Dinner by Jennifer, or A Brief Explanation of Food in the Harlos Family

Hope everybody had a good Valentine's Day.  We don't normally really do anything for Valentine's Day, but when I woke up that morning I found these on the table along with my favorite candy (I had already eaten it by the time we took a picture):

Super pretty and very unexpected.  Drew's not usually one to get flowers.  So I figured I'd better do something more than just make brownies or something so he could have chocolate.  (He regularly complains he never gets to have anything chocolate because I don't like it.)  So I decided that I would make dinner.  Most of you know that I can count the number of times that I have cooked dinner since we were married on one hand.  And I never cook anything too exciting.  Usually Drew eats it after turning up his nose at the fact that I love to use rice or peppers or some other ingredient he never uses.  When we first got married I tried to sometimes make an effort to cook something...but then I realized I had had the good fortune of marrying a man who loves to cook.  A man who puts up menus like these on our fridge:

It didn't take long for me to get very used to Drew cooking every night.  My dependency on him for food is pretty sad.  When he got really sick last winter and didn't get out of bed for like three days it was most apparent.  One day all I ate was an entire box of Corn Pops.  Another night I went for a midnight run to a taco drive thru.  Drew and I have gotten fast food together like twice in the entire time we've known each other.  Drew woke up out of his stupor to find me chowing down on refried beans out of a Styrofoam container with empty cereal bowls strewn about.  That was a low point.

Anyways, the point is, I don't really cook.  If we are having a party I will cook something from a recipe and get kind of into it, but I don't cook as a daily chore at all.  Almost always this is just fine.  Drew loves tweaking recipes and figuring out what side will perfectly complement the marinade he used on the steak.  But every once in awhile, he just doesn't feel like carving the time out of his day to make dinner.  So I decided since he had worked the night before and was working again that night, I would make dinner.  And make something he liked.  So definitely a chocolate dessert...but what for dinner?  

I figured that Drew cooks what he likes.  The trouble is that what Drew likes is pretty specific, and pretty fancy.  You see, before I knew Drew and before he went to Italy, Drew was a very picky eater.  He ate like, ice cream, milkshakes, bread, cereal, pizza if he scraped most the sauce off first.  Definitely not vegetables.  The only Drew I have known is one that loves to cook, and got very into learning to cook from Italians.  By the time I actually met him on the mission he was known for being the go to missionary for cooking stuff.  I remember even deciding to invite him and his companion to a dinner a bunch of us were having after a baptism, under the condition that they would do the cooking.  

After we started dating, I did realize that this must not have been the way Drew always was.  He would timidly bite into a piece of fruit or a vegetable and tell me this was the first time he was actually trying it.  The first time we went to a Mexican restaurant he just stared at the menu and was like, "I don't know what any of this is.  I don't know what to order."  So I ordered him a chimichanga.  He ate it, but he felt like everything on the menu was just the same few ingredients slapped together in a different form.  

That's when Drew really started to become a food snob. For a long time all Drew really knew how to cook or liked to cook was what he ate in Italy.  Obviously he was getting great food.  As time has gone on Drew has expanded his tastes beyond pasta, seafood, fried meats, and artisan bread.  But only to what he believes is the more refined food.  Mexican is not refined.  Chinese is not refined.  American casseroles are not refined.  30-Minutes-Or-Less meals out of Family Circle are definitely not refined.  Most Italian food made by Americans is just revolting.  He really is a food snob.  The only cuisines that make the cut are Italian, French, Indian, and super traditional Southern cooking.  Since we came to Alaska and went to a cooking demonstration with a famous chef in the area his expectations have become even higher.  Our grocery bill is insane, but hey, I am getting a gourmet meal that I didn't have to prepare every night, right?

So I went with a very Drew dinner:  steak with sauteed mushrooms with some type of reduction, baked asparagus with a balsamic glaze, and mashed potatoes.  Lava cake in individual ramekins for dessert.  (I don't judge you at all if you have to Google what the heck a ramekin is.)  I should have known I was getting way too over my head.  The amazing thing is, it all ended up being pretty edible!  The steak was definitely dry, but not terribly so.  I tweaked the reduction recipe but that didn't turn out to be a huge mistake.  The asparagus was good and so were the mashed potatoes.    I will admit that all I really did for the mashed potatoes was cut and boil the potatoes.  Drew took over from there because I was running out of time before I had to go to work.  But it turned out pretty tasty.  Dessert was probably the worst.  I tried to make lava cake but it wasn't lava-y at all.  I cooked it too long.  But he ate both of them so they couldn't have been that bad!

Drew and his lava cake

I was hoping to have it mostly done by the time Drew woke up, but he woke up early and heard something very strange...was that me, in the kitchen??  (I admit it was like two weeks into living in this apartment before I ventured past the fridge into the rest of the kitchen.  I felt so eerily out of place.)  So Drew hardly knew what to do with himself and ended up relaxing on the couch.  I gave him the chocolate covered bowls and beaters to lick.  It was at this point that Drew said, "Ahh, finally!  This is what I always dreamed that marriage would be like!"  I'm glad I fulfilled his fantasy for at least one brief moment.  :)

I'm not really into Valentine's Day, but I'm glad that this year it made me stretch and try something new.  And I'm glad I've got a husband who is always whipping up a new concoction or bringing home a new cookbook from the library.  I have so many memories with Drew and food: Swinging in a hammock while Drew kept bringing out plate after plate of waffles.  Cooking Pasta alla Norma at his parent's house before embarking on our now infamous road trip.  The pork skin we brought my best friend, Annie, in Alabama when we stopped to visit her.  Her now husband was the only person at the party willing to try and eat it.  The Moab Diner where we had our first date.  Polishing off a pan of lasagna just between the two of us.  Backpacking with a bag of frozen chicken and some barbecue sauce strung up in a tree away from bears, just so Drew could attempt a gourmet meal in the wilderness.  Deciding maybe I would give him another chance after getting into a huge jello fight with him outside his apartment in the Riviera.  Drew cooking for my parents the day he first met them.  The fish Drew brought on the plane with him from Alaska when we reunited after my return to Italy and his first stint in Alaska.  Choosing our Italian themed menu for our wedding reception.  Having friends over to our first apartment more nights than not, and always making lots of food to share over good conversation.  Getting dressed up and going to a fancy restaurant in the middle of a camping trip.  Starving all day long while we travel because we are too cheap to eat out and then going from restaurant to restaurant ordering the local fare all night long.  Savoring the best steak of my life atop a mountain on our anniversary. Celebrating getting my dream job or Drew graduating by eating out at a fancy restaurant by candlelight, chatting and laughing for hours about what the future might hold for us.  Food has so often been a part of our fun together, I'm glad I got to add to our memories with my own little adventure in the kitchen. 

What's New

Well we survived January.  It ended up being the 4th coldest January on record for Anchorage.  Glad we were here for it. :)  The average temperature last month was 2.5 degrees.  It's amazing how warm we were feeling yesterday when it was 21 degrees.   Positively balmy.  We also were getting 5 inches of snow an hour.   Drew took advantage of it and went skiing of course.  He's decided it's time to buy a pair of fat skis though.  When I heard he hit a hard spot of snow with his skis and flew off them and down the hill yesterday I was all about it too.  Luckily he seems to have just got the wind knocked out of him, bit his tongue pretty hard, and had some soft tissue damage.  He should heal up just fine.

In my world Drew convinced me I needed to get rid of a bunch of clothes I don't wear.  So I did, but then we realized that about 90% of the clothes that I do where are black, grey, white, or off white.  Drew says if he ever sees a girl with a creamy coat he just automatically assumes it is me. (Maybe that's cause I own like, 4 of them??)  I don't really know how this happened, but at some point I just stopped buying anything with color.  So he decided we should go shopping together and get me some clothes that I liked and that weren't  neutrals.  We only had time for one store today but we did pretty good, 4 new sweaters and 1 pretty top for 67 dollars.  Yay for sales!  And only one sweater isn't a color...(come on, everyone needs a grey cardigan!)

What else?  We braved the cold last weekend and went out snowshoeing again.  We are finding that people don't do the summer trails in the winter here.   At least not often it seems.  Both times we have gone we have gotten really lost following moose tracks instead of the trail.  It's really hard to stay on a trail that you can't see at all though.  So we had some fun getting lost, seeing the moose we must have been following, and generally freezing my hands off.  I think it was -4 that day.  Sunny, but my hands couldn't stay warm.  So I upgraded gloves this month.  Hopefully mittens will do the trick.

Drew has been working lots on the motorcycle.  I think he is learning a lot.  Last year in Utah we had a major oil leak on our car that he tried to fix and failed miserably at.  This year we have the same leak...and he's going to try and fix it again.  He has a little more knowledge and a lot more tools this year, so I'm hoping he can do it.  We've got to keep our little '97 Camry going!

I've been working out "a lot." (A lot for me, that is.) I got a little pass to go to a gym in Anchorage for 3 months from Groupon.  It has been good to workout and I have been trying to eat a little bit better diet.  Drew only buys me one box of cereal a week and believe it or not I can actually make it last all week.  (If you know me at all you probably think hell must have just frozen over...)  It's been good too.  I am back to weighing what I weighed when we got married and I was doing P90X.  And it just feels better to take good care of my body.

The sun is back.  It's still more of a winter darkness, but it's not noticeably darker here than I feel like it would be if we were in the lower 48.  I don't stagger out of my apartment in the middle of the day when I have been sleeping after working all night, just to stand in the freezing cold and feel the sun on my face for a few minutes.   That's no longer necessary.  So I feel like the worst is behind us!

How's your winter going?

Flat Stanley Comes to Alaska

My nephew, Isaac, sent us Flat Stanley in the mail this month.  I had never heard of Flat Stanley, but Drew knew all about it.  I guess it is a pretty common activity for young kids in school.  They all send out their paper Stanley to different places and then they come back with pictures and postcards and stories about what they saw and did.  Isaac's Flat Stanley was dressed in a Laker's jersey.  (He's a big fan, which is a huge embarrassment to the rest of the Stephensons.)  Turns out his first choice was to send it to Kobe Bryant.  When my sister vetoed that one, he settled on his aunt and uncle in Alaska.  We're second choice, but hopefully we weren't second rate!  My sister made it very clear that we had to do a really good job.  We certainly tried.  We drove for three hours one night hoping to get to an area clear enough to see the Northern Lights, to no avail.  We also braved sub zero temperatures with bare hands several times setting up Flat Stanley for pictures.  (I think Flat Stanley should be named Flimsy Stanley...or maybe Overly Reflective Stanley.)  Isaac also requested of us near the end that we take Flat Stanley to Denali National Park, because he had read a book about it.  We didn't come through on that one either, but we did take some pictures (and get some postcards) that are probably just as good. :)  It was really fun though and it seems like such a great way to teach kids about all kinds of things.  I would love to see where else Flat Stanley went with his class.  Here are our contributions:

Flat Stanley saw how much snow Alaska gets, and that it piles up because it  doesn't get warm enough to melt all winter long! 

This is the sidewalk, which gets plowed by a miniature bulldozer.  You can't even see over the snow to the street on the left.

 Flat Stanley saw people shoveling the roof of this building because there was so much snow on it , it might cave in. 

Flat Stanley saw that lots of people build their buildings like triangles so that they don't have to worry about shoveling the roof.  All the snow just slides right off.  When it goes, it sounds like thunder right above you.

*Side note:  This is our church, isn't it so cute?!

To get around on top of all the deep snow you can wear snowshoes.  This lets you walk on top of the snow without sinking in.

 

Flat Stanley learned that Alaska is very big...more than 14 times bigger than Pennsylvania, but has less than half the people living there than live in the city of Philadelphia alone.  Most of Alaska is wilderness, and there aren't roads to get to some of the towns that are very far away.  You can only get to those towns by boat or plane.  Lots of people in Alaska have little planes like this one to get to travel to places in Alaska where there aren't any roads. 

Flat Stanley learned that there are lots of animals in Alaska, like bears, bighorn sheep, wolves, bald eagles, and moose.  We found moose tracks along the same sidewalk we were on one day.  Moose are very big and sometimes mean so we decided to go back to the car.

Later on we saw a little baby moose from the safety of the car.

Flat Stanley learned that people used to travel through Alaska on sleds pulled by dogs.  Now people still go dog sledding, but just for fun.

Flat Stanley spent a day on the slopes with Uncle Drew.  He took the tram up to the top of the hill...

...and skied down.

Flat Stanley met other skiers on the mountain too.  This skier has a white cross on his chest.  That means he is part of ski patrol and can help you if you get hurt.  

*Thanks Rich!

Flat Stanley and Uncle Drew helped people with disabilities ski.  This girl is learning to ski on a sit ski. 

*Thanks Challenge Alaska!

Flat Stanley saw the ice sculptures in downtown Anchorage.  They sit all winter long for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks for the fun, Flat Stanley!

We hope Isaac likes everything we send home with Flat Stanley.  We thought this was better than taking Flat Stanley with us to work.  Maybe my work would be better for an older sex ed class or something.... (Flat Stanley gets a girl pregnant.... Flat Stanley goes to prenatal appointments.... Flat Stanley coaches said girl through labor.... Flat Stanley sees a placenta...  Flat Stanley is a Dad...  Flat Stanley learns about breastfeeding.)  Drew's work wouldn't be much better.... (Flat Stanley feels depressed.... Flat Stanley stands on the edge of a bridge....  Flat Stanley decides to call the crisis hotline... Flat Stanley gets picked up by the police... Flat Stanley gets a visit to the Psych ER...  Flat Stanley in restraints...  Flat Stanley gets a dose of Haldol... )  Yeah... better to stick with the pictures of cute baby moose!

Hatcher's Pass

It's been awhile since we have blogged something.  We haven't had too much of interest going on lately.  It's been pretty cold so we can't say we have been out and about as much as we sometimes are.  It's been in the negatives all this week.  Both Drew and I still walk/bike/cross country ski to work despite the temperatures.   I really can't say 15 degrees above 0 feels that much different than 15 below when you are dressed right and you are moving.  That being said, if you are in a skirt waiting for a stoplight to turn so you can go see the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast (which is what we did last night) it's pretty cold.  Drew did take some pictures on his last backcountry ski day with his friend Will.  He was pretty proud of the -6 degrees at the time:

They went to Hatcher's Pass and I am guessing they had a good time.  I am glad that Drew is getting to do all the things that he's been wanting to do for so long.  I only wish he could do them more often!  But we are headed to Girdwood tomorrow so he can ski at Alyeska and I can hopefully take a few pictures and maybe do a little hike or cross country ski somewhere.  I am also going to have to do our laundry at a laundromat because it's been so cold in our "heated" garage that the washer froze and we can't use it.  Anyways, here's a few pictures from Drew's last ski day in Hatcher's Pass:  (He took them all so the guy in the pictures is our friend, Will.)

Hope some of you down in the lower 48 are getting a least a little snow to make it feel a bit like winter!  Maybe tomorrow I'll have more pictures of our winter to post.  My nephew sent us his Flat Stanley for school, so I am going to have to come up with some good pictures....

Outside this Winter

A few pictures from the last few days...

Drew went backcountry skiing with a few friends on Christmas Eve in Turnagain Pass...he has a hard time getting pictures if he forgets to put the camera close to his body.  The camera is only rated to 14 degrees so that doesn't always fare well. 

Snowshoeing up what we thought was Falls Creek Trail... 

Turns out we were just following a moose's tracks.  

Drew took this picture after a day of backcountry skiing in Hatcher's Pass.  He did his last run without his goggles on, so he ended up with ice mascara.  You can tell the lens from the camera is totally frosty too.  It was about -5 degrees.

Yay for winter!

Christmas 2011

Well it is after Christmas now and we are finally posting pictures of our little Christmas tree.  It's still kicking. We wanted to keep things simple this year for Christmas so it was a do it yourself christmas decor.  We cut our own tree earlier this month and finally got it decorated on the 23rd.  

Drew was in charge of the popcorn garland and I made all the ornaments with construction paper. 

I think it turned out pretty good, no?

We opened Christmas presents Sunday morning after I got home from working.  Then we drove to church and once again wished we had the camera for the beautiful sunrise we witnessed.  We caught my family on the phone on the drive down and weren't able to catch Drew's family on the return trip.  I crashed as soon as we got home and then we both went to work that night.  Overall it was a pretty understated Christmas, but we were glad to spend it together.

Photo Book

So I'm no scrapbooker or card maker or crafty person or anything, but I have gotten really into making photo books online.  I use Shutterfly and I really like them.  I made one as our guestbook at our wedding that had all the time we had known each other in photos.  Then I made one for my dad of our wedding and ordered one for us as well.  Now I'm going to try and make one for each year of our marriage.  Our anniversary was in August but it took me until just recently to get it done and ordered.  I always wait until there is a sale on the books too, so I can get it for 40-60% off.  It came in the mail yesterday!

Unfortunately this one arrived kind of bent, so I'm going to have to send it back and they'll send me a new one that isn't damaged.  That's another good thing about Shutterfly.  Even if it's your fault you don't like your book, (like you get it and realize your picture was blurry or you spelled something wrong or whatever), as long as you mail the one you don't like back to them you can fix it and get a new one online for free.  That's pretty good customer service!

I love looking through our books.  It makes me so grateful for all of the friends and family and good things in our life we are blessed with.  We have had so many beautiful experiences and are especially grateful for our family and great friends this holiday season!  It has been fun to email and Facebook and call so many of our friends and family that are far away recently.  We love all of you and are so glad we have you in our lives!