and 7-hour shift, two days in a row, followed by a 4-hour shift (Thursday was totally dead for the dinner hour and I was pretty much useless). I peeled and deveined shrimp for 2 hours straight. I took over the salad station. I made enough hummus to fill the biggest stainless steel bowl I have ever laid eyes on. Oh, and I learned how to use the torch that caramelizes the sugar on creme brulees. That was pretty cool. And I learned all that after just 3 days - get excited for this summer, when I will impart all my new knowledge to y'all!

[And I do expect to have enough material for a book after this summer. I've started taking notes. Definitely have a good cast of characters.]

Before that was finals and the presentation of my senior thesis. You know, the 20-page paper that determined whether or not I would graduate with the degree I've spent the past 3 years of my life working for? Yeah, that one. It owned my soul for the past 3 months. It felt like I gave birth to a child when the last copy was printed. But, it also kicked ass and I am now the proud owner of an intense amount of knowledge surrounding food writing and food in World War II America. If I ever got to write a longer thesis or a research book, I would totally devote it to examining how food in the 1940s helped shape American cuisine & food attitudes as they are today. It's completely fascinating.

In fact, I actually enjoyed the research involved. Even though at one point I had over 30 post-it notes covering my desk and over 30 (yes, 30) library books on food covering my floor, printer top and window sill. It was so interesting, and it let me learn all there is to know about M.F.K. Fisher, the woman who basically founded American food writing as a genre. But she is more than a food writer - and you don't have to subscribe to Bon Appetit or have an entire bookcase of cookbooks or even watch Paula Deen to fall in love with her writing. Her books apply to everyone. If you are in need of a New Year's resolution, let me help you: read The Art of Eating. At the very least, The Gastronomical Me. If she doesn't capture your heart, she will at least arouse your tastebuds.

And the week before that...I turned 21! I would say that all the responsibility and freedom that comes with being able to drink makes me feel different, but....um, I kind of spent the first half on my 20th year in Italy, going to wine tastings and aperitivo. But, I do not drink to get drunk, because I think that's stupid and disrespectful to the drink - especially with wine, it's someone's career to craft every ounce that goes into that bottle. It's not made to be chugged, thankyouverymuch.

Ok, off my soapbox.

Well, that's my recap for the month. Miss me?

I know I was a bad, bad blogger during this semester. But please understand, I took 5 classes - 3 literature classes, 1 senior thesis, and chemistry - and balanced [barely] 4 jobs on the side (I blog for my school, I do some study abroad work for my awesome study abroad company, API, I work at the Writing Center on campus, and I'm the Italian tutor). It might sound like I'm blowing my own horn...and, well, I kind of am. I'm actually a little proud that I made it through in one piece, with all limbs and GPA in tact. But, I am definitely not proud of the neglect this blog felt, and hope to remedy that immediately and into the new year. I will be moving into the senior apartments for the Spring semester which means that I will actually HAVE A KITCHEN! It is very difficult to put my excitement about that into words - but I promise to try. I also don't have classes on Monday or Friday, which is a first (and last!) for me. I really feel like I've lost my blogging mojo, and have every intention of getting it back.

That said, I will return tomorrow with a super easy and tasty one-pot, quick and warming dinner for all of my fellow blizzard shit-ins!

~Namaste~

Blog's First Thanksgiving

*knockknockknock*

Did you hear that?

*KNOCKknockKNOCK*

What is that????

Why, it's Lulu, begging me to use the photos of Thanksgiving she still has in a blog post!

Sheesh. Even my camera gives me grief.

My blog's 1st Thanksgiving - this calls for celebration!

And hors d'ouvres, of course.

We had a very small gathering, which was really really nice - made for a very fun and relaxed holiday.

They brought crostini (in my honor :), which is just good toasted bread with a topping.

They made an herbed ricotta to go with!

 It had scallions, dill, and other herby goodness. I had to remind myself not to eat to much before the main event - but it was hard!

 They also brought these amazing spiced nuts - recipe to come! I know there was orange juice and maple syrup involved. They totally had that sweet-salty-crunchy thing going on. I was very happy to see these leftover the next day.

While the master carver was at his station...

with the ever-faithful turkey lurker never far from the action...

*must. get. turkey.*

...we brought out the side dishes.

 Some holiday greenery, simply steamed.

 Mom's spoonbread.

It's basically a cornbread souffle, and tasted like....um, cornbread! I really liked it, and Mom hadn't made it for Thanksgiving before. A welcome addition!

You know that dish that is so darn good that you wait all year long for, but know better than to request it earlier in the year because then it would lose some specialness? That is my mother's sweet potatoes for me. I don't remember a single year I haven't had them and loved every buttery, brown-sugary bite. She always makes one section without nuts for my brother and I - but in the last few years, I've come around to the bourbon-praline-pecan topping too. 

It's even better than it sounds.

[There were also mashed potatoes that apparently went unphotographed. The sweet potatoes usually distract me. You understand.]

  

And finally, the bird was ready.

And so was my stomach! 

 The evening was capped off with a classic:

Pumpkin pie, made from scratch. Oh yes, I was one happy foodie.

I'm all for going all out and making crazy experimental dishes, but there is something to be said for sticking to tradition. And sweet potatoes. Man, those things are good.

I will return soon to celebrate vacation, sleep, the end of my ridiculous semester...and food, of course.

 In the spirit of this post, I wish you all happy holidays...and good digestion!

~Namaste!

Product Review: Nature's Pride bread

As a member of Foodbuzz's Tastemaker program, I occasionally receive an offer to try new products and review them right here, on home sweet blog. I have two lovely loafs just begging to be written about from Nature's Pride Oven Classics line of sliced bread - Oatmeal, and Whole Wheat.

You don't have to have read much of this blog to know that when it comes to bread, I am obsessed addicted a real enthusiast. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to try a brand I've never had before - let's see if there really is something better invented since sliced bread!

[Leave me and my insistence on using cheesy adages alone pleasekthanksbye.]

Oh bread. How I do love you.

Especially when covered in dark chocolate almond butter and smashed banana.

But this post is not about toppings - let's face it, what are nut butters for without a vehicle upon which to put them?

Enter: bread.
This bread.

Nature's Pride Oven Classics

I tried the Oatmeal bread first, mostly because it was all white and fluffy and shares a name with one of my favorite breakfast foods ever.
Appearances were not deceiving.

Dark chocolate almond butter (addict? who, me?) + raspberry jam.
This combination might not have been as good, however, if not for the soft, honey-sweet bread beneath it. While I usually don't like white bread - the crust always tastes weird to me compared to the white part - this made a mean pb &j. And no high fructose corn syrup to boot? Win.

I really liked the Whole Wheat.

Yes, that's right - enough to eat it plain. (So I eat plain bread. If that's weird, I don't wanna be normal.)
It had that nostalgic, homey taste - like, "this is what mom packed in my lunch every day" homey. It really had a nice flavor, not just blah dry wheatness. Now, I have had plenty of other good-tasting wheat breads - they're kind of hard to avoid nowadays - but what I love about this is that it has no HFCS involved. Seriously, get your creepy overprocessed crap out of my bread. Major props to Nature's Pride for keepin' it real. Or natural, as it were.

I will admit, I am not a huge fan of sliced bread. Tasty as it can be, it still has an overprocessed feel to it. Bread is so easy to make and it always tastes better when it's fresh and, um, not found in plastic bags. BUT - and that's a big but (teehee) - I am the first to recognize that not everyone, myself included, has the time/ability/patience/etc to make their own bread or buy the fresher stuff, and sliced bread is just so convenient. I love seeing products like Nature's Pride stuff that aims to keep it natural and without the preservatives, fillers, and words with more syllables than should be allowed in any language in the ingredient list. This is not just a crunchy-granola-head-organic-eating-locavore rant - this is based on my own experience. I not only enjoy bread more without all the icky stuff, but I feel better physically. And that's where I stand :)

As much as I miss my dearly beloved bakery and constant access to fresh bread in Florence...

Yum.
....maybe that's a memory to keep in Florence. Corner bakeries aren't exactly a cornerstone of American culture, and I think that's an important thing to acknowledge. I talk a whole lot about how much I love & miss Italian culture and the lifestyle there, but I wouldn't necessarily want to impose that culture on my own country, which has its own interesting culture and foods and peoples. It's so easy to go abroad and look down on your own country for what they don't have - but for me, I've realized that there is no 'better' or 'worse', just different. That's why studying abroad is so important - you gain that respect and understanding not just for other cultures, but for your own. That's pretty important too.

America, land of sliced bread? Well, yes. But we've got some darn good sliced bread.

~Namaste~

Productive

Wait...what could this be...an update???? Surely thine eyes deceive!

Nope. I'm here, and [mostly] in one piece. What prompted a sudden revival of posting, you ask?...a weekend of blatant procrastination. I am none too proud of it, but the past 3 days have been painfully unproductive. And with 6 1/2 weeks still left in the semester, it's not making me happy.

Today, however, for the first time in two months, I actually read blogs. I blew the dust off of my Google Reader and read. And I've decided, it was possibly one of the more productive things I've done yet during this absolute hell ,ahem, busy semester.

As I'm sure any current college senior can attest, that ubiquitous question "so what are you doing next year?" is the hot topic of the moment. And I will say it is quite a relief to a) know the answer and b) be able to ignore the GRE-mania that has taken over my friends and fellow tormented classmates. But, I can't say I'm immune to my own self-questioning of is this what I really want. As I've been running around, making arrangements for gaining my 6 months of food prep experience required by the CIA, I can't help but hear that very teeny voice in my head saying "oh, but this could be BAD. WHAT do you think you're doing?" etc, etc - that same voice that held me back before Florence figuratively slapped me in the head.

One of the blogs I depended upon in Florence for restaurant recommendations had been left ignored, like all the others. I caught up on it today, and it all came hurtling back to me. Everything I learned - everything that Tuscany taught me - about food, and food as something inexplicably more, flooded my senses. Oh right - this is why I love it, why I want it. Duh.

I really do miss those yellow apples.

BUT, a number of other exciting things have happened in those few & far apart moments when I'm not metaphorically [usually] bound to my desk chair researching recipes from the 1940s. (My thesis and I....it's a love/hate relationship. Not sure if I'm the love or hate...but that's another post for another time.)

Fall Break was last weekend, and I spent it with my aunt & uncle in Georgia. Not only did I get to hang out with these adorable faces for 4 days:

Bosco, Banda, and

Buster!

...but I am also hoping (planning? let's not jinx it just yet.) to spend the summer with them while getting the aforementioned food prep experience at a restaurant just down the street from their house. We went there - Three Blind Mice - for dinner and a little good-natured schmoozing with the owner/chef to check out that possibility.

My initial reaction to the restaurant itself was something to the tune of "too good to be true." And I hadn't even tasted the food yet. The decor is pretty perfect - you walk in and there is a wall of wines ordered by country of origin in front of you; a look to your left is a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with culinary literature*.

*Side note: As a result of my thesis, I now have a venerable wealth of knowledge concerning what to call "food writing": this includes, but is not necessarily limited to, 'culinary literature,' 'culinary writing,' 'cookery books/literature,' and 'gastronomical literature/writing.' Just in case you thought I was only trying to use fancy words...I wasn't. That's just a broad enough title.

But let's get to the menu, right?

Now, I don't know if you can see it, but if you look under appetizers, you will see a affettati board, which is Italian for literally 'slices', usually referring to meat. Look a little further down. Any die-hard Gillianasana fans remember finocchiona???  (Hint: here and here!) Only my favorite.sandwich.EVER. from my beloved sandwich shop/wine bar, Casa del Vino!! Y'all, I just about had a heart attack. I have not had the pure unadulterated joy of finocchiona since my last day.second-to-last sandwich in Florence. 

 ...and then our waitress brought out the bread.

Ok, no olive oil & balsamic, but it is in middle-of-nowhere suburban Georgia. Let's not push it, shall we?

I was seriously torn come decision-time, but I went with the Nicoise salad. I'm a huge fan of tuna in salad - but I hate 'tuna salad' (mayonnaise makes me gag. and shudder. and then gag again.). I actually make it all the time at home. That, and when my family and i were having lunch after touring Pompeii, my mom and I got this salad with tuna, corn, olives and arugula that blew our minds. Italy kinda does that.

Loved it. Especially because it was over arugula, my love for which knows no bounds. 

My aunt ordered the Panzanella after I had another mini spaz attack over it (another fave of my mom's & mine), but I actually didn't love it. In another appeal to its audience, it included chicken and that was just kinda wrong to me. That and my pescatarian ways are slowly taking over. My uncle got the shrimp & grits (you see how awesome this restaurant is - it had rigatoni abruzzese just under shrimp & grits...genius.) and near licked his plate clean.

But, I will never forget the sage words (haha, get it? sage? like the spice...oh, never mind.) of my Italian cooking professor when he told us that the way to judge a restaurant is by its appetizer menu - CHECK - and its dessert menu. 

We ordered 3.

My uncle ordered a chocolate-raspberry fontaine, a pastry of deep dark chocolate and raspberry filling enclosed in a flaky phyllo dough 

I had a bite or two, but found myself a little distracted by the meringue-topped key lime pie...

 ...was amazing, mouth-watering, and basically exactly what I think of when key lime pie comes to mind, only maybe a step above. Even my aunt who hates key lime pie - and really desserts in general (I don't know how I'm related to her either) - had a couple forkfuls. It was so light and perfectly tart, and didn't have any of that icky gelatinous artificial mouth-feel that waaay too many key lime pies do. My fork was momentarily panicked when it could find nothing but a few graham crust crumbs left. Of course, then it found...

 ...the sticky toffee pudding.

Ok, now I am well aware of the reputation - or perhaps infamy - of British cuisine. That being, in layman's terms, that it sucks. But I had heard of this dish before and being the dessert aficionado that I am, I was curious if nothing else to see what it was.

I did not expect it to be one of the fluffiest, most moist and caramel-y cakes ever steeped in a heavenly bath of liquid toffee. My aunt - you know, the one who "doesn't like dessert" - and I dueled over the last toffee-soaked speck like two cats over catnip. I promptly texted my brother to inform him that his birthday present this year was going to be my recreation of this. It will be done.

The prospect of working here for a whole summer? Exciting is a sufficient but mundane word to describe how I feel about that! 

And on the summer, I just might have a life again. A thesis-free life, at least!

I'm also writing a weekly blog for Converse (my college) - because, you know, I need something else. But it's pretty fun :) And the next post (up tomorrow I believe!) is all about my favorite topic - Florence! 

Ok, back to...Henry James, a paper on Emerson, or chemistry problems. Gosh, what thrilling prospects.

Here's to being productive.

~Namaste~