Sometimes, a writer is an artist who crafts a masterpiece so honest and raw and beautiful, the world will not be right until everyone reads her words.
For my friends, please read this article by Sarah Shanfield published on the Huffington Post's website.
What it means to be 25 Today
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Buffalo Chicken Salad 'Zone
Two fabulous recipes with practically the same ingredients.
Buffalo Chicken Salad
for Two
1 Chicken breast, chunked
Red Hot Sauce
Spicy Ranch Dressing (Hidden Valley)
Lettuce
Carrot
Fresh tomato, chunked and seedless
chunked cucumber
Goat Cheese or Sharp Cheese
In a pan, throw in the chunks of raw chicken with a tsp of olive oil. When chicken is almost cooked, add red hot sauce. I add a lot because I like to see how far I can push Nick with spicy foods and also, my father calls me 'asbestos mouth' in reference to my tolerance for anything hot.
Also add a tbs of spicy ranch dressing. Let cook through. Set aside.
Make your salads using lettuce, carrots, tomato, cucumber and cheese. Add chicken. Top with combination red hot sauce and ranch dressing. Top with broken tortilla chips for added crunch.
Buffalo Chicken Calzone
for Two + Lunch-overs
1 Chicken breast, chunked
Red Hot Sauce
Spicy Ranch Dressing
Ricotta Cheese
1 egg
Fresh Pizza Dough
Pizza Sauce
Shredded Sharp Cheese
In a pan, throw in the chunks of chicken with a tsp olive oil. Like the salad above, when the chicken is almost done (but not quite!), add red hot sauce and a tbs ranch dressing. Let cook through. Set aside.
In a small bowl, whisk together ricotta and egg. Roll out pizza dough with flour on your hands and the counter. Spray pizza stone with Pam. Set round, rolled out dough on stone. Spread ricotta mixture on 1/2 the dough (avoid edges). Top with chicken and sharp cheese. Add more ricotta. Add more sharp cheese. Add red hot sauce and a tiny bit of ranch dressing.
Fold together. Pinch edges of dough to avoid leakage.
Bake 400 degrees until done. Honestly, I lost track of time. Maybe 30 minutes? Go until the crust is golden and then add five minutes to make sure it isn't dough-y.
Serve with pizza sauce :)
Friday, June 8, 2012
So The Book I'm Reading...
I was that child who hated to read, and I know exactly why. It had absolutely everything to do with my last name: Starmer.
I fall into a nostalgic abyss frequently on this blog, and I'm going to do it again here. You need it as the back story, anyway.
When I was little, my parents and I (one, or both of them, situationally depending) would snuggle up before bedtime and read.
We would read Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present.
We would read Where the Wild Things Are.
We would read ALL of the Mercer Mayer books.
We read Corduroy four million times.
I could compose an entry with just the list of all my favorite children's book. You might be better suited, however, to peruse the children's section of Barnes and Noble, because I'm fairly certain we owned them all.
This, if you can't tell, is not when I hated reading. I loved it. It was cuddle time with Mom and Dad. It was a world of life lessons, of learning the foundations of great literature, of using a book to relax at the end of a long day. It's how I learned to read. It's when I learned to love writing. I am so not ready for children, but I do like the idea of starting a collection of my favorite children's book.
Nick might faint, however, and accuse me of trying to convince him to have kids by way of books. He then might then divorce me when he finds me curled up in a corner reading Guess How Much I Love You before he leaves for deployment. Don't worry honey! I won't start the children's book collection... yet. Or if I do, I'll hide it well.
No, my hate of reading happened in elementary school.
The first incident occurred in the first grade. My teacher was obsessed (ob-sess-ed) with dinosaurs and whales. What foofoo first grade girl wants to read about T-Rex and Shamu?? Well not me. I'm pretty sure we were on Land Before Time III at that point, and I was over it. There is only so much a bunch of dino babies can do with rocks and trees. Anyway, first grade lasted forever (for a few reasons), but my horrid memories lie in the perpetual post-lunch reading circles that seemed to only produce books on dinosaurs and whales. And while, at first, they minimally piqued my interest, I was done by October. And 40 weeks for a seven year old is a life sentence.
That was incident #1.
The second incident occurred in the second grade. I know. I was hit twice. How ever did I survive?
In the second grade, we began the "accelerated reading program." This, for your non-ninety's kids, is a program that promotes reading at home with your parents. Which is great! I already did that! Ah, but there was a stipulation: I had to check out books from the library.
Theoretically, this was a fabulous idea. The bookshelf that my younger brother and I shared choked with books stuffed in ever open space possible. Really, it was time for a bigger shelving unit. We had read all the books!! Of course we had our favorites that we pulled out frequently, but the idea of a library fascinated me! We only really visited the public library during the summer time. So I was thrilled to have one in my school!
And then, the first library day arrived.
We walked in, single filed in a 'boys' line and a 'girls' line. The school's librarian, an order woman, welcomed us to her lair. Half the entire library was dedicated to the primary grades (k-3). Half the library! I was so excited to slide my fingers along the spines of the books until I found one with a pretty cover that I wanted to pull out and take home. The librarian, we'll call her Mrs. Eggs, made us sit on the thin, blue rug, and she introduced us to the library.
She gave us a tour. She read a book that won something called a Newbery Award (though I don't remember what book it was, I remember that I didn't like it. Or maybe I just didn't like the way she read it). Then, it was time to choose our own books to take home with us for a whole week until it was library time again.
I perked up, hoping to be the first to the bookshelf. I had to beat out my classmates for the most fruitful selection. But instead, Mrs. Eggs told us to settle down. We were only going to choose from the books on the table. She pointed to a small, round table with about 15 books scattered across it. Then, to make the selection even worse!, she called people up by the first letter of their last name:
"If your last name begins with A, you may go pick your book out now."
"If your last name begins with B, you may go pick your book out now."
"If your last name begins with ...."
I was the second to the last person to pick out my book, and I so very clearly remember my choices:
Dino-Baseball
or
The Elephant's Wrestling Match
Really? Dino-baseball which fuses my first grade experience with boy stuff, or a book about an elephant that wrestles? Elephants were big creatures so it was practically the same thing as a dinosaur or a whale. So I had to choose between baseball or wrestling for a seven-year-old girl probably wearing a pink headband.
The remainder of my second grade year followed suit. Most of the books were chosen for us. Most of the time, I chose last.
"If the last letter of your last name begins with A, you may go pick your book out now" --- "R" is the same as "S". Once, she said we were going to choose by the last letter of our first name. I almost cried out of happiness. And then, she started from the back of the goddamn alphabet. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, those crucial primary years solidified my hatred for books. That librarian added the catalyst when I started picking out books that were "below my reading level", and I therefore were not allowed to check them out. The world of reading, once so comfy and cozy, crashed mercilessly. Why spend time reading my books at home when they didn't count at school? When I had to read Dino-fucking-Baseball to earn credit?
So I stop. My love for books smothered under the stumpy heel of my librarian.
.... this post is dragging; let me get to my point...
My point is this:
Even today, I struggle with books. If I am not immediately sucked into the bowls of the story by page 5, I have a very hard time finishing the rest of the story. Often I don't.
I cling to the books that steal my heart. The Book Thief and Harry Potter and 11/22/63 and The Phantom Tollbooth (ok, the one good book I read in the third grade). I read others. I stomach through them for the conclusion. I wish I was my mother, who can zip through fifty books during the summer. She absorbs them like a dry washcloth. I wish I loved reading that much but every time I pick up a novel, the novel has to prove to me it's good, or at least that it's worth reading.
That said, I'm reading a stellar book right now. It has no literary value. So if you think the college writing professor from University of Hawaii is recommending something that is deeply thought providing, I assure you, I am not. This book does not stimulate the mind.
It does, however, instigate uncontrollable tears of laughter. I cannot read this book in public for fear of laughing out loud and making strangers feel uncomfortable.
The book is called Let's Pretend This Never Happened, and it's by Jenny Lawson. I'm fairly certain that my two best friends co-conspired to write this novel together. It's a mix of Kage and Krista and their very dry senses of humor (is that the plural phrase of sense of humor?).
Read it. Chapter by chapter will prove hilarious. It sucks you in at page #1.
I fall into a nostalgic abyss frequently on this blog, and I'm going to do it again here. You need it as the back story, anyway.
When I was little, my parents and I (one, or both of them, situationally depending) would snuggle up before bedtime and read.
We would read Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present.
We would read Where the Wild Things Are.
We would read ALL of the Mercer Mayer books.
We read Corduroy four million times.
I could compose an entry with just the list of all my favorite children's book. You might be better suited, however, to peruse the children's section of Barnes and Noble, because I'm fairly certain we owned them all.
This, if you can't tell, is not when I hated reading. I loved it. It was cuddle time with Mom and Dad. It was a world of life lessons, of learning the foundations of great literature, of using a book to relax at the end of a long day. It's how I learned to read. It's when I learned to love writing. I am so not ready for children, but I do like the idea of starting a collection of my favorite children's book.
Nick might faint, however, and accuse me of trying to convince him to have kids by way of books. He then might then divorce me when he finds me curled up in a corner reading Guess How Much I Love You before he leaves for deployment. Don't worry honey! I won't start the children's book collection... yet. Or if I do, I'll hide it well.
No, my hate of reading happened in elementary school.
The first incident occurred in the first grade. My teacher was obsessed (ob-sess-ed) with dinosaurs and whales. What foofoo first grade girl wants to read about T-Rex and Shamu?? Well not me. I'm pretty sure we were on Land Before Time III at that point, and I was over it. There is only so much a bunch of dino babies can do with rocks and trees. Anyway, first grade lasted forever (for a few reasons), but my horrid memories lie in the perpetual post-lunch reading circles that seemed to only produce books on dinosaurs and whales. And while, at first, they minimally piqued my interest, I was done by October. And 40 weeks for a seven year old is a life sentence.
That was incident #1.
The second incident occurred in the second grade. I know. I was hit twice. How ever did I survive?
In the second grade, we began the "accelerated reading program." This, for your non-ninety's kids, is a program that promotes reading at home with your parents. Which is great! I already did that! Ah, but there was a stipulation: I had to check out books from the library.
Theoretically, this was a fabulous idea. The bookshelf that my younger brother and I shared choked with books stuffed in ever open space possible. Really, it was time for a bigger shelving unit. We had read all the books!! Of course we had our favorites that we pulled out frequently, but the idea of a library fascinated me! We only really visited the public library during the summer time. So I was thrilled to have one in my school!
And then, the first library day arrived.
We walked in, single filed in a 'boys' line and a 'girls' line. The school's librarian, an order woman, welcomed us to her lair. Half the entire library was dedicated to the primary grades (k-3). Half the library! I was so excited to slide my fingers along the spines of the books until I found one with a pretty cover that I wanted to pull out and take home. The librarian, we'll call her Mrs. Eggs, made us sit on the thin, blue rug, and she introduced us to the library.
She gave us a tour. She read a book that won something called a Newbery Award (though I don't remember what book it was, I remember that I didn't like it. Or maybe I just didn't like the way she read it). Then, it was time to choose our own books to take home with us for a whole week until it was library time again.
I perked up, hoping to be the first to the bookshelf. I had to beat out my classmates for the most fruitful selection. But instead, Mrs. Eggs told us to settle down. We were only going to choose from the books on the table. She pointed to a small, round table with about 15 books scattered across it. Then, to make the selection even worse!, she called people up by the first letter of their last name:
"If your last name begins with A, you may go pick your book out now."
"If your last name begins with B, you may go pick your book out now."
"If your last name begins with ...."
I was the second to the last person to pick out my book, and I so very clearly remember my choices:
Dino-Baseball
or
The Elephant's Wrestling Match
Really? Dino-baseball which fuses my first grade experience with boy stuff, or a book about an elephant that wrestles? Elephants were big creatures so it was practically the same thing as a dinosaur or a whale. So I had to choose between baseball or wrestling for a seven-year-old girl probably wearing a pink headband.
The remainder of my second grade year followed suit. Most of the books were chosen for us. Most of the time, I chose last.
"If the last letter of your last name begins with A, you may go pick your book out now" --- "R" is the same as "S". Once, she said we were going to choose by the last letter of our first name. I almost cried out of happiness. And then, she started from the back of the goddamn alphabet. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, those crucial primary years solidified my hatred for books. That librarian added the catalyst when I started picking out books that were "below my reading level", and I therefore were not allowed to check them out. The world of reading, once so comfy and cozy, crashed mercilessly. Why spend time reading my books at home when they didn't count at school? When I had to read Dino-fucking-Baseball to earn credit?
So I stop. My love for books smothered under the stumpy heel of my librarian.
.... this post is dragging; let me get to my point...
My point is this:
Even today, I struggle with books. If I am not immediately sucked into the bowls of the story by page 5, I have a very hard time finishing the rest of the story. Often I don't.
I cling to the books that steal my heart. The Book Thief and Harry Potter and 11/22/63 and The Phantom Tollbooth (ok, the one good book I read in the third grade). I read others. I stomach through them for the conclusion. I wish I was my mother, who can zip through fifty books during the summer. She absorbs them like a dry washcloth. I wish I loved reading that much but every time I pick up a novel, the novel has to prove to me it's good, or at least that it's worth reading.
That said, I'm reading a stellar book right now. It has no literary value. So if you think the college writing professor from University of Hawaii is recommending something that is deeply thought providing, I assure you, I am not. This book does not stimulate the mind.
It does, however, instigate uncontrollable tears of laughter. I cannot read this book in public for fear of laughing out loud and making strangers feel uncomfortable.
The book is called Let's Pretend This Never Happened, and it's by Jenny Lawson. I'm fairly certain that my two best friends co-conspired to write this novel together. It's a mix of Kage and Krista and their very dry senses of humor (is that the plural phrase of sense of humor?).
Read it. Chapter by chapter will prove hilarious. It sucks you in at page #1.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Too Delish Not to Share, Part I
I've been stretching my culinary muscles as of late, and I have some killer recipes to post. Though, for fear that I have nothing to post later and because I'm a fervent control freak, I am going to allocate my recipes one at a time ....
Before I moved to Hawaii, my mother gifted me with a subscription to Taste of Home magazine. Since as long as I can remember, we've loved cooking together. In the summer, especially, Mom and I would peruse through recipe magazines in the grocery store and find new and interesting combinations to try in our own kitchen. Probably my favorite investment Mom ever made in the recipe realm was The Taste of Home's Big Book of Soup, though that is for another post entirely and to be honest, I'm sitting here typing on my computer and sweating profusely so I don't want to talk about soup right now.
Anyway, aside from Taste of Home sending me fake bills saying I need to pay for the subscription my mother already bought for me, I love this magazine. I found, in their most recent issue, a recipe for Spinach Penne salad. Nick and I have completely been on a salad kick. Our apartment bakes in the Hawaiian afternoon sun, and even by the time the Army finally allows Nick to go home and our body's are telling us we're famished, it hasn't cooled off yet. That said, we've found it absolutely repulsive to sweat while we eat, so we stick to the coolest meals we can possibly find-- and those meals have mainly been salads.
How much can you vary leafy greens so they don't make you gag every night for three weeks straight? Just ask the editors of Taste of Home.
DISCLAIMER: I have my own, vague measurement system since I size everything down to feed only two people. One of the last issues of ToH provided recipes to serve TWELVE humans.
Before I moved to Hawaii, my mother gifted me with a subscription to Taste of Home magazine. Since as long as I can remember, we've loved cooking together. In the summer, especially, Mom and I would peruse through recipe magazines in the grocery store and find new and interesting combinations to try in our own kitchen. Probably my favorite investment Mom ever made in the recipe realm was The Taste of Home's Big Book of Soup, though that is for another post entirely and to be honest, I'm sitting here typing on my computer and sweating profusely so I don't want to talk about soup right now.
Anyway, aside from Taste of Home sending me fake bills saying I need to pay for the subscription my mother already bought for me, I love this magazine. I found, in their most recent issue, a recipe for Spinach Penne salad. Nick and I have completely been on a salad kick. Our apartment bakes in the Hawaiian afternoon sun, and even by the time the Army finally allows Nick to go home and our body's are telling us we're famished, it hasn't cooled off yet. That said, we've found it absolutely repulsive to sweat while we eat, so we stick to the coolest meals we can possibly find-- and those meals have mainly been salads.
How much can you vary leafy greens so they don't make you gag every night for three weeks straight? Just ask the editors of Taste of Home.
DISCLAIMER: I have my own, vague measurement system since I size everything down to feed only two people. One of the last issues of ToH provided recipes to serve TWELVE humans.
Spinach Penne Salad
Whole wheat penne pasta, cooked, rinsed and cooled in fridge
Fresh baby spinach, chopped into bite sizes
Parm Cheese
EVOO (1/3 cup)
Red Wine Vinegar (3-4 splashes)
Sm squirt of yellow mustard
oregano
garlic powder
salt + pepper
goat cheese
onions
banana peppers
black olives
In a mixing bowl, combine spinach, penne, onions, banana peppers, black olives. Set aside.
In small bowl, add EVOO, parm cheese, vinegar, mustard, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Mix together with a small whisk. Pour on top of spinach penne mix. Toss together. Add more EVOO if desired. Transport to plate. Top with goat cheese.
Makes 1 serving.
Repeat process for additional servings.
DISCLAIMER #2: Photo credit goes to Taste of Home magazine; the final product I created looked nothing like that.
DISCLAIMER #2: Photo credit goes to Taste of Home magazine; the final product I created looked nothing like that.
Back to it
... It's just that expectations are too high.
That's my answer.
I assumed, already, that you asked me why I haven't posted in so long. My answer is that expectations are too high. Last time I re-visited my blog, I emerged with a kick-ass post about combatting writer's block. Then I crafted more ramblings about a day in the life of a twenty-something year old living in Hawaii while her husband was off galavanting with his guys on a camping trip (army training exercise). That post was inherently awesome simply because I wrote about Hawaii.
So expectations are too high. Every time I've mustered the courage to consider blogging again, I fail. I suppose fervently that I lack the confidence to compose such subsequent stellar posts that I refuse to even try...
No, that's bullshit. It's been one hell of a crazy few weeks! Nick arrived back from his galavanting trip early! The Next Visitor, Michael P. Karpinski, arrived exhausted on a plane eight days later. I started teaching my summer course at the college. We fucking MOVED. There was more touristy stuff -- waterfalls, hiking, beaches, more beaches. Then Michael left, we reset, and damnit! When I have found a free moment, I've been reading this absolutely hysterical novel with no literary value, and I've ditched the blog thing (title to follow in later post. I have to save material to write about!).
Truly and honestly, though, I've promised myself that as an exercise in writing, I would sit my happy ass down in front of the computer every morning before I leave for work and post something. I plan to begin this tomorrow. I hope I create more than 4 posts for this month, though I make no promises since our next guest, Miss Beth Cutia, arrives on island in three days.
Anyway, there is my lame excuse! Expectations are cracked; I'm back to it hopefully for a while at least.
Cheers fellow bloggers!
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