Wonderful Weekend

I made Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon (or, as our Julia pronounces it, “buff borginoney”) on Friday, and we got snowed in on Saturday so Mom made sauce (the house smelled heavenly) and we stayed in PJs all day and watch movies and ate spaghetti and meatballs. I love winter!

 Here’s what we watched:

Snow Day: PJs and comfort food

So, yeah, this is what constitutes a snow day in the DC area:

P.S. That's not ice; that is slush.

In my experience, snow days usually at least give kids a chance to go sledding. Not that I'm complaining. I slept in (very in) and I only got out of my PJs in order to shower and put on new PJs. I feel like Aunt Linda.

Also, I am watching season 1 of Homeland so as not to feel culturally illiterate when someone brings it up, which is all the time. (Now I will only feel culturally illiterate when people discuss Dr. Who!) I'm also enjoying some delicious comfort food, leftovers of something I made a couple days ago: Creamy chicken pappardelle.

I had some pappardelle from Trader Joe’s that I picked up because it looked so delicious and then I didn’t know what to cook with it. Then I discovered this recipe which reminded me of a pappardelle dish I had at Lidia’s in the Pittsburgh Strip District. That dish is seared in my mind as one of the most delicious, comfort-foody things I have ever eaten. Alas, it was one of Lidia’s seasonal pasta choices and I have been back several times hoping to catch them on a Roast Pork Pappardelle day and I never do.

So, when I saw this recipe and read the story about it being inspired by comfort food in the movie The Holiday, I knew my Trader Joe’s pappardelle had found its destiny, even if it did mean I’d have to handle raw chicken. (Raw chicken is the scariest of my terror meats, so you must realize how badly I wanted to try this dish that I was willing to go through the anguish of raw chicken.)

I highly recommend you check it out: The Best Pappardelle Dish You Will Have Outside of Lidia's Restaurant.

It was so delicious and the leftovers are just as good. Happy snow day!

An ode to January

Everywhere I go, people seem down on January. “It’s such a bummer of a month,” I've heard people say. Well, I declare that that’s kooky talk. I love January. Truly adore it. Here are just some of the reasons why…

1. Everything is new again and a fresh start seems truly possible. Out with the old and in with the organizing. My house never looked so good.
2. I love winter. Everything about it. The sparkle of the ice, the crunch of snow beneath my feet, the spectacular way everything smells. Cool and icy and fresh, so much better than the sickly overwhelming scents that bombard me in summer.
3. Oscar-readiness begins! Plus, the Golden Globes and SAG awards are on.
4. Delays and cancellations and the promise of maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, getting good and snowed-in.
5. Hot cocoa, blankets, and books.
6. Leftover Christmas candy.
7. Fresh new calendars and day planners.
8. When you take your Christmas tree down, it feels like your room doubles in size. It’s like found space. My living room looks huge during January.
9. I start getting all my tax documents in the mail which makes me start dreaming of what I might do with my refund check.
10. It’s quiet. After the decadence of the holidays, January is when it’s perfectly acceptable to spend the evening doing nothing, enjoying the calm of a still house. That feeling is precious as diamonds.