So Today Was a Quiet Morning and I Made Jam: Pluot Jam

-For your lazy, quiet Sunday.-

It's a quiet Sunday for once and only because I did all the yard work, cleaning, and my writing yesterday. I survived a work week that was more stressful than it should have been. As a reward I was overjoyed to have a college friend crash the night as we played catch up and made Tollhouse cookies. We spent the morning over jasmine tea to recover from the cocktails and too many bottles of wine the night before. Now? Now the windows are all heaved open and the screen doors shiver in the first inklings of autumn weather that's creeped in. It's the kind that feels cold and wet, and causes the remaining squash blossoms to lazily unfurl at ten in the morning.

Last night, like I said, was a night of drinking cocktails with too much lavender and not nearly enough soda water. A night melding with the Playstation - I used to be a gamer, but now I'm jaded by nostalgia - and becoming terribly addictied to Orange is the New Black. 

I also got my first magazine review for the book. Culture magazine called it, "a scrumptious page-turner... this book is well suited for turophiles craving cheese science and historical facts as the background for each recipe." I'm pretty darn thrilled with that. Only yesterday I did my first magazine interview, which was exciting and sort of alarming because after years of conducting interviews this was a bit of a switch. I'm still learning what my answers are and once or twice I had to say "off the record" because I was talking myself in circles and getting off topic, and apparently "off the record" is a thing people actually have to say. Who knew?

Legal: Thai Iced Tea with Boba

-The end of conservative America looks like this apparently.-

So this weekend I didn't do much cooking. I was too busy getting married. You may recall last year that my husband Brian and I had a rather lovely wedding. Here's what though, that was just a ceremony. At the time we were unable to make it legal due to Prop 8 - the proposition that banned gay marriage in California - still being in play.

Well, now it's not thanks to some very smart lawyers and a civil-minded Supreme Court ruling.

So Brian and I went to the courthouse on our one year anniversary and tied the knot again.

It was a simple thing, we paid a fee, filled out some forms, brought some witnesses, and a had a quick five minute ceremony where we exchanged rings under an awning that had seen untold couples exchange vows under a cloud of silk flowers.

And now we're legally married in the eyes of the state and the federal government.

He Didn't Come Here For You: Vanilla Bean & Lemon Rice Krispies Squares

-Yes, we're going all old school with graduate flavor.-

I rarely ever seem to post stories about how terrifying humanity can be anymore. If you go through the archives you'll quickly realize that I am a gravity for ridiculous situations. Being the black hole for stupidity can be rather trying, but it does provie for rather interesting stories.

Recently, life seems to have been rather quiet. Perhaps I've been too busy to notice or maybe we as a society are just getting better at using common sense (though that seems unlikely). The only truly hilarious thing as of late was when I sliced my hand open on a paper cutter while making a Injury and Illness Prevention Binder for Human Resources purposes. The droll irony of it all.

It was the only hilarious thing, that is, until a week ago.

I was out at Home Depot having some keys made for the new roommate and patiently waiting in line. The woman helping me was a squat, black woman with a multicolor weave that looked like it had been styled by whomever designed Rainbow Brite's miniskirt. Her fingernails were the long, curled sickles - the type where you wonder how the person does everyday tasks like turn a doorknob or use a keyboard. Each was painted a different shade of purple and totally bedazzled with plastic gems so that each was a little violet disco ball. Had she been five I could understand that being the coolest thing, like, ever. When you're easily over thirty? I dunno...

Giveaway Winner and Gypsy Curse

-Getting some shots ready.-

I always get sick at the worst possible times it seems. It's like some kind of curse and makes me wonder what gypsy I pissed off in a previous life for some viral dreadnought to sack my body at only the most inopportune moments. I picture running over a young lad with a horse and his hoop-earring'ed mother swearing that in my next life I will spend many joyful moments with a fever.

Because that's how I spent many of my Halloweens as a child. Not screaming around the neighborhood mooching free candy off of total strangers in a bizarrely socially approved tradition that goes against all better judgement that we reserve for the other three-hundred and sixty-four days of the year. No, I spent it in bed with an ancient humidifier clunking along and heaving out a damp fog over the bed.

So 'eff all if all I got was a tablespoon of Nyquil while my little brother hauled in a pillowcase stuffed with enough Twix bars that he could swing it over his shoulder on any corner in Santa Ana and knock no less than three hookers unconscious. So unfair. After Dad stole all the Milky Way's and Three Musketeers and I was finally feeling better a week later the only things left were the tosser candies like Bit-O-Honey.

The night I got engaged? Two hours later I was laid up with a stomach bug that pretty much annihilated any possible romance that night and for the next two days. Then again, nothing assures your faith in true love then when your man is gently rubbing your back and stroking your hair as you lean out of the bed and horf into a bucket.

Romance!

Then, of course, there was this weekend. I was taping the trailer to my cookbook trailer with Stephanie, and our filmographer, Ryan Donahue. He's a talented food photographer in Sacramento and the editor of Edible Sacramento magazine.