if i were you, i'd totally date me

sometimes i wish i could date myself because i have so many great skills. well, mostly i wish this when i bake something really tasty. then i could eat the tasty thing but just sit around while other-liz made it. but i would probably get fat.

anyway, yesterday would have been a great day to be dating me because i made chocolate croissants (en francais, pain au chocolate). oh, they are good. because tim doesn't each chocolate much, i froze half of them for my later enjoyment. that still leaves six for now! mmmmm, thinking of them makes me drool.

i've never made croissants before, and it was somewhat time consuming but not that much work overall. it was like mix, wait, roll and fold, wait, roll and fold, wait, etc. then i got a little impatient when it came to the rising, so they could be higher but i'm not complaining. here is a picture.


are you impressed? how about this one, can you see the flaky layers?


if you lived here, i'd give you one. too bad for you.

mormons and big tobacco

after my time in utah, i have decided the mormons must be in cahoots with big tobacco. they certainly aren't nice to the alcohol industry. beer must be less than 3.2% alcohol, unless you buy it at the state liquor store. in a regular bar, you can only get beer. at a restaurant with a liquor license you can get beer or wine or mixed drinks. but to go to a "bar" that serves liquor, you have to go to a private club and pay a membership fee. and even then, you can only get a single ounce of liquor at a time. no doubles. you have to finish the first drink before you order the next. it was a long 9 days in utah. drinking that beer just made my stomach hurt.

as for tobacco, you can smoke inside bars and restaurants. i don't really remember the last time i had to request the non-smoking section in a restaurant. after having dinner one night, i had to go for a hike the next day to de-smokify my pants. and at the airport, they had smoking lounges in every concourse (lucky for me, i had the time to check out all the concourses). these smoking lounges didn't even have doors, they were just rooms off the main hallway like any of the other shop. it was strange, since i knew i couldn't even get drunk if i went to the airport bar.

mormons are strange.

must read

in utah this week, theoretically solving problems with a ttx assay for the other brodie lab. we'll find out tomorrow if it works. until then, feast your eyes on this:
http://longevity.about.com/od/longevity101/tp/fun_ways.htm

ostrich non-fest

yesterday we went to the 19th annual ostrich festival in chandler, az. i had heard interesting things about the ostrich races. yet again, my low expectations were too high. whoever rated it one of the top ten "unique festivals" was on drugs.

first of all, there was only one booth that we found selling ostrich-related items: ostrich burgers. we ate some, but they weren't worth $6. kind of dry. we could buy fake tattoos and all kinds of other crap, but no ostrich eggs, no feathers, nothing. how can you have an ostrich festival without ostrich stuff???

then we went down to the race track to see the ostrich races. that was, of course, the highlight of the whole thing. but i am confused. this festival is supposed to celebrate the ostrich-farming history of the area. the only ostriches in attendance were the ones for the ostrich races. these ostriches came from KANSAS. there are no ostriches in arizona any more? or maybe just no one willing to make them run around with humans strapped on them? anyway, it was funny to watch. first there was the bareback riding. that ostrich cowboy below is from indianapolis!


then they harnessed chariots to the ostriches, which you can sort of see here.


they move surprisingly fast, so it was hard to get a picture.

after that, they had little kids chase emus and chickens around the racetrack, which was sort of amusing. then they raced camels, which was not as interesting as it sounds. they had the riders dressed up like "arabs" and called them things like "ahab" and i was a little offended. after that, we watched some pig races, where the winning pig got an oreo. oreos are good and all, but i wouldn't run around a track just to get one. then we went home because there wasn't anything else we were interested in.

the best would have been if an ostrich attacked someone.