Happy Halloween - Part 2 (The Pumpkins)

Felipe's pumpkin face and my stormy graveyard.





Happy Halloween everyone! Had a great time today passing out candy and watching zombie movies (apparently I've been missing out!)

Halloween - Part 1

We had a wonderful pumpkin carving party last night! Michael, Jake, Ashley, Nicole, Krikor, Sammi and Mike joined us for an evening of pumpkin carving and old horror movie watching. The photos are with my new camera...we're still learning about it and I'm looking forward to using it in daylight...


Digging in.


Mike gets gross.


Sammi sorts the seeds (she couldn't find a pumpkin before coming...)


A lot of thought went into the designs.




We're making progress here :D








With the five pumpkins we carved we ended up with about two pounds of pumpkin seeds - Yay! Since Krikor wasn't carving a pumpkin, he did the honor of roasting up some yummy pumpkin seeds. We still have about 6 cups of seeds left to roast, so I think I will try out some other pumpkin seed seasonings...

Halloween is Coming....

Check out Dan Piraro's Blog (he's gives a lot of super funny insight into his comics).

I love this guy's work, he's always got something funny, and I just thought this was so great for Halloween week. Every time I look at it I laugh.

Also, check out this article on a man who basically eats nothing but candy...it's very interesting.

Enjoy :)

Stress Relief

I've had a couple of really difficult days at work, and today was feeling totally worn out by it. So I decided I needed to take my full one hour lunch break, and that it needed to be as far from the office as possible. So I took the M66 to Central Park and walked around enjoying the sun and fall colors.

My Favorite Spot (again)






Reading Catcher in the Rye


This poet certainly seems to be enjoying the day


In the end...I was a little bit more relaxed...but ask me how long that lasted once I got back to the office...

Recipe: Sarma

Today I reached years back in my food memory and made for the first time every (by myself) the Sarma that I remember my mom making. I great up with a variety of Armenian recipes, and this one was always good for a cold winter night. Of course, we're not quite at winter just yet...but we're getting there!

I was a little nervous about making this - I've never made it, only watched my mom make it and that was even almost a decade since I've last had it! I used a recipe my mom sent me and it turned out quite well (Felipe even liked it!)...and I have lots of left overs for later. Yummy!

Sarma
(by the way - Sarma can vary in ingredients - sometimes using grape leaves instead of cabbage, and other indgredients for the fillings as well. It all depends on the region it's from)

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs ground beef
3/4 cup rice
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp paprika
(Mix all of the above ingredients together thoroughly)

1 head of cabbage
2-3 cups of chicken broth
8 oz. tomato sauce
Juice of 1 lemon

De-core the cabbage head. Boil a large pot of water. When at a rolling boil, place the head of cabbage in the water and cook until softened (about 10 minutes). Remove the cabbage from the water, place in a colander for extra drainage.

Remove some of the tougher leaves and line the bottom of a casserole dish. With the remaining cabbage, remove one leaf at a time, use a knife to take out the thick part of the vein. Most of the time you can use a half leaf, depending on the size. Take a thumb sized portion of the meat mixture and roll it into the shape of a cigar. Place onto one end of the cabbage leaf and roll. Place the rolls in layers in the casserole dish. When all the meat mixture has been used, cover the rolls with the chicken broth, tomato sauce and lemon juice. Cook in the over at 350 degrees for one hour.

Serve the rolls in a bowl with the broth.

October Afternoons...Enjoying the Fall (Part 2)

This afternoon I took a walk over to Central Park to enjoy a bit of this beautiful fall afternoon. It's sunny and mildly warm again today, making it pleasant to sit in the park a while. It was quite busy with tourists today, and of course the performers for the the tourists. There was the man who usually plays his sax over on the the Mall leading up to Bethesda Terrace. He's always there when I go to my favorite spot...maybe someday I'll ask his name and record him playing some music.





After walking a bit I stopped and sat at the trunk of an oak tree and listened to some music while people watching. I could sit in that park for hours. I ended up moving once the sun went below the tree line, and decided I would join the countless others who were laying out on the super plush grass in the Sheep's Meadow. It was a very relaxing moment, with the sun shining down, and the cool ground below - listening to the wind go through the trees and bring the leaves to the ground.

It's as Ella and other jazz greats say:
"Yes, lovers that bless the dark
On the benches in central park
Greet autumn in New York
Its good to live it again"

October Afternoons...Enjoying the Fall (Part 1)

Today Felipe and I took a nice walk around the Union Square area with our Friend Ruben, who is visiting from his studies in Toronto. We were lucky to catch such a beautiful autumn afternoon!



We grabbed a bite to eat at the Stand burger joint, then walked over and checked out the Strand. I found a great deal on a travel guide to London (yay! so excited to go in January!) After the Strand we went to the Union Square Green Market and walked by all the stands. I don't get to the green market often - most of the time I do not enjoy the crowds, but it was so nice to see all the beautiful produce, and all of the signs of autumn....pumpkins, apples, apples and apples, and gourds all over the place. I stopped and picked out a few gourds and "mini pumpkins" for our windowsill at home.

After that we walked to Madison Square Park and sat for a while people watching. They were having a free concert, and so we listened to some blue grass (see below) - they were great, although I did not get the name of the group. There were a variety of other groups as well.


Overall, the blue skies, good company and liveliness of the city made it a very pleasant afternoon. Here's one more photo I took while sitting on the bench at the park...it was a very striking view to me.


Enjoy your autumn...and my sincerest condolences to those of my family and friends that are experiencing snow already....

Postcrossing - Batch Two

Yay! My first Brasilian postcard! I'm really looking forward to the time when I can visit Brasil with Felipe and his family. This card comes from Weslley in Vitória, Espírito Santo, which is a little north of Rio de Janiero. This city is apparently on a small island - which stays linked to the mainland by six bridges, you can see in the postcard that this is the Third Bridge. Thanks for the card Wellsley, I can't wait to visit Brasil...maybe I'll come for the 2016 summer Olympics!

My second postcard was from Florida:



Now Florida I have been to - my grandmother lives in Orlando and so I've had the pleasure of visiting Florida a couple of time - although there are many areas that I would still like to see. I'd love some day to go to the Keys. Thanks Judy for the beautiful card...makes me wish I were somewhere tropical at the cold start of this autumn season!

Get Well Stickies!

So the story goes like this - I left work on Monday evening sneezing. A lot. And I thought, man - my allergies are horrible! Went to a Birthday happy hour for Felipe, and then about an hour later it hit me. Hard. I had a rapid onset rhinovirus. Well, to be less dramatic, I got a cold.

Jump to Tuesday morning. I woke up after a miserable night of sleep and dragged myself in to work (I knew it wasn't the flu, so there was no hesitation in that respect). I had a candidate visiting and I needed to make arrangements for him to be taken around during the day. Felipe told me to go home early, and after the 16th sneeze in a row (okay, dramatics here again) and two hours of tying up loose ends - I went home.

The first sticky I saw was the one Felipe had left for me on the bathroom door....rest and recover my energies. I certainly would! The second was the 'get better soon' sticky that was on the bedroom door. And the last, one of the best of all was waiting for me on my pillow - besitos-quil. I must say, the FDA should look into this. It was far superior to any Nyquil or Dayquil product! Needless to say, I slept for another three hours and have been working my strength back up! Thanks to my wonderful husband for the super sweet notes :D

Warning: Rant Below
I went back to work today, with the aid of some cough suppressants and expectorants and seemed to make it through. One thing I have realized is that I really dislike it when people on the bus look at me with disdain or flinch with terror every time I cough. I will have you know that I am covering my mouth with four layers of folded handkerchief and my hands - these flinchers are more likely to become ill from the bar they just handled on the back of the bus seat than my own coughing. I will also let it be publicly known that I do not carry the bubonic plague, tuberculosis, leprosy or the dreaded swine flu (see also these). Okay, rant done.

Thanks for all the get well wishes!