Basque cheese

So I was visiting the East Bay last weekend, and, as I often do when up in Northern California, I hit one of the fancier markets in search of gourmet goodies. Okay, cheese. I usually go for cheese. What can I say, they have a lot of great local cheeses, and the prevalence of wine in the area (Napa? Sonoma?) ensures that there will be a steady supply and rich selection of cheeses. Usually I go to Draeger's in Blackhawk - they have a truly epic selection in a set of reach-ins forming an island within which you will usually find an experienced cheesemonger to help you make your selection. Buuuuut this time it was more convenient to hit Lunardi's in Danville. Decent selection, better certainly than most of the markets down here in OC, but nothing like Draeger's. ANYWAY, I came home with a couple cheeses, including a cut of Petit Basque. I'd heard of Basque cheese, of course, but hadn't tried it before. It's a semi-hard cow's milk cheese with an edible rind. The first surprise, for me, was how "footy" it smelled when I unwrapped it. I expect that from some of the stronger bries and bleus, but I guess I didn't anticipate it from the appearance of the basque. The second surprise was that the flavor was not as sharp as you'd anticipate from the footiness of the scent. I'd equate it to the sharpness of a medium cheddar, actually. (But, you know, not cheddar flavored.) Not exceedingly salty, nutty or buttery, but definitely one I could see serving on a cheese board at a party without "challenging" my guests too much.

Show and Tell: Downton Abbey Seasons 1-3

Attention Downton Abbey Fans:


Seasons 1-3, a 9-disc set, includes lots of the usual bonus features plus some extra stuff on Season 4 that I guess is Amazon exclusive. Anyway, pretty good price for three seasons of anything.

Review: Winter Solstice Tea from Peet's Coffee

Earlier I shared with you my 2013 Tea Addiction, the Trader Joe's Vanilla and Cinnamon Black Tea (aka "Christmas Lemur Tea"), well, today I give you last year's Tea Addiction, the Winter Solstice Tea from Peet's Coffee:

 

Sorry for the extra large picture, but sometimes you want to see fine details, right?

Speaking of fine details, let's take a second look at those leaves, shall we?

Mmmm... whole cloves, orange zest, chunks of cinnamon, whole rolled black tea....

Winter Solstice is one of those teas you will love from the first inhaled wisp of steam.  It's vanilla (subtle), and citrus (strong), along with cinnamon, clove and allspice.  As you can see from the picture, it's the real deal in there.  I would generally expect that to be true, as Peet's produces some serious quality teas.  It remains delightfully aromatic for a loooong time.

Whereas "Lemur Tea" is a cookie-flavored punch in the face, Winter Solstice is more like opening the oven door while your orange-something muffins are baking.  It's not subtle by any measure, but neither is it overpowering.  And man oh man, does it smell amazing.  I could just hover over my cup and sniff at it for several minutes (*ahem!* Not that I would know anybody who's tried that sort of thing, you know, but I, um... could.  Yeah.)  Or to put it differently, to Lemur Tea's cookie, it is a delicate flower in full bloom.  Damn, that's poetic.

Now, drinking loose-leaf tea comes with its own set of obligations, namely, to brew it properly.  Now you're venturing into the realm of the serious tea drinker.  Well, dipping your toe in the pool, anyway.  There are a couple ways you can go about this.  You can buy a package of empty tea sacks (think condoms made of filter paper), or if you're not the disposable goods type, a couple bucks in the right shop will yield you a handy-dandy tea ball .  It's a mesh ball (sometimes mesh one side and with small colander-like holes in the solid metal other side, and sometimes all mesh) with a hinge and a latch, into which you put your leaves, then toss the whole thing into your cup or teapot.  There are also teapots with an incorporated removable tea infuser .  Another method is to add your loose tea directly into the pot and use a tea strainer over your cup when you pour out. If all of this sounds really intimidating, you technically can purchase this tea in teabag form (though tea lovers will tell you that the rolled leaves are superior to the chopped up form used in teabags.  Not having purchased the teabags form from Peet's, I cannot verify the state of the leaves therein, but I WILL say that in the stores, they put loose leaf into the tea sac.  Take that for what you will.)

Directions for proper tea brewing are on the side of the tin.  Preheat your teapot by swishing hot water around inside, and let it sit while you heat the water for your tea.  Don't forget to pour it out before filling up your teapot!  This prevents cold china from sucking the heat out of your tea too quickly.  Measure out one teaspoon/teabag per cup of tea.  Lovers of strong tea will also add "one for the pot!" in their larger teapots, lovers of weaker tea will use somewhat less.  But start with one-per and go from there.  Put the tea/bag/ball in your teapot, and pour boiling water over it (there is some difference of opinion about brewing temperature, some swear it must be absolutely boiling, and some suggest that you boil it, remove from heat, then pour it just slightly off-boiling, but regardless hot-hot-hot!)  Now let it brew for 3-5 minutes.  Then, and this is the main reason I subjected you to this whole lesson about tea brewing, remove the tea!  Obviously not possible when you just dump the leaves directly in (note the recently-used tea ball in photo above), but otherwise, it's a good idea to pull it out.  Past about 5 minutes, extra brewing time doesn't get you stronger tea, using more tea does.  But with some teas (I've found this to certainly be true of their Jasmine Fancy green tea), the taste can turn bitter if you leave the leaves in too long.

As always, I take mine with milk and sugar.

Peet's sells Winter Solstice during fall and winter only for $11.95 (maybe spring until sold out, but don't count on that) in attractive 4-oz. tins with a copper-tinted lid.  (Most Peet's teas come with gold-tinted lids.)  These tins are great for reusing - I actually store my sugar in an old Peet's tea tin.  The box of 25 teabags is $9.95. 

Show and Tell: My First Playhouse

So a little while back, I added a couple of playhouses to my Wish List (GREAT way to track price changes, btw!), and I just wanted to share this real quick because right now they have a great price on it:


Now prices change all the time, so perhaps by the time you read this it will have changed again, but I put this on my wish list when it was just under 90 bucks, and at the time of this writing, I'm showing it for less than 60!

Will I buy it?  Ack, the husband has put the kibosh on buying additional presents for the kiddo (already bought a few) and anyway, where would I put it?  But am I tempted anyway?  Yeah....

edit: It is worth noting that the Amazon reviews on this product include a significant number of highly negative reviews citing quality issues as well as assembly issues.  If these issues weren't super important to you and you just want "a" playhouse, this probably fits the bill, but if you're seeking quality and don't want to waste time filing sharp edges off, maybe less so.

Review: Lady Gaga and the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular on ABC

Well, as the opener with Pepe the Prawn promises, this was not a Muppets special with Lady Gaga, it was a Lady Gaga special with Muppets. That, quite honestly, was its first flaw.



I'm not hating on the Gaga, it's just that I turned to this special with the expectation of a classic Muppets holiday special along the line of, oh I don't know... the John Denver one. That was a special in classic Muppet Show style.

This special had too many cutaways (which at least had the Muppets in them...) with characters talking about their favorite holiday memories. This gets old real fast. In fact, it was old before the show started. Seriously, how boring is a holiday special that makes no attempt to be a memory in its own right and just has people talking about their memories of other stuff?



Most of the Gaga segments were straight up performances off her album (which according to the LA Times reviewer, the whole show was basically just a commercial for). Nothing horribly wrong with them individually, but if you were watching the special for the Muppets, there is simply too much Gaga and too few Muppets musical segments.

One huge bright spot in the show was when she broke away from the standard album stuff to do Baby It's Cold Outside with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (of 3rd Rock From The Sun fame). Ordinarily, I joke about this song being "the date rape song" (because it is), but in a pleasing twist, they reversed the male-female parts in this song, turning it into a rather flirtatious number that wasn't creepy at all. (Okay okay, I know in the original she's really not "protesting" all that hard and is portrayed as a willing participant in her delay, but it's oh so much less creepy when it doesn't sound like some dude is trying to make the date a little more than she planned.) Anyway, I really, really enjoyed this number. And Gaga looked stunning dressed simply as a very sexy lady. I heard once that she doesn't think she's very attractive, and I suppose that explains why she goes for all the performance art crazy costuming, but she looks great just as herself! It gave the audience a chance to sit back and just appreciate her for her performance and musicianship, which was nice. You can view the segment here on YouTube.


I think if this special had had just one or two straightforward album-promoting performances, and everything else was a bit more repertoire-expanding like the Baby segment, I would have enjoyed it much more, and it would have left me more curious about her album than it did.

The cameos with Elton John and RuPaul were fun. But they still left me wanting more Muppets. Especially with Elton John, whose appearance decades ago on the actual Muppet Show were so great.

I guess I just wanted the whole thing to be a bit more... Muppety.

In that vein, I did enjoy the duet with Kermit and Gaga. Not so much for the staging, as it was still very straightforward as a duet staging (just that one performer was a Muppet), but I thought Kermit's voice actually blended very nicely with Gaga's.



But all in all... not enough Muppet segments, and the ones they had were lacking in zaniness, edginess, or both. The "holiday memories" discussions were boring as hell, Statler and Waldorf's jokes were okay, but only just. There were just a couple all-Muppet musical segments. When the Muppets joined a live singer, they did just that, joined them in a setup you'd expect for that singer, rather than adding a singer attempting a straightforward performance in a zany Muppet-filled setting.

None of this would be a problem if we were talking about one show out of a season of Muppet Shows. But the problem is, they rarely trot the Muppets out for their own show any more, and so to have one fall flat puts the reappearance of the franchise at risk (anyone remember Muppets Toninght? The ill-fated attempt to recreate the Muppet Show as it might appear if it was actually the Arsenio Hall Show? No? EXACTLY. Don't screw with the old vaudeville format, it WORKED.)

I wanted this show to work. I really did. Having had little direct exposure to Lady Gaga, I was even looking forward to seeing her do some of her stuff. You know, a TASTE of it. But this was just... too much Gaga, not enough Muppets. It had the potential to be a good special but it came off as too blatant an ad for the album. Subtlety... needed some.

Review: Fisher Price Poppity Pop Musical Dino

This review is gonna be short and sweet.
I got this last year on Black Friday for my then-turning-1y/o. This toy is hilarious, and the kids love it. The balls pop around inside the "bowl" and eventually make their way to the escape hole, where they come out the dino's mouth. The toy is activated by spinning the little wheel thingy on the front, which is a very easy control for a baby to master.
What I love about this toy is it actually encourages experimentation. Now yes... this means the baby will actively try to break their beloved pop-pop dino. Once they grow tired of the hilarity of music and popping balls, they will find other objects to stuff into the bowl and see what happens. So in terms of wanting to encourage scientific discovery behaviors, this is a good call. But yeah, they will be actively trying to break it most of the time.
Which is why this is relevant... Target has it on Black Friday sale (or you know, starting right now online) for $19. It's normally anywhere from $27-$35, so it's well worth it to pick it up now. Or if, like me, you got one last year, and your little one managed to break it, now's your chance to replace it.


Okay, looks like Amazon is keeping up with the deals here (doesn't look like it from the link, but if you click through it's saying $19)

Troy Week Show and Tell: gifts for the Trojan in your life

Today's a bit different, kids.

In honor of it being Troy Week, and my rising level of excitement for the annual crosstown rivalry game, I've scoured the web (okay, Amazon, because I'm lazy and also I'd like you to click through my links) for cool/unusual/essential products imprinted with lovely cardinal and gold logos.



Because you've got to have something to stand guard over your Mickey Mouse Gnome Rain Gauge right? Or your collection of totally-not-ironic-okay-maybe-they-are Mickey garden gnomes.

Or how about this pretty sweet scarf for the 2 days this year you might be cold enough to wear one? (Let's be honest, at USC we wear scarves ironically)

I'm not sure how I feel about this one... seems to me, capes should be gold and cut at a jaunty angle, but you know, if you're going to wear a red cape, it might as well be cardinal, right?

I admit it, I hate vinylmation. But some people, for whatever reason, like it... and I'd be remiss if I left this Disney/USC crossover item off the list.
Marcus Allen action figure. Cool.
Troy Polomalu action figure. Also cool.

Hey look! It's jewelry, AND it encourages higher education! Proof that you can be both pretty and smart. Perfect stocking stuffer for your tween or teenager!

Oh cool... I can give an actual product review on this particular item... my toddler is napping upstairs with hers right now. Soft, fluffy, opens out into a pillow, and just the right size for the under-a-yard set to pretend they can ride it (and watching them drag it all over the house that way is pretty freaking hilarious). Seriously, this Traveler pillow pet is a good call. My nephews used to fight over one until my brother bought a second. No lie.
This barbecue cover would be perfect for those game day parties. Except for the part where you're USING your barbecue, so nobody can see it. But YOU'D know.

Now, I'm not recommending anybody spend $25 for a hoodie for your dog, but perhaps you live in a cold part of the country, or perhaps you just really really like dressing up your dog for family photos. I don't know, but hey, if you insist, there's this:

Of course, you could go with the (less expensive) jersey

But please, show some pity on your wannabe Tirebiter, okay?

Your wife probably already owns this bracelet watch, right? C'mon... now she can't say you don't buy her jewelry!
Jealous? Fine...

If one iPhone case is good, two is better, right? Well, it is if it's a USC cover and you have an iPhone 5!

And for those of us with the 4S...

You know... for those "rebuilding" years...

Gym bag!

Ever wonder where people get those cardinal and gold kukui nut leis that they wear to the Hawaii games?

And finally... here's the random item that inspired this post. The USC USB car charger. Because... Fight on.

Show and tell: Mandolin and Ukulele Travel Pack

Whoa. My husband and I were perusing the Black Friday ad scans, and found something at Guitar Center that caught our eye. Doing further research I accidentally came across this Mandolin and Ukulele combo deal for $89.99. Seriously, a mandolin, a ukulele, gig bags for both, plus a few more things, for 90 bucks. If you had any interest in learning strummed instruments, that looks pretty freaking cool.

Show and Tell: Household Essentials Sewing and Ironing Accessory Pad

Not a review since I don't own this (... yet), but how cool an idea is this product?

If you're anything like me, and don't have a dedicated "craft room," you probably set up and take down your sewing machine (sorry, assuming this is a hobby for you) on an as-needed basis.  I set mine up on the kitchen table.  Which is fine, except my laundry area is upstairs... with my iron and ironing board.

If you don't sew much, you probably don't realize why this is an issue and probably should skip this whole post, but if you do, or you wish you did, you may realize that sewing is about 40% cutting, 40% pressing, and like 20% stitching.  Or maybe that's just what it feels like ;)

So someone's gone and made a product that first of all, stabilizes your machine on the table, and secondly, you can iron on it!  My good ol' Singer from the early 90's has a mostly metal body (some plastic facings), so "walking" isn't as big a problem, but a lot of the newer, computerized machines have this problem, so this would help.

The big appeal for me, however, is the pressing!  Now I just need one of those cute little craft irons to press my eensy weensy narrow seams.

Review: Vanilla & Cinnamon Black Tea from Trader Joe's

Whoa. You guys. I found this tea at Trader Joe's and it

TASTES.

LIKE.

COOKIES!!!

Cookies!  Do you hear me?  What more do I need to say?

Okay, I can probably come up with a few things, not that you probably need me to say any more since you've already added it to your shopping list, right?  But here goes...

20 tea bags to a box.  There is a waxy paper bag inside the box (like you'd find in, say, a cracker box), within which are the teabags.  They come semi-attached in pairs, so if you only need one, you just have to pull them apart.  The bag can be somewhat closed up when you're done, to help preserve freshness, but I wouldn't assume it has the same preservation power that individually wrapped teabags have.  Still, it's better than no protection at all.  And anyway, let's be honest, you're going to taste this tea and run through the whole box in a week.  Seriously.

It brews up nice and strong.  I use a gigantor Starbucks mug that really holds about 1.5-2 cups worth of steamy hot beverage, and with weaker teas (*ahemTwiningssucksahem!*) I have to double up to brew it dark enough.  And I'm not known for brewing my teas super dark!  In fact, I found that a double bag (as pictured above) is enough to brew my entire pot (holds about 2.5 servings in my gigantor mug).

Remember to give it the full 3-5 minutes' brewing time before adding your milk and sugar.  Ideally, you want to use water that is just shy of a boil.  For most people, this means bringing to a boil then waiting a minute, or using the water when it hits a simmer.  But for the rest of us, this means we stick our teabag in the cup, stick it in the microwave, and hope for the best.  And that's just fine.

Now, as I've hinted, I take my tea sweet.

That's an entire pot of tea, brewed with 2 teabags (the double pictured above), and steeped for about 5 minutes.  It's a good idea to remove your teabags after steeping time is up.  With your better quality teas (the kind that comes in fancy tins at Peet's Coffee, for example), that's pretty much a requirement as nasty things begin to happen when the tea is over-steeped, but for the most part, your "basic" teas that come 20 bags to a box aren't going to have that issue as badly.  I left the teabags in the pot and didn't have a problem with my subsequent cups.  But still, once you have it brewed to where you like it, you really ought to remove your teabags.  Just saying.

So, in the giant mug, I add 2 1/2 tsp of sugar and a healthy splash of milk.  Your mileage may vary, everyone has their own way when it comes to tea.  But I know that, made my way, your tea will taste... like... cookies.

This has all the outward appearance of being a holiday-only item, and you know how Trader Joe's is... so stock up!

Available at Trader Joe's for $2.99/box