by Misc. we mean "misk"

I may have graduated with a jock degree in something called Human and Organizational Development, but on the inside I've always been an English major. When in college, my circle of friends made a particular point of playing with words and pronouncing them in funny ways. This habit may have originated in our love affair with drunk Mad Libs (true story) but the words we bended and amended often slithered into our everyday banter.

I can't remember why, but Kyla and I took to saying "misk" when we saw "Misc." instead of saying the word "miscellaneous." Russell and I called it the "pff" floor when we saw "PH" in the elevator, as it was much more fun than saying "Pent House." We thought we were hilarious.

My personal favorite word bend though, was Eric Smith's bastardization of the name for the Jewish New Year, inspired by his brief tenure as a receptionist in the Vanderbilt Hillel Center. (Though he often tells people he was born in NY, he is in no way Jewish.) Instead of saying "RA-sha-sha-na" he would say "ro-SHA-shana" with wild eyes.

And then I found a million dollars... I'm not sure if this story really works in the written word.

But, while I'm writing about words, I wanted to share one of my new favorite GOOD Magazine columns, Wordtastic. Author Mark Peters discusses everything from the American tradition of criminal nicknames, i.e. "the undie bomber," to what it really means to "look a gift horse in the mouth."

As an ex-vet tech, pony club alumna and admitted word nerd, I was saddened that I hadn't figured out the gift horse one on my own. You can judge a horse's age and health by looking at its permanent incisors. Therefore, if someone gave you a horse, it would be very rude of you to immediately look in its mouth and check its teeth.

In other news, I saw this next to Canto 6 in Jamaica Plain the other day:

Yes, her tiny denim jacket is also Louis Vuitton.

This is a picture of Melanie with a delightful white bean salad at Prose in Arlington, MA that I meant to post ages ago. Seriously, you should go there. Best small plates ever, and they're mostly local and about half vegan and vegetarian. Go green food!


From the 34 Robes Deuce Kitchen:

I recently acquired a crock pot at Goodwill ($10) and here is my first successful recipe from the great crock pot challenge of 2010:

- Roast eggplant in the oven at 400 degrees until soft, about 45 min.
- finely dice onions and yellow pepper, throw in the pot with some olive oil, S&P, cinnamon and cloves
- Add water, red wine, canned tomatoes, eggplant and thin strips of steak if desired.
- Cook until it smells so good you can't wait any more, roughly 2 hours.

And here is my kitchen corner garden, made possible by a lamp from Boomerangs ($5) and a 120 Watt flourescent plant light bulb purchased on Amazon ($5.49 + shipping). I planted leaf lettuce, dill, cilantro, sage and arugula (obvi!). I also used the plastic bag and wet paper towel method to get some lentils to sprout. They'll get planted tonight. I only planted the other seeds four days ago, but we've left the light on 24-7. I'm hoping it doesn't destroy our electric bill.


Detail: the 'rugula.


My little brother Dean is in Haiti with the Marine Corps. I'm putting together a package for him. So far it includes a "I'm a trivia badass" T-shirt from my birthday party and a deck of 80's era nudie playing cards, generously donated by my co-worker Amie. Do you have any ideas for additional items to include? Please leave suggestions in the comments section, or e-mail me.

Rock ON BostON.

The Macrotones and a quick update

Wyatt is always sad that I don't give him more shout outs in the blog so I've included a video his band, the Macrotones, playing the Middle East Upstairs January 1, 2010. Wyatt is on the congas, all the way to the right. This video features "Architecture," off their first album Wayne Manor. They are in the studio tonight recording the last tracks for a new album. The 'tones play the Middle East Upstairs again on February 20th with Rubblebucket, winner of the 2009 Boston Music Award's Best Live Act. I'll be there, perhaps selling sweet seafoam green Macrotones t-shirts. Come hang out!



In other news, I just set up a plant light to grow seedlings in my kitchen. I know what it sounds like. Believe me, I wish it were marijuana but arugula sprouts are pretty good too. My next step is to build a cold frame in the back yard. I'm looking for cheap soil and hoping the snow will melt a little.

A few folks have called me about sweet jobs lately and it's been a little heart-breaking to turn them down. Unfortunately, I still have some work to do before I can re-enter the world-saving workforce. After a crap-ton of doctor's appointments in the last month, I'm basically back where I started. No new diagnoses, just a f-ed up back, weird facial twitches and some new drugs. (I wasn't taking anything for anything before a week ago.) I'm meant to go and do aquatic therapy but it seems all the pools that offer it are terribly far away, like in Lynn, who goes there? I think I'm better off investing in a personal trainer. What I really need is someone to kick my ass and force me to get a six pack so I can do things like running, sitting and side plank!

My goal is to reach a point where I can stand at concerts and wake up without feeling 85. I'm getting there, even if it takes turning into a gym rat with a subscription to Women's Health. Last night I did a Bollywood Booty workout video in my living room. God help me.

I'll leave you with another Macrotones video. This one has a great close up of Wyatt's drum face. That's my boyfriend!

Birthday Month Recap

Many thanks to everyone who came to my trivia/potluck birthday party last night. It was my first birthday party in 8 years and you all didn't let me forget that. Singing "Happy Birthday" twice might have been overkill but seriously, thank you.

We had an abundance of food and booze. Highlights included Golsa's vegan sesame chicken noodles, Paul and Lindsey's veggie meatballs, Jesse and Johanna's homemade pizza, all the cakes and cupcakes, and Veronica's late night sweet potato quesadillas, a 34 Robeson special. Guests to our house always comment on how well we eat here. Sometimes I think we should start a supper club, or at least a weekly potluck. This was at least our 4th potluck party and while we never give any guidelines, we always have enough food and its always delicious. I think it might be that we only make friends with other people who like to eat.

House party trivia was an experiment, Wyatt's idea. I wanted a fun way for a bunch of random people to interact without having to get shitfaced so Melanie and I made up a lot of questions, went over a game plan with Wyatt and hoped for the best. I was worried people wouldn't get into it but according to the guests it was mostly a hit.

We had three teams and four rounds:
- art, film and music
- picture round, had to identify 11 different vegetables
- artist and album, the answers to the first 9 questions were meant to be clues to guess a particular artist and album. People didn't like this one as much because the questions were really hard.
- A round of Noelle trivia, followed by a final jeopardy question about the Spanish Armada

Team "Who Threw That Shoe?" came in first, followed by team "Team" and "Grand Ole Team" a.k.a. "The 9 Stories (a tribute to Lisa Loeb)". The winners got first pick from a pile of home-stenciled "I'm a trivia badass" t shirts.

I also meant to solicit donations for Haiti Earthquake relief but it didn't really happen. Still, Haiti, my thoughts are with you. I know this was the last thing you needed.

So now, an uplifting song about Haiti's history, courtesy of Kaz:


In my lucky life, full of soul-less consumerism and devoid of life threatening earthquakes, I was able to have two amazing dinners out last week:
1. B&G Oysters in the South End with Wyatt.
This place is great for dates, provided your date is an adventurous seafood eater. It is very small and the kitchen is in the middle so you can see the chefs as they prepare your meal. Between small plates, an appetizer and an entree, we sampled a lot of different flavors. I could write forever about how good it all was but I think just listing the dishes will make your mouth water. Yes, it was all as good as it sounds.

Sea bass tartar with arugula and black pepper in blood orange juice ( a treat from a friend in the kitchen)
Monkfish foie gras
Mini blini with prosecco cured roe
Fried oysters with housemade tartar sauce
Roasted littleneck clams in spicy marinara sauce
Skate wing over a lemon risotto with calamari and mussels
Mascarpone custard over a puff pastry with fig sauce
A-mazing.

2. Prose in Arlington for Melanie's birthday dinner
Andrew, Wyatt, Melanie and I made the trip to Arlington to sample Prose Chef Debbie Shore's local seasonal fare. With just one helper in the kitchen, she took our order, cooked for and served us 10 small plates and two desserts. There was so much food I can't recount it all but highlights included smoked trout, pork belly with kimchi, red pepper bisque made with lapsong souchong tea, and a white bean salad with walnut and olive tapenade. This lady knows what's up when it comes to yummy food. She also kept us listening to her stories about restaurant history in Jamaica Plain for 35 minutes after our meal. Mostly it was endearing. I would definitely go back.

Christmas in Pictures

At the Janka ranch we had lobster and crab on Christmas Eve. Correction: Dean had a lobster since he's serving our country and stuff.


The rest of us plebeians had crab. Chesapeake Bay crabs with Old Bay seasoning. Mmm mm. I was a little nervous about transferring them into the pot. My mom said if we ran them under cold water first they would get numb and stop snapping. Logical reasoning maybe, if crabs didn't normally live in cold water...This one got especially fierce.


On my birthday I walked along the snowy Potomac with the Rents.


These are the faces that happen when my Dad takes too long to find the camera button.



Back before Christmas we had a feast at Robes Deuce, complete with braised pork shoulder and gingerbread cookie decorating. It is hard to tell in this terribly blurry pictures but in addition to men, we had gingerbread lobsters and dinosaurs. Wyatt made himself a gingerbread mustache.


DC, being too cool for cookie cutters, made his own Grateful Dead inspired gingerbread cookie.

Sinus facts and the shocking politics of Lyme Disease

I'm on a personal quest to learn what is wrong with my body. It hasn't been right since Fall of 2005, when I started experiencing severe muscle soreness in my back and neck, without any significant injury or trauma. Other ailments followed, including chronic sinus infections, depression and other neat things that led to lots of drugs and doctor's visits. A little more than a year after I started feeling off, I illustrated my frustrations with sickness and doctors in a sculpture entitled "Decrepit at 21" as part of an art show at Vanderbilt.


It has been five years since then and I've been thinking: why not make some more cathartic chronic pain art?

This morning I went to the Boston Library at Copley (it's amazing!) and spent some time looking at images of the human body. In an anatomy book called - no joke- Gray's Anotomy- I learned a about back muscles and the respiratory system. Did you know we all have 4 different kinds of sinuses? And they develop in the 6-8 years after puberty to change the shape of your face?


One kind (ethmoidal) includes multiple cavities, ranging from 7 to 18 on each side. Drainage in the maxillary sinuses, those under your eyeballs, is hindered by their structure and placement, making them the most often chronically infected. No one seems sure what sinuses are for but it is thought that they give some resonance to the voice and help shape our faces. Thanks evolution. You really helped us out this time. Gotta love having green snot trapped in your face.


With help from my Mom I've also been researching Lyme Disease. Essentially all my symptoms (especially fatigue, weakness, muscle and joint pain) could be attributed to the disease. Given all the time I spent on horse farms, it's not unlikely that I was exposed, perhaps multiple times. I've learned that it is very difficult to get diagnosed and treated. People often have Lyme for years before they get diagnosed and even then, it is very difficult to get proper treatment and/or insurance coverage.

Here's why, according to recent testimony by Lyme Disease Association before the Pennsylvania House Majority Policy Committee:

1.The Center for Disease Control (CDC) criteria, what doctors use to diagnose and treat lyme, was originally created for surveillance purposes only. Still, if patients don't meet the criteria or test positive, its very hard for them to find doctors that will make a clinical diagnosis without laboratory backup. I've seen this bullshit first hand. Doctors have told me that if I never saw a bull's eye rash on my body, I probably haven't been exposed. It turns out the rashes occur in less than 50% of intefected individuals. Thanks Doc.

2. The blood test for lyme is only 40-60% accurate.

3. The Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA) treatment guidelines state that there is no chronic lyme disease, that doctors shouldn't use their own discretion, that certain antibiotics shouldn't be used, and that long term treatment for the illness is not advisable. This is totally dumb since there are documented cases of chronic lyme in 65 countries and all 50 states. And, studies have shown that patients with untreated lyme disease "suffer a degree of disability equal to that of patients with congestive heart failure."

4. Despite a disclaimer in the IDSA guidelines stating that they are not mandatory, doctors have been proscuted for not following them. Furthermore, insurance companies have threatened to drop doctors from their plans if they prescribe antibiotics for lyme. Like abuse of tort law, this scares the bejesus out of most doctors and they continue to follow the bogus guidelines. The ISDA even opposes Federal legislation allocating funds for much needed Lyme research. Smell a rat anyone?

The problem has become so widespread that California, Connecticut and Rhode Island have passed legislation to protect doctors who use their own discretion in identifying and treating Lyme. Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts have introduced legislation.

A new documentary made in 2008 called "Under Our Skin" seeks to educate the general public on the disease, prevention and barriers to quelling what has become an epidemic. Lyme increased 250% nationwide between 1993 and 2008 and some say its bigger than HIV. Whoa.

cool food blogs

I'm looking to build a cold frame in the back yard so we can plant some winter veggies. I haven't found anyone yet who has successfully grown veggies in a Boston winter but I am going to try. I think we can do it for $20. In my research I came across a lot of neat blogs and articles about food.

Here is a blog I found by a woman outside Boston. Like me, she enjoys documenting her harvest.

The Slow Cook is a blog by former Washington Post reporter Ed Bruske. He lives on Capitol Hill and writes about veggies, cooking and politics. Love it!

Civil Eats is neat too.

Please tell me if you know of others I should be reading!

MIT researchers think we can combat childhood obesity by increasing regional food consumption. If the nerds at MIT say so, it must be true right? I particularly liked this line:

“People haven’t focused on our food system yet because it’s big, it’s political, and it’s
complex,” says Carlough. “But it is a critical issue that needs to be addressed.”

Some day!