My Le Creuset starter kit arrived today. A 5.5 quart Dutch oven, a 10 inch skillet, a 2 quart saucepan, a 6 inch nonstick skillet, and a 9x13 inch roaster. In blue. (Bleu?) I hopped up and down and squealed like a little girl when the box arrived.

I made a vegetable tian: slices of Yukon Gold potatoes, tomatos, and zucchini roasted with sauteed onions and garlic, with olive oil and a sprinkling of Gruyere. And Parmesan crusted pork chops. Both were pretty darn good for a first try.

I think I'll be cooking a lot before it gets too unbearably hot here in the desert.

Homer posted his quiche picture, so I thought I'd post my first from-scratch apple pie. Crust has always intimidated me, but I followed the recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, and it worked rather well. I need to practice the edging, but I'm sure it will taste yummy all the same.

It's going to snow and drift in Phoenix tomorrow. For me.

I've only taken one day off so far this year. The result of which is that I have an extra vacation day carried over from last year about to expire at the end of the month. So I declared Monday a snow day. Just a day off to faff about with no particular plan, except sleeping in, making a pie, and perhaps doing a bit of shopping.

Today, for Sunday dinner, I set the kitchen on fire making Beef Bourguinon for the first time. It smells delicious bubbling away in the oven at the moment. Later it wil be served over toasted bread with a salad with warm goat cheese croutons. Yummy.

Boise has been visited.

Rather whirlwind weekend. Friday night in Boise visiting friends. A couple of tasty malt beverages at my friend Keith's bar, the Lucky Dog Tavern. I usually wake up with a hangover, but I was relatively good.

Saturday lunch with the father and the stepmother. Fish at McGrath's, where the portions are insane. The fish is pretty tasty, but the pasta was eh.

Then the rest of the weekend with mother and her partner. Gooding is wet and muddy from the snow and rain.

I'm thrilled to see everyone, but the trip is so packed that I arrive home feeling like I've been gone for awhile. It seems odd to walk back into the office and nothing much has changed.

Off home for the weekend to visit the family. I've just received my brand new shiny Sony Ericsson 750i with better camera, and hooked up my Flickr, so there should be some pictures posted....

It's gonna be cold.

Swapped out the header on my website in lieu of the full redesign I'm trying to pull out of the air. I have not been motivated to Photoshop and futz with HTML for personal gain. So, rocks.

Oscarama Weekend was spent mostly in bed on Saturday, reading cookbooks and now-in-mass-market novels. Sunday was spent in the kitchen. I attempted tart Tatin for the first time. Everything went swimmingly until the last moment. I left it on the stove a bit too long trying to thicken the caramel, and I burned the sugar slightly. But it's still yummy.

Afterward, corn chowdah, recipe from The Way to Cook. I intended to make crab and corn chowder, but I decided the all-corn option looked better. Especially after finding the lump crab meat at AJs.... resting on a delicate bed of ice, surrounded by angels and caviar. A 1 lb tub of the stuff was a mere $35. So we had corn chowder instead, and it was yummy.

We watched most of the Oscars. Mildly disappointed that Brokeback Mountain didn't win, like most gays. But all the awards were well deserved, except Best Original Song, WTF? Crash is a good film, and Ang Lee's Best Director was the obvious consolation prize for Brokeback Mountain.

We've lived in this house for six years. We are friendly with our neighbors to the west—another gay couple. The house to the east of us used to be owned by a former co-worker of mine (with his boyfriend). We found and rented our house without realizing who the neighbors were.

Over the years, we've stayed friendly with the west boys, but we don't hang out. We wave and say hello, but that's about it.

So I was surprised that we quickly became friends with the new neighbor to the east. She moved in a few months ago, and is gregarious and fun. She also has a charming old Irish wolfhound as big as a house. Last night we had a boozy dinner of chicken kiev, salad, and cookie dough pie. Fun, but I woke up with a horrible hangover this morning. I've been shakey and woozy all day. Wine is bad. That is all.

Sandra Lee is on crack. She's making sailboats out of napkins.