Downton Abbey eats (and yes I'm alive)

Whoa -- I can't believe my last post was in August and looking back, the topic is ironic. Soon after I wrote that, I got a call to interview for a job position back in my old Birmingham stomping grounds. And guess what! I got the job and started a few months ago at FOX6 News.

My official title is Community Web Producer which means I blog for 27 neighborhood websites, process video and write stories for my main news site, and take care of the station's social network.

But I'm ready to get back into it, even if it's a little soft. Spending all day online and writing takes a lot outta ya, so it's taken me a while to get settled into the new routine in addition to returning to B'ham.

Now for the good stuff! A small group of friends and I are in love with Downton Abbey and get together each Sunday for a viewing party. And being the food lovers we are, we have to have something to nibble on.

Some Thoughts on 2010

I don’t want to go on forever about 2010 or we’ll be here all day. The one thing that stood out to me the most about this past year was the feeling that I was really an adult. In January I took a fellowship with Southern Living magazine as an assistant copy editor. I had a paycheck, my own apartment, and a pretty independent life. I look back on this past year and I really am thankful for that degree of independence, especially after spending most of 2009 wondering if I was going to get any job.

Tomorrow, it will have been exactly a year since I moved to Birmingham, someplace I never imagined I’d live. B’ham proved to me that you can never judge a place by your pre-conceived expectations and exceeded any expectations I had.

Sure, the traffic can be bad, no, the shopping isn’t as great as Atlanta, but Magic City boasts an abundance of great local restaurants, beautiful neighborhoods, a lively arts and music scene, and lovely people who really care about their city. It’s a place that’s large enough that you need a year or two to really explore fully, and you will almost always be delighted with what you do discover. I didn’t really understand how much I loved it until I was literally driving away but that city will hold a special place in my heart.

Working for Time Inc. (who owns Southern Living, Cooking Light and other familiar brands under their LifeStyle branch) opened my eyes to the perks and ugly realities of working for a corporate company. It was difficult sometimes to bear the changes, but the experience I gained there both as a copy editor and then as a production assistant for MyRecipes.com is invaluable. I’ve always been really blessed to work with colleagues that care about their work and each other, and I was blessed again while working at Time Inc.

As this year draws to a close, I’m happy to look back on 2010 as a year during which I was satisfied with all aspects of my life, from my private life to my work life. I’m always more and more surprised at the end of each year to find that such a large amount of time has already passed, but I’m looking forward to 2011.

I’d by flat out lying if I’d said I wasn’t a little depressed to be unemployed again, but I’m back in the Atlanta area with my family, my best friends, and though it’s a struggle some days to be thankful, I try. I’m confident that the right opportunities will open for me and I really hope that I can recognize and capitalize on all of them.

Good or bad, I hope that all of you can close this year with a peaceful heart and I wish everyone all the best in 2011!

Loafing in the Garden

Last night I headed to the Bham Botanical Gardens with some friends to catch up and eat some cocktail hors d'oeuvres at "Cocktails in the Garden," an even put on by the Gardens. This was the third and final event of the series for this year, and the food theme was "Autumn Harvest Feastival."


The food was pretty good, but I skipped on the drinks. For $15 I'd hoped they would include one non-alcoholic drink, but they were all a la carte. My favorite nibbles were the cinnamon and sugar sweet potato fries and cream cheese crostini. And...the doughnuts! Glad I didn't indulge in a Publix doughnut yesterday at the office.

Holy BBQ It's Hot!

Last Saturday myself and four other friends braved the unholy hotness of August to check out the "Stokin' the Fire BBQ and Music Festival" at Sloss Furnace.

Did I mention it was hot? But oh so fun:).
As much as Sloss creeps me out, it's a great place for events. They set up a music stage in the ginormous shed near the traintracks, and we hid out there later in the afternoon for the shade.

After walking around to check out where everything was and what all was going on, we headed to the two bbq vendors and grabbed lunch. Amy bought the chicken plate from Governor's BBQ and I chose the pork plate from Fat Boy's BBQ. As far as bbq goes, we thought the food was okay.


There were two super cute kids that sat down across from us with their parents to eat a shaved ice. When Hannah asked the little boy what flavor he had, he replied, "Red!" Ah, little kiddies. I would have taken a picture of these little goobers, but I was too busy wiping red syrup off of my legs after they knocked over their ice. Life lesson #35: Food should be eaten, not played with, especially when the table it's sitting on is slanted towards me.

After, we made a quick stop at the little gift shop, picked up our handy paper fans, and then headed over to a food demonstration. The owner of Chef U (why does that make me giggle?) was grilling up some pork loin with coriander and cumin. She topped it off with a really tasty peach salsa, and I have to say it was delicious. Her earrings were super cute too, and I just had to be that person and instead of asking her about her business, I asked where she got them.

Next on our agenda: making iron tiles. Huh? you say. For $7, you could carve whatever you wanted into a pressed sand block and hand it off to a group of ironworkers; they would then pour molten iron into your pressed sand block, where it would take the shape of your carving after cooling.


The most interesting part of all this was watching these men and women walk around (for obvious safety reasons) in thick jeans, welder's masks, and leather chaps, jackets and gloves, while they worked with the iron. They must build up a tolerance to the stifling heat as I'm sure a normal person would pass out after a few minutes.


Just about that time the People's Choice Tasting started, so we all headed down to the area where the bbq teams were passing out samples. To be short and sweet, there was some tasty bbq, and some not-so-much.

The thing I remember the most from the tasting is actually a sauce. It's called "Alabama Mud," and it's made by JCs Low and Slow. They sell on etsy, and I'm considering buying some. What does it taste like? Hard to say as I've never had anything like it. It's basically the child of a mustard sauce and bbq sauce. It's tangy and sweet like a tomato-based bbq sauce, but has more than a hint of what JC's calls South Carolina mustard. It's also yellow-ish, which threw me off at first.

Once we'd finished the tasting, it was after five o' clock and we were all ready to call it a day. So we picked up our cooled iron tiles and headed home.

While I've been out...

I started a new position about a month ago with MyRecipes.com as their intern, so things have been a teensy bit busy. I am very much enjoying learning how to manage content, build galleries and articles for the site, and getting to use social networking in a professional capacity.

I have, however, managed to write a few posts for our blog, You've Got to Taste This, and I thought I'd put up the links for a little blog love, and to show off my own writing skills:). The first is about my great-grandmother's banana bread; the second is a review of a vegetarian slow cooker cook book; and the third is about my attempts at finding water alternatives for the summer. Enjoy!

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Tuesday was a friend's birthday, and she was ever so clever and decided to have a theme party. She and Audrey Hepburn share a birthday, so she chose a "Breakfast at Tiffany's" theme.

Amy hosted the event at her apartment and rented the movie for us. She also requested that we all bring one breakfast item and dress up in either pajamas or Holly's famous black dress and pearl combo.

When I arrived, Amy was cooking up some turkey bacon and eggs. I'd made z

ucchini bread and set it out on one of the plates Amy's roommate had set up for the occasion. In honor of our theme, she decorated the table with black and pink cloth.

Our group has always produced some delicious potlucks, and I was again impressed by the food. Fresh fruit, cheesy grits, lemon-poppyseed pancakes with strawberries, french toast casserole with blueberries and cream cheese, eggs, hash browns and bacon rounded out our meal.

To drink, we had an assortment of juices, and one of the girls brought champagne to make mimosas.

Now, about "Breakfast at Tiffany's" -- I'd never seen the movie before, and it was nothing like I expected it would be! I thought it was alternately bizarre and hilarious. I do think my perspective was biased because I keep expecting older movies from that era of film to be much more reserved, and as a result, I found the movie to be much more shocking than I thought I would.

In all, I had a lot of fun, and I commend Amy for choosing such a good theme. I even had some zucchini bread left for breakfast the next morning.

Is driving in B'ham worse than Atlanta?

I love B'ham -- it's the concept of my dream city come to life -- but some days I'm so over the quirks of the drivers and roads. Hey Bob, let's legalize bingo and set up a few halls whose proceeds can be used exclusively to fund infrastructure and education.

Like when it rains...especially when it rains. Mostly because of...

HORRIBLE road conditions. Tire-eating potholes and low-lying stretches of road prone to flooding make for hazardous driving.

S...l...o...w...d...r...i...v...e...r...s.

Not all, but many folks seem to have problems merging correctly. I don't want to advocate aggressive driving by any means, but really, if you'd like to merge into traffic, don't coast to the end of the merge lane. You will only succeed in trapping yourself. And I will not feel sorry for you and let you in.

Why do I hit every red light wherever I go? There must not be any money for someone to recheck the lights and retime them.

Why, oh why, are surface streets 25 mph? Is it just so the cop parked in that undeveloped lot can rack up an extra ten tickets?

280. Enough said.

The good news is, Birmingham isn't that large, so waiting until after traffic has died down to travel really doesn't eat into much of my day. Rush hour really isn't that bad compared to Atl (though it's hard to believe when you're stuck in it).