basmati.

We are really getting into this cooking thing lately. As in, Aaron was this close to buying a pasta maker this afternoon before I sort of talked him out of it ($70! Too much!), and I asked my mom for a Thermapen thermometer for Christmas (I will make perfect caramel if it kills me).

Here's what we've been making:

risotto
chicken tikka masala
no-knead pizza dough
banana cream pie from scratch (with this pie crust)
pavlova
pumpkin carrot cake with candied hazelnuts
lasagna
ravioli from scratch
whole wheat bread

Aaron found an Indian market not too far from campus and that's where we got our magical garam masala, whole ginger, and basmati rice. I now want to eat basmati rice instead of normal rice for any rice-containing dish. Burritos? Basmati. Chicken stir fry? Basmati. Risotto? Basmati. Just kidding.

Also, while we're talking about cooking, Sara showed me this amazing website called Ziplist that you can use to save recipes on any website (no pictures required, unlike Pinterest), and I am loving it. No one sees what I'm "pinning" so I don't feel stupid about pinning (ziplisting? clipping! I think it's called clipping) 8 chocolate cake recipes in the course of a half hour. It also has a nifty meal planning functionality so you can keep track of what you're cooking when.

This weekend we're going fruit picking again so we can make a peach pie. We also have some super ripe bananas, so banana bread? I guess it's a fruit dessert weekend. What are you making?

insta-glam!

is what I call Instagram in my head. Here are a few glamorous shots of our vacation: 

 Beach house had a pool! We would progress from coldest body of water to warmest by swimming in the ocean, then pool, then hottub.

I painted my four-year-old niece's nails. 

Then she painted mine. 

(Also, I got a massive sunburn on my feet. How does that even happen? Who puts sunscreen on their feet?! I do now.)

husband + baby (other niece) = I'm dying of cuteness.

 I'll understand if you're not.

across the chesapeake bay, it was like we drove straight into the ocean

Wrapping up our summer of epic fun before Aaron sells his soul to medicine (no more summer vacation) for the next 10 years was our trip to North Carolina with his family. We lived in swimsuits and a thin film of sunscreen for a week, and it was the best. I got five books read: Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings (okay, finished that yesterday actually), An Abundance of Katherines, Bringing Up Bebe, and Willpower (thank you for all of your recommendations!). We got baby hungry over our 4 month old niece. We saw sea turtles being hatched and carried to the ocean by the sea turtle patrol (local retirees?). We ate so much fish! This is a big deal for me, because up until last summer I'm pretty sure my seafood experience was limited to canned tuna and fishsticks. By choice. I mistakenly thought that fish was gross. But we had grouper, salmon, and tuna, and I loved it, and now I'm very sad that Aaron and I are back to real life where we can't afford fish. Some day! 

Alas, vacations can't last forever since Aaron starts school next week, and there are needy HeLa cells that want my attention. 

That hat. Let me tell you, our [very distant] future children will wear the most ridiculous hats.

don't flash that "organic" food around children of an organic chemistry professor

From my sister's latest mission email (she's in SoCal where there are a lot of "organic hippies"):

"People keep telling me there philosophies about chemicals in plants and sunscreen and whatever else. It takes all the strength in me not to sass 'my father is a chemist and if some chemical in the food i eat or the sunscreen I use was going to cause harm to my temple of a body he would let me know, thank you for your un-educated opinion.' "

We are definitely related.

yet another picasa collage!

A couple weekends ago, I went up to New York to visit my friend Laura who's living in the city for the summer (and maybe longer?!), doing an internship. It was so much fun! We had many adventures, from getting semi-lost in a sketchy part of Williamsburg to wandering into a Jewish neighborhood to feasting upon delicious banana pudding (>> cupcakes) from Magnolia Bakery to a lightning fast visit to the Met. 

Basically, it was exactly the Saturday in New York I was looking for. 

Thanks for playing with me, Laura! :)

happy (one day late) 14th birthday zach

You would have loved this.

Maybe you were there with us, and you did love it.
I like to think so.

here's a book recommendation. do you have one for me?

Two weeks ago I read the book The Fault in Our Stars. I was supposed to save it for our North Carolina beach trip coming up in a week, but surprise! I couldn't stop myself from reading it. I also couldn't stop myself from sobbing through most it. Two kids with cancer fall in love and The Fault in Our Stars is their story. Is that the worst or what? It's very well written with some beautiful characters and contains this gem of a quote:

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."

This kind of sums it up:

via

I'm very glad I read it. But now I have nothing to read on vacation except scientific papers and goodness knows how much I hate reading papers (much to the detriment of my graduate education, I'm sure). So...got any book recommendations? I've got $45 in Barnes and Noble gift cards, so what's worth buying? Or checking out from the library?

I had to.

revolutionary war cabins and pretty rocks and so. much. good. food.

Last week our friends the Pratts came and stayed with us, and it was so lovely! We love it when we have visitors because we do a lot of sightseeing that we wouldn't have gotten around to otherwise. While they were here we finally made it over to Eastern State Penitentiary, Valley Forge, the Masonic Temple, Fireman Museum, and Washington, DC. We also ate at a million wonderful restaurants. Highlights include Indian food (best chicken tikka masala I've ever had) and pizza in DC, the most incredible hummus at Zahav (Gordon Ramsay reference), awesome stir fry noodles and bbq beef skewers at Sampan, salted caramel budino at Barbuzzo, hazelnut gelato at Capogiro. Basically food is my favorite thing about Philadelphia.

When our tour guide at the temple found out we were Mormon he asked if we wanted to see an old Book of Mormon. Of course we said yes, so at the end of the tour, he brought out this Book of Mormon from 1842 and just let us take it into the library and hang out and read it. It was awesome.

Valley Forge was also really lovely. It was ultra hot when we went (okay, it's been ultra hot since mid-May) but you know, an air conditioned drive from spot to spot made it not so bad. Touring the prison was also really cool. They just hand you an audio guide and let you loose on the prison, which hasn't really been renovated much and is sort of falling apart. Cool! Not literally though, because no renovations = no air conditioning.

A side note: I think air conditioning is one of the greatest things ever invented.

Going to DC was also a lot of fun. Aaron and I had been before and Sara and Kyle were going to stay for a few days, so we weren't too stressed about trying to see "everything." We did see a bit, though: cemetery at Arlington, Natural History Smithsonian, Holocaust Museum. We probably could've seen more if I hadn't made everyone spend like an hour in the minerals exhibit at the Natural History Smithsonian (sorry guys!). It was so awesome, though. So many pretty crystals and rocks and chemical formulas to go along with each of them!!!!!! I think that's a theme that needs its own post: On the Recurrence of Pretty Inorganic Compounds in My Life.

Anyway, we loved having Sara and Kyle stay with us. I think I've said this about a million times, but Sara is basically the most thoughtful and tactful person I know. I'm so glad we became friends through the shared agony of an undergraduate degree in chemistry.

Thanks for visiting! We miss you!