Category: personal

Muse and U2 concert in Charlottesville

So Jeremy managed to acquire tickets to the U2 concert in Charlottesville and last night we went to the concert at the football stadium at UVA, what a great show! The city definitely has getting people into the parking lots down to a science and we arrived just as the lots opened at 5pm (the concert was scheduled to start at 7pm). We were guided to the parking deck next to the basketball stadium and then walked the mile or so to the concert venue with a stop at Foods of All Nations for some tasty sandwiches for dinner.

Our tickets put us at one corner of the endzone and in the center of the field is this giant 4 legged octopus looking thing that is the stage with all the lights and a giant cylindrical video display in the center. We were behind one of the “legs” so our view of the band when they were playing in the center was a bit obstructed, and they were facing away from us, but they were great seats as the ticket office had not sold the 12 rows of seats in front of us (since they were “obstructed views”) so we didn’t have to worry about people standing in front of us and had plenty of room to stretch out. (pics below, more on Flickr)

Muse started off the concert by playing “Knights of Cydonia”, which I only knew from playing it on Guitar Hero but it was great to hear live (and yes, I was playing the Guitar Hero fingerings during the song 😉 ), they played 6 more songs or so and then after a full out lighting switch and a bit of stage rearranging U2 came on to much cheering and flashing lights. They played most of their classics (Beautiful Day, Elevation, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Walk On, Where the Streets Have No Name (and Bono played an acoustic version of Amazing Grace to prelude it which was great)) as well as some songs of their new album. They put on a great show, the stage was amazing and a great time was had by all 🙂

Getting out of the parking garage and back on 64 took longer than it needed to, they were funneling everyone away from the “quick route” to 64 so it was very very backed up and it took us about 30 minutes to get out of downtown but we got back to the bed and breakfast around 1:15 and promptly went to bed, definitely a fun way to spend an evening 🙂

expanding 360 video screen
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The Edge and Adam Clayton

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soup results and vegetable stock

So dinner is done and I have to say, it was quite tasty. I followed my plan mentioned in the prior post and chopped and sauteed the zucchini and squash in the same pan I browned and cooked the sausage in and I think that really added a lot of flavor to the dish. Served it with some (store bought) garlic bread and it made a very nice, filling, and moderately healthy meal. And I have enough leftovers for about 4 more meals even after sending 2 servings home with Jeremy.

I also ended up making the vegetable stock today as well as my started-off-as-minestrone-ended-up-more-a-vegetable soup. I didn’t have enough onion based on various stock recipes I’d found so I walked over to Trader Joe’s for a small bag of onions and quartered 3 of those, together with the half onion I had left over from the soup as the start of the stock.

Veggies Before Veggies After
Vegetables for stock, before roasting Vegetables for stock, after roasting

I then third-ed all of the remaining celery and carrots on the bias (to get more surface area exposed) and peeled and separated a half head of garlic and tossed it all together with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and stuck it in a 425 degree oven for about half an hour to get all kinds of good roasted flavors out of the veggies first.
Once they were ready I added just enough water to cover all of the vegetables to my big stock pot, added just about every dried herb I had in my pantry (rosemary, thyme, herbs de provance, bay leaves, random herb packet from Fresh Market, whole peppercorns and kosher salt) and got everything up to a simmer and let it go for an hour (more than that and, according to the internet, the vegetables get mushy and become bitter).

After the hour was up I made a quick ice bath in my kitchen sink (much to the chagrin of the cats, pouring ice into a stainless steel sink is very loud), strained the stock into a metal bowl and cooled things off as quickly as possible then divided the stock up into ice cube trays and a quart plastic container for later use (very tasty as base for rice or risotto), also added a bit of it to the minestrone as it was a bit low on broth after adding all of the vegetables and sausage. Overall, the cooking day was a success I think and all of the photos are posted on my Flickr page.

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first soup of the season, the prep

Well, this morning started as a cool, rainy early fall day so I had the thought to try and use my crock pot for the first time to make a meal (I’ve used it for appetizers at parties before but never for actually slow-cooking something). Of course, as is typical Williamsburg weather, by the time I got all of the ingredients for the dish and had things going the rain cleared out and now it’s 81 degrees and sunny, oh well, it should still be tasty anyway.

I looked around online a bit for a recipe that peaked my interest, was initially thinking of doing a pot roast or something of that nature involving a large piece of meat, so I Google-ed for “healthy crock pot recipe” and turned up few viable results so I went to the old standby of the Food Network website. That is my default place to go when looking for a recipe and I was not disappointed. Found a few “big piece of meat” recipes but the highest rated “slow-cooked” dish was Robin Miller’s Minestrone Soup. Reading through the comments it seemed like it was a very good and simple recipe that could take on a lot of variations, so I saved the recipe to my Instapaper account (very cool little online and iPhone/iPod Touch app that saves text versions of websites so you can access them offline later…although oddly the Food Network recipes never convert to plain text correctly and the ingredients list goes missing so I have to find the same recipe posted elsewhere), and headed to the store for all the ingredients.

So here’s the list of ingredients (with my various modifications inline):

(modified) Slow-Cooked Minestrone Soup

  • 3 cups reduced-sodium vegetable or chicken broth (already had chicken broth  from a stock-up Trader Joe’s trip yesterday, is 4 cups rather than 3 but, yay more leftovers)
  • 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes (bought diced tomatoes with garlic and basil already in it to add just a bit more flavor rather than plain diced tomatoes)
  • 1 (15-ounce) can white (cannellini or navy) beans, drained (got navy, couldn’t find cannellini)
  • 2 carrots, peeled and chopped (ended up using 3, just scrubbed not peeled)
  • 1 celery stalk, chopped (used 2 stalks of celery)
  • 1 cup onion, chopped (used half of a medium-sized white onion)
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried sage (didn’t have sage so put in a healthy dash of poultry seasoning)
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Salt and ground black pepper
  • 2 cups cooked ditalini pasta (skipped the pasta altogether as it had a tendency to get mushy, especially upon reheating, which I am planning to do to take the leftovers as lunch for tomorrow)
  • 1 medium zucchini, chopped (they only had small zucchini so I got 3 small ones plus two squash for some more veggie goodness)
  • 2 cups coarsely chopped fresh or frozen spinach, defrosted
  • 4 tablespoons grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

I also bought some Italian sausage to bring in a bit more protein and heft to the soup since I was skipping the pasta and added in 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped, figured rather than a simple mirepoix as the soup base I’d go for a bit more flavor with the garlic. I have a lot of carrots and celery left over as well as half an onion so I may attempt to make vegetable stock out of what’s left. A reviewer on Food Network recommended tossing in a Parmesan cheese rind which sounds like it could be very tasty and then you could skip adding any salt altogether.

So essentially you open various cans and chop and toss in everything except the zucchini, spinach and Parmesan cheese (and squash and sausage in my case) into the crock pot, stir it up a bit, and then leave it be for 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. About 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve add in the rest of the ingredients and let it finish cooking, removing the bay leaves before serving it up. Planning on serving it with some garlic bread and I think it will make a pretty good meal

Things have been going in the crock pot, on high (didn’t get it started early enough to do the “low and extra slow”, so opting for the high temp) for about 2 hours now, veggies are softening up nicely. Planning on cubing and cooking the sausage separately and adding it in at the end, also going to be browning/sauteing the squash and zucchini in the same pan the sausage browned in before putting it in just to get a bit of tasty carmelization flavor going on.

So, yeah I guess this is really “based on” the Food Network recipe rather than followed exactly, but that’s the beauty of soup right? lots and lots of variations.

I’ve been taking photos as I’ve gone along so stay tuned for photographic documentation and results!

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Adventures in Latvia – picture note

Many of you may already know via my twitter feed (@tb623) but all of my photos from the trip are now on my Flickr page:

In total, posted over 250 pictures. I tried to balance out between putting up lots of pictures so that everything we did was documented and to also put up pictures I thought turned out really well.

Jeremy also has his photos up, broken out in about the same way, on his Flickr page.

Hope you all enjoyed following my adventures in Latvia, it was a great couple of days. Until next time!

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Adventures in Latvia – days 5 and 6

The next morning we caught a cab out to the reception hall for the post-wedding breakfast and to say our goodbyes. There was still some alcohol left over so Dita proceeded to distribute the bottles to the remaining guests, I received a bottle of champagne which is now tightly packed in my luggage, Jim got both a bottle of vodka and a bottle of brandy.

Once we said our goodbyes and thank yous we got a ride back to our hotel from one of Laura’s friends we killed some time and went across the bridge to a little bar Jim had found that had great French fries with a very tasty dill and garlic dipping sauce. We caught our minibus to Riga promptly at 1555 and after a very bumpy ride down the A9 we were dropped off by a beautiful brick building in downtown Riga around 1930. Not sure where we were dropped off exactly we had seen signs for the train station so we walked ten minutes or so through the town market (which unfortunately was already closed for the night) and found an information office where we asked for directions to the hotel, turns out the hotel was right around the corner from thebuilding we were dropped off at, oh well. So we made our way back towards the hotel, checked in, then met back up at 2030 to find dinner. We walked into the Old Town, past some beautiful churches and winding streets and, after a bit of wandering, found one of the restaurants that had been recommended to us by the hotel.

It was in the basement of a building right across the street from the grand National Opera House and was definitely worth the walk. Jim, Jeremy and I had pints of local beer and we started the meal off with amazing garlic bread that Jim had recommended we get. It was different than anything I’d ever had before. It was a dark bread permeated with garlic then (my best guess is) deep fried so the outside was crisp but the interior was still soft then all of it was sprinkled with sea salt and served with a dill butter sauce. YUM. We were also given a bread basket with a traditional (according to our server) side of some kind of bacon and onion spread, also very good. Jim and I split a bowl of cream of potato soup with chantrelle mushrooms and smoked eel (tasty), and for my main course I had salmon with dill potatoes and white asparagus. I really love how they prepare potatoes here, they’re buttery but not oily and slightly crisp on the outside, need to figure out how to replicate that at home.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep and then met up for breakfast at 8 the next morning. At breakfast they had really tasty eggs that were a combination of an omlette and a fritatta, they were served in square slices and were golden brown on top and fluffy inside, very tasty and one more thing I’d like to figure out how to do at home.

We met up with our airport taxi at 9 and have been waiting for the Lufthansa desk to open for checkin (there aren’t any Lufthansa-specific desks, they just open at some point before a flight leaves). It looks like they may be opening the desk now (it’s 1130, our flight is at 1335) so I will finish up and see everyone back in the States!

It has been a wonderful trip, a beautiful wedding, and I’m so glad we were able to make it out. Next will be sorting through the 1500+ pictures I’ve taken 😉

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Adventures in Latvia – day 4 part 5

So we arrived at the reception place which appeared to be an old converted schoolhouse. It had three stories, two larger rooms on the top floor (one was the honeymoon suite for Robert and Laura) then more guest rooms on the second floor along with a small reception hall where we were for the evening that had a nice balcony/porch looking over the countryside, then the bottom floor was a reception area and the kitchen.

When the limo arrived we were all given rice and rose petals to toss at them as they went in (the little flower girls got a bit carried away with the throwing) then we all followed them upstairs for dinner.

There was soooo much food! All kinds of salads, cold cuts, bread and vegetables were waiting on the tables along with a cluster of bottles every five feet or so, one vodka, one brandy, one red wine, and one champagne. The tables were together in a U shape with the bridal party at the base of the U, Jeremy and I were seated close by in the corner of two tables with some of Laura’s English speaking friends. On e everyone was seated the hot food was brought out, breaded pork cutlets, potatoes with dill, a tasty brown sauce and some kind of braised cabbage that was quite tasty as well. Before we ate the champagne was opened and Dita made a toast to the couple (with Gunta translating). After everyone had their first serving of food, Pastor Joe and then Jim made nice toasts, then we ate some more and had our first dessert, a raspberry mousse/custard with a berry sauce.

After the meal Robert and Laura had their first dance with all the guests circled around them. Laura even taught Robert a simple waltz that morning for their dance. Those two are so in love, they were making googly eyes at each other the whole time. There was some informal dancing for a bit then all the girls got up and each danced with Robert (I tried to get him to do some swing dance steps but he said he didn’t know how to do them) then there was more hanging out and dancing for a bit.

Jeremy and I decided Robert and Jim should do a shot of vodka with usbut when we went to find Robert he was missing. He had been kidnapped by members of the bridal party and Laura had to sing a song fir his release. Once Robert was freed we toasted each other and congratulated the couple and had our shots.

Jeremy and I took pictures the whole time and ended up “chatting”, well pointing and using single words really, with the wedding photographer (a friend of Laura’s) discussing a trick Jeremy showed me of using a business card (or in our case placecards) as a reflector to soften using a flash indoors.

We had wedding cake (a four layer cake with lemon and raspberry filling) around midnight and the last thing was lighting two hearts of tealights and offering well wishes to the couple. We then got a ride home with Maria, Laura’s cousin who had done all if the flowers for the wedding, and her British husband and their two young daughters who were the flower girls. We were packed in the car and the youngest girl was sitting in, then fell asleep, on my lap, it was very cute. Once we got to the hotel around 1 we went straight to sleep after enjoying a great day of celebrating with Robert and Laura.

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Adventures in Latvia – day 4 part 4

So after passing the two gates we caravaned to the ruins of an old castle where Robert and Laura encountered their “exes”, a guy and a girl dressed very goofily who lamented their lost love and cried how they had broken their hearts. The two people who did it were hilarious but after they determined they could not break up the new couple they instead led them to the entrance of the ruins where a string was pulled across the entryway. Robert and Laura were each given five ribbons to tie to the string and with each ribbon they had to say something they loved aboutthe other person. Most of the things were sweet and expected but the last comment Robert made was that Laura “had really great breasts”, Jim, Jeremy and I just about died laughing. After all the ribbons were tied they were allowed in where they had to sit and write down “sins they had committed before they met”…Robert finished a few minutes after Laura 😉

After that the photographer took them to take pictures around the ruins, this was also the point when my camera started acting up. Every few shots I would get “Error 99, please turn off the camera and turn it back on or reinstall the battery”. I restart the camera, change the battery, change the memory card, take the lens off and clean the contacts, nothing seems to work, so I’m thinking oh great, my camera is going to die halfway through the wedding. Jeremy googled the error and it’s the default error the camera gives, so not much help. We finally try swapping lenses and that seemed to fix things, so apparently there is something amiss with my general purpose lens, will have to try and fix it when I get back to the States.

Anyway, once photos were done we drove to a nearby grocery store for the next task. There was a large crowd of people who blocked the way into the store, they sang a song to the wedding party and then Dita (the maid of honor) “paid them off” with chocolates as she had done with the other neighbors. Once they got into the store Robert and Laura were each given one Lat and they had to try and buy everything they would need for their first meal together. After much running around the store (and encountering another wedding party doing the same thing) they both succeeded, Robert spending 99 cents and Laura spending 98. Turns out the blockade had actually been for the other wedding party but in the spirit of the day they had stopped our wedding party as well. It was a very fun observation that everyone in the town seems to celebrate with the couple, people on the roads would honk as our caravan (the gold Lincoln in front, all the other cars behind with white ribbons on their antennas) drove past as well.

We then drove to a bridge where Laura and Robert had to each find a large rock that they then tossed into the water. We were near a meadow so the couple went and took pictures while we waited and waved at the passing cars when they honked their congratulations. One if the cars we saw approaching was the caravan from the other wedding, so to return the blockading favor from the grocery store a bunch of the girls stood in the middle of the road and blocked the other couple’s car. They got out and had to say something to each other (it was in Latvian so not sure what they said) and then they “paid off” our blockade with a small bottle of orange vodka (which we later learned was drunk by Robert, Jim and Dita in the limo on the way to the reception).

The next stop was at a crossroads between Riga and Liepaja. The bride and groom were each given a padlock which they locked together and then they took the keys and stood on opposite sides of the highway and tried to flag down a car. Robert flagged down a car first and (with Gunta translating) gave his key to the driver so that his lock could never be unlinked from Laura’s, and after a few minutes laura successfully did the same. Thought that was a very sweet tradition, and later in Liepaja we noticed one of the bridges had a bunch of chains and padlocks left on the railings and I think it is from this same tradition, perhaps with them throwing the keys in the river instead.

At this point the caravan left the limo to head to the reception but according to Jim they went to another bridge where they tossed in some of the flowers they had received from one of the gates and threw in the list of sins they had written earlier to mark a clean slate for their new life together.

Now, the reception….

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Adventures in Latvia – day 4 part 3

So once Robert and Laura got into the car (the same gold limo from earlier, found out it was a Lincoln Towncar) we were told we could either go straight to the reception place or follow the couple on their “wedding journey”. Happily our ride opted to go on the journey, so many of the guests walked down to the end of the church driveway where we encountered a barrier made out of flowers and a group of neighbors standing around waiting. When the couple drove up they stopped at this “Gate of Honor” and were instructed by one of the neighbor women that they had to solve a small puzzle before they could pass. It was two paper hearts that had been cut into jigsaw puzzle pieces. After about five minutes, and the whole bridal party’s input, they weren’t able to figure it out and the woman said “I will let you figure this out later” and they were moved to their next task: Laura had to braid the hair of one of the young neighbor girls while Robert chopped a birch log into firewood (thankfully Robert grew up in the country and knew how to chop firewood). Once that was complete they were presented with a small basket full of grain and mixed in were many small coins, the bride and maid of honor were pitted against the groom and best man to see who could find all of the change first…we’re not actually sure who won this one but in the end Jim ended up with a big handful of change with bits of grain all over that he carried around for the rest of the journey. After this they were allowed to pass and return to their car, although they only got about a dozen yards before they were met by another gate of flowers, singing neighbors, and an accordion player.

For this Gate Robert was given an even bigger log to chop for firewood while Laura had to prepare a meal, beginning by slicing cucumbers and tomatoes (keep in mind this is all in the middle of the church driveway). The log was so big (and the ax was a bit dull) that Robert wasn’t able to chop it for Laura to use to cook the “dinner” so Jim went to the car and grabbed the bundle of firewood from the previous gate to use in lieu of that log. Robert then proceeded to successfully make a fire for Laura to use to “cook” the small fish she was given. Once the meal was finished to the neighbors’ satisfaction they were allowed to head on to the main road.

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Adventures in Latvia – day 4 part 2

So once we made it out of Liepaja we drove through the countryside for twenty minutes or so before pulling into a driveway to a small Methodist chapel tucked in the woods (Laura and many of her friends are Methodist and worked at the nearby Wesley Camp during the summers). The church was all concrete and built in the early 1900s and had been seized by the Soviets and used as a gymnasium but when Latvia regained it’s independence the church reclaimed the building (if you could prove ownership of a building then you could reclaim it).

The inside was decorated with flowers and small saplings that Laura’s parents had cut the day before so it almost felt like you were outside. When the ceremony started Robert walked in followed by Jim and Laura’s little brother Marecks, then the bridesmaids, then Laura, escorted by Pastor Joe, an American who had worked with Laura for many years at the Wesley Camp (her stepfather was too shy to escort her). The ceremony was a pretty traditional Christian ceremony, with readings from the Bible which the Latvian pastor would say then Laura’s friend Gunta would translate to English. At the end was the traditional kiss and then everyone went outside and took pictures, not just the bridal party but each guest got to take photos with the bride and groom in front of the chapel. Then everyone began the journey to the reception hall, and that is the next post 🙂

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Adventures in Latvia- day 4 part 1

So initially the plan had been to go to Karosta today but once we got up we realized we really didn’t have enough time to get out there and back before we had to leave for the wedding at 1430. So we got up and had breakfast (which we found out was not included in our stay, 6 lats ($12) each, oh well) then went out towards the central market again, walked around the two churches but didn’t go in because both were having services. We then decided to try and make another non-rained-out trip to the beach. It’s really quite a short walk, 15 minutes or so and I’m glad we made the return trip, the beach is really beautiful. The sand is so soft it’s like walking on flour. So Jeremy and I walked up the beach to the breakwater, took some photos then made our way back to the hotel in a bit of a rush to change and me ready by 1430.

We were ready by 1415 and when we got down to the lobby Jim and Robert were still there waiting to get picked up. Robert had gotten ready at our hotel and their car was supposed to arrive at 1400 to take them to the courthouse for the first ceremony at 1430 (there is a private civil ceremony first, then the one at the chapel with all the family and friends). Our car came by at 1425 and their ride still wasn’t there, you could tell Robert was getting more and more anxious about being late, but just as we are pulling out a big old gold Cadillac limo with flowers all over it went by the hotel and as we turned the corner it turned around and pulled up in front of the hotel and picked up Jim and Robert so they are safely off to the first ceremony. We are waiting to meet up with a few more people to caravan to the church and then the fun begins!

…11 hours later we are back after a wonderful ceremony and reception. Will post details tomorrow.

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