The Elusive Truffle Butter

Have you ever heard of truffle butter? No, not truffle oil, truffle butter. Neither had I. But this summer, while visiting my sister and her family in Sioux Falls I bought Andy a Barefoot Contessa cookbook. Of all the Food Network stars, only Ina Garten and Alton Brown have my undying devotion. They simply make you want to try new things! (By the way, Alton's recipe for Dulce de Leche is simply amazing!) So I paid way too much for the cookbook and on the way home to Grand Forks Andy and I drooled over the wonderful things she was cooking up in the pages. One recipe, in particular, caught our eye. It was a truffle butter pasta. You took some heavy cream, salt, truffle butter, pasta, and a bit of the pasta-cooking water, threw it together with some parmesan cheese on the top and you have a meal fit for a king. It is one of the simplest meals we have ever made and also one of the most delicious. We have fallen in love with it. So much so that we were willing to order the truffle butter required to make said meal through an internet company that was amazingly reasonably priced. The 8 oz. of white truffle butter was around $16. If you know anything at all about truffles, I am sure you are saying "Wow! That's a great deal!" And it was! Until they hit us with the shipping charges. You see, truffle butter needs to be kept cold, which means that it needs to be packed on ice and shipped overnight UPS. If you are keeping track, that runs about $35 for shipping. Suddenly, my butter was up to $51.
Due to our truffle butter pasta addiction, we have paid the shipping fees more than once, all the while hoping we would be able to find the butter locally for a decent price. Here are the results as they stand so far:
It is unavailable in Grand Forks, East Grand Forks, and Bemidji. Also unavailable in Sioux Falls (and we checked all the specialty stores we could find - including those that the people who worked in the stores named!). A friend of ours spent a considerable amount of time searching Byerly's and Whole Foods in the Twin Cities to no avail.
So my question to all of you is this: Does anybody have any idea where I can buy truffle butter in the tri-state area? We have run out again and I don't think Andy's salary is going to support much more of these delivery fees!
Just in case you were keeping track - the tomato soup from an earlier entry came from the same cookbook. The woman is a genius!

And She Pondered These Things In Her Heart

There is a bible passage regarding Mary that states at some point, "and Mary pondered these things in her heart." Note that she didn't think about them, she didn't wonder about them, she pondered them. What a powerful statement. And it was not confined to her head, but encompassed her heart, which was widely considered to be the control center for the body. Essentially, Mary's ponderings were an all-consuming affair that she considered seriously, deeply, and somewhat uneasily. These people knew how to write!
My own writing, sadly, is far below that level. However, on my way home from Target today I heard an NPR story regarding writing and playing. The man on the radio told me I needed to quit worrying about my larger plan and just start to write. Nothing will get done if I am constantly looking at the big picture, trying to determine where my contribution should fit into the larger historiography. He told me that I have to play with the writing, and not expect analytical material immediately. Get the process started, build my sandcastle so to speak, and judge it on its merits when it is done.
I have decided to listen to the little man in the radio. After all, he apparently knows where I live and what car I drive, as he tends to follow me most everywhere. So today I started the actual writing process for my thesis. I have no idea where it will lead, and I have no idea how I am going to get there, and one day I will ponder these things in my heart. For now, I am simply going to write.
On a lighter note, Andy and I enjoyed his weekend off. We spent Sunday as a family, but on Saturday we did the downtown Art and Wine Walk with some good friends. It is now Tuesday, and the warm sunshine, good company, and fresh air of that day is still with me, despite the rather objectionable weather of the last few days. I am so happy that we took the time to enjoy each other!

Losing at Golf

They say children will eventually surpass their parents in height, education, and athletic skills. I thought I had more time - after all, Nico is only 7. But this morning, he beat me at golf. Badly. I knew it was going to be a bad round when I teed up the first time and the ball landed exactly 4 inches in front of the tee. Meanwhile, Nico was hitting drives that I normally see from Andy. But rather than cursing the Grand Forks School District for giving the teachers yet another staff development day and sticking me with Nico for the day, I smiled and said "Great Shot!" when inside I was thinking "Am I really so very bad at this game that a 7 year old is beating me?" And the answer, of course, is Yes, I really am that bad! And I am ok with that. But Nico is really that good as well. We aren't talking competition for Tiger yet, but he hit consistently today and came out of it with a score in the 50s. I don't know the exact number, as there were a few shots that hit the water, so we didn't count those. All things considered though, the kid is a good golfer.
It has been a busy week at our house. There was much excitement last night when we got the news that Andy's little brother, Joey, is now engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Amanda. She is a wonderful woman and we are all excited to welcome her to the family in an "official" capacity. She has been a part of our lives for a long time, and it is nice that Joey finally grew up enough to have a wife! A part of me will always think of Joey as that 14 year old kid that I met, but at 28 he has grown up nicely! I'm not quite sure how he won Amanda over, but she is my personal favorite of all of his girlfriends...and there have been plenty to choose from!
Megan starts ballet classes tonight, and she has been waiting all summer for them! She will be going to the same place her cousin, Kaylie, went when she lived in Grand Forks. Megan is very excited and wanted to wear her "outfit" to Janelle's today!
Andy and I are looking forward to his first full weekend off since the beginning of August. He will be home by 5pm (we hope!) and won't have to be back to work until 4am on Monday. Tomorrow we are headed to the Art and Wine Walk downtown with Bryon and Val, followed by dinner and a rousing game of cards! We are very exciting people, aren't we?
Before that, however, Andy is taking Nico golfing. They have an 8am tee-time. It is Andy's turn to be beat by the 7 year old.

The Soup!

The tomato soup is the best I have ever had. Really. The butternut squash tasted like peanut butter to me, so I gave it all to my neighbor.

Making Soup!

Andy has been home with us since yesterday afternoon, so it almost seems like life isn't quite as hectic as it usually is! We actually made it to church this morning and discovered that sometime since July 1st we got a new priest! While we miss Father Courtwright, the new guy seems like he is going to be quite entertaining, if a bit long winded!
In honor of the fall season, Andy offered to take the kids for the whole day - although much of it will be spent at his mom's - so that I could get my yearly fix of cooking done. So far my oven has seen banana bread, my stove is cooking home made cream of tomato-basil soup, and I have a butternut squash soup on deck, ready to be put together once the tomato is done. Now, having left most of the actual cooking to Andy for the past 11 years, this may prove to be a very interesting experiment! I will be sure to let you know if anyone ends up in the emergency room with a bout of food poisoning after this one !
While the soup is cooking, I have also managed to get a considerable amount of laundry done, the dishes cleaned up, and have a nice chat with my neighbor. What is not getting done is any type of research on my thesis. Every time I pick up an article or book that I need to read I get a feeling akin to a mild panic attack, usually reserved for when I lose my kids at the park or the grocery store! The teacher in me says that this is simply because the entire project seems overwhelming and breaking it down into small pieces will eliminate the anxiety. The student in my is screaming that this is an insane thing to be attempting and I should throw in the towel and switch to an education masters, thereby allowing me to design curriculum as opposed to actually doing relevant, original research on a historical topic.
Part of the issue involved is my topic. I decided early in this venture that everything I did would be geared towards classroom use in the future. I have chosen topics to write about that were likely to elicit student response. I wrote about pirates, studied bizarre religious practices, and devoted several credit hours to developing a working knowledge of archaeological practice and methods. For my thesis topic I settled on the opium trade (knowing the interest high school students always have for illicit drugs) and that led me to China and the missionaries that opposed the trade. While it may seem like an easy thing to study, there is a distinct lack of English-language primary sources regarding the effects of the trade, and so I have been forced to settle for the missionary's take on the drug. Ideally, this research would be better served by viewing it through the eyes of the Indian ryots that grew the poppy and the Chinese traders and consumers who made it lucrative. My lack of language skills has severly limited my scope. Unlike my friend Anna, who was able to conduct most of her research regarding Norwegian women's suffrage in the original Norwegian, I must depend on translations and interpretations that will inevitably color the documents.
Now I'd like you to consider how that last section of this post bored you to tears and made you question why you were reading this particular entry. Perhaps now you will understand my reluctance to begin my research!

The Aftermath of 9-11

My dad (ret. Air Force and a veteran) was born on Sept. 11, 1949, which was also his dad's birthday, although I am not sure of the year of grandpa's birth. What I do know is that while the rest of the country in in remembrance mode it is really, really hard to celebrate a birthday! So this is my wish for all of you who were married, or born, or had some other wonderful thing happen on September 11: Embrace it and celebrate all the more, and know that the good things in life will keep us going!

Twins!

Yesterday, 9-9-09, Andy delivered twins for a good friend of ours. After working a 30 hour call shift, he got a call saying it was "time" and he met Kelly and her husband at the hospital and helped deliver her brand new twins. Lindsay and Logan joined the world yesterday at 4 and 5 pounds! Needless to say, we are all thrilled and Andy was quite willing to give up his sleep to be there!
My day was not nearly so glamorous! After spending a morning trying to convince college freshmen that they actually need to do the assigned readings for all their classes, I spent my lunch break at a graduate student meeting in the history department. While it is always interesting to hear about Dr. Han's research on ghosts, unicorns, and mermaids (his latest paper is entitled, "May We Eat the Mermaid?" the meeting seemed to drag. Part of this stemmed from my frustrating morning, and part from the atmosphere of the gathering. This summer the history department was forcibly moved from its comfortable home at Merrifield Hall to a rather uncomfortable, unwelcoming new home at O'Kelly. While the faculty and students will eventually get used to the change, no one seemed at home in the new space and the seminar room seemed oddly off-kilter, as it lacked the brown and orange curtains, dark paneling, and cheaply framed historians of years past on its walls. Instead, the mounted in-focus machine, the automatic screen, and the freshly painted walls seemed ominous. At meeting's end, I raced to my afternoon study skills class to take up the challenge of encouraging college freshmen to study once again.
At 3pm Andy and I picked up Nico from school, then headed to the Ralph Engelstad Arena to pick up the kids' Sioux Kids Club packages, then it was off to outfit Nico for hockey this year. Not only has he outgrown every piece of equipment he owned, it seems that now his equipment has outgrown his hockey bag. Thinking quickly, Andy put in a call to his dad to see if there was one lying around there. Always the hockey god, Gino came through and does, indeed, have a new bag for his first-born grandchild! We picked up Meg from daycare and stopped at Scheels to buy her pink laces for her hockey skates. Considering she will be wearing all of her brother's hand-me-downs, it seemed the least we could do for the little girl! We went to dinner, as neither Andy or I could face the thought of cooking. It must have been a popular sentiment as 2 other docs showed up with their families while we were eating. After dinner Megan and I headed for the playground by our house while Andy and Nico hit 9 holes of golf. I had no idea we could cram so much into a single day!
In terms of residency, it was a good day!

Coming to terms with Andy's residency

A little over four years ago Andy began medical school at UND. While Andy, Nico (our 3 year old son) and I were all thrilled, we knew it would be a long, long ride. That first year was rough! At the end of Andy's first block, when the first exams were given, we found out I was pregnant. At the end of his second block, his grandmother died. At the end of the third block I began bleeding with the pregnancy, and finally, at the end of the fourth block we had little Megan join our family.
Four years later, on May 9, 2009, Andy graduated from medical school and began to sign "MD" after his name as the residency game began. Having decided to pass up the extra money by specializing, Andy settled on family medicine, aka primary care, and we were able to stay at Altru in Grand Forks for residency.
Residency officially began on July 1, 2009. While technically limited to 160 hours for every 2-week period, we are finding out that this is just a suggestion and the reality is rather bleak. While I know in my head and my heart that there is an end to this one day, the prospect of acting as a single parent for 2 children for the next four years is rather daunting. Added to that, I am in my third year of graduate school, trying to finish my thesis for my MA in history. As a former teacher I know two things for sure: First, writing every day makes you a better writer. I plan to use this blog for "practice" for my real writing - that monster of a thesis hanging over my head. Second, expressing your thoughts, emotions, and feelings in a written form can clarify them and enable you to make more productive choices. And heaven knows with our schedules I am going to need to be as productive as possible!
I hope you join me regularly as I try to come to terms with this new life, and please feel free to offer advice! I have a feeling I am going to need it!