Cheese!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have the greatest husband, hands down. He gives the BEST presents. On Christmas Eve, he took me to a fancy gourmet import grocery store in Draper, Pirate O's, to pick out any kind of cheese I wanted. I LOVE cheese! It was a fantasy world full of cheese!!! You have got to check this store out. Besides cheese, they had a whole wall full of hot sauce, and tons of other crazy, yummy, imported stuff. Here is what I chose:

Apple and Walnut Smoked Promontory by Beehive Cheese Company -- Bronze Medal World Cheese Awards in the Canary Islands 2009. 3rd Place, Smoked Cheese. American Cheese Society Annual Competition 2008.

Barely Buzzed by Beehive Cheese Company -- This is a full bodied cheese with a nutty flavor and smooth texture. The cheese is hand rubbed with a Turkish grind of Colorado Legacy Coffee Company's "Beehive Blend". The blend consists of a mix of South American, Central American, and Indonesian beans roasted to different styles. French Superior Lavendar buds are ground with the coffee and the mixture is diluted with oil to suspend the dry ingredients in the rub. The rub imparts notes of butterscotch and caramel which are prevalent near the rind, but find their way to the center of the cheese. The cheese is aged on Utah Blue Spruce aging racks in our humidity controlled caves, and moved to different temperature during the aging process to develop texture and flavor. Awards: 1^st Place, Flavored Cheddar American Cheese Society Annual Competition 2007, 2008 and 2009.

White Stilton with Apricot and Mango by Clawson Cheese Company -- A slightly sweet Mango flavour bursts through the White Stilton® with a hint of Ginger to warm the taste buds.

Australian Chilli Cream Cheese by Moondarra --Moondarra is an indigenous Koori word and the name of a rich, lush pastoral region of Gippsland - Australia, renowned for the quality and variety of its dairy products. And like our namesake, Moondarra Cheese is also widely acclaimed for the high quality, innovative and unique range of flavoured cheese we produce.

Queso de oveja al romero = sheep cheese with rosemary. So unique I can't even find info about it!

Thanks for being so thoughtful, babe! Love ya!

Maintain Don't Gain

My health insurance is pretty cool. They have lots of ideas and incentives to keep employees healthy. This holiday season is the "Maintain Don't Gain" Challenge. We all know that one is more likely to accomplish his or her goals when they are shared with other people, so why not share my goals with the whole damn world? I figured some of you might want to do the challenge, too.

It's pretty easy. Basically you choose one goal from each category (nutrition, sleep, mental health, physical activity) to work on throughout December. Click here for the details and a tracking sheet. I figure if I can accomplish all 4 of these goals, not only will I maintain my weight, but I'll probably feel pretty great by the time the new year rolls around! Here are my goals:

Nutrition -- keep a food journal at least five days each week

Sleep -- keep a consistent sleep schedule (10pm to 6am) on weekdays

Mental health -- read one section of "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" at least five days each week

Physical activity -- go to the gym at least twice each week (spin class on Tuesdays plus one workout on the weekend)

I'll be back to let you all know how I'm doing!

Beer School

We went to our third "Beer School" a few weeks ago. Desert Edge Brewery hosts this event the first Thursday of every month. It is SUCH a great experience! Even if you aren't an avid beer drinker, you will learn a lot about what you like and don't like in beer, and the food is amazing!

First, you get a tour of the brewery with the Brew Master, Chris. He shows you the whole beer-making process and teaches you random tidbits about all types of beer. For examples, ales taste fruity while lagers taste crisp. Then, it's onto tasting all 8 beers they have on tap. Their beers change every few weeks, so Beer School is always a new adventure. You learn the correct way to pour, taste, and enjoy your beer. The beers are paired with a special 4-course meal that is never on their menu because it is made especially for Beer School. Most of the courses even contain beer!

Beer School is so popular that it is sold out many months in advance. We make it a point to book all 16 seats one month each year so we can share the night with our friends. We were excited to have some old and new friends join us this year!

Course 1
Quinoa and arugula salad with coriander hefeweizen topped with yams, feta, and red onion
Paired with: Munich Lager and Happy Valley Hefeweizen

Course 2
Smoked Gouda, white cheddar, and gold potato British Mild soup
Paired with: Centennial Steamer and Pub Pilsner

Course 3
Grilled salmon with creamy polenta and vegetable caponeta
Paired with: British Mild and Utah Pale Ale
Kinda forgot to take a pic. Whoops. It was super good, though!

Course 4
Stout-braised bratwurst with potatoes and kale*
Paired with: Latter-Day Stout and Espresso Stout

*Usually the 4th course is a dessert, but the chef told us that people like eating dessert more than he likes making it, so we got bratwurst. It was a little weird, but we were too drunk to care at that point.

From left to right: Mindy's friend, Chris Hass (the Brew Master), Rebecca, Lew, Jordan, Kirtley

Me and Joe (and Dave)

I have to supervise him at all times or else things get weird

Amanda and Dave

Mindy and her crew

Leftover beer -- alcohol abuse!!

We're tentatively planning to attend next December, so let me know if you want to go!

Reading

I'd like to think of myself as a moderately-avid reader and a somewhat-educated person, but this stupid Facebook quiz made me think otherwise. Apparently The BBC believes most people have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. I have read 18 of them. Does that mean I'm three-times smarter than the average person? Many more were already on my "to read" list -- that makes me feel a little better. I guess I have to admit that my "read" list contains more of Oprah's books than it does classics. So I'm making a New Year's Resolution to read 12 classics in 2011. I figure if I meet my goal, I can justify the tattoo I've been wanting of a stack of books for myself next Christmas.

Key:
Read
Already on my "to read" list
On my "to read" list now!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible - Various Authors & Editors

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

my random trip to the mall

i walked into the mall today and thought "mmmm smells like christmas!" like roasted cinnamon nuts. but when i walked back out an hour later, i realized the smell was not inside the mall -- it was only between the double-door-entryway. it's like the put a fake air freshener in there to get you in the christmas spirit and consequentially spending lots of money!! scam artists.

during the same mall outing i found something wonderful. there is now a TCBY at fashion place mall! and this is not your 10-year-old vanilla waffle cone type of TCBY. think: frogurt on steroids. $0.39 per ounce of any combination of self-serve yogurt and toppings. the flavors looked AMAZING and they had every topping you could think of. AND they had a digital touch screen soda machine with over 100 flavors: diet raspberry coke, orange sprite, lime fanta, etc. it's only $1.00 for a BIG soda and $0.50 for a refill. i might be taking more walks over there :)

i finally tried the gorgonzola-pear pizza from CPK. i've been wanting to try it forever! it was pretty good but could have used more gorgonzola. thanks to alisha's cousin elias for 20% off :)

sign up for godiva's free membership program. you get a free truffle every month just for going in :) i tried the key lime pie truffle today and it was super yummy. next month i think i'll get pumpkin or spiced pear :)

i hate schubach jewelers. never buy there. the manager mike is a dick. he tried to schmooze some leftover pizza today and it took all my willpower not to say, "right after you give back all the time, energy, and tears you have taken from me over the last two years. right after you return the sales price of my ring since i went through four rings before you f***ers gave me one in which the diamonds stayed in the setting longer than 24 hours. right after you let my husband punch you in the face, which you are lucky he didn't do to you last time we were in here." but i didn't say it. i just got my ring cleaned and left :)

***x-rated bonus random tidbit: i got quite the surprise while googling "roasted nuts" to get a pic for this blog!!!!!!

how to host your own All You Can Eat Pasta Party

I'm going to take a day off from complaining about my tonsils to tell you about something really fun we did last weekend.

Olive Garden has their Never Ending Pasta Bowl going on right now. Joe LOVES this event so we always try to go at least once a year. But this time, he had an even better idea -- let's host our OWN all-you-can-eat Pasta Party!

Normally, when we host Tequila Tuesday or our annual Superbowl Party, we have about 10 people, maybe 15 on a good night. We had NO IDEA pasta would be so popular. We had 21 people RSVP! I was a little freaked out about preparing that much food (especially considering that I worked a 60-hour week).

We learned some valuable lessons about how to plan for the right amount of food. Various websites said that 1 lb dry pasta serves 4-6 people. So that's like what, 5 lb? Maybe 6 to be safe? Well my wonderful husband, who ALWAYS over-estimates food, decided that we needed 12 lbs of dry pasta! Let's just say we'll be eating pasta until the Second Coming. Tips:

• 1 lb dry pasta REALLY DOES serve 4-6 people. Six if there is other food available, four if you are only serving pasta.
• Buy dry pasta in the bulk section at Winco. It's about $0.80 per lb compared to $1.00 elsewhere, and they have tons of options. We got rotini, farfalle (bowties), linguini, conchiglie (shells), and rigati.
• Try gnoccis! My college roommate introduced me to these yummy potato dumplings. They are good with any type of sauce, just like pasta. We get ours at Walmart.

As for sauce, it's hard to say how much we used. The websites I found said about half a cup per person. We were more worried about having lots of selection than we were about having too much sauce. We served:

• Ragu Roasted Garlic Parmesan Alfredo (very popular)
• Ragu Double Cheddar (made a yummy mac and cheese!)
• Hunts Four Cheese Marinara (we also bought 2 other types of marinara, but this was least popular, so we didn't end up using them)
• homemade Fresh Basil Pesto (see recipe below)
  
• homemade Mushroom Creme Sauce (not very good; won't make it again)

We also asked everyone to bring a side, which worked out well. People brought salad, desserts, garlic bread, bread sticks, Italian meats and cheeses, wine, etc. Overall it was super fun and a good way to get everyone together! And a good "last supper" for me before these stupid tonsils came out :)

Quick & Easy Fresh Basil Pesto Sauce

• 4 cups tightly packed fresh basil leaves, washed and dried (a salad spinner works well)
  
• 1/3 cup pine nuts (can use walnuts to save $ but won't taste as good)
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (I used about half olive oil and half water)
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan or pecorino cheese
  
• I also added a dash of balsamic vinegar

Place basil, pine nuts, and garlic in blender. Slowly pour in olive oil/water while blending until you reach the desired consistency. Add cheese and blend again.

Day 4 of Recovery

Life sucks today. More caffeine withdrawals. Gotta remember to choke down some Diet Coke first thing in the morning or I end up with "cloudy head" all day.

Today the stiffness and swelling has spread to my ears and teeth. Yes, my teeth hurt. And I am SOOOO tired of applesauce.

Ten things I would kill to eat today:

• a gyro from Greek Souvlaki
• Legend's buffalo chicken sandwich
  
• a lime chicken salad from Bajio
• turkey & pepperjack from Subway
• Desert Edge's nachos
  
• the Sunset roll at Aah Sushi
• anything from Ali Baba
  
• Green Street's fries and fry sauce
• Red Iguana's chips & salsa
  
• Joe's homemade cheeseburger!

Day 3 of Recovery

Day 3 sucks ass. Just like everyone told me it would. My jaw is so sore. It feels like a gave 100 BJs, but unfortunately for my husband, that is not the case. I don't want to eat anything. I had to force myself to eat some Ramen and some applesauce. Oh, and the caffeine withdrawals this morning did not help. Thank God Joe thought that one through and had some Diet Coke stashed in the fridge for me. The only reason I got out of bed today is because my housekeeper comes in the morning and I had to pick up a little. I'm dizzy and loopy -- not sure if it's 48 constant hours of Lortab, or the lack of food intake, or both. Overall today sucks.

Day 2 of Recovery

Things are going better than I expected. The pain is pretty manageable. I mean, I don't want to go out for Indian food, but I can put down applesauce and cottage cheese just fine. Thank God for this huge bottle of Liquid Lortab. I take it every 4 hours, and the 3rd hour gets pretty painful, so I try to sleep through that hour. Here's the routine I have going on:

• take nap

• drink Lortab

• eat baby food

• drink apple juice

• check email/FB/text

• watch The Wire

• read MockingJay

• take nap again
  

Pretty good life if you ask me!

Tonsils Out! Day 1 of Recovery

Woke up from the surgery disoriented, nauseous, and in a lot of pain. They quickly took care of the second two with meds in my IV! Now I'm just EXHAUSTED. It's like I've never slept. I have been sleeping since I got home and still not rested. I'm not in much pain, but my throat is SO swollen. Almost swollen shut and hard to breath, even through my nose. I was able to drink 1/2 a Jamba juice, some chicken broth, and even a little soggy garlic bread. Overall not as bad as I thought, but I hear that day 3 will be a bitch.

the pain is finally over

I have bad luck with concerts. Ask anyone who follows me on Facebook. My status updates are constantly "this show got canceled" or "that show got canceled."

This pattern has been especially painful and annoying in relationship to my favorite artist, Brandi Carlile. If you are not familiar with her work, look it up. UH-MAZ-ING. But my luck in seeing her in concert this summer: not so amazing.

Let me just give you a little time line of my pain and suffering:

July 2010: Brandi plays at the Red Butte summer concert series. Joe and I had been at a wedding in South Dakota. We planned to drive home in time, but we got delayed an extra day due to bad weather.

August 2010: Brandi is scheduled to play at Lilith Fair in Houston. I book a flight and make plans to stay with my good friend, Stephany. Two days after I book my flight, Lilith Fair is canceled due to "poor ticket sales". (Steph and I still had a great time!)

September 2010: I NEED to see Brandi so I track her down in Vegas and book a 4-night trip. Then I realize she's not the headliner -- she's opening for Sheryl Crow. Gag me. I really don't want to pay $75 to hear 5 Brandi songs and 40 Sheryl songs. While I'm trying to decide whether or not to buy the tickets, Brandi announces an acoustic show in Salt Lake only three days after the Vegas show. So excited! It's the solution to my dilemma -- skip Sheryl Crow, enjoy Vegas, and come home a few hours early so I can make it to the Brandi show here! Perfect!

If only it worked out that way.....

So I'm in Vegas. Sheryl Crow postpones her show. Brandi and her band have nothing to do for three days. So what do they do? They head to Salt Lake three days early and put on an impromptu show on Sunday night! WHILE I'M STUCK IN VEGAS. I was nearly in tears when I saw the announcement on FaceBook. It was the epitome of irony.

It gets better.

During that show, Brandi announces to all her adoring fans (except me) that they will be playing ANOTHER impromptu show in Salt Lake the following night. WHILE I'M STILL STUCK IN VEGAS. Can you honestly believe this?

She played her debut album, "Brandi Carlile," in its entirety on Sunday. She played her second album, "The Story," in its entirety on Monday. I finally got back in town on Tuesday just in time for the third amazing show, during which she played her new album, "Give up the Ghost," in its entirety.

The Tuesday-night show sold out months ago, in just a few hours. That makes me the TRUE fan, right? But somehow, I ended up feeling like "leftovers". There was such an energetic feeling in the intimate venue, as if Brandi and all these people, who had been there the two preceding nights, were now best friends. And I missed so many of my favorite songs :(

But I can't complain. Brandi rocked it. She always does. Her songs are sexy, her voice is sexy, and she is sexy. I tracked this woman through 4 states and 6 concerts in the last 3 months. That is true devotion! And it was worth the wait.

finally!

Finally! The doctor agreed to take my tonsils out!

I have wanted these things out for years. On the size scale from 1-5, mine have been a "five plus" for as long as I can remember. Well, ok, only since I was a smoker. My bad. I guess I deserve this surgery now.

I've heard that adult tonsil removal is hell. And I've SEEN that hell first hand that since both my brother and my sister got their tonsils out as adults. But honestly I don't even care. I will be so happy when I no longer get food stuck in my throat, snore, or feel like I'm always swallowing my own tonsils.

And the best part is ... I get two weeks off work! Unfortunately, I had to schedule the surgery the week before our next trip to South Dakota, so I'll have to spend my vacation recovering, but that is okay with me.

So if you want to give me a gift card to Emerald City or Jamba Juice around Sept 27, that would be cool with me ;)

josh LEWis

i have this friend
his name is lew
he is so annoying
i don't know what to do

lew takes good photos
this i can't deny
but i want to slap the shit out of him
and poke him in the eye

lew just bought a condo
it's really cute and big
but even though i like his house
sometimes he's a misogynist pig

lew also got a puppy
she is super cute
but lew is guatemalan
and no one gives a hoot

lew is right here with me
while i'm writing this dumb poem
he needs to stop pissing me off
or i'm going to tell him to go home

looks like we're finally going to get a good Shakira album if this single is any indicator. i've been disappointed with pretty much everything since ?donde estan los ladres?

women of music

have you seen the show "hoarders" on A&E? that is what my music collection looks like.

stats:

• 67 GB
• 498 artists
• 1043 albums
• 11,077 songs

with so many choices, my favorites are always changing. lately i'm into girls. hot girls with sexy voices. quite often lesbians. and good lyrics don't hurt.

the archandroid
by janelle monae
selected song: cold war









give up the ghost
by brandi carlile
selected song: dying day









the story
by brandi carlile
selected song: turpentine









brandi carlile
by brandi carlile
selected song: sixty years on









rockferry
by duffy
selected song: mercy









lungs
by florence + the machine
selected song: raise it up









lessons to be learned
by gabriella cilmi
selected song: cigarettes and lies









made of bricks
by kate nash
selected song: foundations









19
by adele
selected song: chasing pavements









back to black by amy winehouse
selected song: tears dry on their own










wild young hearts
by the noisettes
selected song: so complicated









begin to hope
by regina spektor
selected song: apres moi









eleven eleven
by regina spektor
selected song: buildings









donde estan los ladrones
by shakira
selected song: no creo









pies descalzos
by shakira
selected song: antologia









so jealous
by tegan and sara
selected song: fix you up









if it was you
by tegan and sara
selected song: living room









this business of art
by tegan and sara
selected song: all you got