I baked!!!  OK – Update:  I baked a Dimply Plum Cake, with plums from the tree in our back yard.  The plums are on the tart side, but it’s nothing that a dollop of ice cream can’t handle.   And here is the recipe!

Yum!

>It has been a while since Laura and I had lunch at Cafe Aion, so I’ll try to remember all the important details.

When we walked in, the host greeted us, and we were taken aback by how snappily he was dressed. Laura thought maybe we weren’t in Boulder anymore. It was a double visual fashion assault though, because someone leaving the restaurant was wearing some sort of (static) clingy satin/silk dress and fishnets. We were seated in sort of a window seat, which was nice for about 2 minutes until my core temperature rivaled that of the sun’s. Fortunately, at that point the shady table next to us opened up, and we scooted over.

I already knew I was going to order the Butternut Squash Soup with wild rice, almonds and Parmesan. I had had a taste at Andrea’s house, and it was so good, I wanted more. (Cafe Aion posts some of their recipes on their blog!) Also it had been a long, cold winter and I had been craving a lot of soup. I decided to ignore the fact that it was 70 degrees that day and I was wearing way too many clothes to be sitting in a window. (That doesn’t sound right.) Laura got the soup too, and we split the Aion Fried Cauliflower with saffron yogurt, cumin and lemon.

I had also had the cauliflower before and I thought it was delicious. Not as delicious as the chicken wings, but I couldn’t convince Laura to order chicken wings because she thinks they are disgusting. (Also – I do not see chicken wings on the Day Menu.) When the cauliflower came out, I immediately started devouring it. Fried=yummy. That’s my policy. But Laura said the overall browness of the dish made it seem sort of yucky to her. She said at Cafe Aion, she had more of a “Yum, I’ll try this!” attitude than if her husband served her a plate of brown cauliflower. I do have to admit, it isn’t pretty, but I thought it was good. Later in the afternoon though, it made me feel sort of stomach-achy.

But on to the soup. It is so so so good. I was going to say that it is also incredibly filling, but maybe the fried cauliflower had something to do with my overall full stomach. Laura was surprised that the soup had chunks of butternut squash, since a lot of squash soups are more of a puree. Good point Laura! It is a soup with a lot of good textures, and flavors, and it came with a lot of soft yummy bread.

We were both happy with our meal, but we also had food envy from staring at some neighboring tables, so we will be back. I will just make sure to dress (fashionably) in layers.

How about the new title? Lunch Ladies, get it? Or should I go back to Ladies Who Lunch?

>I made hot pretzels a few weeks ago, and they were fantastic. (Maybe I will not put Jack in charge of the salt next time.) I used the leftover dough to make bagels another night and those were also amazing. The recipe is from Artisan Bread in (significantly more than) Five Minutes a Day.

From Blog pix

>A looong time ago, Dave and I went out to lunch at The Kitchen and it was fantastic. I was observing two old biddies at lunch a few tables away and imagining that it would be me and my friend Laura in five 30 years. Then a light bulb went off. Start going out to lunch now!

Of course at the time, Laura was busy eating a bag of microwaved frozen veggies for lunch every day and she couldn’t be persuaded to go out. Not even the frequent and repeated gagging sounds I made every time she described her lunch could change her mind. She says, “Who doesn’t like something hot for lunch?” I was almost won over by microwaved frozen veggies, when suddenly, Laura had a change of heart. Cue tears of joy.

I’ve been trying to think of some regular features to have here at MetaMegan since I haven’t been able to write about iworkallthetimepottytrainingistheworstseriouslytheywantmetocancelmyvacationsoIcanwork-moremydogisagrumpygrowlerwahwahwah or “poop” for short.

All I had come up with prior to my restaurant reviews, was a weekly picture from my phone, so WOAH! all of a sudden I have a couple ideas for a few posts per week. YEA!

The best part is that my idea for the lunch reviews is two fold. The first part is where I am ecstatic that I left work, and I had a glass of wine and delightful conversation at lunch. All the praise is glowing, I am full and happy. The second part will be called, In retrospect, and that’s when I will eat leftovers and think about what was wrong with my meal.

Nutshell version to get caught up…
Ladies Who Lunch:
The dough/crust at Pizzeria Basta is amazing. The prix fixe lunch ($10.00 for soup or salad, pizza or calzone) was a good amount of food for the price. Half glass of wine for $3.00! I had the soup (roasted red pepper/tomato) and the margarita pizza. I had so much fun, and I forgot all my troubles.
In Retrospect:
I’m on a diet, so I could drink a jar of tomato sauce and think it was delicious. And that is sort of how I felt about the soup. And by jar, I mean can, because it tasted a little metallic. It was really good though. But a little metallic. And I really want to be the type of person who thinks cheese is not that important on a pizza, and for my diet, the small circle of cheese on each slice was probably the best for my calorie count, but I was surprised at how little cheese there was on my pizza. I felt myself looking longingly at Laura’s calzone, which looked like it had more to it. Also, the menu used colons in very bizarre ways that made it really hard to read. They need a proofreader for their menu for sure. (The online menu does not seem as confusing.)

Lastly, this is not the fault of Pizzeria Basta, but I was telling Laura about a facebook friend who seems to rarely be at work, and spends all his/her time at the beach or on vacation. I was speculating that he/she made it big in the dot com era or something and she said, maybe he/she is just someone who rarely works. Or someone who has days off, like a waiter. And I said, “Yes! That explains everything! He/She is just a waiter!!!” And of course I said that just as the waiter came to our table, and then I felt like an ass.

In short – I would go back for the wine, and to try a different pizza to see it was cheesier, because it was a nice lunch and 1000 times better than being at work, and I have heard great reviews from other people, but not before I cross a bunch of other places off my list.

Coming soon… Cafe Aion!

P.S. Ladies Who Lunch is a work in progress title. When Dave found out this was going to be a weekly thing he wasn’t pleased. And he wanted in on some of the lunch action. So sometimes it might be Ladies Who Lunch + Dave. Or something. I thought he was objecting on grounds that it was too expensive a habit, but then I told him if he comes with us, it’s just that much more expensive.

>I was never a team sport person, so it took my completely by surprise when I had so much fun playing dodge ball last week. Luke’s team won their game, and we went 2-0. It was really, really fun. I wondered if maybe I should join a dodge ball league. Luke wished there was a NDL or MLD.

It was a lot of running, and dodging, and sweating and laughing, and I felt like I got a work out in 20 minutes. I finally understood why people like to play sports. It’s been very interesting. On the other hand, it is sort of detrimental to my workout routine. How I can I go back to the treadmill after the excitement of dodge ball? I recently finished a 6 week challenge on the wii (EA Sports Active: More Workouts) and it was pretty good. I felt like my abs and my legs were getting in pretty good shape. For the arms part, it uses a resistance band, and I couldn’t get quite enough resistance to feel like it was working. I do have a resistance band that is tighter, but I can’t hold it and the wiimotes at the same time so the trainer just keeps telling me I am doing it wrong. But after the 6 week challenge I thought, “Hmmm. I could probably do all these moves with weights instead of the band, and without the pretty wii scenery in a shorter amount of time…” So once I got up and sort of worked out without the wii. That was about 3 weeks ago. For some annoying reason, the wii seems to be the best motivator for me. I can do it at home, I don’t like the program to remind me that I have missed a workout, so I don’t miss workouts, and I seem to get sort of in shape. The problem is that once I finish a program on one of the wii games, I don’t want to do it again. And now we have the added challenge of finding something as fun as dodge ball. I’ve been researching yoga studios, dance studios, cross fit gyms, the Y, regular gyms, and workout videos. And when I am not doing that, I am resting on the couch from the exertion of dodge ball until I can get up and gather the strength to start preparing for COOKIE EXTRAVAGANZA 2010.

So far I have the sugar cookie dough rolled out and in the freezer, along with the dough for chewy chocolate gingerbread. The problem is deciding what to do next:
1.) The dough that comes with the star wars cookie cutters?
2.) Chocolate peanut butter surprise?
3.) Pecan Cookies?
4.) Spritz?
5.) Ice box cookies?

And so on. 1 and 4 are definitely going to happen, just need to find the time. Then I am torn about the rest. I plan to get the dough all done this week if I can. Then I can bake on Saturday and maybe just relax and decorate Sunday.

As for dodge ball, it turns out that it’s more fun when you win. I had hoped I would never know the loss of a dodge ball game, but last night did us in.

We have one more game Wednesday, and then may or may not go on to the finals. So it’s still all dodge ball and cookie dough all the time at Casa de MetaMegan.

>Last year I sustained second degree burns in a tragic Thanksgiving Day nut caramelizing incident. This year, I decided to avoid that by
1.) Caramelizing the sugar for the caramelized nuts before Thanksgiving Day, and not while a vomitous child wants to be held.
2.) Doing 2 batches at once, so I can make the cake again before Christmas without going through the trouble twice

So I caramelized the nuts, and i even made some long strings of sugar for the kids to eat, and everything was wonderful and magical. Then I started to clean up, and the sugar was really sharp. I now have about 4 cuts on each fingertip. So here is what I am thinking. From now on: no nuts.

I’ve blogged about this cake before. Here, here, here, and here. Oh, and here. Each time there is some wacky thing that goes wrong, so I am glad I haven’t broken the trend. Some might wonder why I keep making this cake. Easy, it’s AWESOME, and if I stopped cooking/baking things that caused bodily harm, or wacky adventures, or involved gross miscalculations, then my family would starve.

Hmm, this may not be the pep talk I needed to give myself the day before Thanksgiving! On the bright side, I should have a lot of good material on Monday when I am back to blogging again. I have a crazy plan to take 4 days off from the computer, so I have scheduled posts for the next four days.

Happy Thanksgiving!