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Key Lime Shooters

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I enjoy testing my culinary skills in the kitchen, and I like entertaining. So, I was surprised last night to realize my last dinner party was in September 2010–holy smokes! My menu included an assortment of appetizers (almonds, cashews, grapes, cheeses, crackers, spinach dip and salt & black pepper chips), romaine salad with carrots, walnuts & Craisins, and the main course: three roasted chickens with carrots and salt-crusted baked potatoes.

One of my dinner hosting rules of thumb is to delight with dessert. Because if all else fails, your guests won’t desert you before dessert. Here’s the recipe for Key Lime Shooters for your next party.

Key Lime Shooters

1 box (3 oz.) sugar-free lime Jello
1/4 c. boiling water
2 containers (8 oz. each) key lime flavored yogurt
1 container (8 oz.) Cool Whip thawed
1 graham cracker pie crust
Whipped cream (optional)

Dissolve Jello in boiling water. Whisk in yogurt with wooden spoon. Fold in thawed Cool Whip. Refrigerate overnight or at least 2 hours. Crumble the graham cracker pie crust in a Ziploc bag to use in assembling your shooters. Using shooter glasses (votive candle holders found at your local hobby store), add a spoonful of graham cracker crumbles for your base, layer some key lime filling, repeat and then top with graham cracker or dollop of whipped cream. Enjoy!

Another variation: chocolate fudge pudding and crushed Oreos.

January 21st, 2012|Food & Drink|Comments Off

Fireside Chats

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If you’re lucky at my office, your status meeting might turn into a fireside chat in the Great Hall. And some random trivia: the term fireside chat was coined on the date I celebrate my birthday. Except not the 1933 part.

January 19th, 2012|General, Photography|Comments Off

Sopa

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Sopa was on the minds of many today, as evidenced by the Internet blackout of popular websites in response to SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and the discussion storms throughout the Net. If you never noticed, then I guess you didn’t have 37 Wikipedia searches that wouldn’t work.

Sopa was on many Minnesotan minds, as evidenced by the empty shelves of saltine crackers. The bitter cold is back. So, I made chicken wild rice soup. Not homemade by definition, but homemade enough (add-in ingredients) that it still makes you feel good.

About 10 years ago in Spain, sopa was on my mind then, too. I asked a store clerk where I could buy some sopa, and I proceeded to explain in charades by lathering myself up with sopa, washing my chest, arms, and hair. The clerk gave me a puzzled stare. Trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong, I slowly realized that I’d just demonstrated bathing with soup. Oops.*

* For the record, soap = jabón in Spanish. Beginner’s mistake!

January 18th, 2012|Food & Drink|Comments Off

Pink Elephants on Parade

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Whimsical blue tubes erupt around the exterior of Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis. These playful, architectural adornments look a lot like sousaphones. And in my imagination, I half expect to hear them making music from one of my favorite childhood movies with the song Pink Elephants on Parade.

January 17th, 2012|Minneapolis, Music, Photography|Comments Off

I Work Out

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New year’s resolutions like healthier eating and regular exercise are not that surprising to me. Yet, I was surprised to find them on my own list this year. Somehow my favorite routine to hit the gym 5-7 times a week had fallen out of favor, as I got into a new groove and had fewer desirable gym options along my short commute. And while I’ve returned to the home of the Pillsbury Dough Boy, I certainly have no intention of becoming one!

Today at work, I joined the BizicallyFIT Health Challenge with a team of coworkers. Maybe some competition will be my motivation. There are no easy solutions, no fast results and no substitutions for making balanced food choices, counting calories and exercising daily.

I’m making a more concerted effort to stay fit and resume my routine. With resistance bands, a pull-up bar and more, tonight it began. For realz. (Yes, I actually said that earlier today, and no, I have no idea why.)

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

How will you become a healthier you in 2012?

January 16th, 2012|General|3 Comments

Papaya

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Stepping under the canopy of palm fronds, I quickly traded the crisp cold for humid air and growing things. The $2 suggested donation was a fair exchange for a 20 minute escape within the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul. (If you’re in Chicago, another one worth visiting is the Garfield Park Conservatory.)

I noted the textures and colors of mid-morning light, as leaves swept past my arms and palm branches brushed my hair. I weaved around the source of things found in my spice rack like black pepper vines, cinnamon bark and allspice, as well as banana plants and barren fig trees. Then, I caught the spidery-looking stems and nine-lobed leaves of a papaya tree, and that’s how today’s photos came to be.

January 16th, 2012|Nature, Photography|Comments Off

Candles

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Another milestone, another year,
Marked by candles and laughter,
and friends who draw near.

Happy Birthday, Pauline!

January 15th, 2012|People|Comments Off

Handcrafted

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My favorite thing in my living room, this CD stand has no ordinary design. It’s one of a kind. Handcrafted with care, my grandpa—a woodworking hobbyist—recreated a CD stand I saw in a catalog. I should note one key difference: It has 88 keys just like a real piano. Each cut individually by hand. On both sides of the stand. With a total of 176 hand painted keys, it’s the Steinway of CD stands.

I own 400-some CDs, but only the best are selected for display. (Disclosure: You can see this includes my own music.) It’s fitting that I’d take this photo today, since my grandpa Joe later called me on Skype. He, my grandma and I connected in living rooms from snowless Minnesota to snowbird city, Arizona.

My grandpa’s handiwork reminds me of what you can accomplish when you combine patience, creativity and concentration. Most of all, that CD stand I see every day reminds me of my grandpa.

He’s one of a kind.

January 13th, 2012|Music, People|Comments Off

Marquee

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Disney’s The Lion King: Equally as magnificient as the Minneapolis premiere I saw in 1997.

January 12th, 2012|Minneapolis, Music|1 Comment

Lights On

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When you’re first learning something new, it’s a mix of adrenaline, excitement and uncertainty. A bit like being in the dark. But little by little, lesson by lesson, light pierces through the darkness. Things start to make sense.

Language is one of those things. Tonight, I volunteered at a Jesuit high school helping a senior student and her dad fill out the FAFSA for college financial aid…in Spanish. You see, when I introduce myself to Spanish speakers, I’m often met with polite skepticism as “un gringo de la granja” (foreigner from the farm). But, then I keep talking. And the skepticism fades to surprise and a smile as I conjugate the crap out of -ar, -er and -ir verbs at a respectable rate. I make no pretenses of having perfect Spanish. Far from it. I have fun with it and make jokes at my own expense, while being coached by native speakers. I expect that I will forever be learning linguistic nuances.

I have an insatiable curiosity to be clued in to Latin culture, and I have no idea where this comes from. Over the past 17 years, lesson by lesson, the Spanish language has ignited in my brain, piercing pockets of light through the darkness and creating an ear attuned to the sounds of el español. Here tonight I reflect on the lights: the lights on learning.

January 11th, 2012|Photography|Comments Off

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