Wee Feast

Today’s guest blogger is Kristin. She’s the mastermind behind the pop culture blog Puff on Pop. She is also 24, a Pisces, and likes long walks on the beach and cheeseburgers. I asked her to share some information that my readers might like, and she decided to demystify and outs of making an epic mix CD.

College is typically a time in a young person’s life filled with intense learning, both academically and personally. After all was said and done in my college tenure, I learned that I can make a bad-ass mix CD. Let me take you on this journey.

I suppose I always had an inkling that I was really good at it. I was in high school in the hey day of the original Napster, and spent more time than I care to think about downloading music and burning it onto CDs. Burned CDs of a certain artist or genre can get old after awhile, which is when I began playing around with some different combinations. I finally came into my own as a mixmaster (if I may be so bold as to call myself that) my last year of college with what I consider to be the pinnacle of my mix CD making career: Sparkly Capes vol. I-III. Sparkly Capes, named for the sparkly, glittery cape I was wearing when I created the iTunes playlist. Nevertheless, the three CDs were brilliant — fun to listen to while driving, doing laundry, cleaning your house after a huge party, studying, designing a website and pulling an all-nighter in the computer lab … They were my Sistene Chapel.

I retired from making CDs after I finished college and moved into the working world. Just recently, I’ve tried to get back in. My first venture was difficult, I won’t lie. It took me days upon days to get it right, and I still have doubts about it even now. Just last night, however, I, like Stella, got my groove back. I crafted a CD for my current roommate that just might rival some of my older work. It was like muscle memory, and suddenly I knew what made my older mixes so awesome. And now I’m here to share everything I know with you.

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I do my best to get my  money’s worth from the groceries I purchase, so having bought some light cream for the vegetable pot pie I made this week, I had about a cup and a half to use up before I go on vacation this weekend. Cream scones fit the bill, since you use milk fat instead of butter fat, and bittersweet chocolate sounded sweet but not too sweet.

The recipe’s from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet by way of Pittsburgh Needs Eated, a beautiful food blog with a wonderful selection of recipes. I couldn’t get my scones into that cute triangle shape, so settled for the standard “drop” style. They look like homemade scones, not Starbucks pastries, and are much more moist and delicious.

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When you’re in the mood for Sunday dinner, and the weather says it’s spring—despite the chilly weather—vegetable pot pie is the ultimate fix. It has both a warming casserole appeal and spring-is-coming-just-look-at-all-those-veggies optimism. Fancy enough for company, simple enough to feed a crowd of young professionals exhausted after a late Saturday night, this was the perfect Sunday evening meal this weekend.

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A resident of Brooklyn, Laura spends her days toiling at a product design firm while dreams of healthy, fresh, and locally-grown produce dance in her head. Armed with an Italian ancestry and a hipster soul, she combats the pervasive apathy of Williamsburg with her magical cooking skills. She fears no recipe and is willing to try anything, the only requirements being: 1) it must go well with either red wine or whiskey and 2) must be taste-approved by her picky and overly-critical roommate. Here is her account of a recent delicious meal she made and graciously served to her friends.
Bio by Allison, the picky and overly-critical roommate, who gives this recipe two thumbs up.

First off, I would like to say a big thank you for inviting me to contribute.  I am an avid reader of the blog and am continually inspired by your advice, honesty and intellect—not to mention yummy recipes!  So, it was with great joy that I took on the task of writing a bit about my cooking adventures.

This year I decided to tackle the grand task of trying all the recipes in one of the many cookbooks I’ve come to collect.  After much debate, I decided to go with Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa at Home.  I find her recipes to be wholesome, good food that never disappoint.  I especially like the fact that she doesn’t take short cuts—when a recipe calls for butter, she uses butter and no substitutes.  I am a strong believer in good, real food and consuming all in moderation.

As the winter winds to a close and spring is just around the corner, I used this as a chance to get some good friends together for an evening of warmth and comfort food.  And nothing sounds cozier than a bowl of Ribollita, an Italian bread stew.  I first had this dish in Florence, Italy while I was studying abroad, and ever since I’ve meant to buck up and try it myself.  But, I must admit, it was a daunting task—to the tune of almost three hours of prep time.  Although, a price worth paying for the end result!

It started the night before with soaking the beans, but the real work began the morning of when I had the enjoyable task of shopping for all the ingredients.  I just happen to live in a lovely Italian neighborhood that has a shop for each of my many needs.  So, Saturday morning consisted of trips to the bakery for bread, the butcher for pancetta, and my local veggie vendor for all the rest.  I ended with this beautiful bounty—lovely, no?

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Daughter of Fortune. Check. House of the Spirits. Check. Inés of my Soul. Check.

And now Eva Luna, probably my new favorite Isabel Allende novel, the one that somehow got lost in my reading list.

There’s nothing like a little realismo mágico to get you through that time in the year when it’s not quite winter and it’s not quite spring. For me it’s because I’m so sick of the ordinary I could scream. I checked out the tiny paperback version of this book and read it in one sitting on a plane ride, wrapped up in Allende’s strange world.

The characters are wonderful. The desert and wilderness motifs are intricate. The struggles of feminism and defining what it means to be a woman, while taken seriously, aren’t heavy-handed. The story manages to contain plenty of subtle humor, political commentary, and authorial self-reflection.

You should absolutely read this book.

I have a thing for onions, and leeks as well. You might call the veggies and cheese on a flaky crust concoction I’ve been enjoying all winter a savory galette, as the recipe-originator does. You might call it a free-form tart, as I’ve been wont to do. Or we could call it like we see it, and say it’s a “fancy biscuit pizza.”

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Barbara Kingsolver’s novel is both a beautiful observation of the natural world, and an organized tangle of three different tales. Three sets of characters struggle with their relationships with one or two people and the environment that surrounds them. “Environment” here is both nature and social dynamics. Kingsolver tells you her point early on, but takes you along for the ride until you have no choice but to be persuaded by her message: we’re all connected.

The three major characters are great. Lusa’s story, the international city girl who marries a farmer, was my favorite. The struggle between her internal and external selves is well-drawn and a pleasure to read. Deanna, a prickly character, was tougher to relate to, which makes sense. Her character doesn’t really give a damn about people anyway. Garnet’s story made me smile the most, with his cranky-old-man-isms as a cover of his caring nature.

This book is wonderful, with intense biological references (due to the author’s background as a biologist) and unique words and phrases scattered throughout. You’ll enjoy it. And once you’re done, make sure you read her other great work, The Poisonwood Bible, if you’ve not yet.

I’m still sort of recovering from my last bout of oral surgery, and part of that recovery means I’m off my usual crunchy breakfast foods. Cereal? No way. Muffins, with a knife and fork? Oh yes. But what flavor of muffin to use?

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Regardless of your industry, what are some essential business skills that will never go out of style?

My friend Lauren and I were trying to come up with a list of skills to master that translate across businesses, everywhere from nonprofits to sales to finance to teaching to construction. It especially makes sense in tough economic times to figure out what types of things are “known winners” for success of individuals and organizations.

Here are the 7 major themes we came up with:

• Communication: manage and sell what’s going on
• Prioritization: figure out what is important to do when
• Teamwork: increase productivity by playing well with others
• Respect: gratitude, reasonable work loads, positive environment
• Follow-through: do what you say
• Networking: genuine interest in others, personal career development
• Ability to learn new things: get with the times

Of course, there is an “x-factor” of how someone’s personality aligns with these skills. You have to balance which is more important: working with someone talented, but difficult, or working with someone pleasant, but not a superstar.

According to Lauren, “Some people can get away with being assholes because they constantly produce quality product or fantastic new ideas, or they have mad connections and can pull through in a tough bind. And then there are those people who you could probably replace, but you wouldn’t want to, since they are so easy and pleasant to work with.”

I would argue that it’s worthwhile to explore the definition of being a “difficult” person. Is someone difficult because they have high standards for what products they let out the door? Is someone difficult because they ask the tough questions? Or is someone difficult because, as in Robert Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule, they use their position of authority to make other people feel awful?

Sutton would say that if someone’s an asshole, get ‘em out, regardless of their high performance. He did some research on how much one asshole coworker can bring down the morale of the entire team, through factors such as absenteeism and employee turnover. Sutton would probably take the pleasant, steady performer any day.

So what do you think? Did we miss any essential skills? What type of people would you like to work with?

I’ve broken down and purchased my own ice cream maker. “Not a new coffee maker?” I was asked, a valid question since my $8 ToastMaster coffee maker has a slow leak and is starting to look rather gnarly. But no, $29.99 on a fancy coffee maker sounded like too much, while double that on an ice cream maker, organic milk and cream, and a lovely jar of imported dulce de leche made sense to me.

In case you’re not familiar, dulce de leche is a flavor from the non-United States Americas (central, south). If you want to be less pretentious you can just call it soft caramel or milk caramel. Bear with me on the journey of the different kinds of caramel. You can make it with butter, and you can make it with milk. You can boil it until it’s brittle or you can leave it runny like an ice-cream topping. The only thing that matters is that you melt down sugar and other ingredients until the sugar gets brown and delicious by becoming caramelized. So dulce de leche is simply a sugar/milk caramel, and it’s got the consistency of hot fudge sauce. Most of it is imported from Argentina, but you can make your own with condensed milk, time, and sheer will.

More after the jump.

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