Pretzels with Chocolate and Beans

Spent the afternoon downtown in the Loop for W's interview *me waiting for an hour at Caribou Coffee, peoplewatching and sipping enormous amounts of caramel frappucchino*. Afterwards we went to Hannah's Bretzel for some pretzelbread sandwiches, funky lemonade and German chocolate (they have a wall of chocolate from all over the world!!). Good food, and healthy as well (most of the sandwich stuff is organic, I guess).

(photo of Hannah's by Yelp)

We had our lunch at Millennium Park with a nice view of Cloud Gate (also called "The Bean") and lotsa tourists. A guy was walking around, juggling, on huge stilts and in a funny costume, but he seemed a little depressed because all the tourists wanted to do was gawk at their reflection in the large shiny object. I tried to send him some positive thoughts.

Things I could spend a fortune on

Right now I would very much like to buy everything from Amy Ruppel @ Vigocards. Right after raiding the Lotta Jansdotter store:

We had some nice little thunderstorms in the area last night. Quote the Tribune: "More than 3,200 cloud to ground strokes occurred in one 10 minute period late Monday within a 225 mile radius of Chicago" (now who on earth counts that?). There was basically constant lightning above the clouds, not quite touching the ground, something I'd never seen before. According to W., it seems to be rather typical for the Midwest though. Oh, and rolling thunder *my favourite*. When it finally began to pour, the water hit our balcony so hard it actually started coming through the balcony door inside. Fun! Wet towels everywhere! Freaked-out cat! Whee!

To-do-list

My list for this week:

1. stop playing online Mahjongg at Gameduell
   
2. really, really stop playing online Mahjongg.
3. seriously, this is getting ridiculous.
4. then, find resume and update it.
5. send out resume to 10 agencies.
6. cross fingers.
7. while waiting, do not let self get talked into working any more hours as a pool attendant. gaaah, children peeing on the pool deck! into the pool! in the shower stalls! what is the DEAL with children?
8. do something crafty so this blog doesn't look like a complete waste of time and space.
9. hang pictures.
10. write a bunch of e-mails.

Of course, it is SO hot here *in the 100s* that all a person can do is play some online games...

Making Fiends

A very funny flash cartoon website by Amy Winfrey:

Fiend-making Vendetta meets ever cheerful Charlotte. Beware of the giant hamster!

Pink foods

Hmmh.. is there anything better than sinking your teeth into a nice toasted slice of buttermilk bread, thickly spread with butter, and covered with slightly salted radish slices? I could eat that for breakfast, lunch and dinner right now. And sometimes, I do.

Secretary of Baking

I baked up some delicious Blueberry Breakfast Bars from Farmgirl Fare (as mentioned in my "Favorite Food Blogs" entry from last week) since my store had a "buy one, get two free" special on pints of blueberry. Normally they're far too expensive since they don't actually grow locally.

And then, since those turned out so well, I went for the Fruity Rock Buns by Yarnstorm. Instead of the glace cherries I used some frozen cherries which worked pretty well. The entire affair turned out a ittle too crumbly (maybe not enough egg?) but very, very good (especially with the Devon clotted cream I got from the English Teastore and some blueberry jam!).

While I was whirling around in the kitchen (which is definitely too small to do any whirling), a funny/weird aunt of mine (everybody should have a weird aunt or uncle!) came to mind who always called my mother "our Secretary of Baking" (Backminister!). I guess it was supposed to be sarcastic and maybe she was a little jealous of my mother's baking accomplishments, but we always thought it was hilarious.

Train @ Taste of Chicago, 7/6/2006

Taste of Chicago is the city's yearly food and music fest and draws huge crowds. This year we had the chance to go on a weekday so we ventured downtown (or rather, I chased W. with a cattleprod...). It was somewhat emptier than the last time we had been there (which was like 3 or 4 years ago to see Foreigner).

This is what we ate: fried mustard catfish (I asked the vendor for a "fork" and first he didn't understand me and then he asked me where I was from. How I love that! What's so hard to understand about "foak"? ;-)), goat biryani (yum!), samosas (fried, veggie-filled dough pockets), funnel cake w/cream and berries, oh and a slice of Eli's famous cheesecake with strawberry sauce. All very tasty.

The main reason we had ventured downtown, though, was to see Train. Even though it was pretty crowded and we didn't find a good place to sit, it was still very nice. Mat Kearney opened for them and they were pretty good (never heard of him before, but pretty cool singer/songwriter stuff with some hip hop thrown in for good measure. Actually I had heard their single "Nothing left to lose" on the radio before). So, Train finally started (after the organisers blasted us with radio ads for what seemed like an eternity)! I liked them. Lots of nice interaction with the audience, and I actually knew most of the songs (though not by heart, like some female dorks in front of us).


Below is a video from youtube.com (I didn't even try to take a video this time, since we were too far away from the stage):

Oh, and the weather was just perfect! I'm dreading the really hot and humid days of July and August (weather forecast for this week: 94 degrees. Oh yeah.)

Wee bunny & Big fireworks

So we got thrown out of the World Cup in the last two minutes (we would have made it thru the penalty kicks, I'm sure!), and yes, W. didn't win me any more stuffed animals at yesterday's Village fair / Carnival / Food Fest / Fireworks, and yes, I almost froze to death at 60 degrees (15 C) waiting for the fireworks to start, but how can you be unhappy when you look at this Wee Bunny face?! (by Candlestring).

On the bright side, they had pretty decent Gyros and wonderfully gross cheese fries at the food fest, and a weirdly, hilariously horrible live band playing U2 songs, hillbilly style! And people drunk off their butts from too much Miller Lite, haha! And the fireworks, oh, the fireworks! I love fireworks. They had some all new kinds that were all blinky (like a giant bug zapper) and shot up a ton of those for the finale. I should have taken a video with my camera but only managed to take some crappy pictures:

Soccer!!!

So, tomorrow is Independence Day *whee! Fireworks! Carnival rides! FOOOOD!*, AND Germany plays in the FIFA WORLD CUP SEMIFINALS (that's soccer, in case anybody was wondering). Which calls for more FOOOOD! Either celebratory food (I'm thinkin' apple pie with vanilla sauce) or comfort food in case they lose (again, apple pie with vanilla sauce. Maybe a tad warmed up...)

Food blogs I like

*Arming myself with a bag of crackers and some sour cream dip cause I get so hungry...*

Too many chefs Culinary in the desert Food Chronicles *ooh would you look at those scrumptious cakes*

You gonna eat all that? *food blog with puppy pictures. Now what's better than that?*

Farmgirl Fare *tell you what: THIS one! Beautiful, beautiful pictures from a Missouri farm. And wonderful recipes to boot! Look at those Blueberry Bars!*

Sweetnicks *more puppy photos! oooh!* and:

Everybody loves Sandwiches *duh!*

Crackers & Dip are empty now, so I better stop, haha.