Childhood memories gone wrong

It is sad when one's childhood memory of something gets tarnished by reality. I have been eating organic yogurt for years. We were in the store last night just getting a few things, when I saw some yoplait whipped yogurt sitting on the shelf. I remembered having it as a kid and thought I would buy two for old times sake. This morning, while waiting for my banana bread to bake, I thought I would try one as a snack. This was a bad idea. Right away I noticed that the texture was really weird. It was like overly fluffy, not like whipped, but foamy. Then was the taste. It was cloyingly sweet and tasted more of strawberry jolly rancher than strawberry jam. It was so gross I had to stop eating it. Why oh why had this happened. What went wrong with my yoplait? It is not a dollar store brand and should be pretty legit- no? Then I read the label. Staring at me from the not so dark recesses of SECOND INGREDIENT. Yep. You guessed it. High Fructose Corn Syrup. I suppose one could say that it is not a childhood memory gone wrong, because most likely it did not contain HFCS when I was a kid. I mean, even Coca Cola did not start using HFCS until 1985 (I was 6 then). So when you think that the products you consume have always been this way- they haven't. It is amazing to me, though, that having removed HFCS from my diet almost completely, when I am faced with it somehow my body throws a red flag.

In better food news, we got to try out our new mini fryer and food grinder the other night. We ground about 3 pounds of chuck steak for hamburgers. There is a marked difference between a coarse ground steak burger and a regular hamburger. Delish! The grinder was gifted to us by mom and dad and uses the motor from my kitchenaid stand mixer to work. I felt a bit like Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd. I kept chanting 'Benjamin Barker' to the Captain. I think he was amused and mildly disturbed by this at the same time.
The mini fryer was also a wedding gift. I love this thing because it only uses 1Qt of oil, takes up very little counter space, and has a carbon filter on the top to cut the smell of the smoke. We don't fry stuff too often, but when we want to make pommes frites Belgian style (which is the proper way) it is nice to have. I would probably make beignets more often when guests come over now that I have temperature control. Frying french doughnuts in a tiny pan with a candy thermometer takes over an hour- not good when hungry guests are chomping at the bit.

Wedding bells have come and gone

The wedding is over, but boy was it fun! It was so nice to see all of our friends and family together again. The beach luau was surely a success and I hope to find some good pics to show off. Right now I am nursing a cold, so I just popped in to say hello briefly. This weekend we are off to the Renaissance faire (as long as I get better that is).

Spring Cleaning

Today is the day that the super dooper spring cleaning begins. Since the small family ceremony for our wedding is going to be held in our living room (I said it was small), it needs to be in top shape. It is a long and tiring battle, but I think I will win. The living room is almost done. I have vacuumed each couch and chair cushion individually and on both sides, vacuumed even the inside of the sleeper sofa. I have cleaned more dust in more random cracks that nobody ever sees than I really thought possible. All that is left is tidying the coffee table and oil soaping the wood floors. There is the dreaded rug cleaning, but I need the Captain for that and he is currently lost in thesis land right now. Hopefully the other three rooms won't be so tiring. My one bit of anxiety is that I am going to get this super clean this weekend only for it to get dirty again before the festivities next week. Here is to hoping.

In other news, I have just about finished my first baby gift of the season. I have 4 friends that are preggers right now. I don't know if I can get hand knit gifts for all of them (I am going to try) but at least one of them is in the bag. I don't want to divulge the surprise right now (since we are not shipping stuff off until next month) but I only have 600 more stitches, weaving, and blocking left. Yay.

One more week

Ok, I know it has been a while since I have posted, but I have been drowning in wedding plans and science paper writing. Two weeks ago we had my bachelorette party. It was great. The girls and the moms (mine and his) came over and we had chalupas and margaritas for dinner. After opening gifts of the naughty variety, we played a game. My sister had emailed The Captain a bunch of questions- like 'what is your favorite childhood memory? What is your pet peeve?' He gave her all the answers and I was quizzed! For each answer I got wrong I had to put a piece of double bubble in my mouth. There were like 2 pages of questions; I only missed 8 answers but that was still a lot of gum in the mouth!

After I regained my speaking ability, we hopped on the El and headed to a Drag Show (all in matching pink shirts made by Muffy.) I had never seen live female impersonators before, but it was a hoot. From there we went to karaoke in Lincoln Park. This karaoke place is the best because each group gets their own private room, so you don't have to deal with weirdos (except for the ones in your own group- ha ha). We were rocking out all the great tunes we could when the boys crashed the party. The men folk threw the Captain a bachelor party at a friends house and they all came to join us later in the evening. It was a super way to end the night- everyone together.

Now we have one week to go and everything is coming together so nicely. For all my talk about not having a big wedding, we may not have numbers, but it will be an event! I am so glad that it has turned out the way it has. I think all of the family got to add their own touch to it and it is perfect.

-The soon to be Mrs. Captain