Act 33: Autumn Cornucopia

Apparently the QC Area has a marsh.  Nahant Marsh… a low-lying, grassy wetland.  I know this because Heather worked there all summer and fall of this year, but that’s the only reason.  I don’t feel bad though.  There are plenty of people I’ve encountered that have lived here their entire lives and didn’t know that it was there.

From what I understand the purpose of the marsh is conservation and they have some pretty neat animals and plants out there, but they also have a ton of poison ivy so watch out!  Most recently they were featured in the paper as a good place to view river otters.

The Marsh seems to be trying to make itself more known as they are now on Facebook and are holding activities at the Marsh.  Then again, maybe they always did that and I just didn’t know about it.  Could be either one.  I’m not sure.

I attended the Autumn Cornucopia on October 9^th.  The event was a chance to help make and enjoy a meal made from local foods.  We got to take part in the making of three items: corn bread, apple cider, and pawpaw cookies.  We didn’t do any of the kitchen work as far as boiling the apple cider or baking the cookies but we did the prework.

For the cornbread they had corn cobs that we learned to see, or easily remove all the kernels with our hands.  Then we put them into a grinder with a hand crank and ground the kernels into cornmeal.  For the apple cider we had an apple crusher or presser.  I don’t know the technical name.  We cut the apples into quarters and hand cranked them through the crusher into a wooden bucket.  Then we pressed all the juice out of them into a second bucket.

Pawpaw is a local fruit that you don’t see in stores because they spoil so quickly.  The inside is yellowish and looks and feels like mushy banana.  It’s very custard-ish.  We scooped out pawpaws and mixed together all the cookie ingredients and let the volunteers take them inside for baking.  One batch had just pawpaw and one had chocolate chips as well.

Heather was one of the few people hard at work in the kitchen making not only the cornbread, cider, and cookies but also roasting bison, elk, and beef and making pumpkin soup and Jerusalem artichokes au gratin.  She worked hard that day!

While we were waiting for all the food to be ready we got to walk around the marsh and look at the different animals they had in the main building.  Once all the food was ready we dug right in though!  All of it was very good.  Jerusalem artichokes are similar to potatoes and I like those quite a bit, though I could have done without the pumpkin soup personally.  I prefer pawpaw cookies with chocolate chips (shocking, I know).  I ate far too many of them.  And the cider we made was pretty fantastic!

All in all it was a fun day and depending on the topic of the activities, I could definitely be interested in attending other functions at the Marsh.  I actually saw that this past weekend they had a informational session on different types of green energy for your home (solar panels, wind energy, etc) and the costs, pros, and cons of each.  I thought that sounded really interesting, but I already had plans.  Maybe they’ll do it again next year.

Act 32: Scuba Diving Class

It occurred to me that I never blogged about my scuba diving class experience so even though it happened back in June or so, here it is.

My friend Carrie was home for the summer after graduating from PT school and despite my work and her studying for boards we got to hang out a LOT.  Which was awesome of course!  One night when we were at my house she was looking online for God only knows what when she stumbled across the website for the Scuba Diving Club of the Quad Cities.  Who knew that even existed?  Well not only does it exist, but they offer introductory classes and certification classes at Augie.  So she signed me, Steve, and herself up.  It only cost $10 and hey, why not?

The night of the class we went to the pool at Augie and were taken through the building to a classroom near the gym.  This was not easy to find.  There was lots of confusion over whether the classroom was upstairs or not.  It was quite the ordeal actually.  The room was super hot and the instructor either didn’t show up for 15 or 20 minutes or left during a short video for about that amount of time and left us just sitting there.  I can’t remember all the details since it was a while ago, all I know is he was gone for what seemed like a really long time.  There was general discontent with that situation among the attendees.

The guy that taught the class was an old, white haired, no nonsense guy in a Hawaiian shirt who has the kind of sense of humor that allows him to pick on people quite a bit.  That aside, he provided a lot of good information on scuba diving, where you can do it nearby (lakes, quarries, etc), what it takes to get certified, etc.  It was pretty informative and though the videos were a little cheesy, the underwater shots of ocean life and ship and plane wrecks kind of made you want to be able to dive down and see those things for yourself.

The classroom portion gave way to the pool portion of the night.  This would require everyone to wear a mask, flippers, and weight vest with a tank on their back.  Now here’s where the night got a little weird.  The instructor lined us up by size.  By weight essentially.  Fattest to skinniest!  He actually made comments like “you’re probably the biggest guy here” and then to a girl “you’re bigger than these guys aren’t you?  Move to this end of the line”.  I, for one, was a little appalled and it was pretty clear I wasn’t the only one that was uncomfortable with this method.  Maybe the instructor didn’t realize how crass he was being but come on!  Size people up in your head, silently, give them the size vest you think they need and let them try it.

Anyway, once we got ordered properly we put on the vests and tanks and got in the pool.  We stayed in the shallow end and were taught how to breathe, how to lower or raise ourselves in the water, etc.  Then we got to go into the deep end of the pool and swim around.  They had some underwater toys to play with... a Frisbee, some diving sticks, and a couple of others.  We got at least a half hour to dive, maybe more like 45 minutes.  It was fun.  I can see why people would want to do this on vacations.  You get closer to the action than you ever can with snorkeling (though I’ve gotten pretty close that way too).  I can’t see the point in getting certified unless I was going on a tropical vacation where I could do it quite a bit because I don’t really have a desire to explore nearby lakes here.  Plus, I really don’t need another expensive hobby!

They did mention that most people who get certified are going on their honeymoon.  That prompted Carrie to coin a new term and suggest a Friendymoon.  Why should newlyweds have all the fun??

Act 31: The Amazing Razzpumple

When my friend Heather asked me what I wanted as a birthday treat, I told her I’d have to think about it.  There are so many options, after all, that it’s a pretty big decision.  Neither of us could have foreseen my choice or the adventure that it would become.

As you should with every big decision, I consulted an expert: my friend Aimee, connoisseur and lover of all baked goods.  She took on the challenge of the birthday treat with gusto and it was a slow work afternoon when she called me over to her desk to show me the Cherpumple.  What is a Cherpumple you ask?  It is a monstrosity of a dessert created by humorist Charles Phoenix of Arizona.  It is all 6 baked goods commonly asked for at his family functions slammed into one Turducken-style cake.  More specifically it is a cherry pie baked inside of a white cake, a pumpkin pie baked inside of spice cake, and an apple pie baked inside of a yellow cake.  These three cakes (all 9 inch rounds) are stacked on top of one another and covered in cream cheese frosting.  If you Google it you will get a number of pictures and firsthand accounts of people making their own.  It was quite the internet sensation when he first introduced it.

After seeing the Cherpumple, I was both amazed and frightened.  But it wasn’t until reading this, a hilarious firsthand account of making one, that I really wanted to try it.

The great thing about this is that it’s easy to customize it to your tastes.  There are plenty of types of pie and cake out there… you can use whatever combinations suit you.  Heather, Steve, and I all had a big hand in making this cake a reality and we chose the following layers for our Razzpumple (we modified the name to fit our layers):

-Razzlebery Pie in Chocolate Cake

-Pumpkin Pie in Yelllow Cake

-Apple Pie in Caramel Cake

First off, I highly recommend buying premade pies, either frozen or fresh from the grocery store.  I’d also recommend sticking to your basic cake mixes.  This takes plenty of time to make without having to bake pies and whip up cake batter from scratch. 

My second, equally important recommendation is that you use TALL round cake pans.  We made the mistake of using a regular 9 inch round cake pan for the pumpkin/yellow layer and ending up cleaning burnt batter off the bottom of the stove.  We used spring form pans for the other two and they worked like a dream.

So here’s how you make this. 

1)   Take your pre-baked pies and freeze them for a bit.  Especially the fruit ones!  Not so much that they are rock hard, but enough to allow you to cut into them and not have apple pie filling spilling all over the counter. 

2)   Remove the first pie from the tin and cut around the inside of the crust so you just have a crustless round pie left.  You don’t have to do this step as the original Cherpumple had whole pies, crust and all, inside the cake.  We just thought it would be tastier without all the extra crust. 

3)   Mix the first cake batter to box directions

4)   Grease the bejeezus out of your cake pan.  You don’t want this to stick!

5)   Pour cake batter in the cake pan, just enough to cover the entire bottom of the pan.

6)   Place pie in center of cake pan

7)   Pour more cake batter over the pie.  Now, don’t put ALL the cake batter on top.  You should have leftover batter of each flavor.  And you don’t need to put in enough batter to surround and cover the pie on all sides.  The cake will rise and even itself out.

8)   Bake until it’s done.

The last one is important because it takes quite a bit longer than a regular cake would.  Plan on 40 to 50 mintues per cake (you can have more than one in the oven at a time if your pans fit).  And for crying out loud, make sure the batter above and below the pie is cooked.  Granted, we probably put too much batter on top of the pies, but we had a little chocolate batter mudslide when we cut into it.  Delicious?  Yes.  Intended?  Nope.

Repeat the above steps for all 3 layers, let the cakes cool completely and then just remove them from the pans, stack them (with a layer of frosting in between of course!) and frost all around the outside. 

The assembly and logistics of this cake are pretty amazing.  The Leaning Tower of Cake, if you will.  Stack according to stability or it will not stand up to its own weight. 

Our Razzpumple turned out amazingly well considering how daunting the task was.  And considering Satchmo ate half the top layer :-P  It probably took a total of 5-6 hours of baking and assembly time, which we spread over 2 days.  And though you might think it sounds and looks not-so-appetizing, you’d be totally WRONG.  Everybody loved it.  It was a hit!  And it really was delicious :-)

So here it is.  My Ode to Gluttony and Indecision.  The Razzpumple.  

Act 30: A Work Conference

A couple of weeks ago, I got the opportunity to go to a conference for work.  It was pretty exciting because I haven't attended one before, but somewhat less so considering the circumstances.  I was a last minute replacement for a coworker who had a heart attack a few days before the conference started.  Luckily, he's doing well now.

The conference was put on by the Midwest SAS Users Group.  SAS is the primary programming language I use at work right now.  It's pretty versatile and easy to learn; I've been using it for 2.5 years.  The conference went from Sunday night to Tuesday afternoon and was held at the Hilton in Milwaukee, WI.  I went with my friend/coworker Aimee and overall it was a very worthwhile.  Lots of good sessions on Monday and Tuesday where we learned a lot and took 1.5 small pads of paper worth of notes.  The food was good and all meals were provided and the hotel was nice.

But the best part by far was the Monday night dinner event held at the Harley-Davidson museum.  It was a blast!  We had about an hour to go through the museum and see all the old bike styles.  There was a lot of Evel Knievel memorabilia too.  I knew all about the motorcycle daredevil stuff, but I didn't realize he was so ingrained in Harley history.  He was all over the place in there.

The coolest thing in the museum was touch screens that allow you to build your own motorcycle.  You big one of 8 or so models to start with and then you can change basically everything: fenders, gas tank, handlebars, forks, seats, paint color, designs, tires, etc.  It was a blast!  Aimee and I both made pretty sweet bikes.  They show your bike up on the big TV screens on the wall in the museum, email you a picture, and for $0.53 you can get your custom bike printed on a sticker.  Of course I got the sticker... why wouldn't I?  My bike was awesome.  I'm planning to put the sticker on magnet and display it proudly on my fridge!

Act 29: Apples Galore

Last weekend I went to visit my sister, who's living in Freeport, IL.  We decided to dedicate Saturday to apple picking and cooking.  I've been to orchards before but never did the pick-your-own thing.  Just bought apples and cider in the store there.  This time we had plans to try a couple different applesauce recipes so we needed plenty of apples.  We bought a 1/2 bushel bag and filled up it.  Final count: 49 apples!

We got them home, got out the recipes, and got to work.  Have you ever peeled and chopped up 49 apples?  It's pretty much exhausting!  We took turns at the different jobs but it was a lot of work. 

We made three different applesauce recipes.  The first was good but way too sweet.  The second was the same recipe but my sister wanted to try using Splenda instead of real sugar.  We also cut the sugar a little because the first one was so sweet.  I though the Splenda gave it a bitter aftertaste.  Not a fan.  Then again, my experiences with Splenda have not been great in the past.  The last recipe we made was my favorite.  It was more cinnamon-y and had just the right about of sweetness.  The only downfall of that one was that the recipe said to let the cooked apples cool before mashing them which made it a lot harder.  I'm going to ignore that instruction next time.  I did learn after I got the stuff home that mixing the too sweet applesauce with the cinnamon-y one evens it out pretty well.  A good way not to let any of it go to waste.

We had plenty of apples left so we also made apple-pecan bars (mildly successful) and an apple cheesecake-type thing.  That one was pretty good.

After all was said and done, we had 9 apples left for just eating.  And they were Northern Spy apples. I hadn't heard of this variety before, but they are incredibly tasty!  So after 5 hours of baking, this was what we ended up with.

Looks tasty, huh? :-)

Act 28: Maine Event

My parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided that my sisters and I needed some extra bonding time with them.  During our college years we each got two one-week long vacations: one with just mom and one with just dad.  My junior year, 2004, I had a fantastic vacation with my dad in New Orleans.  We listened to live music, drank hurricanes, learned about voodoo, and wrestled gators (kind of).

My mom and I planned an equally fantastic trip to Boston for that summer but unfortunately health problems (hers, not mine) prevented us from going.  After that I graduated college, real life got in the way for both of us, and we never made the trip.  Finally, 6 years later, we made the trip.  This past August we went to Maine.

The plan when we went was to rent a car and drive up the coast.  We flew into Portland (Maine, not Oregon.  I got asked about that a lot) and stayed there the first couple of nights.  We took a double decker bus tour of the city, a boat tour of the bay area, and saw the Portland Head Light which is apparently the most photographed lighthouse in the world though I don't know how they prove that.

After we left Portland we drove up the coast about 4.5 hours to Bar Harbor, which is on a peninsula with several other harbors and Acadia National Park.  We went up into the hills for some great views and went whale watching, though it was too foggy that day to see anything.

After a couple of days there we headed back towards Portland, making a few stops along the way.  One stop was in Port Clyde, Maine which is the home of the Marshall Point Lighthouse (which we saw along with 4 other lighthouses in the area).  Recognize it?

I didn't either, but when Forrest Gump is running across the country he runs down to this lighthouse and decides it's time to turn around.  So there you go! 

Another of our stops was Rockford, ME which is known for being the home of L.L.Bean.  They had about 5 different stores in town... an outlet, a regular store, a Bike, Hike, & Ski store, etc.  Their presence made the whole place a shopping destination though.  The main street in town looked like a smaller town main street but instead of your typical small town stores they had a Nike, Bass, Coach, GAP, and about 50 others.  It was a fun day of shopping spent there and all I bought was one pair of shoes.  Not bad!

When we finally made it back to Portland we celebrated with a spa day before we had to leave.  That was fantastic!  I had a salt scrub/body polish followed by a 30 minute massage.  I had no idea what to expect but the scrub was pretty nice.  I was all kinds of soft, exfoliated, and relaxed afterwards.

The rest of the trip mostly consisted of eating a TON of lobster (literally, lobster rolls for almost every meal!), going to see a couple of movies, and lots of good talks with my Mom.  I'm glad we finally got to spend this time together.  I think the trip was even more special now that I live farther from my parents and get to see them less.  And Maine was beautiful!

Act 27: Theology, Beer, and Going Solo

A few weeks ago my friend who works in church ministry invited me and a few others to go to Theology on Tap. I hadn’t heard of this before but it is a national ministry for young adult Christians (mostly Catholics) in their 20s and 30s. Each month the group meets at a bar and listens to a different speaker on issues of faith. They provide snacks, pop, and beer and give time to mingle before the speaker and discuss afterwards. Sounded pretty awesome to me!
We all agreed to go until about 2:30 in the afternoon the day of the event, when the friend that initially invited us had to back out because of a work meeting. This caused a domino effect. The two guys in the group decided to golf instead. The other girl had other plans within 30 minutes of the original person backing out. And then there was me. I still wanted to go so I talked to a few other friends about it that afternoon. One had to work, one had other plans, and one was uncomfortable with the idea of religious conversations (the topic was controversial). Thus the dilemma: go by myself or not at all? Some people are very comfortable going to events, movies, etc by themselves. I fall somewhere in the middle. I didn’t actually make the decision until about a half hour before it started and I decided to go. Why? Because otherwise I’d be sitting at home watching TV. If I had something else I could have done that night I might not have gone, but I didn’t. And I’m glad.

I drove to the bar and arrived about 10 minutes early. I went inside and was told to go upstairs for the speaker. There were already about 10 people there when I showed up and I introduced myself to a few of them, took part in the snacks, and got myself a drink. It seemed wrong not to imbibe at an event called Theology on TAP. I chatted with one of the organizing committee members and signed up for email updates on future events. Awfully bold considering I didn’t know if I would like it yet but hey, I’m an optimist!

I chatted before things got started with a girl named April, who just moved to Iowa from California. Talk about culture shock! We found a table with a couple others and kept up the chatting until the speaker was ready.

The topic of the night was something along the lines of “Matters of Life and Death” and covered big ticket issues like abortion, stem cell research, and contraception. Rather controversial, but so interesting! The speaker talked about the scientific facts some, the Catholic Church’s official stance on each, and the conflicting arguments. I definitely learned things I didn’t know, but I won’t get into the guts of that stuff here. If you’re interested, we can have a good conversation on it in person sometime.

After the speaker was finished there was Q&A and then table discussions. These were surprising calm, though some good debates took place. After we’d had enough of that kind of talk, April asked if I wanted to stick around downstairs and get a drink. Instead I invited her to Old Chicago since I was already planning on meeting some friends there. We shared some of our new knowledge with them and I have to say that I’m more confident talking about these subjects now that I’ve got more information.

April and I have hung out a few times since then and she’s even joining my volleyball team, so not only did I find a new activity (because I definitely plan on hitting up more Theology on Tap events), but I made a new friend. (All together now… “awwwwww” :-P ). I’d like to think I’d have been just as interested in striking up conversations with strangers if I’d had all my own friends there, but I’m not sure if that’s the case. Sometimes it’s not so bad to go solo.