The General Point.

Video: Breeding Half-Wild Cats : The New Yorker

Mon, 13 May 2013 08:25:45 -0700

Video: Breeding Half-Wild Cats : The New Yorker:

Love this. Well, at least, I love the look of the cats. I guess I’m not sure about the breeding issues.

Faking it: Jambalaya

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:55:21 -0800

Inspired by this recipe and the leftovers from a roasted chicken, last Wednesday I made “jambalaya.” It seemed appropriate, though maybe it would have been more appropriate on Tuesday? I’m not a Lent/Mardi Gras expert, though.

Anyway, I put “jambalaya” in quotes since a large part of it was winged, I used none of the extra meats beyond that leftover chicken and some chicken (!) andouille (the only kind of andouille at the “Valencia Farmers Market”/bodega near my house—not a choice I was pleased with). But goodness if it wasn’t delicious… and really easy! I will definitely be turning to this fake jambalaya more in the future. It’s pretty much on par with fried rice as far as a good, easy way to use up stuff in the fridge. Turns out Cajun* seasoning can really take you a long way.

Easy “jambalaya” for two (with seconds/leftovers)
(Inspired/based on Serious Eats’ Grilled Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya. Turns out, according to Wikipedia, this is a “white” jambalaya—which sounds faked/quote-mark-worthy to me—because the meat is cooked separately from the rice. Fair enough. I’ll take it on a weeknight.)

~1/3 a leftover cooked chicken (both white and dark meat), torn up into bite-size chunks
1 andouille sausage, sliced into bite-size pieces
1/2 can of diced/chopped tomatoes (or equivalent fresh tomatoes)
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
2 leeks (if you have endless leeks from your CSA, like me) or 1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced (~1 tbsp)
1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
1 tsp Louisiana style hot sauce
1/2 cup white rice
2 cups chicken broth/stock
1 bay leaf
Olive oil
Kosher salt and black pepper

Place stockpot/large saucepan over medium heat. Add olive oil and heat until shimmering, then add onions, pepper and celery. Cook until veggies are softened (7-10 minutes). Then add the garlic, a couple tsp of salt, 1 tsp black pepper, the hot sauce, and Cajun seasoning. Cook for two minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat grains with oil/spice/veggie mixture. Then add the chicken stock, bay leaf and tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then simmer, covered, until rice is fully cooked, 20-30 minutes. Add the chicken and sausage and cook for ~5 minutes until heated through. Serve with garlicky wilted greens (any kind will do).

*The recipe calls for Creole seasoning, but I have Cajun and that’s what I used. A quick Google search doesn’t clarify the difference, as it’s more focused on the difference between the two cuisines and not the spice blends you buy from the grocery aisle. :)

Farro & Herbs Salad

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:58:52 -0800

I’ve made this one a couple of times now: Heidi Swanson’s Farro & Herbs recipe. At my work, there is always at least one whole-grain salad at every cafe—bulgur, quinoa, farro, barley, spelt, blah blah blah. I love these damn salads, but have rarely tried to replicate them at home. This is at least in part because of the work involved—you have to cook the grains (not always the work of 15 minutes) AND sometimes cook the other stuff that goes in them. But this one is pretty easy, if you have the time to cook the farro itself. And you can play with it a bit to suit your taste. The only crucial piece of advice I have is that you really need time to cool the farro, too. I made this last weekend for my parents, and I was in a hurry, and the mozzarella melted a little bit due to the hot farro, which made it somewhat indistinguishable in texture from the creme fraiche and was just not as summery and pleasant.

Other modifications/notes:

Do use creme fraiche if you can find it (it was not available at my parents’ Vons. Surprise, I know). The sour cream/cream substitute recommended in the recipe was fine, but it doesn’t feel as classy or delicious.
Farro > barley.
Add tomatoes! I slice up cherry or grape tomatoes and throw them in. They add some nice fruity pop.
Arugula is also nice, for peppery-ness. Totally optional.

Farro & Herbs Salad

modified just slightly from 101 Cookbooks

2 cups uncooked semi-pearled farro
2 teaspoons fine grain sea salt
5 cups water
1/3 cup creme fraiche
2 teaspoons freshly squeeze lemon juice (plus zest)
2 teaspoons good-quality white wine vinegar
2 bunches / 1 oz fresh chives, minced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
scant teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
more salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 oz mozzarella or bocconcini, cut or torn into chunks
1/2 pint (~20?) cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

Cook the farro: put the farro, salt and water in a saucepan, bring to a boil, then simmer for ~25 minutes, or until the grains are cooked through, but not mushy. (Or follow the packaged instructions. Also, I’ve never had extra liquid at the end of this process, but apparently you should reserve it and add to the cooked farro and creme fraiche to thin out the sauce if needed.) Let it cool (it can be warm, but you don’t want it steaming).

In another bowl, combine the cooked farro with the creme fraiche. Stir in the lemon juice, zest, and vinegar (and add the cooking liquid if you have it). Stir in the herbs and mix well. Salt and pepper to taste, and then finally add the mozzarella and halved cherry tomatoes.

Crunchy, not Spicy Peanut Slaw

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:44:00 -0800

OK, here is a recipe that is entirely thanks to the CSA. Anything I make with cabbage is; they have been giving us a cabbage a week, and that’s a lot of cabbage. You can only garnish so much posole, you know what I’m saying? So, then: slaws.

Peattie loves any kind of peanut-flavored thing (peanut noodles, panang curry, peanut sauce) so this was his request and the result of another Google search. It was good, but I thought it needed more spice. I added maybe 1/3 a jalapeno, diced, and when I make this again (which I will be), I’d add more.

Crunchy Peanut Slaw

Barely modified from the Kitchn

1 medium head green cabbage, outer leaves removed
1 1/2 cups roasted, unsalted peanuts
1 bunch green onions, chopped (both white and green parts)
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 jalapeno
Salt and pepper

Dressing:

1/2 cup light oil, like canola
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar (or more, to taste)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon soy sauce (or more, to taste)

Shred the cabbage very finely, then toss with the peanuts in a large bowl. Add the scallions and cilantro and toss again, then season lightly with S&P. Whisk the dressing until emulsified, then taste and adjust to your own preferences of sweetness and saltiness. Toss with the cabbage. Eat with gusto.

Baked Buffalo Wings

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 16:22:35 -0800

Should I take pictures of my food? Should I absolutely avoid taking pictures of my food? I can’t decide; I’ve let laziness and accident dictate this decision.

Anyway, I’ve been cooking a lot more lately since we started getting a CSA box after Thanksgiving. So far, I’ve made no record of most of this cooking since it’s not so fancy (and there are no photos), but it occurs to me that if I ever want to make a recipe again, I can’t quite count on my Chrome history to find them again, as I have been (see: laziness and Chrome Sync). So I may start dumping them here. Maybe (see: laziness and past blog history).

That said, this particular recipe is not even remotely related to our CSA box, because it includes no vegetables and tons of butter. OK, not literally tons, but cups. Cups I tell you! (If you triple it.)

The motivation for this recipe actually begins at the Super Bowl two years ago, when my friend Elizabeth made hot wings. (It’s funny how the bad-for-you food you can buy at a Chili’s or a Domino’s or whatever sometimes seems like it must be “hard” to make; to be fair I suppose this food usually involves a deep fat fryer, and I don’t have one of those, but nevertheless…) I was totally blown away when E informed me that all you need to make buffalo wings is… hot sauce and butter.

…Holy shit.

So when it turned out the Niners were in the Super Bowl and therefore we were going to have a party, I obviously needed to make wings.

Since, again, I am lazy (or just a bad planner), a lot of the recipes I make are at least partially inspired by things I find on AllRecipes, About.com (what really is about.com, anyway? It seems like it should have been put away in an Internet closet years ago, and I can’t quite understand how it has not only survived but become something I end up landing on and using at least once a week), Epicurious or Simply Recipes. I won’t be crazy and call these recipes “platonic ideals” or anything but they do seem to be these extremely modifiable, basic recipes which you can do whatever you want with and they’ll still come out at the very least “not bad.” Also, the key to using random recipes you find on the Internet is most definitely the comments. The wings recipe has five stars but almost every review describes a modification; I’ve saved at least one coleslaw and one chutney from becoming a puckery mess by reading comments about how the recipe calls for twice the vinegar necessary.

In this case, all I did was listen to the wise people of the Internet and bake the wings pre-sauce, in only their flour coatings (after one hour of fridge time), for about 30 minutes and then dunk in sauce and bake again for 15.

The other lessons learned:

I should have done a slightly better job greasing the foil with spray—a couple wings baked themselves onto it because I’d just let the polka dots of spray stay where they lay instead of spreading it around with a paper towel or something.
Crystal hot sauce, while a New Orleans classic, may be too vinegar-based to work well as a wing sauce? It didn’t seem to stick too well to the wings post-dunk, though it had a nice, relatively subtle spice and…
I made extra sauce and spooned it on the finished wings before putting them out for people to eat. At the end, this meant there were semi-congealed ridges of spicy butter sauce on the platter, but I think it was worth that grossness. (Re my previous bullet point, I think the sauce solidified up a bit over time too, which I was happy about, even though it might not be technically awesome.)

Here is the recipe (modified from All Recipes):

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
20 chicken wings (per my calculations, this is about 3-3.5 lbs)
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup hot pepper sauce

1. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and lightly grease with cooking spray. Mix together the flour, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add the wings and massage ‘em around for a while until they’re well coated with the flour mixture. Place the wings onto the prepared baking sheet, and place into the refrigerator. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. After the wings have dried out in the fridge, bake them for 30-35 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, make the sauce: melt the butter, add the hot sauce, and whisk together.

4. Once the wings have baked for half an hour or so, dip the wings into the sauce using tongs, and place back on the baking sheet (flip them over so the other side can cook). Continue to bake until the chicken is no longer pink in the center, and crispy on the outside, about 15 minutes more.

5. If you want extra sauce (this may depend on the kind of hot sauce you bought and how well it’s sticking to your wings), then make maybe 1/4 as much as you made before, and spoon over the finished wings. Don’t forget the blue cheese dressing and celery of course. Celery burns calories when you eat it, remember?

Love this photo. There is another cool owl photo in the Nat Geo...

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:42:52 -0800

Love this photo. There is another cool owl photo in the Nat Geo photo contest photos here. And lots of other great ones… it’s a little gruesome, but the drowned sheep is pretty amazing. (National Geographic Photo Contest 2012, Part II - In Focus - The Atlantic)

Don't knock About.com

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 16:20:19 -0800

Last week I wanted to make roast root veggies, and I knew that I had turnips, sweet potatoes and carrots. So I googled “roast turnips sweet potatoes carrots” and clicked on the first link. Let me tell you, that was a solid (lazy) Google job. Easiest, best recipe ever. I threw in half an onion, some shallots, fennel and (this part I wouldn’t repeat) celery and the extra sweet roasted fennel and onions really made the recipe. Anyway, lesson learned, easy Internet recipes are not to be sneezed at.

Beer dinner - holiday 2012 edition

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:34:29 -0800

I wish I had a picture to go with this, but as you know, nearly all pictures of food, especially those taken with one’s phone, are unappetizing. So I’ll just have to talk about it. Friday night we did a beer tasting dinner with some friends. Each couple contributed two dishes and two matched beers. It was quite the dinner - it took about six hours to get through all six courses, and it was delicious too. Here’s what our menu ended up being:

Chicken Liver Pate - with caramelized shallots, whole grain mustard, crostini and cornichons. Paired with Scaldis Noel, and also a semi-vertical tasting of Sierra Nevada Celebration (2004, 2006, 2012).
Lentil soup with knockwurst and fennel. Paired with La Rulles La Grande 10.
Brussels sprouts salad - with dates, pomegranate seeds, feta, arugula and aged balsamic vinaigrette. Paired with Auburn Alehouse’s ZZ Hop.
Cajun spice-encrusted halibut - with dirty rice, collards and a spicy persimmon chutney. Paired with The Bruery’s Five Golden Rings.
Roast pork tenderloin - with pine nut spaetzle and a blackberry reduction. Paired with four different beers: Aventinus, Optimator, another bock of some kind and a fourth I can’t remember (not for the reasons you think!)
Interlude - another semi-vertical tasting, this time of Anchor’s Our Special Ale (2001, 2005, 2007, 2009).
Rice pudding. Paired with a New Glarus Wisconsin Cherry and a kriek of some kind.

Like, whoa, right? Who are these people?

I was super proud of how our dishes - the salad and the halibut - and their matched beers turned out, since we took a total shot in the dark across the board. The fish dish was super spicy (I would de-spice it a little next time) and went really well with the sweet holiday beer, and the fruitiness of the IPA was a nice compliment to the spicy/bitter/sweet salad stuff. I had sort of developed a fixation on cooking with persimmon, and I wasn’t sure if it would go well with the other ingredients, but it was really yummy (FYI I cut the vinegar from the recipe, above, in half). It would be really good with pork, or on a sandwich. I was also pleasantly surprised by the dirty rice. I hadn’t made it before, and I was slightly intimidated by the fact that it called for chicken livers. (Chicken livers, btw, are SO CHEAP. $2.30 for .77 lbs. The only problem is I only used about 1/3 of them, so now I need to buy more and replicate the chicken liver pate from this same dinner.) But the rice was so easy to make, so flavorful, and so good leftover with fried egg on top…

As for the title of this post? I’m just hoping this is the first edition of many…

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 reviewed by Twilight virgins. - Slate Magazine

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 11:00:16 -0800

Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 reviewed by Twilight virgins. - Slate Magazine:

This was funny. Major spoilers for those of you who have not seen the final movie. Also, I was impressed that these dudes a) perceived so many details of the “mythology” (including that it was “haphazard and a bit half-assed”) from just one movie and b) were so open to seeing the movie and actually kind of enjoyed it.

Tasting Table National: Tasting Table's Best Cocktails of 2012

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 13:29:48 -0800

Tasting Table National: Tasting Table's Best Cocktails of 2012:

To Do.

Two interesting Atlantic articles on campaigning and technology

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:12:27 -0800

First, “Did Facebook GIve Democrats the Upper Hand?” Turns out those “So and so and so and so have voted. Are you a voter?” things on Election Day were actually part of a social experiment.

Second, “When the Nerds Go Marching in.” This is one of those articles that I read and think, this is a sign that things are seriously changing in the world. Just the differences from 2008 to 2012 are so great… imagine what technology in campaigns will look like in 2020, or even in 2016. (I think this is similar to my feelings about how we access video content, specifically TV shows, today versus even just two years ago.)

Ideal bookshelves, illustrated

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 10:15:37 -0700

Ideal bookshelves, illustrated:

believermag:

Miranda July’s ideal bookshelf (top) and Judd Apatow’s ideal bookshelf (below).

A wonderful new book called My Ideal Bookshelf debuts November 13th. Writer and Paris Review editor Thessaly LaForce and artist Jane Mount interviewed their favourite creators about what few books would be…

A Profile of London by A.A. Gill - NYTimes.com

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 17:46:49 -0700

A Profile of London by A.A. Gill - NYTimes.com:

I loved this. I don’t know where I found it.

Recipe for awesome: Find a truly hot day in San Francisco (note:...

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:03:45 -0700

Recipe for awesome:

Find a truly hot day in San Francisco (note: even your most gourmet grocery store will probably not have this in stock.)
Purchase a bottle of tequila. Make it a decent one, but don’t bother being a snob about it or anything.
Find a Mexican market with a deal on limes. 12/$1 is good, 10/$1 is still essentially free. The (non-Mexican) girl at the market might over-yet-undercharge you at first, with 20 for $1.50 when she thinks the rate is 15/$1.
Make a batch of these in an old take-out container.
In addition to lime, rub a sliced serrano pepper around the rim before you salt it.
Repeat.

Things I make more than once: warm quinoa/spinach/shiitake salad

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 10:48:04 -0700

There are really only two cookbooks I consistently refer to: How to Cook Everything and Great Food Fast, the first of the cookbooks from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine/show/empire. The former is a reference for when I kind of already know what I want to make but need to know proportions (e.g., how much egg/milk should I use in quiche? what’s a good recipe for buttermilk pancakes?). The latter is when I want to make something but I don’t know what yet.

(Let’s set aside the fact that I have about 15 other cookbooks and literally hundreds of clipped/emailed/pinned recipes that I rarely look at.)

I’ve made some “bad” recipes from the Martha book, but they are few and far between, especially when you consider how many recipes from it I’ve actually made. And the truest testament to its quality is the fact that I’ve made some of its recipes multiple times, to the point where they’ve actually entered my repertoire and I can pretty much improvise them anytime (not to mention wing the shopping list at the store). This is one of those recipes. It’s so, so easy and it includes stuff I already have at home or buy all the time: feta cheese, spinach (standard salad ingredients in our house), quinoa, shiitakes, oil, vinegar, salt. See? SO EASY. I don’t adapt it at all, it’s that easy, though the last time I made it I just drizzled the mushrooms with oil and vinegar instead of making a dressing, since when I make the dressing in bulk I feel like it uses up a ton of oil and vinegar and I am also usually not making the full recipe anyway so there’s leftovers. And I also squeezed some lemon juice onto it last time to give it a little more acid.

So without further ado, a link to the recipe! (Like I said, I don’t adapt this at all, so I’m not going to piss off Martha by reprinting it for no reason.)

I have served this with grilled steak, and with salmon. If you want bonus points, you could make salmon with lemon relish, another of my faves from the same cookbook.

as good as was promised Hamlet the Mini Pig - Goes Down the...

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 19:55:28 -0700

as good as was promised

Hamlet the Mini Pig - Goes Down the Stairs (by PiggyGirl2010)

you know a style when you see it, and then you see this and you...

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:39:47 -0700

you know a style when you see it, and then you see this and you really see it

insert joke about how this would motivate you to write short,...

Thu, 31 May 2012 15:47:43 -0700

insert joke about how this would motivate you to write short, snappy sentences here

(Ernest Hemingway’s standing desk)

"One solution would be to accept the productivity increases, shorten the workweek and share the..."

Wed, 30 May 2012 17:30:57 -0700

“One solution would be to accept the productivity increases, shorten the workweek and share the available work. Such proposals — familiar since the 1930s — are now enjoying something of a revival in the face of continuing recession. The New Economics Foundation, a British think tank, proposes a 21-hour workweek.”

- Let’s Be Less Productive - NYTimes.com

This sounds good. Make it happen.

For posterity. Ryan Gosling masks at your front door. Surprise,...

Tue, 29 May 2012 13:36:57 -0700

For posterity.

Ryan Gosling masks at your front door. Surprise, you’re going to Hawaii! In a giant red van to the airport, with donuts from the VA hospital and five of your friends (plus one as chauffeur). After security, where the TSA laughs at the contents of your friends’ suitcases, add another friend and hop on the plane, with Tooth Fairy 2 and a difficult airline magazine crossword and a complimentary edamame breakfast burrito. And beef jerky. Fill out a form for the department of agriculture. On the other end, meet your sister in the confusing Honolulu airport and take two cabs to a tiki bar hidden in an industrial dock zone, suitcases in tow. Order a round of mai tais and chef’s salads. Take two more cabs on a circuitous route to your condo, on the 38th floor, where the wind whistles under the eaves on the lanai day and night. Change for the beach immediately. Find out that bringing three bathing suits was a good plan because you need to loan them. Apply sunscreen. Walk to the beach. Jump in the ocean. This place looks like Disneyland. Only not. At one of the many weird tourist supply stores/chain bodegas, buy beer (and for one of you, a straw fedora). Drink one in the shower at the condo. Get dressed up and made up (trial run for wedding?). Two more cabs, to a street that looks abandoned, like the wild west perhaps, if the wild west had drug dealers, and a bar that sounds like it’s in a hotel but in fact is just a bar, with an art gallery and a DJ and a patio and a semi-pop-up restaurant. Order a lot of things. ”I made it all,” says the barely-adult “chef.” Play a guessing game, which is kind of a way of reshashing old gossip, in a good way. Also, your fiance is very sweet, and your dad buys you a round of drinks remotely. Cab back. Get lost amidst the designer stores. This place looks like Downtown Disney, only not. Play dirty mad libs. Saturday, wake up at sunrise, even if you don’t want to. Still, traveling west is better than traveling east. Go find breakfast (turkey, avocado and sprout sandwiches at 11am, which feels like 2pm. No mayo for Belton). Sign for wine basket delivery from Kenya (thanks Anna). Apply sunscreen. Try to catch a bus - the 24? the 22? not the 13? the 23? - to a crater. Instead take a crazy cab with “Kevin,” who is eating lunch, and possibly swerving, and possibly insane. Or just drunk. Certainly he is hitting on Ace. Walk up a cliff. Take photos in the wind. This place looks like California, only not. Like Africa, only not. Walk back down. Eat snow cones and barbecue potato chips. Birdhoppers. Keep walking. A ways. This place looks like Malibu, only not. Crave root beer. Hot dogs. Dodgy sushi. Reapply sunscreen. Buy more beer, sit next to police station, don’t drink the beer (yet). Jump in the ocean. Swim out farther. Dry off in the sun. At the Coco Cove store, Sara makes a covert purchase. Back at the condo, another shower beer. “He’s 36.” Another sundress. A round of hurricanes. Sisters take shots from suspicious glasses. A round of champagne maybe too? A bit of hazing. A bite of coconut pudding, with shaved chocolate strategically placed (there’s that Coco Cove purchase). A line for udon. Kamaage, kake, bukkake, or put an egg on it. Buy too much tempura. Avoid the bar with the “schoolgirl specials.” Instead, find one in a mini mall with a “big girl glass” and a fenced-off outdoor area and a DJ who plays “Poison” and “California Love.” And a guy you nickname Lenny. And a blue cowboy and a couple making out on a trash can. On the way back to the condo, walk in the street. Continue the 90s dance party via laptop as long as you can. The next day, find relief with Dawson’s Creek streamed on Netflix, Jamba Juice and iced coffee. Bid farewell to your sister(s). Apply sunscreen. Head to brunch, slowly. Order wasabi bloody marys, which taste like regular bloody marys. Marvel at taro buns. Birdhopper. Lose Ace for a while. Watch a very, very drunk girl try to get up off the sand, assisted by slightly less drunk people. Rent an umbrella. F, C or M - teen television edition. You always fuck Chuck Bass. You always chuck Ted Mosby. You always marry Matt Saracen. “I’m from Queens, New York.” Jump in the ocean. Stay in as long as you can. Dry off until it starts raining. Go to the Sheraton bar. Order the big drink with the umbrella in it (thanks Elizabeth) and the edamame and the kim chi fried rice, which needs more kim chi in it. ”She’s 42.” Wonder about how frequently cougars hit on the waiter, and the growing adult baby trend, which makes you giggle your face off. At the condo again, watch “Veronica Mars” clips on YouTube. Another round of drinks. The second half of “Dawson’s Creek” pilot. Ryan Gosling’s birthday is November 12. White jeans - roll up or scrunch up? At a sushi restaurant in a mall, observe the slowest-moving hostesses and bus boys in the world. “I’ve haven’t talked about *** this long in a while… possibly ever.” Your top three foods are popcorn, brussels sprouts and artichokes. Skip the karaoke bar, regretfully. A last round of drinks, some sleepiness. Episode 2 of “Dawson’s” on the iPad. Poet’s vest! Last day, wake up to the sunrise, for real this time. Drink a beer - there are still 10 in the fridge. Clean up. Lip Venom was forgotten in the bathroom; make everyone put it on. Various bachelorette accessories end up in your bag. Another beer - there will be two leftover, but two is better than 10. Lock up, walk to Eggs n Things. It is too crowded. Go to the cafe next door and order the $10-12 waffle-egg-bacon combo. Apply sunscreen. Drink iced coffee. Birdhopper. Some of you eat Leslie Knope-sized heap of whipped cream. Call a cab. Talk to the charming cab driver. “You’re a lucky girl.” Computer failure at the Hawaiian kiosks. Stand in the service line. Get helped by Michele, who is a doer. Stand in the security line. The TSA laughs now at your suitcases. Power walk to the gate. This plane is better than the first plane, except for all the delays and screaming babies. Share all of your magazines. Listen to the pilot overshare about the computer problems. Take off, at last. Order a rum and pineapple. Get the meal upgrade, which includes another rum and pineapple. Buy Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 1 on your individual TVs. It is better than you remember. “I am so drunk. I’m certain.” Is there a doctor on the plane? There are dozens, including two of you. Land, at last. Two husbands and a fiance and a dog pick you up in two cars. It is hard to wake up and go to work the next day. Write it all down so you can remember; you’re sure you already forgot a lot. Your friends are awesome.