A Tea Party For Heather

For Heather's birthday some friends and I teamed up to throw her a surprise tea party. Here I am with the lovely birthday girl (and some rather attractive tea pots I managed to find at D.I.):

For the menu we had a variety of sandwiches (egg salad, chicken salad, and cucumber with cream cheese), deviled eggs, no bake cookies (shaped like hearts), cheesecake squares, scones, and a variety of juices (served in the tea pots).

In the last hour before the party I found myself peeling 18 hard boiled eggs as fast as I could, then smashing the yokes for deviled eggs and smashing the rest of the eggs for the egg salad sandwiches. Then I was running around putting together all the sandwiches as fast as I could while Stephanie was frying scones and Rachelle was bringing over Heather. But it all worked out in the end, and if I may say so myself, everything was delicious.

Here are most of our lovely attendees, with the birthday girl front and center of course:

Where the Wild Things Are

I, along with everyone else who wants to relive their childhood, went to see Where the Wild Things Are the night it opened. Unlike many of the people who I have since discussed it with, I actually enjoyed it. Sure it was a little more sad than one might expect coming from a children book, but the cinematography was beautiful and the music was wonderful. It reminded me that children view the world differently from adults, which is something that is important to remember as we interact with kids.

My two favorite things in the whole movie are pictured below:

1. Max. (who ironically enough was played by a little boy named Max)
Max happens to be the cutest little boy ever and is moving in and may take the place of Freddie Highmore for most adorable child (possibly only because Freddie is growing up). But basically, Max is precious, and so perfect for the role (not to mention his adorable wolf suit, which I want in my size).
2. The font. Can you say perfect? The credits open with kid's drawings around the different logos signed in that adorable hand by Max. So awesome.

Basically I loved the movie, though I wouldn't watch it a thousand times over because it is a little sad and harsh. The graphics are amazing. The filming is beautiful. The characterization of the relationships is really well done in a short amount of time. Go see it, but don't expect a happy go lucky escapist child's film.

Deliciousness

So the other day I was asked to bring the salad to a dinner with some friends. At the store I was pondering what to put in the salad in addition to strawberries when Kristin suggested I use mangoes. There could not have proved to be a better combination. I topped it off with some cranberry vinaigrette dressing and if I do say so myself it turned out rather well.


Next up in the list of delicious foods I've recently discovered I can make myself was split pea soup. When I came home from classes today I had every intention of reliving the german pancakes of last week, but when I opened the cookbook my mother made me, the first page was split pea soup. I read the ingredients and discovered that I had them all, so I set out trying to make it. Several phone calls to my mother later I found that I had a decent soup simmering on the stove. The only problem was that it was much more runny than the soup my mom makes at home. I called her again and discovered that I should have left the top off of the pot while it simmered for 2 hours so that the water could evaporate. I simply let the soup continue to simmer for another hour with the top off and the soup turned into a marvelous consistensy. The photo obviously does not do the taste justice.

I promise it was good. Plus, it made enough for me to eat for just about the rest of the semester.

German Pancakes

So today I decided to make german pancakes for lunch, only I couldn't find a glass pie pan anywhere. Once again this meant that I reverted to using my beautiful casserole dish. I was a little worried that it wouldn't turn out well, but as you can see from the picture, it turned out just fine.


In fact, I would venture to say that it turned out better than fine, as the sides somehow rose about 3 times as high as they usually do. Probably the best part about the whole situation was that I got to eat the whole thing all by myself.

Bigotes

Here's a rather humorous video we watched in my Spanish class:

Adam

On Saturday I headed up to Salt Lake City with my mom and watched the movie Adam with her and my Aunt, Uncle and cousin. It's a film from the Sundance Film Festival, so it's not playing in mainstream theaters, but was definitely worth our effort to see.

It's the story of a man, Adam, with asberger's syndrome, and his relationship with a girl who moves into his building just after his father's death. The movie is an emotional roller coaster, but it is beautifully filmed and acted. Hugh Dancy does an excellent job with his character (plus he's not so bad to look at).

One particularly fantastic part of the movie parallels Adam's fear of a job interview with the easily understood fear of a court trial. This is beautifully done and helps the audience understand a little better what he is going through everyday in social interractions.

I loved it. My mom loved it. What more do you need? Go see it.

Pan's Labyrinth

This week Pan's Labyrinth was shown in the International Cinema at BYU. It had a huge response and Kristin and I found ourselves sitting on the floor in the aisle at first. (That is until we stole some people's chairs after they left due to some technical issues in the beginning) This frightening and gruesome tale is something I would only recommend seeing edited, as the edited version contained a sufficient amount of horrifyingness to get its point across.

The movie follows the story of a girl who, in coping with a very traumatizing experience in post civil war Spain, encounters a fantastic world of magical and gruesome creatures. As her reality becomes more and more cruel the fantasy world becomes more real and intertwined in her reality.

She experiences a series of tasks that become more horrifying as they go on. She remains the epitome of innocence throughout the story though. As her step father's (a fascist captain) cruelty is further revealed, her innocence becomes more apparent.

Though this movie is not one for the average escapist seeking pure enjoyment, it definitely is thought provoking and revealing about the nature of cruelty vs. innocence. I would rate it high on a scale of intriguingness - thus landing it a place on my blog. I'm glad I saw it, but will probably never need to watch it again.

Nice People

Have you ever noticed how some people are just ultra nice? Well the other day I was stressing about not having the book to do the reading for one of my classes. I was asking the professor if he had an extra copy I could borrow for the day, which he didn't, when a girl I had never talked to before said that I could borrow hers to make copies with. I ran to the copy machine, but it was broken. When I found her again moments later she said that she would just scan the pages for me and email them to me.

Sure enough, the next day there appeared in my email an attachment with some 25 pages scanned into a PDF. Gosh some people are nice. She even apologized for it having taken so long. This went beyond any form of ordinary niceness. (and I was beyond grateful as our grade seems to be solely based on doing the readings and discussing them in class).

Rodeo

I recently attended a rodeo at the Utah State Fair. It was pretty much awesome as we got to see many a cowboy, which is usually a good thing.

At one point they were showing off some little cowboys and girls. This entailed putting kids (starting around age 2 and ending around age 7) on top of sheep and then opening the gate and letting the sheep go. I had no idea a sheep could run so fast, or that a child could cling to one so tightly. Most of the kids just fell off pretty quickly and were semi trampled by the sheep and just laid there crying until their parent came and picked them up. There was one girl though who just clung on for dear life. She made it about half way around the arena before falling off. Just think of her bragging rights when she gets old enough to know how to brag.

The bull riding was of course my favorite, though I've been debating ever since which is more dangerous: bull riding or bull fighting. Feel free to put forth your opinions. I'm leaning towards bull fighting, though if someone was doing both at the same time, that would definitely win out. There was one injury this time, when the bull just fell keen over right on top of the guy riding it. Needless to say he didn't walk off by himself (the cowboy that is, the bull trotted off just fine).

Here's a pic of me and some of my gal pals after the show. Oh so lovely:

Spanish Tortilla: Fail

I have now made spanish tortilla 3 times. I use the term 'made' here rather loosely as it generally denotes success. In truth I have only succeeded once in truly making a delicious spanish tortilla, my first attempt, with my mother. Kami and I have tried twice in the last 2 weeks and both times something went horribly wrong.

Our first attempt we followed the recipe exactly: 5 medium potatoes, 5 eggs, 1 onion, some salt...or so we thought. Turns out that the potatoes we selected must have been extra extra large, because the tortilla turned out to be basically just potatoes with a hint of egg. Needless to say, it was a little dry, but not horrible.

Our second attempt was last night. Everything was going so smoothly; we had a good ratio of egg to potato with 4 potatoes and 7 eggs. This was going to be a giant and delicious spanish tortilla. That is, until it came time to flip it. We did not have a plate large enough to flip the tortilla onto, so we decided to use a cutting board. This proved detrimental as when we went to flip it, the whole tortilla slid right out into the sink, which was full of dirty dishes.

Seconds later, I was on the floor and Kami was bent over the sink, both of us laughing/crying. We finally pulled ourselves together and managed to salvage some of the tortilla. We put parts of it back in the pan and continued to cook it, but by then it was just a small mess of eggs, potatoes, and onions. Basically the biggest fail of my life.