janeite

Mmm...food...

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:04:30 GMT

I had planned on posting earlier this afternoon; however, my computer decided to go into an infinite loop in the middle of my Evidence class, which was terribly inconvenient for me. I had to track down Derek this afternoon, and he was not particularly helpful as my computer seems to have temporarily fixed itself.

Spring break was last week, and I had ambitious plans to catch up on Fed Courts (I'm a little over a week behind) and start my outline. I know, laughable. Of course, I did neither. Instead, I spent my spring break eating my way through Charleston, SC. My only complaint about Charleston food? The portion sizes were way too large--even at the more expensive and innovative restaurants. It must be a southern hospitality thing. Here's a recap of my meals:

Saturday

Jestine's Kitchen: appetizer: corn fritters; lunch entree: pecan-crusted catfish with sweet pepper relish; sides of macaroni and cheese and okra gumbo. The food was decent--the catfish was fresh and tasty, but the macaroni and cheese and okra gumbo left a bit to be desired.
Jessica's Cupcakes: red velvet cupcake and lemon cupcake. Oh, the lemon cupcake was so moist and heavenly.
FIG: drink: raspberry mojito; appetizer: short-rib beef ravioli; entree: poached skate wing with capers, meyer lemons and brown butter croutons on top of sauteed spinach; dessert: Carolina gold rice pudding. Mmm I'm still dreaming about the ravioli--the beef was so tender and had a lovely hint of red wine.

Sunday

Hominy Grill: savory cornbread; shad roe scramble with bacon and scallions; grits; homemade sausage.
Jim N' Nicks: half rack of baby back ribs with macaroni cheese and potato salad; sweet tea. Oh so tasty, but I ate so much that I couldn't even finish my dinner at Poogan's Porch. Definitely the best mac and cheese I had in Charleston and probably the best ribs I've had in the past 5 years.
Poogan's Porch: mixed greens with strawberries, almonds, and apple cider vinagrette; fried green tomatoes with peach chutney and goat cheese. Heather's she-crab soup was so good and I'd love to go back one day when I'm not feeling ill from having eaten too much barbeque.

Monday

Lost Dog Cafe: home fries; broccoli and cheese soup
Hyman's Seafood: Boiled peanuts; Caribbean Jerk grouper with cole slaw and hush puppies. Ben had recommended this place to me, but I must admit that while the service was rather impressive, the food was not. The hush puppies were pretty decent though--especially when slathered with butter. Mmm...
Kilwin's Chocolate and Ice Cream: peach ice cream. Eh.

Tuesday

SeeWee Restaurant: fried flounder; fried green tomatoes and fried okra; hush puppies. These were the best hush puppies I've ever had--they were piping hot, sweet, with a hint of onion.
Social: wine: flight of crisp central European whites; appetizer: artisanal cheese plate with truffle-infused honey and apricot chutney. I realized that I had become perhaps
Sienna: wine: Nebbiolo; endive salad with fried grapes, dolce gorgonzola gelato, and 25-year old balsamic; dessert: chocolate, vanilla bean and passion fruit gelato. I really wanted to try the crudo; however, all the fried items at SeeWee spoiled my appetite for dinner.

One lesson I learned while I was in Charleston is that I should not be trusted to drive somebody else's car. We took Heather's car down to Charleston, and as she is not fond of driving, we split the driving. I managed to accidentally drive off the road in front of a SUV marked "law enforcement vehicle," honk at myself (what makes this amusing is that I didn't realize I had honked at myself and thought the person behind me honked at me, so I was cursing at the person behind me until Heather corrected me), and forget to turn the lights off on Heather's car on Tuesday night after dinner, so as we were preparing to Charleston on Wednesday morning, we discover that her battery had died. Sigh...

Oh! I totally knew the band to today's WNRN's Plan 9 pop quiz--it was an old Phantom Planet song! Ok--time to read some Fed Courts.

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 17:59:50 GMT

So I went to bed last night after I washed that Pyrex pan of putrid poultry (maybe around 2AMish) and I set my alarm for 5:07AM so that I can cram some more tax in my pea-brain before my final. What do I discover this morning at 5:07AM (other than having been awake for the past hour before my alarm clock went off and thinking incoherently about 280A home office deductions)--that the little chain on my toilet is broken. So I have to stick my hand down the tank to manually flush my toilet now. Ugh. And I have to wait for my landlord to stop by, instead of taking a nap.

On a happier note, today is Jane Austen's 231th birthday!

God, why do you hate me?

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 06:02:52 GMT

Dear God: Why did you make me leave the dirty Pyrex pan on the stove for the past week? Why did you have to make it stink up my entire apartment right now--the night before my Fed Tax final? Couldn't it have waited until tomorrow, after my final? And why did you have to make dried-up, molding chicken juices have such a horrid stench--really, couldn't you have made it smell like inoffensive potpourri?

And if you're feeling just slightly guilty for the horrendous stench in my apartment (which really, you should), you can totally make it better by making my Fed Tax final contain no questions about the taxation of deferred executive compensation, 38(b) stock option elections, and any of the capital gains taxation of future income/stream of income cases.

This is so much more fun than tax!

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 22:57:28 GMT

Ok, I know I'm supposed to be all tax all the time, but this has got to the best article of the day! Note that this also the same "news organization" that wrote a story about Hillary Clinton having a had a lesbian affair in college with my boss from this summer.

Oh! And this has also got to be the most worthless class ever (who would pay money to take this class?):

Legal Careers and Life Satisfaction
This seminar will explore the relationships between one’s choice of a career in law and one’s level of satisfaction with life more generally. The large body of psychological research on the determinants of “happiness” that has emerged in the past decade will form the foundation of the seminar. From there, we will examine the empirical literature on attorneys’ job satisfaction and their reactions to job dissatisfaction (e.g., depression, alcoholism). A goal of the seminar will be to identify factors that promote or attenuate job satisfaction in particular, and life satisfaction more generally, among attorneys practicing law in various settings (e.g., large firm, small firm, in-house counsel, public interest). This is a research, rather than a clinical, seminar.

I find it hilarious that the professor felt it was necessary to specify that this is a research, NOT a clinical seminar.

Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:41:05 GMT

Oh! Oh! Check out my eyeball user picture! I stole it from washingtonpost.com--isn't it kind of gross-looking? When I imagine scooping eyeballs out with a melon-baller, the image in my mind definitely does NOT look like this eyeball--I imagine the eye to be somewhat cartoonish (maybe with a couple of lines as nerves and blood vessels that attach to the eyeball in the back of the socket). This picture makes the melon-baller dream so much less appealing. Reality sucks.

On the bright side, even if I do fail all my finals, at least I will always have my eyeball picture. Unless I become homeless and no longer have access to a computer. But maybe someone will kindly print out a color picture of the eyeball for me.

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 23:53:02 GMT

I think I am in love with my income tax professor. Currently, in class, we're learning about taxation of capital gains. To illustrate the importance of "basketing" long-term capital gains/losses from short-term capital gains/losses, he told us a story involving his younger (somewhat delinquent) brother Chris, who used to work as a customer service manager at Plow & Hearth. Apparently, Plow & Hearth, which is based in Madison, VA, was bought by 1-800-FLOWERS several years ago. 1-800-FLOWERS uses Plow & Hearth customer service representatives during busy holiday seasons to take orders for flower arrangements. Well, while Chris was working as the customer service manager, he received a phone call from an extremely irate customer, who had ordered 2 flower arrangements for Valentine's Day, one for his wife, and the other for his girlfriend. The note for his wife read something to the effect of: "After 20 wonderful years, you're still the love of my life," and the note for his girlfriend read "The weekend in the Carribean was amazing--let's do that again next week!" The Plow & Hearth customer service representative did not approve of this man's philandering ways and decided to show her disapproval by switching the two orders and incurring the wrath of this customer. Thus, tax students should remember the important of separating long-term capital gains/losses from short-term capital gains/losses. We got another tax problem set today! In which we calculate the tax consequences in such scenarios as Pat driving to O'Hare airport to travel to DC for business meetings with Scooter; former government bureaucrat Don working as a motivational speaker for "embattled corporate managers"; Scooter selling a restaurant to Jack, a former restaurant owner whom Scooter met in a prison kitchen; and William buying a large freezer to hold client money for his business Cash on Ice.

My tax professor also teaches my Employee Pension and Welfare Benefits class, which also met today. He told us he had a lovely Thanksgiving break because TNT ran back-to-back episodes of "Law and Order." He was particularly excited because one of the episodes referenced an ERISA case, Pegram v. Herdrich, which distinguishes between the settlor and fiduciary functions of plan administrators in employee health care plans. He's currently working out a plot line for "Law and Order" that will feature ERISA § 514(b)(4), which carves out an exception to ERISA preemption of state law for state criminal laws.

Sigh...if only he were teaching a class that is not Corporate Tax next semester.

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 03:31:17 GMT

Two very uncharacteristic happenings this weekend:

1. I went running on Saturday! This is the second run in the past 2 weeks! I ran a mile and walked about 1.5 miles (the last time I went running was my fourth-year in college). Even more shocking: I'm scheduled to go running again this Wednesday or Thursday. Although that's still up in the air because I may have offended my running partner by sending her a NY Times magazine article on the consequences of the strict anti-abortion policy in El Salvador. This is after we had a very spirited discussion about Roe while running and she expressed her frustration with the decision in Roe and her moral objections to abortion. Oops. Perhaps I'm just unconsciously trying to sabotage my recent trend of exercising.

2. I made somewhat of a splurge purchase of some not-too-untasty granola the other day and discovered yesterday morning as I was eating it that it contains coconut. Not only did I finish my bowl of granola, I didn't break into hives and I had another bowl of it this morning.

Yes, this is all the exciting news I have regarding my most humdrum existence.

Grocery Update

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:17:31 GMT

I'm listening to this interview with Christopher Buckley (who apparently lives in Cleveland Park) about the new film adaptation of "Thank You for Smoking." The trailers for the movie look hilarious--perhaps I'll reward myself this weekend by watching it. I have a terrible habit of constantly rewarding myself when I've done nothing productive at all.

So, I managed to cook a decent amount over spring break: ricotta and mozzarella pasta with peas and onions, a lemon cheesecake with a gingersnap crust, sauteed sugar snap peas with onions, a roasted tomato basil soup, and a tomato and fresh mozzarella phyllo dough pizza. Tonight, pan-seared tuna with avocado, soy, ginger, and lime and a side of wasabi mashed potatoes are on the menu. Oh! I finally splurged and bought myself a microplane grater! I cannot fully convey the excitement I feel when I'm grating and zesting with my new microplane.

I went grocery shopping at Giant this morning and here are the stats:

Spent: $24.73
Saved: $24.84

Today's high is in the 80s and sunny. I can already feel the humidity. Ugh. Where did the gorgeous partly cloudy 60s weather disappear to?

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 06:43:37 GMT

Stupid Charlottesville with its delayed satellite coverage of 6 Nations games. lovelyvivacious drove down from DC today so that we could continue our two year tradition of watching the Scotland v. England rugby game. Grr...they're not showing it until tomorrow night! Well, fortunately (and shockingly) Scotland beat England but unfortunately we won't be able to see it. Next year--we'll be back at Summers for the game and maybe swing by the British snack shop. Anyway, we ended watching the Hearts beat Partick Thistle in a Scottish FA game. Sigh...

Went to see Hedwig tonight and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the movie and the music. There were some desperately hip 14-year-olds at the 11PM performance of Hedwig who knew the lyrics to all the songs.

Tomorrow: work and a spinach, feta, pine-nut phyllo tart!

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 13:47:23 GMT

I had a nightmare last night that Democrats lost seats in the Senate in the upcoming election. I remember dreaming that Rick Santorum won by a large margin and Bob Menendez lost. Sadly, I actually broke down and cried when I found out in my dream. I think this might have been caused by the WP story about Reid. Grrr....why can't the Democratic party get things together?

On a much brighter note: it's going to snow this weekend! Yay! It'll be a perfect weekend for cooking some Icelandic lamb stew and using some of my smjor!

Commuting woes

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 15:21:18 GMT

This Washington Post article accurately describes my hellish commute (especially my evening commute):

"Regular Metro riders know their drill.

They come into the station, march to the platform and stand facing the tracks in the exact spot -- measured to precision over years of practice -- where they are absolutely, positively sure a car door will appear when the train stops.

Only sometimes the train comes and -- d'oh! -- it has only four cars and stops waaay down the platform.

So the riders run, briefcases and purses swinging at their sides, to try to squeeze into an end car."

I not only have the car doors positions memorized, I also know where all the escalators are located in relation to the car doors at my next stop (only for Courthouse, Rosslyn, Foggy Bottom, Farragut West, McPherson Square and Metro Center). I am so bored with my commute.

Vampires at the Red Cross

Thu, 14 Apr 2005 23:19:24 GMT

KCRW really makes life so much better. My whole day had been falling apart until I got home and started listening to the KCRW music stream. Here are some of the highlights from my not-so-smooth day:

1) I had to move my car this morning at 8AM as I was parked in a metered spot. There were two cars behind me when I found a spot on Rhodes and as I was about to back into the spot, they started honking at me. Grrr...they could have just gone around me--no reason to honk at me as I was not at fault.

2) One of the assistants at my oral surgeon's office called me this morning to let me know that my insurance will only cover the wisdom teeth extraction (with a $100 co-pay) but not pay for the general anesthesia. I went to an oral surgeon consultation yesterday and I scheduled my surgery to remove my impacted wisdom teeth on June 8, which means that I can quit my job at the end of June--yay! Apparently Blue Cross Blue Shield usually covers anesthesia but they won't under the plan I have. Grrr... So I have to pay an extra $495 for anesthesia. My oral surgeon recommended that I definitely be put to sleep for the operation as he said my top wisdom teeth will be an easy extraction but the bottom teeth look much more "exciting." I'm not sure "exciting" is the proper term to describe an challenging oral surgery procedure to patients.

3) I hiked over to the Main Justice building to give blood at the DOJ blood drive. I gave blood back in February and it was about time for some more blood-letting. I checked in at the desk and one of the nurses who passed by the desk approached me and asked me rather curtly in front of at least 4 people how much I weighed. I told her how much I weighed and she looked me up and down and walked away. I was completely mortified. How inappropriate--even if she didn't think I weighed 110 lbs., they ask you all the questions during the confidential interview--there was no need to ask me the question so publicly. Even though I'm not too self-conscious about my weight, I still think it's poor form to ask such a question in such a setting, even at a blood drive. [Side note: Damn, the music on the KCRW is incredible--kobenhavn, do you know if there is a playlist for the KCRW music stream? I've been looking online and have been unable to find one.] Well, my interview didn't go much better. So the nurse had to test my iron level and for some reason, it was quite painful while she was drawing blood from my right middle finger (it is sore, even now). She dropped my blood in the solution and it took 15.3 seconds for my blood to sink to the bottom (the requirement is 15 seconds), so she had to draw more blood to spin it. I request that she use my left middle finger instead and it turned out my iron level was exceedingly normal. She then asked me all the prerequsite questions, including if I have been outside the country in the past year. I told her that I had been in London in January and Taiwan and Hong Kong in November. She looked up Hong Kong on the malaria list and also located Taiwan by scrolling down the list. She then asked me how to spell London. I told her how to spell London and suggested that she look under United Kingdom, Great Britain or England instead as London was probably not listed. How is it possible she didn't know how to spell London? And didn't she realize it was a city, not a country? Isn't this general knowledge? I was rather shocked. Anyway, I answered all the questions satisfactorily and I soon found myself sitting in a chair with iodine being slathered on my right arm. Now, I am quite proud of the fact that my veins are quite prominent and deep so I've never had any problems giving blood or doing any sort of needle work. I am also quite proud that my blood gushes out very quickly when I donate, so I can usually fill up a pint in about 6-7 minutes. When my nurse (the same one who couldn't spell London) inserted the needle, it was actually a bit painful and as my blood was flowing out, my arm remained in quite a bit of pain (usually, I just feel a bit of a prick as the needle goes in and then my arm becomes numb as I watch my bag fill up). But I figured maybe it was because I had just given blood 2 months ago, so my vein was still sensitive. My blood started out flowing normally but after a couple of minutes, the bag was still only 1/3 full, so I commented to one of the other nurses that my blood seemed to be abnormally slow. She took a look at my bag and said that my blood was barely dripping into the bag. So she took my needle and tried adjusting it in the vein but to no avail. She said that the needle was either set at a bad angle in my vein or the nurse had missed my vein. Missed my vein? How is that possible? My vein are so very prominent--everyone I have ever met has commented on what lovely veins I have for needles! Completely unacceptable! So, they had to take the needle out of my arm as it would have taken at least an hour for me to have filled the remainder of the bag. And because my bag already had blood, they couldn't try my other arm so the 1/3 pint of blood I did give would just be thrown out. Grrr... My arm was so painful at work that I could barely type, so I left work early as soon as I wrapped things up (I get 4 hours of administrative leave for giving blood but I usually never take it as I always feel fine after giving blood). It is definitely a sign of my dedication to livejournal that I am very slowly typing this entry despite my arm. :) I just peeked under my bandage and I definitely have a bit of a bruise from the needle. Grrr...not a very positive blood donation experience.

Tomorrow promises to be a better day: I am off to a "meat market" with a vegetarian! Good times. Oh--and is anyone up for a roadtrip to Texas in July? I have to check with Moomaw to see if she still plans to be in Texas--if so, I think I plan on driving down for a little visit.
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Thu, 31 Mar 2005 04:37:51 GMT

I'm going to be leaving for San Francisco Friday morning and I have Friday afternoon and all day Sunday to do some exploring. I think this will be the only time I will have to enjoy myself, so I would love to have some suggestions. Nothing sounds better to me right now than a good bakery and some used bookstores. Oddly, I'm in the mood to go gay-clubbing but I don't have anyone to go with (jeff81, we have to go gay-clubbing when we go to San Francisco together. Oh! And we should plan our trip to Chicago soon!). I hear there's a good farmer's market at Ferry's Plaza. Oh! I just suddenly remembered I have a guide to SF that KQED sent to me last year when I became a member--ooohh...they've even got a list of some yarn shops, french pastry shops (perhaps with real butter, not margarine, croissants?) and children's bookstores! Alright, something for me to peruse in bed before I go to sleep. Oh, I also need to find a place to stay Sunday night (my parents and the rest of my relatives are leaving Sunday afternoon)--I will have to figure this out tomorrow.

My weekend was quite eventful. One of the best parts of my whole weekend was the dinner I had Saturday night at Corduroy. One reason was that I had a pretty decent appetite--I've been a bit worried at my small appetite of late--I finished my whole meal (seared medium-rare salmon, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans--I know, I know, it's not particularly adventurous, but it was quite tasty) and a portion of my companion's dinner. He had lamb tenderloin with goat cheese ravioli. Well, technically raviolini. The raviolini was heavenly. Oh! Practically orgasmic! Ridiculously tasty. Yes, the ravioli was by far the best part of my weekend. Haha--right after my most pleasurable dinner experience, Adam and I stopped by 1223 for Silvia's birthday party and we were kicked out of the line by the bouncer because we were underdressed. Quality times. Even better than getting rejected from a club was realizing I had forgotten my wallet at home as I was about to pay at the grocery store. One of these days, I'm going to start being really smooth. Ooohh...another highlight of my weekend was helping Aaron build his TiVo box. Granted, I am very unknowledgeable as to what goes into a TiVo but I enjoy building things.

Oh! And I'm almost positive that I've made my decision to go to UVA Law. I got a small scholarship from UVA and I just feel like I can't turn that and the prospect of living with Allen K. down. Plus, the scholarship money can fund all of my food needs (it's never too late to develop even more expensive taste). I think I plan to be a regular at Hamilton's. Their beef carapaccio--so scrumptious! And of course I'm excited that I'll get to hang out with loatiloat more--you'll have to take me Club 216 as I never got a chance to go as an undergrad. And I've already made arrangements to start a knitting group with one of the Brown College kids if I go back to C'ville.

Ick--I just happened upon this article in the NY Times. So depressing--why do people have to be so bigoted? I'm not particularly surprised at the alignment of Orthodox Jews with conservative Christians and Muslims against the gay pride event but this sentence is just ridiculous: "</span>At the news conference in Jerusalem, he [Rabbi Yehuda Levin] called the festival 'the spiritual rape of the Holy City.' He said, 'This is not the homo land, this is the Holy Land.'"</a>

Snippets from Wake-Up Call!

Wed, 05 Jan 2005 16:36:44 GMT

I always find the best articles on Hotline's Wake-up Call! and Last Call!, so I'd thought I'd share two of them this morning. First, I thought the article about Justice Stephen Breyer showing up for jury duty in MA to be amusing, especially since the judge didn't recognize him until he noticed Breyer's name. I've always wanted to serve on a jury and I was so close--last spring, I received a jury duty notice from the city of Fredericksburg. Unfortunately, I was ineligible to serve on the jury because I'm officially a resident of Arlington. I also received a notice to serve on the jury in an honor trial but we were dismissed after an hour when the defendant did not show up. I just think serving on a jury would be such an interesting expericence, depending on what type of case it is, of course. Oh, speaking of Justice Breyer, I received my Phillips Collection Quarterly magazine last night and noticed that other donors in the "Friends" category include Justice and Mrs. Stephen Breyer and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Mr. Martin Ginsburg. Jeff--we'll have to keep our eyes open at the Modigliani reception (perhaps we should try not to get too drunk).

The headline "Nine-Year-Old Boy Fascinated by Toilets" made me laugh this morning--it seems to have been taken right from "The Onion."

Oh, and here's a useful website that I'm sure everyone but me has been referencing for decades: http://www.seatguru.com/. It's lots of fun to look at what the best seats are on specific aircrafts.

Oh! And did you know that the official name of Rhode Island is "Rhode Island and Providence Plantations"? Apparently, Rhode Island only refers to the island on which the city of Newport is located (this island is known to most Rhode Islanders as Quidnic Island). The main landmass connected to Connecticut is known as Providence Plantation. Fascinating, eh?

Tue, 02 Nov 2004 16:22:03 GMT

Yay! I voted--after waiting in line for 90 minutes. I am a dedicated citizen. Am feeling some election day anxiety, though. I really hope the entire election is wrapped up before I leave on Thursday. Really, I've decided that my trip was planned at the wrong time. While I am gone, I will be missing the Gil and Orli Shaham concert (I've exchanged my Gil Shaham and Lang Lang concert tickets for orchestra seats at the Prague Symphony Orchestra concert in February--a Dvorak extravaganva!), my first invitation to a DC gala through the Reading Connection, a free dinner reception for CASA volunteers at the Hay-Adams, and a tapas reception for the Calder-Miro exhibit at the Phillips Collection. Sigh...I am giving up so much to go on this vacation--it better be worth it.

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:02:07 GMT

Oh! Oh! "The Office" special is showing on BBC America tonight. Finally...the Christmas episode! Unfortunately, Ms. Flatness is working tonight, sigh... The Fresh Air review of it sounds hilarious! And they're playing a clip of David Brent's horrendous music video, "If You Don't Know Me By Now" on Fresh Air right now! Oh, so good. The boxed DVD set of the 2 seasons and the Christmas special is coming out next month! So giddy!