Baby Hats!

I knitted these matching roll-brim baby hats for our family friends in Alabama, Kent and Leah, who are expecting twins (a boy and a girl) in January! They were super easy to knit, and I forgot to take a picture of the top of one, but they have a really cute 6-point star pattern on the top.


Here's the pattern, which has instructions for all sizes: http://knitting-and.com/knitting/patterns/hats/rolled-brim.html

Pumpkin Penne

Continuing our trend of pumpkin-themed foods this fall, my housemates and I made pumpkin penne with spinach, chicken, and red pepper flakes for dinner last night. We got the inspiration from a recipe in my cookbook How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman for pumpkin penne, and then adjusted it a bit since we were using some leftover canned pumpkin instead of fresh pumpkin. We used whole wheat penne, and we also added some sauteed chicken and spinach, and tossed it all together. Last but not least was the parmesan cheese. It came out better than we expected; it was a great way to use pumpkin in something other than dessert!

This picture didn't turn out very well - it's zoomed in a little close - and I honestly can't tell if it makes the pasta look disgusting or appetizing. Hopefully the latter, since it was delicious!

Art on the Hudson

On Saturday I went on the Vassar art museum's trip to two art-related sites in the Hudson Valley: Olana, Frederic Church's home and studio, and Art Omi, and outdoor sculpture park.

Frederic Church designed his home after a trip to India and the Middle East, and it's referred to as being "Persian-style" architecture.

Frederic Church was Thomas Cole's first student, and a foremost artist of the Hudson River School style of painting in the 19th century. His house was up on a hill and had a breathtaking view of the river.

Art Omi was also really interesting. The grounds were very extensive so each piece had its own individual space and could really stand alone. These are some of my favorite pictures.

Pumpkin Pancakes

On Sunday night my housemates and I made breakfast for dinner. We had eggs with spinach and onions, but more importantly, we made pumpkin pancakes. We love almost anything with pumpkin, so we had to try pancakes. We ate them with real Vermont maple syrup and Maine blueberry syrup...they were amazing!

Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Pancakes

6 ServingsPrep/Total Time: 20 min.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1-1/2 cups fat-free milk
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons canola oil

In a large bowl, combine the first eight ingredients. In a small
bowl, combine the milk, pumpkin, egg white and oil; stir into dry
ingredients just until moistened.

Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a hot griddle coated with cooking
spray; turn when bubbles form on top. Cook until second side is
golden brown. Yield: 6 servings.

Our pancakes didn't photograph very well, but they were delicious!
This one has blueberry syrup on it.

Autumn in Boston

We have a very random week off in the middle of October - "October Break" - so my mom and I took a four-day trip to Boston. I visited Boston when I was doing college tours my junior year of high school, but I didn't get to see a lot of the fun things in the city.

The trip started out well - we paid $4.50 for two people round trip on Megabus. Seriously, look it up. $1 one way plus a one-time 50¢ service fee. We got into Boston on Wednesday afternoon and went to the Museum of Fine Arts, which is free on Wednesdays after 4pm. I was a little disappointed because they're doing a lot of renovations and so much of the art is in storage right now. But since it was free I didn't feel bad telling myself that I'll come back next year when the renovations are done!

Thursday was a beautiful day. It was warm and sunny, so we started out by walking around downtown Boston and starting the Freedom Trail. I downloaded a free podcast on iTunes that was a guide to the walking tour, which was great because we could listen to it as we walked.

Park Street Church

The State House

Granary Burying Ground
(John Hancock, Paul Revere, Sam Adams, and Benjamin Franklin's parents are here)

After doing part of the Freedom Trail, we went to the Sam Adams Beer Brewery. They have free tours of the facilities and give you free samples of beer, plus you get to keep your 7-ounce tasting glass. Good deal. I learned a lot about beer brewing (a lot to me, because I knew absolutely nothing before).

• Beer is made with barley, hops, water, and yeast. These are the essential ingredients according to a 15th-century German law, and anything else can't be considered a beer. This is a bit more flexible now with beers made with wheat or fruits and vegetables (think pumpkin ale or cherry ale) but it's the basis of beer brewing.
  
• Every beer is either made from ale yeast or lager yeast, so a beer is always either an ale or a lager.
• The four things upon which you judge beer in a tasting are color and clarity, aroma, taste, and body. Overall impression is a loose, opinion-based fifth.
  

The three types of beer we tasted were Boston Lager, Octoberfest (another lager), and Boston Brick Red, which is an ale that is only available on tap in Boston. It isn't bottled or sold on tap anywhere else. It was definitely our favorite.

After that, we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which is a beautiful building built in the style of a Venetian palazzo, built by a very rich art collector (Isabella) to house her art collection. It has an indoor courtyard and three floors of rooms packed with art. It was small enough to get through in an hour, but I felt like I could keep coming back and find new things each time.



In the evening, we did a bit more of the Freedom Trail and then met my friend Adri, who goes to Wellesley College, for dinner in the North End, which is the Italian neighborhood. We ate at a great Italian restaurant (I had lobster ravioli...yum). After dinner we went to Mike's Pastry, a very famous bakery with even more famous cannoli. Mom and I split a cannoli - they were huge - and it was probably the best cannoli I've ever had. Coming from New York, I figured we have plenty of great Italian bakeries, so why would I need to try a cannoli in Boston? This cannoli cream was different from the ones we get in New York, and we had a hard time articulating why, but you could taste the ricotta a lot more prominently. It was delicious.


On Friday, we took a bus to Salem, which is about an hour away. It was cloudy and very cold, but we still had fun walking around the town. It was very touristy and had a ton of cheesy witch-related tourist attractions, none of which we did, but it was interesting to see all of the souvenirs and all of the eccentric people around the town. It was also fun because there was a lot of beautiful foliage, and the excitement of Halloween was tangible.

We walked out to the wharf where there's a little lighthouse. In the late 1700s Salem was a huge trading town, and their harbor was very busy with trade ships.

Derby Wharf and Lighthouse

Cute New England street - we ate at the restaurant on the left corner for lunch

A witch on the sidewalk

Salem has a memorial to the victims of the witch trials of 1692 (dedicated in 1992) in the center of town, so we went to see that. I didn't take a picture but it was a rectangular courtyard with a low wall of stacked concrete slabs, with 20 slabs sticking out all around the rectangle. On each slab was written the name of a victim, the year of death, and the way they were killed (all were hanged but one man who refused to confess and was crushed to death while they were trying to drag a confession out of him). It was very moving.

And on the other end of the spectrum, here's a picture of me with a statue of Samantha from Bewitched!

We did want to go to the Peabody Essex Museum and tour the historic mansions (it's all one ticket) but we didn't have time, so there will just have to be a second trip!

Here's a photo of the beautiful Hudson River on the train ride back to Poughkeepsie:

My first 5K run!

My biggest goal this summer was to run a 5K. I started running last fall to stay in shape while I was in Bologna, since my friend and I were too cheap to join a gym, and I really liked it. At the beginning of the summer I was running about 2 miles each time I ran (maybe 3 times a week) and I decided that a 5K race (which is 3.1 miles) in August would be a good goal. If you had asked me last summer if I would ever run a 5K, I would have laughed. But today I DID IT!

I searched for a 5K run training schedule online, and decided on this one. I didn't do every single run it suggested, but I more or less stuck to it for 6 weeks. This morning, my mom and I drove to Southampton for Ellen's Run, which raises money for breast cancer research. It was really hot, and there was almost no shade on the route, but there were hundreds of people, and it was a lot of fun. My time was 30 minutes and 39 seconds - which averages out to a 9:52 minute mile, although I was running faster and slower at different points. I was sooooo surprised with that time, since I was expecting to do about a 12 minute mile, and I was very happy. Not bad for a first run! The adrenaline must have kicked in somewhere along the way. I'm sore now but very satisfied. My mom walked the route (but ran for one minute!) and came in at about 57 minutes. Hopefully next summer I can talk someone into running the 5K with me!

Twelfth Night in Central Park

Last Tuesday, I finally got to see the Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night. Because of my work schedule, Tuesdays are the only days I can wait in line for tickets, and so far every Tuesday in June has been rainy. But the weather seems to be improving, and we lucked out last week. It was a gorgeous day to wait in the park for tickets, and it didn't rain at all in the evening, which was a concern because it's an outdoor theater.

We aimed to get to the park at 6am, but we didn't make it until 6:30am due to a confusion about which trains were running. There was already a long line when we got there, but we were at a good place in line, and didn't have to worry about whether or not we'd get tickets. We brought chairs to sit on and I was able to break away from the line for a quick Starbucks run, so we were nice and caffeinated. Some people were there with blankets, sleeping bags, pillows, and coolers. People really settle in because they know they'll be in line for hours - the tickets are given away at 1pm. (We also brought a decent stash of food along.) They're free, so it's worth the wait. By 9am the line had wrapped around the Central Park reservoir, but a few hours later when I took a walk to look at the line it didn't go that far, since they had already sent all the people home who were too far back to get tickets.

Security is really intense in line. They told us that you had to wait in line the entire time (except for trips to the bathroom and the concession stand by the theater) and that not only could no one join your party, but you couldn't switch out your place in line with anyone else either. A little before 1pm, they actually asked the line of people if they had seen anyone cutting or switching out, and that now was the time to tell them. If someone had been turned in, their whole group of people would have to leave the line. It was really intimidating, but no one where we were had any complaints, probably since everyone knew they were far enough in the front to get a ticket. (My mom had actually switched out with her student teacher, Amanda, around 8am, and I was a little worried that someone would report us, but we weren't getting any more tickets, since each person can get two for free.) It was interesting because I think the line consists mostly of New Yorkers, since tourists probably won't want to waste an entire morning waiting in line for tickets. And I imagine that New Yorkers get pretty worked up about Shakespeare in the Park tickets, were someone to cut the line.

It was a beautiful day in the park to wait for tickets, even though a bird pooped on my hand and a bug flew into Amanda's eye. After we got the tickets, I was able to go home and nap for a bit. There was a huge thunderstorm between 5:30 and 7pm, but by 8pm the skies were clear again. The outdoor theater was beautiful, and watching Shakespeare outside in the middle of the park was wonderful. The set was entirely green astroturf with trees and flowers, so it felt like we were sitting in the middle of a park, not a theater.

The show was one of the best Shakespeare productions I've ever seen. It was flawlessly directed, and the Shakespearean English was made very understandable. I'm pretty familiar with Twelfth Night, but there were some jokes and physical comedy that I had never caught before when reading the play. Anne Hathaway played Viola, and Audra McDonald and Raul Esparza were also in the production, as well as some other theater and Shakespeare in the Park veterans. The music was one of the most unusual parts of the show - they had a "symphonic rock band" named Hem onstage in costume playing period music, and at points the actors sang as well. It complemented the plot, as well as the setting, very well.

I couldn't believe that I had never been to a Shakespeare in the Park show before, and as soon as it was over I wanted to see it again. Now I want to try to go to every performance, especially since they're free. The waiting in line isn't even that bad - in fact, it was fun to be in the park in the morning, people-watching and dog-watching.



These are two NYTimes articles about the show:
The Three Sisters of 'Twelfth Night'
I Love You, You're Perfect. You're A Girl?

It closes July 12th, but if you get a chance this week, go see this show! You won't regret it.