No, I did not eat a paczki today

Do you even know what one is? Or how to say it? (try POONCH-key) Unless you're from Michigan or Poland, I'm won't be surprised if you don't.

Paczkis originated in Poland, where Catholics made the doughnuts with the lard, eggs and fruit that they were trying to clear out of their cupboards before the start of Lent.

There's a fairly significant Polish population in Detroit and there was gridlock today in the Polish section of the city, as paczki fans were clamoring for their fill before the Wednesday fast (although will all today's paczki eaters really be fasting tomorrow?)

Now I'm all for a little Fat Tuesday indulging, but this just isn't my style - a gigantic slab of deepfried dough filled with jelly? Oh, and nearly 500 calories and 25 grams of fat.

Give me a slab of chocolate any day over that. Or at least a chocolate-filled paczki.

Ironically, I'm abstaining from chocolate for Lent, but am so not in the mood for it right now, just as my window of opportunity is narrowing. If only this would last for the next six weeks.

She who cooks should not clean

Matt and I went to a Family Life marriage conference in Grand Rapids this weekend, which, incidentally, turned out to be quite the spot for food enthusiasts like myself. If we had restaurants like The Green Well and Real Food Cafe in our neighborhood, well, I'm not sure I'd eat anywhere else!

We began our meal last night with an appetizer of beer braised short ribs over french fries with a cheddar truffle sauce and a dijon gravy. Then, to be virtuous, I moved onto a seven-vegetable quinoa with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, fresh herbs, arugla, onion, 2 vinaigrettes and manchego cheese. I believe seven vegetables more than compensates for the fat-laden appetizer, so I happily indulged in a dessert of challah bread french toast with butter pecan gelato and brittle.

But I digress. The marriage conference was excellent and gave us so many invaluable building blocks for marriage. I could elaborate on those principles, but I'm really not sure where to begin and I might start rambling.

So I'll just fill you in one on nugget of priceless wisdom that I gathered this morning.

Nearly all of our sessions were coed, except for this morning, when the men and women met separately. Then, we reconnected for our final, joint session, during which one of the male speakers referenced a comment he had made during the men's session. He said that the rule in his house is, "She who cooks, should not clean."

Now this shocked me a little. Not because this was a guiding principle in his house, but that Matt had not divulged this bit of wisdom to me between sessions! After all, we had about 30 minutes to debrief with one another between sessions and he had ample opportunity to share with me how wholeheartedly he agreed with the speaker's most important point.

In all fairness, Matt dutifully does the dishes after meals, unless I've made a royal mess of the kitchen and I pitch in out of guilt.

Note, the speaker did not specify, "She who cooks, should not clean the kitchen after mealtime." He kept it open ended. There's room for interpretation, don't you think?

Unfortunately I don't think I can bargain a good deal out of this one. I have a feeling Matt and my standards of cleanliness are just too different.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing "She who cooks should not clean" engraved on some kind of plaque in the kitchen or perhaps stamped into the sink. We could all use a friendly reminder, don't you think?

Winter projects

"That would be a good project for the winter."

This is a common statement, I think, one that's used to excuse away tasks like organizing photos and recipes, taking care of paint touchups around the house, and decluttering closests when there are far more compelling things to do outdoors.

I think many of us are waiting for that elusive snow day(s) that will leave us captive in the house, and suddenly these tasks will seem a lot more appealing and manageable.

The problem is, that even though winter is still a ways away from loosening its grip on Detroit, the days actually are getting longer, the temperatures aren't quite as brutal, and the majority of those "winter" projects haven't quite been tackled in our household. Furthermore, it would take a monumental amount of snow to keep anyone housebound in this city.

I did make some great traction this weekend by beginning to paint the basement stairwell and stairs. And Matt pitched in by assembling our new pantry system in the basement.

As for the rest of our "winter" projects ... well, maybe I'll just wear my pajamas inside-out for good luck tonight and hope for a blizzard.

Happy Valentines Day?

What is wrong with me? I have a Valentine today, and a wonderful one at that. He washed my car, bought me tulips and has been extremely appreciative and supportive all day long.

Yet, today, of all days, I am reminiscing over my single days, and in particular, my single Valentines Days. The ones where my other unattached girlfriends and I would all band together and commiserate over our situations. We'd probably enjoy good food, red wine, chocolate and a quality chick flick. We might even wear black, but the mood wasn't dark.

Of coure, we all wished we had been whisked away to a candlelit dinner somewhere romantic with someone very special. But there's a sort of tradition and fun in flouting Hallmark's mandate in a way, although I guess by virtue of the fact that we all banded together on that day, we weren't exactly ignoring the commemoration.

I realize that things always look a little better in hindsight and maybe I'm making these Valentines Days out to be a little rosier than they actually were. Probably.

So I guess it's a good thing I'm being whisked away to a candlelit dinner in 30 minutes. If I can't commiserate over my singleness anymore, I might as well as well make the most of the mandate!

Good news

Just wanted to share an upbeat article about the company I work for. As Matt optimistically remarked, at least one of our companies is getting positive press!

(note: there is one typo - we have appx. 50 employees, not 10)

Acknowledgements

I guess it's time to give credit where credit is due. While we were enjoying our crepes and visit to Eastern Market on Saturday, and after I exclaimed, "Oh, I can blog about this!" Matt jokingly reminded me, as he has many times over the past month or so, that he is the one who is giving me all of these good ideas for my blog posts.

It was his idea to go out for crepes and make a pitstop at Eastern Market, it was his idea to go to Charleston for our anniversary, to buy me the New York Times, to get me interested in Pistons basketball ... and really, to invite me to live in Detroit in the first place so that I could finally get offers for subscriptions to Midwest Living, yet another worthy topic for a blog post. And what would be the point in starting a blog called "Motoring Forth," were it not for Matt choosing to live here, and me choosing to join him? (although, strangely, I have yet to write about the auto industry or cars.)

Now he isn't trying to take all the credit here, because of course it's I who sit down and actually type out these posts. But I did feel it was time to acknowledge his inspiration ... especially because I've currently got a few ideas for future posts, that, well, I'm going to need to attribute to him. Thank you Matt!

Saturdays are just the best

I had a teacher in high school who, on Fridays, would often say, "Tonight we sleep the sleep of death." Nothing morbid insinuated ... she just meant that we tend to sleep the hardest and the best on Friday nights.

Well, that's not always the case with me, but it sure was last night. I mean I slept HARD, deep and long. (well, long for me that is - 9 hours).

So I woke up cheerfully and moseyed on downstairs to check out the temperature. I knew it was supposed to be warm this weekend, but I was cautiously optimistic about just how warm it might be.

The thermometer read 41 degrees. At 8 am.

I might have been beyond cheerful at this point. Not exactly giddy, but somewhere in between the two. Not having to put on two layers of running tights, three layers on top and a face mask to shield me from sub-zero wind chill on my morning run definitely warrants rejoicing.

And even better, the day progressed so nicely! For the first time in a while, I had a wide open Saturday in front of me, with nothing I had to do.

So Matt and I ran errands, I experimented with spare ribs in the slow cooker, cleaned the house a little - just enough to feel a little better about how things look around here, but not so much that I feel exhausted, and even just sat on the couch soaking in the silence and looking out the window at the warm weather. (yes, it even looked warm outside)

There might be a three-way tie for the day's high point, because I can't decide if the good night's sleep, the warm weather or our excursion downtown was the best part of the day. We had lunch at Good Girls go to Paris Crepes, which is literally a hole in the wall in downtown Detroit. Like in Paris, you order your crepes at a little window, and can watch them being made in a kitchen that's just a little bit larger than my not so large bedroom closet.

After lunch, we made a quick trip to Detroit's Eastern Market. While the offerings are much slimmer in the winter months, it's actually kind of nice and not as overwhelming.

I could go on and on, but I think you're getting the picture. Saturdays, well, at least this one, are just the best.

Our weekend "Up North"

As I mentioned in my previous post, nearly all Michiganders, it seems, live to go "Up North." Many go nearly every weekend in the summer. And many brave souls venture north in the winter, too. Which is what Matt and I did this weekend, at the invitation of some of our good friends who invited us to their lakehouse.

And I'm beginning to understand why! The majority of the state isn't occupied by automotive plants, but by farmland, and there are lakes of all sizes scattered around. It seems to get better and better the further north you head. We were on Crystal Lake, which is situated on the northwest corner of the state.






And we did indeed enjoy the lake, despite the cold weather, as you can see from the pictures above. (Actually, it was surprisingly warm, about 30 degrees.) We snowshoed across the lake to get a good look at what the ice fishermen were up to, and to get a little exercise.


We also did our fair share of reading, resting, enjoying time with friends and eating well.

While I think I'll still do my fair share of traveling "Down South," I'm already looking forward to seeing more of our upstate treasures!

Finally!

I can't believe it took me a year and half to finally make it "Up North" in Michigan, a favorite pastime of nearly every Michigander. These photos from this past weekend are a bit of a teaser ... I'll blog more later!