52 New Things -- Week 8 -- Chinese Pharmaceuticals

When Kevin returned from his first trip to China last May, he dragged home a plethora of random gifts he'd been given by various Chinese universities. I guess it's traditional to give an honored guest a little something to remember you by, and since he visited multiple schools, he got multiple gifts . . . some better than others. He's worn the tie and used the pens, but the silver plastic chopstick set is still in the box. Ditto for the case of tea bags and the tablecloth that's twice the size of our tiny kitchen table.

The oddest gift in my opinion, though? A case of cough drops.

I mean, if someone came from outside the U.S. to visit you, is a case of cough drops the first thing you would think of to present them with? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't even make my top ten.

And yet of all that stuff, the cough drops became my new favorite Chinese souvenir this week. When I woke up one morning with a sore throat and started digging through the under-sink cabinet in our bathroom, there they were. I didn't have to change out of my pajamas to make a special run to the store. Yippee!!

How do they taste, you ask? Well, they're not nearly as tasty as the cherry-flavored cough drops I used to steal out of my grandma's purse. Those things were like candy. These are definitely on the medicinal side of the cough drop flavor spectrum, but they do the trick.

Inside the bigger box were eight smaller boxes with four shiny gold packets each. I am quite curious about what the little white slip of paper inside each little deck-of-cards-size box says. Being completely in Chinese, I have two burning questions:

1. Is there an ingredient list? Am I sucking on chicken feathers? Goat brains? Best not to know?

2. Who is the man whose picture in on each little sheet, each little box, and each inner pack as well? Is he the C. Everett Coop of China? The inventor of these cough drops? A male model? I may never know.

Another random welcome-to-our-country gift that saw a lot of action this week? The silk Chinese Kleenex box cover. For the past nine months, it's just been a weird conversational piece in our bathroom, but this week it saw a lot more action that usual. I'm not sure why they would make such a thing, but I do know that if we ever have daughters, they're gonna have the coolest Barbie couch on the block.

I know you'd like to sample some secret-recipe lozenges for yourself, but I used them all this week. Either you've got to keep yourself healthy or see if they're available on eBay. Good luck.

P.S. Would anyone like two large bottles of Chinese alcohol that reportedly tastes like nail polish remover? Highest bidder takes 'em. Post your offer below.

52 New Things -- Week 7 -- Be My Valentine

Ah, happy childhood memories.

Valograms were the big thing at our little junior high and high school. For twenty-five cents, you could send a regular valogram (your message written on a heart-shaped pink paper), and for seventy-five cents, you could send your message with a cupcake.

On Valentine's Day, we'd sit in class and wait for the delivery girls to come around. It was always delivery girls. The club that did all the baking was called Future Homemakers of America. It was led by Mrs. Fondroy, the Home Ec. teacher. My freshman year of high school, at one of the first meetings I went to after joining the club, the girls all voted to change the club name to Leaders of the Future since "Homemakers" didn't encompass all we were destined to be. It was 1989. Feminism took a while to get to small-town Iowa, but it came eventually.

So anyway, Valentine's Day was what Valentine's Day is to most teenage girls: I'd sit at my desk, anxious to see if anyone would send me a Valogram, secretly hoping I'd get one from the boy I had a crush on.

But unlike every nerdy girl in every teen movie everywhere who transforms into some magic beauty and rides off into the sunset with a hottie, I just spent my Valentine's day stuffing my face with cupcakes from friends.

Those cupcakes were awesome. Every year they were the same -- chocolate cupcakes with a creamy center and white frosting, topped with a Jube Jel Cherry Heart. It's when my obsession with Jube Jel Cherry Hearts began.

(Sidenote: I've been trying to eat healthier lately, so this year was the first time I really thought about those Jube Jel Cherry Hearts. I mean, I know there's nothing healthy in them and that by eating them I'm just putting unnatural colors and additives and preservatives and stuff into my body. Reading the label confirmed my suspicions that there was nothing healthy about them, but they are SO GOOD. And it's only once a year, right? And they bring me such happiness every February. A few days after analyzing the Jube Jel Cherry Hearts label, I read the label on what I thought was good-for-me whole grain bread. There were more ingredients, many unpronounceable, on the bread label than on the Jube Jel Cherry Heart label! I went out and bought two more bags of gummy goodness.)

At some point in college, missing those yummy cupcakes every year, I asked my mom to ask Mrs. Fondroy for the recipe so I could replicate them at home. She gave my mom a typed-out sheet of paper with the ingredients and instructions, complete with hand-written tips. It seemed like a lot of work. I tucked it away in the back of my recipe box.

Well, it's been twenty years now since I ate a Valogram cupcake. That number shocks me. My class will be having a twenty-year reunion sometime this summer. Some of my classmates have kids who have graduated from high school. How did that happen? So anyway, I decided it was high time to dust off that recipe and make some grown-up Valograms.

(Sidenote #2: I briefly considered Valentine cards for our whole Christmas card mailing list, since we didn't get Christmas cards sent out this year. In all honesty, the thank you notes from our June wedding still weren't all done, and the thought of undertaking another mass mailing was too much for me. Maybe everyone would like a little card and a "here's what we did in 2012" letter in February, because how many of those do you get every year? But then I thought, do our friends and family really want to celebrate the holiday of love with a cheesy photo card from us? And then I thought, oh my gosh, Valentine's Day is in two days? There's no way I could get that done in two days. Personal deliveries were in order -- score one for the local friends!)

So yes, I made cupcakes, complete with the creamy centers. (The recipe called for Crisco to make that creamy stuff. Yep, Crisco. I'm pretty sure I have never purchased Crisco in my entire adult life. I now have two and a half bricks of leftover Crisco in my cupboard. I'm not sure how to use that up -- fry some chicken?)

My creamy centers were much more sparse than Mrs. Fondroy's, though. I guess I don't have what it takes to be a stellar Home Ec. teacher. But they were definitely edible. Kevin and I both taste-tested them as soon as they were frosted. Nummmmy!! Not as good as they were twenty years ago, but still good.

I delivered them to friends on Valentine's Day. It made me happy in the way I always feel happy when doing something nice for someone. Well, happy and slightly concerned that the friends receiving the cupcakes might think I was a wacko. I mean, when's the last time someone knocked on your door and gave you cupcakes?

In other Valentine's Day news, Kevin did awesome this year. On our first Valentine's Day together, he gave me a friendship bracelet in the colors of the Colombian flag. When he handed me a box of suckers for our second Valentine's Day, I thought the situation was hopeless and I was destined to crummy Valentine's Day gifts for the rest of my life. Tucked inside the sucker box, though, was a smaller box holding a diamond ring. Yay! Not hopeless!

This year he brought home tulips (my favorite flowers), chocolates (which I actually shared with him -- look how much I've grown!), suckers (a sentimental reminder of last year -- what a guy, huh??), and a gift certificate for a massage (whoo-hoo!). So he definitely did great.

I, on the other hand, had a huge Valentine's fail. I planned to get him a beer making kit, since making beer and wine is one of his hobbies but something he hasn't done since we moved north. After some internet research, I drove to the one place in La Crosse that sells beer making supplies. Here's what I found:

If you can't read that, the second word in the store name is "intimates." Lingerie instead of beer stuff. Ugh. When I went back to the website, I found that it was last updated in 2010. I guess people in Wisconsin love to drink beer but not make it themselves. Sigh.

I ended up making him a coupon for the beer kit of his choice from any online store he wants. Lame, I know.

Valentine's Day 2013: Kevin, 1; Tiffany, 0.

52 New Things -- Week 6 -- A Prairie Home Companion

Best Christmas gift idea EVER!

Kevin and I aren't much for gifts. I mean, sure, there are a couple of things we would have liked for Christmas, but a sunfish sailboat (for me) and a stand-up paddle board (for him) just didn't make the budget cuts this year. Things we could afford are things we don't really need (seriously, if any of you buy this guy another shirt, I will cut you!), so we decided to just skip gifts this year and treat each other to a weekend in Minneapolis to see one of our favorite radio shows live.

I know. Who are we, our grandparents in 1942? Who has favorite radio shows these days? Well, the short answer is, "These two nerds right here!" We listen to both "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and "A Prairie Home Companion" on Saturdays.

Unfortunately, we didn't really look into the whole ticket thing until January . . . and quickly found that tickets are sold out until, like, 2017 or something. The website said there were "rush" tickets available every week, and after some discussion, we decided to take our chances, drive up to the Cities, and hope for the best.

We went up the night before to see my friends Mark and Molly. (I was about to say, "You might remember Molly as the woman with the 'Fifty Dates in Fifty States' idea." Then I remembered that hey, I still haven't actually published that book I wrote, which means that no, you probably don't remember her. Cliff notes version: Molly had a bright idea, I went on fifty dates, Kevin & I got hitched, happily ever after.)

Mark & Molly were kind enough to let us sleep in their guest room, which thankfully is in their basement, two floors away from their bedroom, because I had another of my "holler-in-my-sleep" episodes that friends find so entertaining (after the fact, of course; hearing someone screaming in the middle of the night generally freaks them out in the moment). Let's just say I have both a very active dream life and a bit of claustrophobia, and when those two things collide, I can be quite vocal. Dreaming, once again, that I was trapped in a very small space, I cried out for help.

"I WANT OUT! I WANT OUT! I WANT OUT!" I yelled into the darkness.

"Of the marriage or the bed?" Kevin calmly replied.

There's a reason I married this man. Quick wit, even in the dead of night with a crazy woman by your side? That's hard to find, my friends.

So anyway, after enjoying breakfast with Mark and Molly, we headed out for the Fitzgerald Theater. The rush ticket system involved getting a number at 2PM, then coming back at 4PM to see if you get an actual ticket. I had called the box office a few weeks earlier and asked what my chances were of getting tickets; they recommended getting in line at noon.

Translation: if you really want to see this show, you'd better be ready to stand in line for two hours on a freezing cold Minnesota day.

Yippee!

I prepped myself for this by stopping by the local thrift shop and picking up a pair of boots. Not the stylish kind of boots that Kevin has been hinting for months that he'd like to see me wear, but a clunky pair of snow boots with Thinsulate. They were a bit too big, but I figured I could wear two pairs of socks. Plus they were only five dollars. Frugality and function over fashion!

We pulled up to the theater as a nearby church's bell rang out twelve o'clock. A line had already formed . . . and wrapped around the building.

"Get out," I instructed Kevin. "Take the chairs out of the trunk so you can save two spots. I'll find a place to park and come join you."

I counted eighteen people already in line as I drove past. Dang it! If we sat in the cold for two hours and didn't even get in the door, I was not going to be a happy camper.

I found a cheap parking place, then stuffed one of my cloth grocery bags with a book, a blanket, and two boxes of candy to entertain myself for two hours. I hightailed it down the street to join Kevin in line . . . well, as fast as I could hightail it in boots that were two sizes too big and definitely not improved by two pairs of socks. I kept my eye out for a homeless man who might like them after I was done waiting in line.

After he left me, I questioned sharing my blanket . . .

We set up the chairs and Kevin shared the info he'd gleaned from people in front of him. Basically, they said our chances of getting in were good. Hurrah! A few people who came behind us said they'd done this before, been further back in the line, and still gotten in. We breathed a sigh of relief.

I tucked us both in under the blanket, then started streaming "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on my iPhone. When that hour of entertainment was up, Kevin went in search of coffee. He called five minutes later.

"So, I think I'm just going to stay here in the coffee shop for a while and read my journal, if that's okay with you," he said.

My first impulse, of course, was to freak out. You're going to sit in a nice, warm coffee shop while I sit out here shivering? But then I remembered how calm and witty he'd been while I was yelling in my sleep the night before and decided he earned a free pass.

About ten minutes 'til two, an employee came out and said that due to cancellations, they had about twenty tickets available at full price. For $48, we could be guaranteed seats.

We stood in line for two hours; they bought the drinks. Fair deal. :)

Friends, I did not invest two hours of my day sitting outside to pay full price. I was taking my chances at $15 tickets!

Anyway, Kevin came back and we got our numbers, and each number is good for two tickets, so our friends Jeremy & Laurie could join us, too.  We went and checked in at our hotel, came back at 4PM as instructed, and HOORAY! We got in . . . and not just in, but in the FRONT ROW!!

I guess they have about thirty tickets every week to sell as rush tickets. The first thirty or so people in line sat on the stage to the side of or behind the performers. The next ten or so got to sit in the front row, and while I understand why people would want to save themselves a sore neck from looking up for two hours, therefore making these the cheap seats, I thought it was pretty darn awesome to be able to see people's facial expressions as they were talking or singing or playing.

No goofing around -- he can see us!!

It was fun to see the different people who do the voices and the sound effects in sketches every week. A few of them looked absolutely nothing like how I've pictured them all these years, and the next day when we heard the replay on the radio while driving home, I still pictured the characters in my head the way I always pictured them even though I had just seen the actual people who have those voices. I guess several years of imagining beat out one night of reality!

So the conclusion? Well worth $15 each and a two-hour wait in the cold. It was a very fun night, and Garrison Keillor's not getting any younger, folks, so go get in line!!

52 New Things -- Week 5 -- Naan

Naan: a round flat leavened bread especially of the Indian subcontinent

Tiffany's Naan: a misshapen flat not-really-leavened bread especially of her pancake griddle

We honeymooned in India. The food was awesome.

That's not something you would have heard from me a few years ago -- until my diet of granola bars and fruit while driving around the country, I was a pretty picky eater. Once I got hungry enough, I found out that I'll eat a lot of stuff I never would have touched before.

The first time I went to an Indian restaurant -- probably over ten years ago now -- I hated it. The food was so spicy my nose ran so I mostly just ate a lot of the flat Indian bread.

But now I'm a big girl and I eat more than meat and potatoes. Whoo-hoo! I've found I actually LIKE Indian food, at least if ordered "mild." Naan is still my favorite, though.

So when Kevin found some packets of pre-made curry in the ethnic food section of a local grocery store, I thought I'd whip up some naan to go with it. How hard could it be?

Imagine my surprise when I did an internet search for a good recipe and found a couple of scary words: "yeast" and "knead." (My grandma would be ashamed of me; she made homemade bread or rolls every day. Unfortunately I didn't see what a good thing that might have been to learn. I mean, what was the point of making that stuff when you could just go to the store and buy it?)

Pretty sure this isn't how they do it in India . . .

After enough searching, I found a yeast-free recipe, which saved some time. There was no avoiding the kneading, though.

Long story short . . . my kitchen may have been covered in flour, but in the end, I made edible naan! It wasn't as good as what I've eaten in Indian restaurants or India itself, but it was definitely passable.

The best affirmation, though, came from a sixth-grade boy the next day. I just happened to sub for a health teacher who wanted the kids to make food diaries. I put everything I'd eaten over the last two days up on the board as an example. Seeing veggie curry and naan, the kid asked if I'd gone to New Taste of India. I shook my head no.

Ta-da! And only $2 to make. Beat that, New Taste of India!

"Where'd you get it then?" he asked, looking at me suspiciously. New Taste of India is the only Indian restaurant in town.

"My kitchen," I replied. His look of suspicion turned to a look of admiration.

I'm guessing he would have been less impressed with my dinner the next night. I needed something I could eat in the car while driving to Tuesday night Basketball for All (see Week 3), and with several pieces of naan leftover, I smothered one in Nutella and took off.

Nutella-Smothered Naan. I'm thinking about calling New Taste of India. I'm pretty sure it's a billion-dollar idea.