The Birthday Girl

As is customary for a roommate birthday, I have dedicated a post to MG, who is 25 today!

It has now officially been a year since MG, KS and I moved in together, and about a year and a half since MG and I were talking after Community Group one Thursday night and she introduced the idea of us living together.

I remember someone once asking us about the worst roommate argument we've had, and we all looked at each other like "Argue? We don't argue." It's true- maybe it's the fact that we each have our own bathroom, maybe it's that we all agree on the thermostat or pizza toppings or maybe three really IS a magic number- I don't know.

I'm glad that whatever we have, works.

Once again, I have to note that there are funny things you'll never know about people until you live with them. MG practices what she has coined "preemptive pepperminting"- grabbing a handful of mints upon entrance to a restaurant and eating them on the way to the table. She does not own a pair of plain white socks- they are all colored and patterned and there are dozens of them. MG loves anything she can buy in bulk and will also buy anything Cath Kidston puts her name on.

Every night when we are sitting around, chatting and winding down from the day, all 65 pounds of Ruby will climb on MG's lap and cuddle like a child. MG is the sun around which Ruby's whole existence rotates.

It frustrates you, MG, that I will never battle you over riding shot-gun, when in fact I prefer the back seat because it relieves me of navigational duties, it means I don't have to crane my neck around to talk to anyone and it allows me to smile conspiratorially at the drive in the rear-view mirror.

I'm thankful to have a friend like you who seems to be always on my wavelength. It's good to know that someone else in the world who understands what it is to love friends, love family and still crave time alone. We took the childhood lesson of not talking to strangers to a whole new level.

I love that literature has had the influence on your life that it has had on mine- that we can talk about anything from our favorite childhood books to our recent favorites. I think that both of us reading The Fountainhead even originated from taking a walk together and saying how grating it is when people are discussing a classic we haven't read.

Music, on the other hand, neither of us know anything about.

I hope that the teenagers in your classroom will one day overcome their apathy and understand how much they can learn from you. You are so darn smart.

I have a tendency of saying: "Surely not..." and you always cut me off with: "Don't call me Shirley." It never fails.

Should you ever end up living in a foreign country for a while, you can bet that KS and I will be your first visitors.

I am thankful for that semester we spent saving each other seats in freshman history, even though we were both too reserved and serious to actually talk to each other. It could seem like an odd beginning to great friendship, but I think for us it's pretty fitting.

Happy 25th birthday to someone who likes to fly under the radar. You give and serve and love in a real and genuine way, but your faith is what I admire most about you.

Hugging you will always be weird.

I love you, MG!

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one!'

-C.S. Lewis

Secondary Comfort

It's just a fact of life you learn when you are a woman, that certain clothes were never meant to have a functional purpose.

When you were little, it was probably the tights your mother insisted you wear to Sunday School at church every week.

As you got older, you realized that while high-heels make for a more visually-appealing look, several hours in them at the expense of foot-circulation is a high price indeed.

I bought a printed sundress recently and loved the fit of it in the dressing room. Strapless, structured without being formal, interesting print, fitted from the top to the waist, then allowing for more movement and give from the waist down to where it hit right above the knees.

I put the dress in my closet where I left it to wait for warmer summer temperatures.

The other night I was at dinner with my parents, my mom's sisters and their families. My cousin KH and I were at one end of the table eating guacamole and talking about how irresponsible we feel for shopping when we have clothes with tags still on them, just sitting in our closet.

Then MK and I were emailing and she said that she needs a new hobby "other than, you know, spending money." And, again, I found myself agreeing.

So as I was getting ready for work yesterday morning I resolved to take a fresh look at my clothes and wear one of my recent purchases from the past few months.

I spotted the strapless dress and threw it on for work with a black cardigan and gray flats, then congratulated myself on a cute, work-appropriate outfit.

I wasn't paying attention to the binding nature of the top of the dress while driving, but after sitting at my desk and work, I became acutely aware of the boning in the top of the dress.

You see, this dress was not meant for the practical, everyday occurence of sitting down.

It's meant for a bridal shower, a night out with friends on a patio perhaps, or window shopping in a beachy locale. The boning makes you stand up straight and I would imagine it looks good with heels, therefore gives you a more flattering overall look.

It was not, however, intended for someone to wear while working on spreadsheets, sitting at a desk for 7-8 hours a day.

Hencefore I'll prefer my daytime, non-event dresses to be boneless.

The dress must not hang on the body but follow its lines. It must accompany its wearer and when a woman smiles the dress must smile with her.
-Madeleine Vionnet

Team Players

I made pulled pork for dinner on Sunday night.

It was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I don't do a lot of slow-cooking for the sake of timing, but on a Sunday afternoon, it's completely doable.

Unfortunately for everyone else, the only photo I took was of the noble clean-up efforts by Ruby. MG, KS, BF and Molly's boyfriend Z ate the entire 2 1/2 pounds of it. Oh and myself, I may have helped a bit too.

With peach cobbler made by MG and homemade vanilla Blue Bell for dessert.

I plan to make it again soon, since it was so easy and delicious. I'll be sure to get photographic evidence and post the recipe since it would seem downright unfair to keep it to myself.

BF also had us over Friday night for a cookout- sliders with all sorts of burger-topping options and anything you could ever want to eat with burgers, so we were really just returning the favor.

I adore nights like those- I wish I could make them happen more during the week days, when a home-cooked meal is exactly what everyone needs.

Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing.
-Walt Kelly

The Tarzan

image

There was a sale that started at Neiman Marcus today.

If a panic just set in and you're screaming: "Why did no one tell me?" please just know that I did it for your own good. Believe me.

KS has a radar unlike anything you've ever seen as to the goings-on at Neiman's. She already had a few things on hold a few days ago, when MG popped in last night with two dresses- one to keep and wear to a graduation she is speaking at for an elementary school that is uber old-school and requires a demure, non-pants-wearing dress code for their teachers. Oh and she's supposed to return the other one.

Right. Mhmm. I know that game- I've played it well.

So anyway, while she was trying the dresses on to get our votes, KS filled me in on the sale: today all of the new Neiman's merchandise would be 40% off. Shop early and find a well-stocked store waiting to take your money. Shop late and they'll have nothing left.

Equally frightening prospects.

I looked online and found that one Ali Ro dress I had spied recently fell under the umbrella of this sale. It's the only thing I allowed myself to consider purchasing because I knew if I started in with the Rebecca Taylor dresses and the Tory Burch sandals, then that would be the end of my bank account. The problem with ordering it online was that I hadn't tried it on- so I made my way to a nearby Neiman's location during my lunch hour.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not sure which, they did not have the dress, period. When I glanced back at the online listing in my phone, I noticed that they were out of all but one size online and it wasn't mine.

Did you hear that noise? That was a sigh of relief from my checking account. It will live to see another day.

While scanning the racks for my elusive dress, I noticed one-shoulder dresses everywhere, or as my friend AS called them in high school: "Tarzan dresses." I would by no means make an entire wardrobe out of them, but I think one could make a nice addition to my closet this summer.

Particularly there is pink dress one I keep seeing on SJP in the SATC 2 trailers, which I believe to be the Halston Heritage dress I found on Net-A-Porter, below...

image

This one is aiming a bit high for me but I would love a more casual version of a one-shouldered look.

Particularly with the long sleeve too. It might not go so well with the backyard cookout I'm attending this weekend... but I never really need an excuse to wear a dress, anyhow.

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late?

Nobody.

-J.D. Salinger, Catcher in the Rye

Pairings

I was going through my photos from the past few months and realized that most of the ones I take I don't end up posting.

Possibly because I'm not too quick with the camera-to-laptop upload. There is some bureaucracy that involves me not always being able to find that particular USB cord.

Anyway,

I found a few photos of twosomes that I particularly liked, so I wanted to share...

In an old house in Paris

That was covered with vines

Lived twelve little girls

In two straight lines.

-Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans

From Scratch

I've been a bit uncreative recently. I haven't felt much like reading novels, which I typically love, and I feel uninspired to write. I'm not sure if the two are connected.

I've been writing this blog for almost two years now, and a lot has changed since I began. I am now almost two years beyond my time living in New York City. I started blogging in the first place on The New(York)Comer because I moved to NYC with my friends AV and KR and I wanted to chronicle our journey together. I got a huge kick out of writing about all our crazy stories and hearing from random people who had been reading it.

About a year later, I moved back to Texas.

I wanted to keep blogging, so I started writing The Manhattan Transfer to talk about the next step in my journey: transitioning to life in Dallas. While New York was an invaluable and humbling experience for me that I will always view as important to my spiritual, personal and career development, I've grown up a lot since then and a lot has changed.

Half of THIS blog (if we're talking about humbling experiences) was written while I was still living under my parents roof in the suburbs after moving back from NYC. I'm now coming up on the one-year anniversary of living in Dallas with KS and MG and I feel more established here. I had never lived IN Dallas until I moved here last May. If I'm going to have a blog, I think it should reflect where I am in my life.

I mean, for the love, I was wishing friends MY AGE a happy Mother's Day today.

You know?

There are a lot of things I enjoy doing, but writing is at the top of the list. It really is. Rather than frustrate myself over how to re-mold this blog, I think I prefer to archive it and start afresh. The New(York)Comer reflected what it was: my friends and I as newcomers to New York, right out of college. The Manhattan Transfer reflects what it has been as well: transitioning my life to Dallas.

Now I have to figure out what exactly I want my next blog phase to look like.

I wish I could whip up a new blog name and design as easily as I can put dinner on the table (that was a bit self-congratulatory, I grant you), but alas, I confess I'm a bit incompetent when it comes to web-design. Hopefully there are some web designers who confess they don't know a shallot from a spring onion or how to use a pastry bag, and then I'll feel better about myself.

I'll cook you dinner- you design my blog. If only starting from scratch could be so easy, right?

I'll keep y'all posted on my progress and keep writing here in the meantime.

After all, the show must go on.

When you're finished changing, you're finished.

-Benjamin Franklin

"I'm not really a dessert person"

One great thing about Hawaii is that there are no snakes there. No snakes! The largest land predator in Hawaii is the human.

Strange as it may sound, this helped me sleep at night.

Once you venture out into the ocean though, it's a different story. People would say things like "Oh I don't like that beach, too many sharks." And I would be calm on the outside but thinking: "Too many sharks? I'm inclined to think ONE is too many."

Needless to say, I have what I consider to be a healthy fear of the ocean. I respectfully keep my distance, admiring the lovely coastline, lying in the powdery sand and occasionally dipping my feet in when I need to cool off.

It's probably a shame that I am seafood-averse, since it's everywhere in Hawaii. Probably because it's an island.

Ignore my obvious commentary.

Anyway, even someone with a limited palate, such as myself, can eat amazing food in Oahu.

After picking me up from the airport with a lovely yellow lei (sometimes things are just like the movies), ND took me to the only five-star hotel on the island for dinner at The Halekulani.

Everything in Hawaii is set up to make you feel like you are outdoors, which with their weather, is quite lovely. We ate at House Without a Key and I had delicious roasted chicken with cilantro butter (combining two of my favorite ingredients) a green salad with balsamic and asparagus.

ND, meanwhile, had eaten sushi right after school and ordered only drinks and dessert. The dessert? Coconut cake. I'll caveat this by saying that I'm not really a dessert person. I like it, but day to day I live without it**.

I can honestly say that now, in my post-coconut-cake existence, that I don't want to live in a world that does not include that most heavenly of cakes. It was that good. That perfect, even. The cake was light and sweet, the frosting was creamy and there were raspberries involved. We went back to the same place on Saturday night and ordered different entrees but split another because we could not pass it up.

Another restaurant ND raved over and took me too was an authentic Greek place called The Olive Tree. Their hummus and pita could have filled me up for the evening but the chicken souvlaki won me over as well. I was sorry not to have KS with me to try the house-made baklava at the end of the meal, since it was easily the best I've ever had.

Since it got windy and chilly at night, we also ventured out one night with ND's roommate E for some Vietnamese pho. I had never tried it and for something that looked like a broth-y soup, it was actually very filling. I put some sriracha with it as well, which made me want to learn to cook more Asian dishes.

As is well-documented on this blog, I am also coffee drinker. No, that's being too polite to myself: I am a coffee snob. No one makes better coffee than me and my N'espresso machine. Away from my beloved coffeemaker for an entire week, I knew I would have to make due. What I did not anticipate was liking the local, Kona blend coffee so much. I'm used to one cup of coffee a day and so I got a little amped up on refills a few days when we were having long breakfasts or brunches.

The Saturday morning I was there was a treat because we went and visited the big local farmer's market. I just went to a farmer's market in my hometown a few weeks ago with my mom, so I was expecting something small-scale and charming with a few merchants.

Not at all.

The farmer's market was huge and bustling and a culinary adventure completely on its own. I should have known I would like it after an unassuming table with an espresso machine at the entrance sold me a truly fantastic latte. We walked from table to table to see and smell all manners of fresh fruits, flowers and vegetables; curries, eggs benedict, sushi, pizza, snocones, before settling on slices of pizza that I kept seeing everywhere: a layer of pesto topped with yellow and red tomatoes, fresh mozzerella and chopped basil. For breakfast, no less.

I followed that up with purchasing a fresh coconut, whose water I drank through a straw. It made me look like a tourist but I loved it.

During one day of my trip I randomly asked ND about Leonard's, which kept catching my eye whenever we drove down the same main road through town. ND wanted to curse me for noticing it, but Leonard's, she told me, is an institution in Oahu. Leonard's makes delicious, Portuguese donut-like balls called malasadas, which you can purchase coated in something as simple and time-honored as cinnamon and sugar, or you can get them with different flavored fillings like chocolate, coconut cream or mango.

Needless to say, we stopped and bought half a dozen different flavors to sample.

One book I was particularly glued to during my trip was The Making of a Chef by Michael Ruhlman. If you're not into cooking or don't find culinary school interesting, you probably wouldn't like it, but it made me look at and appreciate the food on my plate and the labor that went into making it so much more. It's such an art form.

My friends in Dallas can expect me to attempt making coconut cake, the farmer's market pizza and chicken souvlaki in the near future. And probably homemade hummus. I'll spare them the guilty-pleasure malasadas.

For now.

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.

-James Beard

**This would later prove to be a false statement, as evidenced by the remainder of this post.

*P.S. I did not link any of the restaurants listed, but if you ever find yourself in Oahu and would like a more comprehensive list of restaurants to visit, feel free to e-mail me!

*P.P.S. Chocolate-dipped macadamia nut cookies. That is all.