Birthday Happiness

It is a common fact that I adore birthdays. For obvious reasons, I especially enjoy my own birthday. And today happens to be my birthday.

Every year on my birthday I am reminded of all the wonderful people I have in my life. I am an extremely lucky person and am thankful for my friends and family. THANK YOU everyone for the thoughtful birthday wishes :)

McIntireONE

One of the things I am most thankful for was my opportunity to attend the University of Virginia and the McIntire School of Commerce for my undergrad education (more on that another time).

To show my thanks, I was excited to participate in the McIntireONE campaign that kicked off this week. For any donation by a young alum to the comm school given in the month of March, a donor will contribute an additional $100.

So, if you’re a recent graduate of the comm school, take five minutes to give five dollars (or more!):

https://hoosonline.virginia.edu/site/c.qmL2KkNZLrH/b.6578219/k.A286/Support_the_McIntire_School/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=qmL2KkNZLrH&b=6578219&en=ajJJKXMDI9JSJ7PGI8KPJ4MRLtI1KcPPLgJWK8NQJkKOI9N2H

Cleveland rocks, Cleveland rocks

Everyone has been asking me how my first week in Cleveland went. Well, it’s really cold there. And I think these two YouTube videos might accurately capture the rest: 

Video #1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysmLA5TqbIY

Video #2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Ben!

Today is Ben’s 29th birthday! (He’s SO OLD ha).

We kicked off his week of birthday celebrations with dinner last night at Sushi Taro. Somehow, neither of us had ever been (Thank you VillageVines for the discount)! We enjoyed a carafe of Kirin-Zan sake and a number of yummy rolls (spicy tuna, rainbow, fatty tuna & scallion to name a few) and nigiri. 

This morning, we continued the celebration with some homemade pancakes. I found a recipe on AllRecipes.com that is definitely my new favorite.

You can find the recipe online here, and below. The recipe calls for “sour milk” made with vinegar. Sounds weird but, as you know if you’ve ever had my mom’s soft jumble cookies, the results are always amazing.

I didn’t have any baking powder so just did without (the recipe calls for baking soda as well). These were still the best pancakes I’ve ever made!

Enjoy!

Fluffy Pancakes

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• cooking spray

Directions

1. Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to “sour”.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk egg and butter into “soured” milk. Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until lumps are gone.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and coat with cooking spray. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter onto the skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip with a spatula, and cook until browned on the other side.

Camera Updates

As many of you know, I love dragging my DLSR with me everywhere I go. I’ve recently purchased a number of accessories that I’m excited about and am looking forward to upgrading my camera body soon (waiting for the T3i to come out!).

My current camera body is the Rebel XT that my dad picked out for me when I graduated from UVA a few years ago. That thing is amazing. Its been with me around the world — often slung over my shoulder in my Longchamps bag instead of a proper camera case, no worse for wear. 

A few years back I upgraded my “everyday” lens to the Canon 18-200mm Lens with Image Stabilizer. It is amazing — the Canon brand and image stabilizer technology are worth the investment if you’re in the market.

But, ever since Geneva and I ventured to Spain in the summer of 2009 and a fellow bike tour participant lent me his wide angle lens for a few minutes, I’ve been craving one myself. I finally ordered one last night. Though I am a loyal Amazon customer for most technology products, I’ve started ordering all of my camera related goods from B&H Photo. Their prices are competitive, they ship quickly, and they ship for free. I ordered my underwater camera case for my Powershot from there (definitely worth the investment if you are a scuba diver!!) and had a great experience. So, long story short, my Canon 10-22mm wide angle lens will arrive at our door step on Wednesday. I am very much looking forward to playing around with it!

A few other fun things headed this way:

• A (cheap) tripod to expand on the types of shots I can take (longer exposures, better landscapes, etc.).
• An even more fun Gorillapod that will let me take pics pretty much anywhere without lugging around the larger tripod.
• And finally, a woman-friendly camera case. When I do finally get the T3i sometime after it comes out in March, it will not be subject to the abuse of my purse. Instead I can tuck it away in this gorgeous tote bag (in black, of course).

Just Because

Ben is often more inspired than I to experiment in his cooking which is why yesterday our apartment smelled AMAZING all day and why we were able to enjoy an amazing feast of lamb shank and caramelized shallot mashed potatoes for dinner.

The potatoes were fairly straightforward — although eye balling 2 cups of shallots at Whole Foods proved to be more challenging than expected (we overbought!). The lamb shank recipe originally called for veal shank but, alas, the P Street WF had been bought out and they recommended we try lamb shank, which was excellent.

I haven’t mastered the art of taking pictures while cooking, so, you’ll have to do with links to the original recipes on epicurious:

Lamb Shank: We followed the recipe to the T, with the only exception of substituting the veal shank for lamb shank. Additionally, as suggested by reviewers, we doubled all of the other ingredients except for the lamb shank itself. We let it cook for several hours and were amazed how much the heat (from the red pepper flakes) disappeared though still left a strong flavor.

Mashed Potatoes: So. Good.

Enjoy!

Seriously This Time

So obviously my expectations re-setting did not go so well last time as I still haven’t made another blog post. Right on. 

Here we go again. I even renamed the blog to version 2. I felt that was appropriate for a couple of reasons:

(1) I’m starting version 2 of my career at Accenture on Monday. Ah! I’ll be hitting the road again on a weekly basis, this time to Cleveland. Don’t be jealous.

(2) My viewpoint has changed a lot since I wrote my first blog post just 10 short months ago. For some reason, I had this misconception that I had to have it all figured out and that I needed to have a plan (for my whole life apparently?). My friends and family know that I LOVE plans. I can barely operate without a to-do list of some sorts. But seriously, how can you plan your whole life out at the age of 27?

What you can expect from Tall Orders v2:

• Things that make me happy (pictures, recipes, restaurants, books, my family, soccer, running, friends, etc.)
• Things that interest me (leadership, tech stuff, UVA, McIntire, volunteering, etc.)
• Things I care about (The Madison, The Tenfold Forty, women’s rights in developing countries, DC, etc.)

And hopefully my career and my “plan” fall into one of those three categories, somewhere.