A Week Already? Sheesh

Time flies. Here's what's been going on:

Ken's Health
Ken is feeling better although he's definitely not 100%. He has intermittent pressure and pain which subsides ~90% of the time if he rinses out his sinuses. (Note: the sinus rinse tends to dislodge blood clots. You can hear him moan a sigh of relief when one comes out, which seems to be followed by him showing me what came out of his face. Marriage is awesome.)

Relaxing and Pancetta
This weekend was very low key. We stayed in Friday and Saturday nights and relaxed. I rolled and hung my cured pancetta in the basement to dry on Friday night. I got a rope burn on my finger in the process from trying to get the kitchen twine tight around the rolled meat. Retarded. I am very excited yet concerned that I have raw meat just hanging down there. I know it's fine and they used to do that all the time 'back then', but still.

Hawkins' Dinner and Jana's Dessert
We had Sunday dinner for our dodgeball team again. I like cooking on Sundays. Hawkins always used to do it for us when we were in grad school and it made me so happy to go into the week that way. It was so relaxing. This time I made baked potato soup (with goose stock, but that's another story), grilled cheese sandwiches with carmelized onions, and a salad. But the part that I was most excited for was the Baked Alaska I made for dessert. Jana always told me it was easy but I've never tried to make it. I didn't have enough time to make a big one, so I decided to make individual ones:

Individual Baked Alaskas

Angel Food cake
Ice cream (used vanilla, but can be anything according to jana)
meringue (make 2 batches; egg whites, cream of tartar, sugar)

Cut angel food cake into 1/2 inch slices and lay flat on a cookie sheet covered in foil. Put a scoop of ice cream on top of each piece of cake. Slice remaining cake into 1/8-1/4" thick slivers. Use this cake to cover the ice cream. Push into the ice cream, if necessary. Put in freezer until hard (1 hr+). Cover each with meringue, ~3/4" thick, being careful to cover all the way to the bottom. Put in freezer another hour (or overnight). When ready, bake at 500 degrees for 5 minutes.

I tried on Sunday to use a blowtorch instead, but that was just a mess (took too long, burned the top and didn't cook the meringue to get it crunchy). The 500 degree over is WAAAYY easier and looks/tastes better.

Portland Snow
We got around 2-3 inches, which effectively shut down the town. Busses were all over the roads and work called me on Tuesday to tell me not to come in. I played in the snow with Kinley and took him to the park. He LOVES to sniff the snow like cocaine. It gives him a similar euphoria, too. I find it hilarious. Wednesday brought no new snow, so I biked to/from work yesterday. It was a mess. Things are back to normal today and the snow is just slushy. It should be all cleared up by the weekend. I am giving a talk next week and have a fellowship application due in three weeks, so I'm going to be a bit busy coming up. I don't know if I'm excited or nervous that tomorrow's Friday.