Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Virtual Coffee {26}


Hello dear friends, and welcome to coffee. I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since our last virtual coffee together! (I’m refraining from segueing with “where has the time flown” as we’re not quite eighty yet…) Let’s get our favorite topic, the weather, out of the way first, shall we? Our crazy climatic conditions continue (oh, how I love alliterations!), you may remember we had a pretty cool and dreary summer, an inexplicably hot September and about 5 minutes of autumn. Today it has started snowing. Yes, snowing.

Of course it’s not snow snow yet it’s still that gross, slushy, wet thing that looks like snow coming down, splatters on your windshield but then turns to water as soon as it hits the ground. Up where the husband works (which is also where I go and pretend to work a couple days a week), it’s actually snowing, real snow. Which is fantastic because since the leaves haven’t finished falling off the trees yet the tree branches get really heavy with snow and break off. This is so great on so many levels! Let’s see, well first you have to watch where you park because those lovely falling branches tend to land on parked cars, and there’s no point trying to park away from the trees as we work on a mountain covered in pine and chestnut trees. Also, the branches like to fall on telephone lines, which is so exciting cause then we get to work with no phones for months and months because we live in a beautiful albeit completely inefficient country (see how I switched those around?) where it takes the phone company three months to come repair our phone lines. (Three months is not an estimate or an ironic exaggeration of reality, it actually happened just like this two years ago when it also started snowing way ahead of time). Unfortunately, I won’t be able to go visit this winter wonderland we call our workplace because I haven’t finished fishing out all our winter stuff from storage, and the husband can’t seriously expect me to go work and risk catching a cold cause am inappropriately dressed now can he!

Setting sarcasm aside, the past few weeks have been both crappy and great, since I’ve posted on the crappy enough this week let’s talk about the great. The husband and I went off on a wonderful weekend getaway to Milan two weekends ago. A weekend in a nice hotel was my birthday present, and since we had a really good friend’s fortieth birthday to celebrate we decided to treat ourselves to some child-free time. It was wonderful, and very, very strange. We simply aren’t used to being without two very short, needy, hilarious and cuddly people all the time, so we kept looking around for them all weekend. It was fun spending time alone in a city we loved and lived in for many years. It brought us back to the early years of our marriage and to another life of dinners in nice restaurants, aperitifs in chic bars, of buzzing in and out of beautiful shops with nary a care in the world. It was also nice being pampered in a lovely hotel, of course we had forgotten how snooty people in the service industry were in Milan, but all in all we had a great time. Oh, and did I mention I did some shopping? Ahem, let’s leave it at that.

I’m still waiting on my other birthday present, which was supposed to be a KitchenAid all-purpose mixer/blender thingy, but isn’t cause I already have one (that’s another, less design-y brand) that works fine and has all the attachment pieces already, and so was swapped with a Le Creuset pot. I’ve been coveting one of these for years, and am very excited to try all the wonderful roasts and stews in it. If only my husband would get his act together  and take me to buy it (hint, hint, wink, cough).

Ok, my coffee’s gotten cold and all the dreary wet snow outside is making me sleepy so I’m done rambling on today. How’s about you? What have you been up to? Do you own a le creuset or a kitchen aid, would you recommend them to your friends?

Now go visit our hostess Amy!

11 comments:

  1. Ooofph all that snow sounds like a pain for sure!! I'm glad you got some good away time together though. That sounds really lovely! And my kitchenaid...oh how I miss it. When we moved to Thailand, we went as light as possible. You can buy food processors here, but they're just plastic pieces of crap. Not worth wasting any money on. Even if that means I'm reduced to cooking totally traditionally - with mortar and pestle. :)

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  2. Yuck on the snow- but yay for the weekend away!

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  3. Oh my goodness, I thought of all us coffee "regulars" I would have snow first.  Our leaves are very late to fall too and I'm dreading what you described.  It has been really cold these last few days so I'm hoping it will hurry the process at little.  I have a few Le Creuset pots - small ones though.  But I love them.  You have to "season" them before you first use them (instructions are included when you buy them).  These were two of my first pots I bought (after the cheapo aluminium ones) and I have been living on my own for 42 years...So they are expensive but you can include them in your will!  How nice you two got away for some kid-free time!

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  4. Snow sounds like no fun.  =(  I remember when we lived in the midwest it snowed on Halloween one year. Being a southern girl I found it SHOCKING that it would snow ginormous flakes on Halloween......weird.  Where we live it hardly snows and I will admit snow is pretty, but I'm not a fan.  
    I love my Kitchen aid.  I should use it more.  Maybe for Christmas I'll get some attachments for it.  =)  Happy birthday and I hope all of your wishes come true!!!! 

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  5. I don't own a kitchen aid because a wooden spoon keeps my arms looking great ;) and I just bought a cheaper version (also made in France) of the Le Creuset which works fabulously so far, it's by Fontignac, and the 3 dishes i have made so far have come out sumptuous....it's the lid and the way it bastes. Glad you had a good weekend in Milan, sorry about the snootiness, I can't stand that.

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  6. I don't know what I would do if there was snow already, even the not snow snow!

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  7. Mortar and pestle sounds like very good exercise! ;-)

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  8. Ha, ha, beat you! hmm... maybe I shouldn't be happy about having snow first though... 
    That's a great argument to use with the Husband, the pot will last a lifetime and I can leave it to the kids!

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  9. great post -- missed you for coffee these past weeks.  i love that feeling of early marriage -- how peaceful and carefree.  glad you got some shopping in, too.  

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  10. dear lord, i do not even want to hear about snow yet, i am in no way ready fro that. 3 months to repair phone lines? what!?? ughhhh. a weekend away sounds lovely and yes, it is very strange and relaxing and weird all at once. oh and milan? sounds heavenly! i hope the snow has stopped for you by now, thanks for coffee.

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  11. It started snowing here today too. The gross, slushy, melts as soon as it hits kind. Ick. 

    Dallas and I are headed out tonight on our own non-kid vacation. 12 days, I'm not sure we can handle it! Yikes!!

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