My measure as an American

I'm coming up on celebrating my one year anniversary as an American citizen. I've found myself singing along to the national anthem and putting my hand over my chest at various events throughout the year. I use my US passport, and identify as American. You would think that the Olympics would be a perfect for me, as an newly minted, enthusiastic American, to wave the red, white and blue.

You would be wrong.

I am trying to cheer for the Americans. And I do, when I see Shaun White fly higher into the sky on the halfpipe than anyone thought humanly possible, or when Shani Davis effortlessly (and humbly) passes everyone else on the speedskating track. I can cheer for good athletes. But as the US medal count grows, and the NBC coverage grows more obnoxious, and every event seems to have a miraculous American success story... I find myself feeling yet again that I just wish that someone else would win. I'm cheering against the American athletes, I'm wishing them to fall. I'd rather have almost anyone else win, except for another American to add to the USA medal count, which is already absurdly high. I can't help myself-- it is the Finn in me and the years of watching the Olympics, where underdogs won gold medals, where small countries with long winters dominated things and were finally recognized, at least for two weeks. It was about national pride, and seeing that shine for everyone. I have yet to hear a national anthem for another country (except for Canada in the opening ceremonies). And while i have good friends who watch olympics and love them (special thanks to aaron, valarie and james for sharing their tvs!!) there is a large population that just doesn't care. They don't know about hockey and don't care about hockey, so why should the US team win???

So much for being patriotic. Maybe in another 4 years.

Ahem. So, there is my soapbox. Please return to your regularly scheduled program of mid-afternoon curling.

Stir28!! Benefit for Haiti!!

(Re-posted from Christy at balance)

Please come!!

StirIt 28 NYC: menu, details, and a shout-out

After a week of feverish planning, we're finally getting the final bits into place for StirIt 28 NYC. If you're not aware, StirIt 28 is a month-long blogger-originated fundraising effort to raise money for the earthquake victims in Haiti, thought up by Bren of Flanboyant Eats, Chrystal of The Duo Dishes , and Courtney of CocoCooks. All of the proceeds from this event, and I mean ALL (100%) of the proceeds, are going directly to our partner charities: Share Our Strength and Yele Haiti. What an amazing event!

If you haven't bought your tickets yet for New York City, Atlanta, L.A. or Chicago, go here or here to buy tickets by clicking on the StirIt 28 badge, which will take you to a paypal page. Just remember to indicate which city you're getting tickets for!

NYC tickets are $30 for the general public, and $20 for students. Students must pay via the PayPal General Online Donation button on http://www.cococooks.blogspot.com or http://www.flanboyanteats.com and indicate "NYU student ticket" in notes. Must show student ID at the door.

When: Sunday, February 21, 2010; 4-7pm
Where: 35 W. 4th Street, 10th Floor

Menu (with links to the bloggers preparing)

Appetizers
Dumpling Bar:
Veggie Dumplings,Cranberry Mushroom Dumplings, Pork & Cabbage Dumplings
Panko stuffed shiitake mushrooms
Spring rolls, both vegetarian and non

Entrees
Lemongrass corn soup
Enchiladas rojas
Red Cooked Pork on Steamed Buns & Cucumber Salad
Minced Chicken in Lettuce Cups Mushrooms & Tofu in lettuce cups

Desserts
Chinese-flavor inspired cupcakes
Walnut Cookies
Vegan chocolate chip cookies with hints of cinnamon and star anise


Schedule
4:00-4:45 Appetizers, cocktails, mocktails, and Fizzy Lizzy love, door prizes, hands-on dumpling making mini-class and a performance by Scott Alexander


4:45-5:00 Welcome

5:00-6:00 Dinner & Spins by DJ LP

6:00-7:00 Dessert and story time, with a guest appearance by The Love Story Thief and music by The Creoles

i was once a jewish grandmother

At least, if I believed in reincarnation i think i would've been. I like feeding people and i like matchmaking. And one day I will be really round and smell like garlic. Not that all jewish grandmothers are like that, it's just my favorite description.

usually, i am against valentine's day, because I am against consumerism, but really I think it has more to do with feeling pathetic in my lack of love in mid-February. This year, as you know, I decided to face love head on and you know what? it turns out that when you put love out in the universe it seems to come back to you. Well, at least I wasn't bitter, which certainly feels like love coming back to me.

For those of you wondering, the Blind Date Project was, I would consider, a success. I think everyone ended up having a date (after a bit of scrambling and last minute recruits from DC, thanks Otso!), everyone showed up (eventually. gotta love the subways. and, i am very sorry that i didn't tell one person their restaurant was in brooklyn, not manhattan), and everyone got to spend time with a good person, whether or not it was a love connection (that is yet to be determined). I hope it was a fun experience for everyone and I am grateful to the people who participated (you know who you are), to Lori for her masterful recruiting schemes, and to Josh for being absolutely brilliant in making this happen and letting me throw my two cents in. We will do it again. But maybe not in two weeks. and with a lot more help. Even though we didn't participate (someone had to be coordinating behind the scenes), we did have a lovely dinner together, minus the alcohol we were just about ready to consume due to stress (Lori and good italian food did the trick and we avoided breaking the word of wisdom).

As part of the karma, my lovely friends around the corner set me up for a date on valentines's day with their friend Adam who was visiting from DC. It was a lovely time, and I hope the people i set up enjoyed themselves as much as i did.

this sure beats sitting at home with a box of oreos and a romantic comedy. (although, there is also something appealing about that).

RSBC 2010!

That stands for Run Swim Bike Cook, which is a little marathon I'm participating in for the month of February, courteousy of my friend Christy at Balance. The challenge is to complete a full marathon (with a little cooking thrown in there within this month), which is a great way to help me through the second month of the year when those health resolutions start to slide.

Challenge 1: Run 26.2 miles (I suggest a mile a day)
Challenge 2: Swim 2.4 miles*
Challenge 3: Bike 112 miles**
Challenge 4: Cook 3 of the 4 superfood "iron-chef" challenges. Each Sunday I, or my co-host, will post the week's superfood and category, and you have a week to come up with a dish that blows us away.

So, this last week (I was supposed to report back by Saturday, but Monday will have to do) I ran 6.6 miles and ate lentils for breakfast, since beans for breakfast was the superfood challenge. No picture of it, because, let's be honest, i am not the world's greatest food photographer and lentils aren't particularly attractive. But they sure TASTED good. I'm not a big breakfast person and usually have fruit or yogurt, so it was a little weird to fill up on lentils.

I like this! More running and biking and cooking this week for me (alas, no pool anymore to go to for free, so no swimming). If you want to join in too, go here.

L-L-L-Love

Hey kiddos.

So, i haven't been blogging much lately because I've been wrapped up in other projects.

Most specifically, Love. A little obsessed, one could argue, but I'm enjoying it. I've started doing some serious research on the topic and am actually learning quite a bit-- I can recommend Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert about marriage and I recently picked up Us: Americans talk about Love by John Bowe (You know, the bachelor obsessed with love that was profiled in the NYTimes and is now flooded with letters from women going gaga for him. Truth be told, I actually went to a reading this week for the book, for purely scientific reasons, and I really enjoyed some the the stories he's collected. Yes, it is hot that he collects love stories. Yes, he is a very attractive male who lives in NYC. And yes, even hotter is the fact that he wrote about slavery. But no, he isn't my soul mate, although I wouldn't mind picking his brain about the love stories he collected).

As you can tell, the Love Story Thief podcast is coming along. I've had some great interviews recently that I'm looking forward to posting for your listening pleasure. If anyone is interested in being interviewed too, let me know! I'm finding myself really excited about this project (as I tend to get) and I'm really trying to find ways to make this more accessible to people-- basically, I want a following! So, just a shameless plug, for Valentine's day, pass along the website www.thelovestorythief.posterous.com or suggest that people subscribe to it on iTunes (free! what a great Valentine!). I've also registered it on Public Radio Exchange (PRX.org) with the hope that it gets picked up by some radio station... to help me out you can register for free and listen to it there, so it gets more hits and all. I'm okay with audio stuff but not so hot with the visual, so bear with me while i try to find a good layout and platform for it. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

Finally... I can't just listen to love stories without getting involved a little bit. No, no relationship here (trying, really!), but along with my friend Josh, we have created a Blind Date Valentine's Eve Project for all of the single Mormons that we know in NYC, in an attempt to increase their exposure to each other (and thus more relationships, etc... I've had just about the last conversation with someone about there not being anyone to date so hopefully this solves something at least). Josh is a wedding photographer and you know that i collect love stories, so we couldn't help but try to play cupid just a little bit. Cross your fingers that someone hits it off!

That's all for now. I'll keep you posted on more, exciting developments. And yes, I am also working, I haven't let that slip through the cracks (although sleep has seemed like an unnecessary burden...)

Share some love stories with me! I'm all ears these days!