Cane Rosso

As you know one of my fellow post-docs and I enjoy trying out restaurants and for our December dinner we chose Cane Rosso (featured on DDD on Food Network). I will admit that we had been trying to go here for several months but our lives have been just a bit crazy recently. But it finally happened and it was wonderful.

There are two locations: Deep Ellum and Lakewood. We choose Deep Ellum, mainly because it is the original and closer to work (also we can pretend we are cool by going to dinner in a cool part of town). Parking is a nightmare in that area so be prepared for that.

The atmosphere is great, I felt as if I popped into someones house for dinner and it seemed really cosy. This is a pizza place, but it serves neopolitan pizza: very thin crust with lots of toppings that you have to eat with a fork.

We got an appetizer. I think we got the focaccia, which was good. We were both starving so. It is essentially a pizza crust with some olive oil drizzled on it after it comes out of the oven.

So good

I got a pizza with sausage, tomatoes, and mushrooms. This was delish. I would totally eat this again. I ate about half of the pizza and took the rest home as leftovers and it was still good then.

Saumya got a different pizza (she doesn't eat meat so we couldn't share) with peppers and different veggies. I think enjoyed hers as well and only finished about half of it.

This place definitely earns the post-doc seal of approval. I would eat here again and will probably be taking my guests here if they crave pizza. I was very very happy with everything about this place. Let me know if you give this a try.

Blueberry dump cake

My mom and I decided to try a different version of the apple dump cake that I brought last year to thanksgiving at work, which you can read about here. She got blueberry pie filling and an angel food cake mix. I didn't love the cake last year but I will admit that it wasn't terrible so I had medium hopes for this. My mom's friend had made this for her and she liked it, so we were golden. I will admit that I was just a tad concerned about it since the recipe was mix together and bake. Oh well, what could go wrong.

Gotta love two ingredient cakes!

Well, for starters the cake turned purple.

 But let's get real, purple isn't bad. So we just pressed on and baked the cake for a while until it looked done. I think it was about 40 minutes around 350, perhaps.

After lunch we got around to eating the cake. I am not a fan.

 The cake had a really odd texture and the flavor was not the best thing I had ever had. My thought on these cakes is:
-if you are on a diet this is kinda like cake
-if you love canned pie filling, this is for you
-if you are not a fan of canned pie filling this will taste like a cheap substitute for yummy cake.

I have decided that I will not be making anymore of these cakes, the two ingredient thing is cool but they just don't taste good. This doesn't mean the I will never try this or something like this again, I probably will but it will just be a while. Have you ever made one of these cakes? Did you like it?

The Camellia Crossing Gleaux Run

When I was home for thanksgiving several years ago we realized that there is a 5k the night before thanksgiving. I will admit that I have made little effort to make the run over the years mainly due to the complications of traveling and trying to make everything happen the night before the big meal. This year we decided to make it happen once I decided to hit up the LSU v A&M game and would be home for the whole week. I mean what could be hard about a 5k the night before thanksgiving, it should be warm and then after I can eat pie.

As the week of thanksgiving rolls around and we are in the midst of one of the coldest thanksgivings I can remember in south Louisiana the running of this 5K now seems a tad silly. But I have faith, it is going to get warmer on Wednesday night… yeah no. It turns out that Wednesday night was one of the coldest nights of the week if not the month. So there I was looking at what I packed, which is some but not all of my warm running gear and thinking this could be a long 5K.

In the end my mom decided since she had been a little sick that she just couldn't get out there (I think this was a wise choice, no one should get sick during the holidays) so my Sister-in-Law, Honor, got the extra place at the run. As we all get ready for the race, we start digging in our race pack and realize that we have gotten all kinds of glow in the dark stuff. Sweet!

We set out from the house with our greedy little fists full of glow sticks. Once we get to where we are going to park we take a minute to get all of our stuff together and on. It turns out we parked a long way from the start line (this happens to me just about every single race that I run, oops). But we head down to the starting area and wander around until the race starts.

We are ready!

As I had been running for a few weeks I decide that I am going to leave the family in the dust and jog the whole race. I also scoped out the course map and realized that this was a flat race, which is always easier.

Post race!

I ran the race in about 40 minutes, which is really good for me. I think I might have been able to run just a tad faster but I didn't want to burn out before I got to the end. I am pretty sure I under paced myself but that is just what happens sometimes. Oh well, I was pretty excited with the time.

Here they come!

My dad and Honor were about 5 minutes behind me and while I waited for them I had the obligatory post-race banana and some water. Once they got finished we headed to the race party for some food. One of the main perks of a Lafayette run is the food at the end of the race is usually very good. Each racer got two drinks (non-alcoholic) and some food.

Yummy

I opted for the jambalaya, which was so good. I also got lots of it, so it was nice to have something warm and filling at the end of the race. My dad got some Chili, which he said was pretty good. Honor got a shrimp bisque, what was more like puree and less like soup. I think she was a little underwhelmed by that.

After we ate, we were freezing (I think the temp was close to 40) so we walked back to the car and then headed home.

This was a great time, the cold was a little rough after the race but it happens. I hope to be able to run this again next year.

Who says you can't go home?

When I was invited to speak at Texas A&M this fall I jumped at the chance to have a valid reason to spend a few days in College Station. I begged my bestie to come down for a few days and spend sometime at our old school. I headed down to CS on Thursday morning to guest lecture in an intro Chemistry Class, CHEM 100.

I rocked my talk. I tend to have a few slips in the majority of my talks but this one I nailed. It was at that moment that I realized that I wanted to be a professor and stinking soon. This was a talk about one of my projects that we are about to publish a paper on in a few weeks. I loved the feeling of standing there and sharing what I thought. The questions at the end were a little fun but I think my favorite was the one about whether or not Mike Evans should be a heisman candidate. For the record, maybe but I would love for Johnny to repeat.

The water tower aka. home

The next day I had several meetings with different faculty about being a professor or different parts of academics. It was neat to hear different perspectives than I usually hear but I did enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out what type of school I want to teach at (someday there could be a post about this, no promises obvi). But in between meetings I took a few minutes to walk around campus and see some of my old haunts. It was fun, a little weird but all in all good to see the school.

The clock tower

Academic Building, I used to read for class in this plaza

The H2O fountain outside of the Chemistry Building

The chemistry building, I lived here

Walking through campus on the way to the game

It was so fun to get to see so much of campus and several different faculty while I was there. I am pumped about the next steps in my life and I think I am going to try and hit up a game next season. I realized that I need to spend more time (and probably donate) to my Aggie Home as I may not be this close for much longer.

This month is going to be Crazy

As I am sure that you know I love Christmas, which means that I also love the whole month of December. I will admit that as soon as Thanksgiving ended I started playing Christmas music essentially nonstop. I am pretty excited about my Christmas tree, which should be delivered on Friday! I am sure that will be a great story for another day. But I thought that I would share my goals for the month, and let's be honest I am hopeful that more of them get accomplished than last month.

Big Goals:
Take time to enjoy the season and remember why we celebrate
Don't turn down invitations to parties and fun events, even if I am tired
Go easy on the Christmas Cookies (I have a plan for this)
Be active 3-4 days a week
Spend time with Lily every week
Complete two house projects (i.e.: the pantry, my closet, the craft closet, my jewelry table, etc)
Buy something fun for Christmas Eve and maybe New Years Eve
Finish a craft project (too many laying around the house to just name one)
Blog often
Mail Christmas Cards before I leave for Lafayette

I am sure that I have some great small goals but they involve things like get to work earlier, get in bed earlier, keep up with my laundry, and a million other things that are similar.

Do you have a full plate this holiday season? I feel as if when I look at my calendar it is already so full I wonder when I will have time to watch my Christmas Movies. I hope that you take a few moments to really appreciate the reason for the season and take time with family.

As always here is a cute pic of the Lil-monster…

Such a cutie… stealing half of the bed

November Review

I am not going to lie, I have no idea what happened to the month of November. I feel like just yesterday I was in College Station and now it is December (and a high of 75 today). I wish that I had an excuse for not keeping this up to date but I don't. It was just one of those things where I would say tomorrow… I'll blog tomorrow and now the month is over. Maybe this month will be better, hahaha.

Anyway, let's see how I did on my November goals
-Blog more frequently (hopefully 3-4 a week, not a month)
-Run 2-3 days a week
-Try 2 new recipes
-Get my new plates for my car
-Take the dog down to whiterock lake twice
-Find something fabulous to wear to the A&M/LSU game (as well as the A&M/UTEP game that is in two days!)

Well I would say that I failed on just about all of those.

I did finally get new plates on my new car! My dad helped me put them on when I went home for thanksgiving!

I also found something fun to wear to the A&M games that I went to. I got a fabulous fleece that I am loving as well as some maroon A&M shirts.

I ran more frequently that I tend to but honestly not nearly enough for the amount of pie that I ate last week at home.

Eh, at least I feel like the month was good and I got to spend time with lots of my friends and family which is always a bonus. I don't have much else to say about those goals… I mean what could I say since I didn't actually get any of them really finished! Yikes. There is always December!