New Blog

I will be contributing to a new blog dedicated to our Etsy Shop called Julia's Fit. You can find it here

 See you there!

Etsy Fever

In April, I talked my mom into starting her own Etsy shop. She's a talented one, my mom, and she finally decided to listen to me and start creating. I got behind the computer and put her creations up for sale on www.etsy.com Here's a gallery of some of the items that I've listed so far. A lot more is coming. Check it out!

Hello again

So it's been about 10 months or so since I posted last. Shame on me! It's not that I stopped cooking, or disappeared off the face of Earth. It's quite the opposite, really. My job keeps me busy, and so does my husband.

Oh yeah, I got married in December, so there's that. We moved in together in September after a really long and grueling process of apartment-hunting. We finally settled on a place that I still kind of hate, but it looked like it was the best option at the time. And here's a thing: my kitchen is still damn small! But at least it has more storage space than my mom's kitchen did, so I manage.

So things are pretty good, generally speaking. I should start posting again soon. I am actually trying to make ice cream at the moment, so if that turns out fine, one brand new post is coming up. In the meantime, enjoy the silence.

Changes

The last time I reincarnated this blog was when I lost my job at the end of last year. I've been unemployed and miserable for a little over 6 months, and blogging has had sort of a therapeutic effect on me. And of course there was the cooking part, which I really got into.

As you can tell, I've been really inactive lately. First there was a problem with bed bugs, which grew into renovations in my apartment, which coincided with Passover, which was the time when some major things happened in my fiance's business (and personal life), which affected me as well. I haven't shared anything about the latter, but we had just started seeing our way out of that tunnel of doom.

And as of Monday of this week, I am employed again. I'm still in training, and I feel like I'm going to lose my mind any minute now, but eventually I'll get comfortable with the hectic environment at the office and get my mind back into place. Still nowhere near the field in which I got my B.A., but it's a job and it pays. Hopefully, within the next month I can find a new apartment so the boy and I can finally move in together and get married.

I am not going to archive this blog. I will try to find time and energy to cook and share recipes. And hopefully my new kitchen will be more than measly 10' by 6'.

Rammstein show videos

Finally uploaded my videos from the Rammstein concert at the IZOD center from this Thursday. I've only got 5 vids, but the quality is quite decent. For those wondering, I was using Panasonic Lumix Zs5.

Du Hast


Ich Will


Sonne


Pussy


And for an epic ending
Engel


I'll post pics when I get around to resizing them.

Rammstein @ IZOD Center

10 years!

They haven't been to the US for 10 years!

And today, May 5, 2011, guys from Rammstein graced us with their presence and an amazing show in NJ's IZOD Center.

These guys know how to put on a show. Theatrics were top notch, complete with load of pyrotechnics. 

I've got lots of pics and vids to share later on, so stay tuned.

Lentil Soup

I absolutely love lentils. I think I could probably eat lentil-based food every day and never get tired of it. Of course, as luck has it, lentils are high in oxalate. High oxalate foods are a no-no for me right now. But I figured that I've been good for a couple of weeks with my diet, so I could cheat a little. So a cheated with this wonderful soup, which is easy to make and delightful to eat.

Diets, I Hate Thee.

Saw my nephrologist yesterday, expecting good news since I haven't had any pains lately. However, my results came back withe some bad news. My liquid levers are way too low, therefore oxalate concentration is still too high. This basically means that I have to stay on this low-oxalate diet for the rest of my life, quite possibly.
So back to boring food for me. No coffee, chocolate, spinach, strawberries and other wonderful things like that. I guess the plus side to this would be that I can devote most of the space on this blog to low-oxalate recipes, so other people with this problem don't have to search high and low for their dinner options.

Happy Passover!

Tonight we will be celebrating the first day of Passover (Pesach), which is a Jewish Easter. I'm celebrating mainly for secular reasons. Also, that's my last name. So today's recipe will be Pesach-oriented.

I figured that most everyone will be writing about their variations of a matzo-ball soup. While I love that soup, I decided to write about something that's traditional for my family, and Jews from the Caucasus area. Both of my parents are from there, so that's what we eat. It also happens to be my most favorite dish.

Shame and Joy

I am really ashamed about not posting for almost a month. Renovations have finished yesterday. Just have to clean up a bit and enjoy the temporary newness. I promise I'll start posting food-related posts starting next week.

What am I overjoyed about, is the fact that I won a ticket to Outnet's birthday sale this year. High-end designer items for only $2, with a limit of 1 item per ticket-holder. Lat year's $1 sale was pure madness, so they got smart and limited the amount of people that could participate. I ended up scoring a beautiful Valentino dress that retailed for a bit over $4K for only two bucks. Early birthday present :)


If you're interested to see what the selection was like, follow this link for my screen shots.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/50939731@N07/sets/72157626379275511/