This guy...

...set off this morning to finish up his last day at his current job. It has been a great one, largely because it has been instrumental in shaping his perspective on what he really wants to do and his next step is going to be spectacular. After months of networking on the DC start-up scene and many, many hours spent learning a new programming language and studying his heart out, he has landed the exact job he wanted at an incredible company that will give him amazing opportunities to continue growing and learning.

So, I am more than a little proud. Actually, I'm just about bursting with pride and happiness for him.  Tonight we are celebrating with friends, which will probably continue throughout a weekend filled with college football, a little GMAT studying and a lot of being thankful that all that hard work paid off in such a fantastic way.

Enjoy the long weekend everyone!

New vacuum: A love story

A very generous birthday present from Greg arrived Tuesday afternoon, and though some feminists might get up in arms about its implications, I am positively thrilled.  It is just the toy I have been wanting for months: the Dyson DC41 Animal.  If you are not interested in me fawning/nerding out over this engineering marvel, I completely understand and you are free to stop reading now, though I do hope you will come back later...

Quite the looker eh?

You see, my previous apartment was a 500 square foot studio with hardwood floors and Greg's was a loft with polished concrete ones, so both of us had managed to get by with a broom and a dustbuster before.  Our apartment, where we have now lived for over a year, has wall to wall carpeting with the obvious exceptions of the entry way, bathroom and kitchen.  On top of that, the carpet was new when we moved in and pills everywhere.  Oh, and did I mention that we have a cat who spends considerable time rolling around on that carpet (and pulling/chewing on it)? We do have a small handheld vaccum with a HEPA filter for pet hair, but I have to hunch over to use it, it has a very small nozzle and it does not retain a charge for more than half a room.  For friends that have been to our place, I promise (!) that I vacuum, especially before you come over, but it has been a losing battle.  I really love our apartment, but that carpet has been the bane of my existence.

Not any more though!  After taking this beauty for a spin last night I have to say that I love it even more than I thought I would and I even love our carpet again. Some girls might prefer jewelry, but to me this present is somehow truly romantic.  Thank you Greg for gifting me with my heart's vacuum desire...I know that we are going to be very happy together.

Balance

I was struggling a little bit yesterday afternoon.  The combination of a stressful work week, an early morning wakeup to catch the train to Baltimore and underlying anxiety about my rapidly approaching GMAT test date were getting me down.  I passed out about ten minutes into my train ride home and woke up to a missed call and voicemail from my friend Steph, who moved to Madison, WI about a year ago to take an incredible job, which unfortunately means I hardly get to see her anymore.  And yet yesterday, out of the clear blue sky, she happened to be briefly in town and had called to see if I had a free hour to catch up before she had dinner with her family.

Reflected sunrise from our balcony this morning - new day!

I hesistated for half a second in my grumpy, exhausted state and then realized that it was exactly what I needed.  Over the seven years of our friendship, across a wide range of experiences and places from Madrid, to Madison, to DC, our lives have always run remarkably parallel in all the ways that matter.  She also happened to be having a stressful time at work and as we sat and traded stories over that hour, I felt a burden lift off of me.  We talked about how this must just be what being a "grown-up" is like sometimes; the balance between the professional and the personal tilts the wrong way and leaves you feeling off-kilter. It happens to everyone and when it does, you just have to hit pause and recalibrate.  Surprise visits from beloved friends are definitely part of what sets that balance right again.

American Football

Football season officially kicks off this weekend with the first college games and I could not be more excited. I grew up watching a lot of football but my love of the game, at both the college and professonial level, has really grown over the last three years under Greg's enthusiastic tutelage.  I cannot wait to wake up on Saturday morning and flip on the first College Gameday of the Fall.  I love the marching bands, the school spirit, the fascinating storylines and the additional sense of pride and determination that define the college game. I also love the clean slate and the sense of hope that feeds the (deluded) thinking that maybe this could be the year for my team, or much more likely, for Greg's.


'cago Bears

Sunday mornings have also taken on a new meaning now that I have been sucked into the world of Fantasy Football.  I had my first draft of the season last night with former co-workers and the second one, with a group of our friends, happens tonight.  I love that Fantasy allows you to follow so many players and teams with interest, though it does feel strange when you find yourself rooting against teams you traditionally love, such as the Chicago Bears ( or the 'cago Bears as I called them growing up), which is my Dad's team, or the New England Patriots, which is the team I grew up with, depending on the player.  In any case, I am so happy that football is back and that Fall is coming with it.

The weekend

The main event this past weekend was my friend and former coworker's wedding, which was a very fancy affair in downtown DC.  Local weddings are so much fun and this one was even more so because our friends Lindsey and Mike were there along with another former coworker who we hadn't seen in forever.

All dolled up!

The bride and groom were gorgeous and happy, the venue was stunning, the food and drinks were delicious and the wedding band was one of the best I have ever seen.  The lead guy seriously seems destined to be a star and we all had a little crush on him.  What more can you ask for from a Saturday night? 

As always, the weekend is never long enough but it was a great one. Happy Monday and best wishes for the week ahead!

The Farm

For nearly fifty years my family has owned a farm in northwestern Illinois. My dad grew up in Chicago and his mother, who grew up on a dairy farm in Virginia, missed the country and found a retreat in hills that reminded her of home near Hanover, IL.


Wednesday's sunrise, courtesy of my mom

I  grew up spending summer weeks waking up to see dairy cows grazing in the misty fields, eating red plums off the tree and blackberries straight from the bush, taking walks through the creek, cooking campfire breakfasts up on the ridge, and watching my dad and his brothers build enormous bonfires and set off bottle rockets in the fields on the Fourth of July.  My parents and my brother, Chad, have been out there for the last couple of weeks and leave for home today.  I don't envy all the AP work (including Moby Dick) that Chad was sidled with while he was there but I do miss the freedom of those summers off that allow him to still spend long stretches in that magical place.  I can't wait to be out there celebrating fifty years next July.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

Molly's slow roasted tomatoes

It is almost the end of August and somehow I have let it pass me by without truly enjoying the amazing tomatoes that this month has to offer.  I have loved tomatoes since I was very little.  There is actually a famous (within my family) video of me at 18 months eating a tomato like an apple in my high chair after toddling into the garden to pluck it myself.  While I love peaches and corn and berries, nothing tastes more like high summer to me than the perfect tomato.  Although I also want to rush out to the store and get the last of the heirlooms while they are at their peak, I have had a recipe for slow roasted tomatoes in the back of my mind for seemingly forever and I thought it was high time I made it.  It comes from A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg and follows below:

Slow roasted tomatoes with coriander

• 3 1/2 lbs ripe Roma tomatoes (about 20)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt
• Ground coriander

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Farenheit.  Wash and dry the tomatoes, trim away the stem end, and halve them lengthwise.  Place them in a large bowl, and, using your hands, toss them gently with the oil.  Arrange them cut side up on a large baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and ground coriander, about a pinch of each for every 4 to 6 tomato halves

Bake until the tomatoes crinkle at the edges and shrink to about half their original size, 4 to 6 hours.  They should still be juicy in their centers.  Remove from the oven, and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Put them in an airtight container, and store them in the refrigerator for up to a week.


Lunch today!

These tomatoes are so delicious and tomato-ey and this book has been a favorite for years.  I read it cover to cover just over three years ago and I absolutely love cooking from it.  Each recipe is clearly and lovingly written and is preceded by a story from her life that connects to it.  I often re-read those stories as I prepare the accompanying recipes and it's like catching up with an old friend.  I'm glad I finally remembered to try this one...it makes for the perfect late summer lunch!

Charm City

I'll start this off by admitting that as an adoptive Washingtonian these last five years, I had always looked down my nose at Baltimore a little bit.  I thought of it as DC's little sister, a stop on the NE Regional Amtrak and the place where I always got stuck in hours of traffic on I95 North.


View from my office

However, about two months ago I took a job that now has me commuting up to Baltimore two days a week.  In that short time, I have realized how wrong I was in dismissing it.  I know this city has its problems (what city doesn't?) and I certainly have a lot more of it left to explore, but for now let's just say that I understand how it claimed the nickname "Charm City."

Lunch break walking around Inner Harbor

From lovely old architectural details, to a beautiful harbor, to a sidewalk cafe that beckons to me every time I walk by it on my way to Baltimore-Penn, this city has really started to change my mind.  More to come as I get to know it better...happy mid-week everyone!

Meet me here for a crisp glass of wine while the weather is still warm? Please?

New character in the kitchen

So I have this thing for chickens/roosters in the kitchen.  A silly round ceramic chicken captured my heart years ago at World Market and currently sits atop our fridge after two years presiding over the open shelving of my old studio apartment.  Yesterday, this handsome fellow arrived and has taken up residence above our kitchen sink:


Rooster by Ryan Berkley

Perhaps this love springs from summers spent out at my grandmother's farm or the country influences in my mother's kitchen or some combination of the two. In any case, this print was love at first sight and brings me joy as I wash dishes and bop around the kitchen.  This entire series of prints by Ryan Berkely is so whimsical and fun that it is hard to choose just one.  I particularly enjoy the otter, the polar bear, the cheetah and the great white shark.  As if they weren't enough on their own, each print comes with their own back story.  Here is the one for the dapper gentleman pictured above:  "Have you ever met a rhyming rooster? This gentleman prides himself on his morning crow couplets and he'd be glad to demonstrate if you ask him. Tell your friends." Whether or not portraits of animals in their Sunday Best are your thing, I recommend checking out Ryan Berkeley's work as well as the work of other independent artists on Buy Olympia.  There are many great pieces like this one that are perfect for turning a house into a home.

Over the Weekend

The weekend was full of friends and summer loveliness.  Thanks to a push from Greg, I got my first practice GMAT out of the way on Friday evening and was rewarded with a night out with friends that we had not seen in months.  On Saturday morning, I woke up and cleaned like a madwoman to get our apartment ready for other friends coming in from out of town.  Once they arrived, we scooted off to a quick brunch at our neighborhood spot and then spent most of the afternoon camped out on our balcony enjoying the amazing weather.

The main event of the weekend was the Nats-Mets game (not the Phillies as I mistakenly noted on Friday -  I might need to pay a bit more attention to our local team, who just happens to have the best record in baseball...)  Even though the Nats lost and the game was a bit of a snooze, it was so fun to spend the night out at the beautiful ball park.  It also helped that the game was directly followed by a Third Eye Blind show that completely rocked the stadium.  I definitely regret not making it to more games this summer and hope to sneak in at least one more this season.

Yesterday we recharged our batteries with a rainy mid-day nap and a delicious dinner out at Greg parents's house - just what we needed to get a jump on the week ahead.  I hope everyone had a fun weekend and that Monday gets off to a great start!

Date night

Greg's birthday falls exactly two weeks before mine and it has become a tradition to have fancier than usual night out to celebrate, just the two of us.  This year, we selected Eola, a lovely little restaurant in townhouse on P Street, just off Dupont Circle.  Dinner was spectacular and we both agreed that this restaurant deserves to be far busier and well known, although it made us happy to be able to grab a table so easily. 

One of the most interesting things that I tasted last night was actually a cocktail called the Southern Belle, which combined peaches, bourbon, St. Germain and prosecco.  I would never have thought to combine bourbon and prosecco, but it was actually quite delightful and definitely got the night off to a celebratory start.  All in all, between the cozy atmosphere, delicious food, fun cocktails and fantastic company, it was the perfect date night.  We will definitely be back!


My dashing date

We have friends coming into town tomorrow so we're looking forward to another great summer weekend filled with brunch, warm weather and a dose of America's favorite pastime at the Nats-Phillies game.  Happy Friday everyone and have a great weekend!

Hadley

I love reading and always wish that I was better at setting aside the time for it.  Perhaps it is cliche to say, but there really is nothing quite like getting lost in another time and place through a book.  When I am in drawn in by a good book, I want my metro ride to be a just a little bit longer and the escalator from the metro platform to be just a little bit taller so that I have a few more minutes to escape into that world.   In the last year, one that truly captured me was Paris in the 1920s and the love story of Hadley Richardson and Ernest Hemingway, which is artfully portrayed in The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.

Hadley & Ernest  in 1922

Hadley was Hemingway's first wife and the one who loved him through his years as a struggling writer yearning for recognition and as he wrote The Sun Also Rises.  They moved to Paris shortly after marrying and soon befriended Gertrude Stein, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and other influential figures who became known as "The Lost Generation." The author was initially drawn to Hadley through reading Hemingway's memoir of those years in Paris, A Moveable Feast, which he wrote towards the end of his life.  Building on his recollections, Hadley's letters and other accounts of that time and place, she was able to tell Hadley's story in beautiful and compelling fashion.  I won't give anymore away but I will say that the setting and the characters laid out in this book were so fascinating that I was inspired to read The Sun Also Rises AND A Moveable Feast directly afterwards.  I strongly encourage you to get to know the first Mrs. Hemingway...I'm very glad that I did!

Julia's advice for the young hostess

Today would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday and, as a result, hilairious and insipring quotes and anecdotes from her life are being shared all over the web. My favorite, via The Kitchn, follows below:

"The young hostess should be advised never to say anything about what she serves, in the way of 'Oh, I don't know how to cook, and this may be awful,' or 'poor little me,' or 'this didn't turn out' ... etc. etc. It is so dreadful to have to reassure one's hostess that everything is delicious, whether or not it is.  I make it a rule, no matter what happens, never to say one word, though it kills me.  Maybe the cat has fallen in the stew, or I have put the lettuce out the window and it has frozen, or the meat is not quite done ... Grit one's teeth and smile." - excerpt from a letter to her friend, Avis, on January 19, 1953.

This is advice that totally speaks to me as someone that has a tendency towards self-deprecation when it comes to cooking/hosting, like this cake disaster I had when prepping for our 4th of July party that went from this:

to this:

The cake fell apart out of the pan and after an initial moment of panic, I decided to make a mixed berry trifle with fresh whipped cream instead.  Everyone loved it but I still felt the need to explain what had happened.  No more!  I will keep this advice in mind in the future and be brave and confident in my culinary offerings.  That charmingly unapologetic nature is definitely at the heart of what made Julia such a beloved figure.  I have yet to cook from the famous Mastering the Art of French Cooking but her vigor and humor inspire me nonetheless.

Today is also my dear friend Katie's birthday, another person who inspires me to be a better version of myself. Happy birthday to two very special ladies!

Baked goods

The family reunion over the weekend was a potluck situation and since it fell on my birthday and I have an unabashed sweet tooth, I decided bake up not one, but TWO contributions.  It was one of those magical times that I selected two recipes I had not made before and both produced wonderful results...must be birthday luck! The fact that both came from  Deb from Smitten Kitchen, who has never steered me wrong, also might have had something to do with it. 

These peach shortbread bars are the perfect summer dessert.  The only thing that would have made these even better is a juicier bunch of peaches, but they were fantastic even with the rock hard ones I had. The recipe recommends slicing the peaches between 1/8" and 1/4" thick and I would err on the side of 1/4", especially if you have great peaches. Also, the extra step of browning the butter is totally worth the effort.

Next, pink lemonade bars.  The pink comes from freshly pureed raspberries and really takes the traditional lemon bar to the next level.  There is actually not a single thing I would tweak about this recipe...it is perfect.  I wholeheartedly recommend baking a batch before the fresh summer berries are gone!

Twenty-seven

Yesterday was my twenty-seventh birthday.  My twenty-sixth year was a great one and I wrapped it up very happily by celebrating throughout the weekened.  My Uncle Mark came to town on Thursday and the weekend got off to a fun, early start.  On Friday night we had cocktail hour(s) at our apartment with my uncle, my brother, Russ, and Greg's parents followed by dinner out in our neighborhood.  It was so great to see a group of people that I love getting to know each other and getting along so well.

Me & Uncle Mark

The primary reason for Uncle Mark's visit was a family reunion on my grandmother's side, which was held yesterday at a farm in Culpeper, VA that has been in our extended family for over 150 years.  My uncle is a geneaology enthusiast and spoke at the reunion about our family's history dating back to the Mayflower.  I knew hardly any of the 3rd, 4th and 5th cousins who were there, so I felt very lucky to have my uncle there to connect the dots.

Greg made a friend

Funnily enough, the inspiration for this blog's title came from my middle name, Larkin, which is a family name on this side of the tree.  Actually, a large part of why this branch is so large is that my great-great-great grandfather Larkin was the father of twenty-one (!) children.  The farm where the reunion was held originally served as a school for his children and then as the home of his son, Larkin, Jr.  Beyond the interesting history, it is just a beautiful place and we had the perfect day to enjoy it.

Where we spent the day

We got back late in the afternoon and had a quick rest before heading across the Key Bridge to meet Russ for my birthday dinner in Georgetown.  It was the perfect end to a wonderful weekend and great way to kick off the year ahead.  Very much looking forward to seeing what twenty-seven has in store...

Walking Home

An Introduction

Happy Friday!  To start the weekend off right, I thought I'd introduce the king of our castle, Leo. I’m sure this is only the first of many appearances by this character on the blog, so I felt he deserved a proper introduction…

Full name: Leonidas I

Likes: Napping in the sun, belly rubs, errant bits of paper, hunting any bugs that dare invade our apartment, and nipping my ankles as I apply mascara

Dislikes: Bed making (pictured above), loud noises, closed doors, the vet, and change of nearly any kind

At nearly two years old, he is still a total punk but we love him dearly.

Neighborhood Fave

Having a go-to neighborhood spot is such a comforting thing and definitely something I look for when moving to a new place. It’s not particularly flashy, but whenever you end up there, you are happy that you did. Ours is a bar just up the street that serves up classic food, great beers on tap, fantastic brunch (complete with a bloody mary bar), and an all around good vibe. It’s the place we go for a night cap whenever the mood strikes us and the place we recover on Sunday mornings over creamy turkey hash and blueberry pancakes with perhaps too much regularity.

  

It is also the place where we celebrated some exciting news for Greg last night that should be finalized next week (fingers crossed!) As usual, it was precisely where we wanted to be. We love you Rhodeside.

A place to start

Finally, weeks after setting up this little blog, here I am writing my first post.  It's not much yet, but it is a place to start!  I have found lots of excuses between starting a new job, going my first ever business trip, and (not) studying for the GMATs but I am ready to get this thing going. 

I'm looking forward to having this little corner of the internet to chronicle my adventures...more to come soon, I promise!