The Incredible Date Part 2

This was the next clue presented to me:

WHAT NOW?!? Seek direction from Delphi's priestess (the oracle of Delphi) at her temple.

This one was hard, too. The oracle of Delphi was called the Pythia. When I entered "Pythia" and "temple" into the decipherer, the Pythian Temple in Tacoma came up. I'd never even heard of it. It's the local HQ for The Knights of Pythias, a Masonic-like fraternity/secret organization founded upon principles of loyalty, honor and friendship. And not being a Communist or gambler.

This was the outside of the temple in downtown Tacoma.

Once we got our scavenger hunt photo, Mike gave me the next clue:

NONE SHALL PASS! You must first defeat the black knight, "Galloping Gertie," to prove yourself worthy of the quest to find the Holy Grail!

This one was fairly easy. The decipherer led me right to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. As part of the fun of the evening, we read a little bit about the history of each place we visited. The bridge had the history that was the most intriguing.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge (built 1938-1940), spanned Puget Sound between Tacoma and Gig Harbor. The bridge had a narrow roadbed with shallow trusses to allow the span to be flexible--too flexible, as it turned out. The lack of rigidity led to a tendency to sway, even in moderate winds. It soon earned the nickname "Galloping Gertie" and motorists came from hundreds of miles to go on the bouncing drive across.

On November 7, four months after the bridge opened for traffic, the center span began to sway in winds of only 40 mph. The bridge's construction and the effects of the winds upon it caused the center span to roll. The twisting became more violent and the supporting cable at the center snapped. The span was now undulating up to 28 feet and pieces of roadbed broke off. The bridge finally collapsed and plunged into Puget Sound.

There were no casualties except for a dog that was left behind in the only abandoned car on the bridge. The remains of the bridge were left on the bottom of the Narrows, where they continue to function as a man-made reef. The collapse was filmed, helping it to become one of the more conspicuous engineering failures in American history. As a result of the collapse, the methods for testing and building of bridges--including the new Tacoma Narrows Bridge that opened in 1950--were radically changed.

You can find a film about it on YouTube. This was the one Mike showed me when we got the the bridge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSxnw. It's amazing.

But our journey was far from over...

The Incredible Date Part 1

Last week, Mike asked me if it was OK if he planned something special for our Friday night date. (Um, trick question? Of course it's OK!) Excited to see what he came up with, I got home from work and found the table was set for an oh-so-yummy spaghetti dinner. When I got up to take my plate to the sink, I found a little scrap of paper with the following message:

Ready for our date?! For this journey you'll need your camera! ...and a decipherer (bring your iPhone).

Ooooooo! The air was thick with the aura of mystery. I was intrigued. Mike sent me upstairs to get the camera and when I came back down, this note had sneakily taken its place:

WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE! To settle this riddle, travel back in time to a foreign country: LAKEWOOD. Where are you? One amony many, your answer lies set in stone.

Off we went. I had to find out what the destination was by Google-ing in my iPhone (the clue decipherer) what I felt the key words might be. This was, by far, the toughest clue. It was also quite clever. When I finally googled "settlers" and "Lakewood," I finally came up with The Old Settlers Cemetary.

We had fun goofing off among the headstones. But, as the clue hinted, I was looking for a specific "one among many" that "lies set in stone."

The answer was the one tombstone in the entire cemetary that was written in a foreign language. We're not sure which language, though. Anyone, anyone? We're going with Dutch.

Once I found out the answer to the first riddle, Mike presented me with the second clue and we were off. Where? The answer is...

...to be continued.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

So true. Mom, this one's for you.

Heavenly Lemony Cheesecake

Let's be honest. I'm not the most homemakery person the planet. The Internet has been both my friend and my enemy as far as this subject is concerned. I see the creative, wonderful things that other women come up with and blog about. These MacGyvers of the arts and crafts world can take 5 inches of pipe cleaner, a 10-year-old Cricut machine, 2 pieces of paper and an egg carton and from them make Young Women handouts, a table centerpiece, and a couple of matching hairbows that leave you stunned with their awesomeness.

I don't know if it makes it better or worse that many of these women are my relatives. Even as I happily use their ideas, I'm torn between admiration and envy. I'm as grateful to them for sharing their gifts as I am discouraged by the knowledge that I will never be a member of their talented club.

The same goes with cooking. No way can I make up my very own recipe from scratch. (Not an edible one, at any rate.) I do, however, love looking for good-sounding recipes that I happily modify to suit my tastes. I did it with Heart Attack Mac 'n Cheese and I did it again for Sunday dinner yesterday. Ben and Marika came over with their family and for dessert I made lemon cheesecake that was absolutely scrumptious. Maybe the best cheesecake I've ever had. Period. Mike declared it to be his new favorite cheesecake--better than Cheesecake Factory. I would have thought that he was just being an exaggeratedly nice husband, but when he single-handedly downed 1/3 of it in less than 24 hours, I guess I have to take what he says at face value.

This cheesecake turned out perfectly. No cracks in the top. No sticking to the pan. No dryness. It was smooth without being too runny, lemony without being overpowering, sweet with the right touch of sour. I simply can't do justice to the yumminess of this cheesecake. The recipe is originally from "The New Best Recipe Cookbook."

CRUST
8 ounces Nabisco's Barnum's Animal Crackers
4 1/2 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

(Note: The original recipe called for 5 oz of animal crackers but I like a thicker crust so I adjusted it accordingly. And put in less butter. Not that it matters in this recipe.) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. In a blender, process the crackers until you have fine crumbs. Add the sugar and pulse. Add the melted butter a little at a time while pulsing. Transfer the mixture to a 9" springform pan and press evenly into the bottom. The recipe says to bake 15-18 minutes but mine was done at 12. Refrigerate until cool (about the length of time it takes to make the filling) then wrap the pan with 2 sheets of foil along the bottom and up the outside. Set it in a roasting pan.

FILLING
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 tablespoon grated zest (original recipe: 1 Tbsp. What can I say? I like lemon.)
1/4 cup juice from 1-2 lemons
24 oz cream cheese, cut into 1 inch chunks, at room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream

Process 1/4 cup of the sugar and the lemon zest in a blender until the sugar turns yellow and the zest is incorporated. Transfer to a small bowl and mix in the rest of the sugar. In medium-sized bowl, beat the softened cream cheese until somewhat smooth. Add the sugar a little at a time, scraping down the bowl in between additions. With mixer speed at medium, add the eggs, 2 at a time. Beat until incorporated. Add the lemon juice, vanilla, and salt. Mix to combine. Add the cream and beat well. Remember to scrape the bowl between each addition. Pour the mixture into the prepared ungreased springform pan. Fill the roasting pan about half full with water. Bake at 325 until the center jiggles slightly, the sides start to puff, and the surface is no longer shiny. The recipe says this should happen in 55 to 60 minutes.

(Note: It took almost an hour and 45 minutes for the cheesecake I made to get to that point, and that was after I increased the temperature at 1 hour to 350! I'm not sure why it took so long. Maybe it was the fact that I made do with a 9 x 13 pan because I didn't have a roasting pan. Whatever. I went by how it looked and it turned out OK.) Turn off the oven and prop the door of the oven open with a potholder or wooden spoon. Allow the cake to cool in the water bath in the oven for about an hour. Transfer the springform pan to a wire rack and run a small paring knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake. Let it sit to room temperature for 2 hours.

LEMON CURD

Lemon juice from 2 lemons (1/3 cup or more)

2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp cold butter

2 Tbsp heavy cream

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

While the cheesecake bakes, heat the lemon juice in a glass bowl set in a pan of simmering water (like you're melting chocolate) until it his hot but not boiling. Whisk the eggs in a small bowl, then gradually add the sugar. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the hot lemon juice through a strainer into the egg/sugar mixture. Unless you have 3 hands, I suggest getting a helper for this. Return the mixture to the bowl over the pan and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until it's thick enough to cling to the spoon. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and add the cold butter and mix until incorporated. Stir in the cream, vanilla, and salt. Cover the surface of the curd directly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.

This cheesecake ages well. I'd make it at least 24 hours before you want to eat it. Just before serving, pour the curd over the top. This made a lot more curd than I ended up using, but having lemon curd leftovers isn't the worst thing in the world.

Take THAT, MacGyver!

Why my husband is also my best friend

Yesterday, during a long, hard day as ward attending, I got the above photo text from Mike with the caption "Flowers to add cheer to your day! I LOVE you! :D"

Awwwww! I love him, too!

There is no "I" in team...just me

This is Madigan. It's the hospital where I work. For 51 weeks out of the year, I like my job. Many days, I even love it. One week out of the year, I hate my job so much that I fantasize about getting a weird illness that will briefly incapacitate me without being fatal. This is that week.

Normally, I work in a clinic as a developmental pediatrician, a career path chosen in no small part because of its lack of medical emergencies. I do pretty low-acuity, non-critical stuff. This week, I'm the pediatric ward attending. This means that I'm in charge of all the children who are admitted to the hospital because they are having high-acuity medical emergencies of a critical nature.

Usually, I have residents and interns who help with this. Everyone--attending, resident, etc...--makes up what is called the "ward team." If the hospital ward team were a tribal village, the interns would be the gatherers, looking up patient data, getting lab results, and finding out vitals. The residents would be the hunters, examining patients at their bedsides and performing procedures like lumbar punctures. The attending would be the village chief, making sure that things are being done right, helping make overall plans for patient care. Someone let the resident go to a medical conference this week in Miami and put the intern on night call (meaning they're not there during the day). This means that I have to perform all the roles in the village.

Did I mention that the ward is filled to capacity? And not with easy pediatric bread-and-butter stuff like babies with elevated bilirubin or dehydrated kids with diarrhea/vomiting--the kind of stuff I could do with my eyes closed and one hand behind my back. It's people with cancer, failure to thrive, physical abuse, congenital heart disease, metabolic disease, and the list goes on. It's like the village is on fire and, let me tell you, the chief is getting seriously burned out.

So I'm surviving for now, but not looking forward to the remainder of my week as attending (which ends Wednesday night). On the bright side, there's still time to come down with a good case of dengue!

One of our little morning routines is that on days where I don't have to get up super early and go to work, Mike will tell me what he dreams and (if I can remember) I tell him mine in return. This morning, I told him that I had that one dream where you go someplace and when you look down you realize you forgot your pants. I thought that dream was pretty universal, but apparently not because Mike looked at me like I was all crazy and stuff.

"What about the dream where you know you have the ability to fly but you just can get off the ground?” Blank stare. “You’re in a play but forgot the words?” Nada. “You’re in school and you realize that you have a test that you didn’t study for?” “Yeah! I had that one in high school….Although, that may have been real life.”

That conversation reminded me that a month ago, I had started a little dream “experiment,” if you will. It all started the Monday morning that happened to be President’s Day (and Mom Stacey’s birthday--Happy Birthday, Mom!). We had the following conversation:

Mike: I had the weirdest dream last night.
Me: Me too!
Mike: I dreamed that there were, like, 6 rusty broken down cars parked in Mom’s driveway and I had to go out and fix them.

Me: That is weird!
Mike: What did you dream last night?
Me: I dreamed that I was at a wedding, and then aliens sent down pink mind-control rays and brainwashed the groom and about 10 of the guests and I spent the rest of the dream trying to find out why they did that.
Mike: *pause* OK, you win.
The next day, Tuesday, as I was getting out of bed, Mike sleepily told me he had just dreamed a bee flew by his ear. I, on the other hand, dreamed that I popped a zit on my leg and out came a banana, peel and all. Mike was slightly grossed out.
It occurred to me, though, that it was now two days of peculiar dreams and at that point, I decided to keep a tally of whose were the most bizarre. So far, I was ahead with a score of 2 to 0. The rest of the week played out thus:

Wednesday:
----Mike: A little person was teaching a class. (He didn’t actually finish the story because he awoke with a sore throat and he didn’t want to make it worse by talking.)
----Me: The goblin king was stealing souls and a small group of freedom fighters had to battle him to save everyone. High points: I had to learn the Goblin language “Waku” to sneak into the castle and Betty White played the part of the grandma.
----Discussion: While at the very least I should win by forfeit because Mike opted not to complete the telling of his dream, the fact that Betty White made a cameo appearance in mine hands down puts me over the edge.
----Point: Me. (3 to 0)

Thursday:
----Discussion: Mike prefaced his telling of the dream by saying, “I wasn’t really asleep when I dreamed this…” At this point, I think whatever either of us dreamed becomes irrelevant, because what Mike had wasn’t so much a dream as a hallucination. In his defense, however, he was up all night with the flu. Hallucinations aren’t a regular occurrence for him. Still, that’s definitely weird. ----Point: Mike. (3 to 1)

I was going to give it a week, but I felt that I had to call off the whole thing after four days because Mike developed full-blown influenza and was absolutely miserable. I didn’t think it was fair to judge his dreams on the scale of sanity when he was so, so sick. I guess that means I won by default, but did I really win? I mean, what kind of mind comes up with that stuff? Mike had to knock on death's door to have weird dreams, whereas I have them all the time. Let's just chalk it up to a vivid imagination. Yeah, that's it.

Know who else had a dream? That's right: Rapunzel. "Tangled" came out on DVD today and I'm off to watch it!!