A Book Review: My Berlin Kitchen

I've tried to get back to reading more this year. I used to read a book or two a month when we lived in Connecticut. Commuting by train is helpful for that. Once we moved to Houston and my commute is a fifteen minute drive I stopped reading as much. It frustrated me because I felt myself changing. I didn't feel as smart, I guess. So I got a library card and started reading again and I've felt so much better about myself. So, now I'd like to keep track of what I read and get a few thoughts down here.

My latest read was My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes) by Luisa Weiss. I loved it! I enjoy reading about lives in other places so that was great. What made it interesting was Luisa being able to share her experiences in a way that was relatable to an American even though she had such a multi-cultural upbringing. It also didn't hurt that she likes to cook. And that she's experienced kitchen failures. There was an incident with a bit of raw cake baked under meringue and as I was reading it I knew what the problem was. It reasured my insticts. The fact that I knew what the problem was befor Luisa made me feel so smart and so capable. It also made me want to try that recipe. And her one for a Christmas cake!

I very much enjoyed this book. It was hard to put it down at the end of lunch everyday. It also inspired to me to enjoy my own cooking and my own writing. I was left feeling a need to express my creativity that I think I had brushed a side recently. I'm very glad that I've read and now I get to enjoy Luisa's blog, The Wednesday Chef, and I don't have to worry about spoilers!

 

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Up and Down and Up Again

This week has felt like a bit of a roller-coaster. I'm not sure if it was because Mark was away for the week or because of the excitement of starting a new role at work but it's been a week.

I had planned out my menu for the week and was so excited about coming and cooking each night, which never happens while Mark's away. I stopped at the store on my way home from work on Monday and grabbed everything I needed for the week. I came home and made this beautiful spinach and tortellini soup.

I haven't had spinach and tortellini soup in years! It used to be the go to dinner on an exhausting day when I was growing up. I hadn't had it with onion or diced tomatoes added and they only improved it. Living in Houston makes me miss the changing seasons so I was desperate to just feel a little be cozy being the end of October and everything. So that was dinner for two nights and breakfast one morning. Things were good.

Then Thursday came around and at the end of the day I just felt tired. I ate ramen. And didn't add anything special to it or anything. It was just a lazy dinner. Friday morning seemed hard. Doyle and I had a fight before work, I had NOTHING to wear. Like seriously. Not being funny. Ok, I had something. But I didn't want to wear it. I made it work. But by then I was late for work and of course hit every red light between home and the office. I was worried that I'd be really grumpy when I got home which I didn't want since Mark was going to be back. I went to Whole Foods at the end of the day and bought some spicy Italian sausages and made another amazing soup. I think it had healing powers.

Tonight I'm going to try my hand at Pumpkin Gnocchi. I'll either get an amazing blog post out of it or I'll be spending the night cursing and drinking wine and we'll never speak of the gnocchi ever again.

 

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One month ago today...

Mark and I got married! Everyone kept telling me that it goes by so fast and I just kept saying ok. It goes by SO FAST. The day felt slow up until I started my walk up the aisle. It was so surreal. I had to tell myself that I was at my wedding and that it was all real.

I had the best time. The wedding felt very "us." It was exactly the way I wanted it to be. It wasn't perfect but it was as perfect as one could expect after planning the whole thing over email from across an ocean. I was quite pleased with the result since in the end I got to marry Mark.

Now we're one month in. Life hasn't stopped. Things are getting more exciting. It's just nice to know we have each other for this whole life ahead of us. Very exciting.

 

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Cheers!

Saturday night was our last date night before the wedding. It was perfect even though the taxi arrived ten minutes early which meant that how's quickly I slapped some makeup on. I'm not sure if that amount of time counts as high maintenance or not.

 

Dinner was at Hearsay Gastro Lounge. Neither of us had been before. It's all exposed brick and a huge chandelier. It was perfect. The food was good, too! And the bottle of champagne didn't hurt either.

 

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Been a bit

I got a fun new keyboard for my iPad so I thought since typing is easier now I should get back to blogging. I've been reading a lot of good blogs lately and I've felt inspired.

We've been in Houston for over a year now. When we first got here I thought we'd do touristy stuff all the time. Every weekend would be an adventure. That hasn't happened so much. Once I started working I just wanted to relax on Saturdays and then Sunday becomes grocery day and there goes the weekend. I'd like to change that. I want to come up with a list of restaurants to try and places to visit. And then I can blog about it.

I don't know if it's because September's coming (and I feel renewed in the Fall) or what but I'm just more excited about life right now. I'm reading more which I haven't done as much of since I stopped taking a train to work and I'm excited about knitting again. I've started practicing yoga once a week. Things are just good right now and I'm just going to embrace that.

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I did it!

I finally ran my first 5k! It's been on my life's to-do list for ages and today I was able to cross it off. And it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I was super nervous before the race started but once I got going I was fine. And I was surprised at how good I felt when I got to the first mile. At mile 2 a woman was running next to me and let out a "woo" which was nice because I was starting to get a bit tired and that gave me a bit of a jolt. When I got closer to the end I could see Mark and he was shouting and that got me all excited. It also made me a bit emotional because I couldn't believe I was running a 5k. It's always just been something I said I wanted to try so to realize that I was actually doing it was crazy and amazing. I tried to remember everything Brielly told me as I ran across the finish line and grabbed my medal. Jeanette's early morning text message helped, too.

Now onto he next thing on my list. Maybe tour Italy or learn to drive a manual car.

 

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Formula 1 and San Antonio

So, I'm not a huge fan of car racing. Whenever Mark watches Formula 1 on TV I get a pretty good nap in but when we found out that we were moving to Houston that meant we be a few hours away from Austin and the United States Grand Prix. So I went. It was an experience.

The event is three days long. We weren't able to go on the first day since it was a Friday and we work but we left Houston Friday night so we could be there bright and early on Saturday. The thing is there weren't any hotel rooms in Austin when started looking in late Spring. We stayed about 45 minutes away in New Braunfels, which I hope we get to explore more of at some point.

Saturday was not the best day of my life. I spent an hour in line waiting to buy a $15 set cushion. Things almost got violent. But Saturday night was great! We went to San Antonio and had dinner on the Riverwalk, saw the Alamo, I wore my cowboy boots!

Sunday was race day. They did a race of just Porsches and another of just Ferraris. Those were very exciting to watch! For lunch there was a truck selling sausage and peppers. The sausage was huge! We split one and that was plenty. Most bought one for themselves and I don't know how you eat that much and still function, I would've needed a nap!

It was a great weekend. I'd do it again (now that I have my cushion). And November in Texas is a really ice time of year to sit outside all day!

 

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