Goodbye 2011!

So much happened this year! 365 days ago, Dan and I were getting ready to board a plane back to snowy New Jersey, with paper deadlines and finals looming.

In January, we mostly huddled inside, trying to study for exams, prepare for thesis presentations, and finish off our second to last semester. At the end of the month, I took a trip down to Austin, TX with Princeton Crew for our annual winter training trip.

The team in Texas.

At that point, I was still in the second boat. Occasionally, our coach gave me a glimmer of hope that I might be considered for the top boat, but it was always fleeting. I also really got my weight under control in January/February, regularly hitting 129 pounds.

February began our final semester at Princeton. The month went by in a blur, with the exception of Dan's wonderful V-day surprise.

During February, I also worked my way into the top boat with the Princeton lightweights as we prepped for our first race.

March marked the start of our racing season, where we blew our competition out of the water. We immediately took the top of the national polls. It also marked a rapidly approach deadline: my senior thesis due date.

In early April, my thesis was handed in, and the beginning of the end began. The lightweights finished our undefeated regular season, Dan and I completed our final classes at Princeton, and we prepared for finals and graduation.

In May, we won the regional championships!

And then Dan and I graduated.

I got sick during graduation. Lots of people, incredibly high temperatures, and the stress of training were not a good combination. I stayed sick through June, when we raced at the national championships, and came in second.

Dan and I briefly parted ways while he visited home in Oregon and I flew to England to race one last time.

Rowing in England!

We were reunited in Berkeley shortly thereafter, where Dan began his search for work, and I started work as a rowing coach. We also began planning our wedding!

In August, Dan started work at an architecture firm in San Francisco. As we both got busier, the year began to march away a little bit more quickly.

September and October were spent looking for housing and making money. We finally moved into our new apartment in mid-November. We enjoyed Thanksgiving with Dan's parents, as they came down to help us move.

Thanksgiving on the beach! Only in California.

December brought frantic wedding planning, including the arrival of my wedding dress! (Yes, it still fit!) We also celebrated the holidays both in California with my family and in Oregon with Dan's.

Now, one year later, Dan and I are out on our own, and preparing for our wedding--a short two weeks away!

Stay tuned for New Year's Resolutions tomorrow!

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Racing in California + Chocolate Mint Energy Bars

This weekend we travelled to California to race Stanford and Wisconsin's lightweight women and the St. Mary's openweight women in a series of dual races at the PAC-10 Invitational at Redwood Shores. We flew out Thursday afternoon and arrived in California late that evening.

Our hotel was right on the race course. You could almost see the finish line from our hotel room.

The finish line buoys were just out of view.

The next morning, we headed to the grocery store first thing. We still had to weigh-in for the day, but we all stocked up on a lot of fruit and other snacks for later in the day, and for the next few days.

In the afternoon, we practiced twice to get used to the course and our new boat (we borrowed it from Stanford so we didn't have to drive ours all the way out!) and weighed-in.

M+D's Favorite Pasta Sauce

A while back my dad sent me his amazing meat sauce recipe... but I lost it. I asked him for it again, but I don't think he ever remembered to resend it (probably for fear that I would lose it again and it would fall into undeserving hands).

Found this frying pan in the kitchen. It was perfect for tossing.

Instead, D and I searched the archives of Tastespotting for a recipe and found this one. Of course, we didn't actually follow the recipe (for a lot of reasons) but it ended up being delicious.

Over the past year, it's transformed a couple of times and improved a lot. It takes a decent amount of time to get everything in the pot, but most of it is inactive time. It's a great project if you're working on something else in the kitchen--writing blog posts, watching a movie or even making/decorating cookies.

The instructions are long, but they're very step by step. (You don't even have to read all the way through them before starting--they walk you through when to chop and when to add.)

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M+D's Meat Sauce
makes enough for 3lbs of pasta

Equipment:
Cutting board
Chef's knife
Wooden spatula
Medium frying pan
Large pot (plus one for cooking pasta)
Grater (for nutmeg)
Butter knife (or you can use the chef's knife)
Sink
Two burners

Worth every minute. Yum!

Ingredients:
2T olive oil
3T butter, divided
0.5 large onion
2 large carrots or 2 handfuls of baby carrots
2-3 stalks of celery (you want about the same amount as the carrot)
4 cloves garlic
1.5lbs ground beef (as fatty or unfatty as you desire)
1c milk

1 can sweet corn kernels

1 can (15oz.) beef broth (or you can use half broth and half wine--we weren't 21 when we first started making this recipe)
1 32oz. can and 1 15oz can of whole peeled tomatoes (if you have tomato haters, use crushed or diced, or crush them with your hands)
5-10 brown mushrooms (optional, although D's pretty upset that they ever became an option..)
1t red pepper flakes
2 bay leaves
1-2t Italian seasoning, basil or thyme (whatever you have)
0.5 nutmeg
salt, pepper

Dill Rolls

These rolls were very popular with D's parents

D's grandma, Kate, makes famous dill rolls. I've never tried them, but at least three months in advance of Christmas, D was already excited about having them for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, Grandma Kate didn't make dill rolls this year, and much of the family was left sorely disappointed.

When we got back to D's house from Christmas dinner, I made a version of dill rolls. We called G. Kate, and she didn't have the exact recipe, but we got enough to make a good first attempt.

My baking pans weren't quite big enough—the rolls merged!

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Imitation G. Kate Dill Rolls
makes 24 rolls