Life List: Be Asked to Read My Poetry in Front of an Audience

So, I've been lucky enough to actually complete this goal not once, but twice.  And, I'll be doing it again this weekend!  (And a few other times throughout the next few months, so stay tuned, and check my portfolio for updates in a new section: Readings.)  If you're around NYC on Sunday, I'd love to see you.  Below, you'll find some information, and to RSVP, click here.

NYU Poetry Night at Lungfull’s Zinc Reading Series
Sunday January 29th - 5:30pm (doors open at 5)

Readers: Matt Broadus, Gino Figlio, Peter Longofono, Kristin Maffei, David McLoghlin, and Cat Richardson

Curated by the Lungfull! Magazine Rapid Editorial Action Go-Force: Anahit Gulian, Brendan Lorber, Edmund Berrigan, Kristin Maffei, Mariana Ruiz, Mike Smith, Molly Dorozenski, Tracey McTague, working together to hasten the collapse of Western Civilization & to fill the new void with an age of perfect days & better nights.

www.lungfull.org/zinc

Zinc is 82 West 3rd Street (btw Thompson & Sullivan) NYC

Readings are $5, or best offer which goes to the readers so they can buy you a drink afterwards

Copies of Lungfull! magazine will also be on-site. Buy them all and burn them outside the bar as a warning to all would-be poets & publishers.

Lungfull! is made possible in part by a generous grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

This announcement has been optimized to be ignored on all platforms and devices but then intuitively understood in such a way that you arrive at the reading without ever having been consciously aware that it was about to happen.

Two Year Blogiversary

I can hardly believe it's been two years since I first started this blog.  My cousin and I were sharing an incredible trip to Iceland, and I decided it was finally time to create a blog to record my travels.  My life was different then.  I was 23, in a job I couldn't stand, and not coping well.  Roger was five hours away, I was bored out of my mind, and I felt like I was wasting all my potential (not to mention the tuition money spent on Sarah Lawrence).  Starting this as a place to record all the amazing places I'd been gave me a tiny bit of hope that I'd be in amazing places again.  And I was.  Iceland was amazing, and 2010 slowly started a sea change for me.  Two years later, I'm in a job I genuinely enjoy, finally realizing my dreams of going to grad school, and living in a place I love with a person who feels like home.

And I'm so glad I've been able to share it with everyone who stops by my little corner - some of the most supportive people I know.  To show some of my gratitude, I'm going to repeat last year's giveaway:  

Anyone who comments on this entry will be entitled to one homemade postcard, delivered wherever you are!  

If there's a chance I don't know your address, comment and then email me it.  And thanks for another great year, guys.  Here's looking forward to many more!

Gratitudesday: Friends

I spent most of today in a sour mood.  When I wasn't frantically trying to finish a book for class tomorrow, I was re-numbering the art in one of our manuscripts for the third time.  I try not to compare myself to others, because I really believe we're all on our own journey, but today, it felt like everyone I knew was doing something more amazing than me.

Here's a brief sampling of people I know were doing today:

• getting published in the New Yorker
• buying houses
• being teachers
• booking fabulous trips to far-off lands
• getting married
• seeing the Aurora Borealis in my hometown*

And while I was sitting there, making sure that the numbering of 234 images was consistent between six separate documents (that's checking that I used a dash instead of a period, and that I've labeled it as "photo" and not "figure" a total of 1,404 times), I was having a really impossible time not feeling jealous.  I was really happy for everyone, but I was also disappointed that nothing even vaguely exciting was happening in my life.  It was not my most attractive moment.

But, when I came home, I used my food processor to slice cabbage, and it worked really well.  Then, Roger discovered the ice cream I'd hidden in the freezer for him, and was way more excited than I was expecting.  And then, I finally finished the book, and when I moved on to find a poem for workshop tomorrow, I realized I've actually written much more than I'd thought this month.  And being out of my headspace for just a few hours has made me realize that even without anything enormous and interesting coming up, I'm still having a pretty great time, and a big part of that is being surrounded by the incredible people who surround me.  I don't think my life would be half so interesting if it weren't for all these people doing such fascinating things, and I'm grateful to have them in my life, reminding me of how many new things there are left to try.

*Okay, I'm still jealous of this one.  But, Angela informs me that it should keep going throughout the next few weeks, so hopefully I'll manage to get up there during one.  Because I have wanted to see the northern lights since I was in second grade, and our trip to Iceland in January, prime northern lights time, didn't yield very good results, due to heavy cloud cover.

{This Moment}

{This Moment}

A Friday ritual inspired by Amanda Soule & many others.

Please feel free to share a link to your own moment in the comments.

Cooking with Kristin: Chicken Pot Pie

And tonight, yet another meat dish - chicken pot pie!  An amusing story about chicken pot pie: while I was in England, one of my closest friends there ate a lot of frozen chicken pot pies.  We made fun of him pretty mercilessly, and eventually he started making real food, but never really lost the reputation.  Until a few months ago, when he became one of the hardest-core vegetarians I know.  One might say "fundamentalist vegetarian."  I don't think he'd approve of this recipe, but I have to say, it's seriously a lot better than frozen.  And, I think you could really easily substitute potatoes for the chicken, and not miss out on much, so keep that in mind, vegetarians.

Two quick notes: Having a food processor (pretty sure this is the model I have) made making pie crust about a thousand times easier than having a fork.  If you can get your hands on one, I think it would be a great investment.  I can't wait to make peanut butter in mine!  Also, the gravy that this makes is really, really good.  If you're vegetarian, I would highly recommend it.  It tastes as rich as any meat gravy I've ever had.  I could definitely see this tasting great and just a little different on mashed potatoes.

Photo Credit: Roger.

Pie Crust
(Adapted from How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman)
Makes enough crust for a top and bottom pie crust, plus enough for one bottom.  I think I could have used the original recipe and had enough for the top and bottom, but I wasn't sure, so I doubled it.  We'll have dumplings tomorrow!  Also, this is really decadent crust.  I think you could easily use 3/4 or 1/3 of the butter and be perfectly satisfied.

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks frozen or cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 5 tablespoons ice water, plus more if necessary
• 1 egg

1. Combine the flour, salt, and sugar in the container of a food processor and pulse once or twice. Add the butter all at once; process until the mixture is uniform, about 10 seconds (do not over-process). Add the egg and process another few seconds.
2. Put the mixture in a bowl and add 5 tablespoons ice water; mix with your hands until you can form the dough into a ball, adding another tablespoon or 2 of ice water if necessary (if you overdo it and the mixture becomes sodden, add a little more flour). Form into a ball, wrap in plastic, and freeze for 10 minutes or refrigerate for at least 30 minutes).
3. Sprinkle your baking board with flour and put the dough on it; sprinkle the top with a little flour. Use a rolling pin to roll with light pressure, from the center out. If the dough is sticky, add a little flour (if it continues to become sticky, and it’s taking you more than a few minutes to roll it out, refrigerate or freeze again). Roll, adding flour and rotating and turning the dough as needed; use ragged edges of dough to repair any tears, adding a drop of water while you press the patch into place.
4. Place the bottom crust into the pie-pan and place in freezer for 30 minutes or refrigerator for an hour.  Leave the top flat on the baking board while you prepare the filling.

  
Chicken Pot Pie Filling
(Adapted from Allrecipes)
There was a little extra gravy left over from this, which we'll use with the extra dough we have leftover, but you may want to tweak the proportions a little bit there.  Also, as I said before, this would probably taste just as good with potatoes in place of the chicken, so feel free to experiment with that, also.  Finally, the original recipe called for celery and celery seed.  I'm sure that would be delicious, but we didn't have either on hand, and the flavors were complex enough without it.

• 1/2 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 3/4 cups white wine
• 2/3 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. For chicken mixture: In a saucepan, combine chicken, carrots, and peas. Add water to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.
3. For gravy: In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Slowly stir in white wine and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour gravy over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.