So much to love about cold weather...

Cold autumnal running, hot baths with a crossword puzzle, herbal tea!, soup, pumpkin and squash everything, flannel pyjamas....

And for some reason, it just seems so fitting to watch my fill of Pingu these days. If you are unfamiliar, may I direct you to Netflix instant queue? They have the definitive collection I believe. For anyone who possibly knows this character already, may I pose the question: Is it "NOOK NOOK" or "NOOT NOOT"?

Sweetbreads.

Matt came home tonight from the library with a handful of CDs, the 3rd HP movie and The Country Cooking of Ireland. The cookbook has a beautiful cover with gorgeous accompanying photographs of the dishes, as every good cookbook should.

Though the book is full of some appealing savory soup recipes (leek and oatmeal soup - intriguing...) and comfort foods done right (proper shepard's pie!), there are a fair share of untouchables woven throughout. While paging through some of the recipes I came across the following:

- Roasted Loin and Venison
- Collard Head (exactly what it sounds like)
- Creamed Sweetbreads
- Lamb's Liver with Whisky Cream Sauce
- Michalemas Goose
- Leek and Black Pudding Pizza

It is a hefty book. Perhaps even comprehensive of the Irish culinary culture (there is certainly things from all over the spectrum). And it got me thinking. Perhaps I should do my own Julie and Julia narcissistic musings and cook my way through this cookbook - variety meats and all.

Then I got thinking again. That is actually a terrible idea. How about I just cook the things that appeal to me in that cookbook and not write much about it since there is really nothing significant about how it relates to my life. Afterall, I find no life metaphors in head cheese or blood sausage and no doubt you wouldn't want to hear them if I did. Still, perhaps if something goes right with one of the more approachable recipes, I'll let you know about it:)

In the meantime, here is what Mr. Andy B has found profound about such novelties.

Daniel Radcliff v. Hugh Grant

Watching "4 Weddings and a Funeral" tonight. Tell me that Hugh Grant in his "height of the 90s" hair and charm phase isn't Harry Potter at age 35...

Can't help but picture him saying something like "Expecto Patronus!" here.

SCIENCE! museum

So a good friend of mine is really keen on science. So keen on it in fact that she studied it to become a science teacher to boot. Not only was she known for sharing her insights on a hike when she saw a weird bug or something the like but she also tried her darndest to get middle schoolers excited about all things science while student teaching. You can imagine how quick this would take even the greatest enthusiast to wits end though when trying to instill passion for science within an adolescent. Out of desperation she started giving out bonus points (if I remember my story right) to any kid who would just yell out the word "SCIENCE!" while looking through a magnifying glass or reading something from the textbook. I am not sure how this "experiment" worked out but it seemed like a valiant effort if nothing else.

I thought of her this last weekend when I went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This is my 3rd time there, my first time being about the age that teachers were making me yell out their subject areas like explictives to get me enthused about learning. Though I am most definitely an art museum goer-type, this place is truly awesome/cool/interesting enough that I indeed felt like shouting out "SCIENCE!" more than once while walking through.

Truly this is a place where "learning is fun!" and not in a School House Rock sort of way either. This is beyond that. I thought my favorite bit would be the rocks....

Or perhaps learning about flightless birds in the taxidermy animal learning area...

That was until, though, I got to the special T-Rex exhibit. Would that my wee nephew Tom could have oooohed and aaaahed over the animated, roaring dinos and ogled over the T-Rex bones! Man was that stellar! Lucky for me, I didn't notice the "no pictures please" signs until I had already snapped a few...

So yeah. SCIENCE! can be fun stuff . It just takes a bit of vision or someone to bring it to life sometimes to reach a few of us. But well worth it once it does.

A New Blog is Born...

So to spare BakedGoodsandBads from becoming a solely library/booky blog, I have decided it is time to expand these adventures into their own forum. What will this entail? Well, I suppose I will see where it goes but to start there will be stories, book thoughts and a wee bit of programming brainstorming and probably musings on life metaphors found in library work. Though some of these things may make in into BakedGoods, this will be an exclusive forum for all things library. Let me know if you are interested in antics such as these. Leave your name, number and short message (or actually just email address) and I will get back to you with an invite to:

NonfictionInFiction.blogspot.com

Otherwise, BakedGoods will be sure to keep the latest updates on how the Sweeneys continue to take the Mile Hile City (or its suburbs if we're honest - ha!) by storm.

Cheers,

Cate

Tasting Colorado...

Aside from my library life, Matt and I have been trying to sample some of the Denver offerings to help us fall in love with this place, and thus stop mourning how much we miss Edinburgh and Austin... Labor Day weekend included a few exploits in the name of adventure, including a trip downtown Denver for the "Taste of Colorado" festival.

We had pretty high hopes for what we may experience with a festival promising newbies like us some good Colorado flavor. I'd like to say that the glorified carnival it ended up being was all we had hoped for, but alas, it was a bona fide disappointment. Though it turns out that disappointments can be entertaining fare when you stumble upon weird phenomenons set up like this children's activity:

booths that leave much to the imagination (any ideas on what this is getting at? or are the Scots suddenly the Amish woodworkers of home improvements these days?)

and someone inexplicably dressed up as a shrimp.

It is hard to say the effort was a wash as Matt and I never cease to be surprised at how much fun it is to have a laugh at the absurd and the disappointing. Needless to say, it was a entertaining night out together.

Not to be discouraged by last weekend's let-down event, Matt and I took a trip up to Boulder for a tour of the Celestial Seasonings factory. This ended up being an hour of filled with all kinds of interesting tea trivia (Did you know that the tea leaves grow best at humidity, altitude, and high temperatures? Or did you know that white tea is simply picked first while the leaves are white while green tea when they are more ripe and black are oxidized?). It also included some overwhelmingly marvelous smells (the mint room made your eyes water with heaven itself!), cool views of robots and factory people at work (worthy of a Mr. Roger's Picture Picture episode), and a thrilling opportunity to for Matt to sport a beard-net. It was a proud moment for us both:)

We also got to feel like real connoisseurs in the tea tasting room.

The whole experience left us with even more enthusiasm for herbal tea drinking. We are now anxiously awaiting cooler weather...

In other news, Matt bought himself a red bow tie at a Labor Day sale at Dillard's. He is still learning how to tie it but man! I think he is going to be one smart-looking fellow when it all comes together.

A Public Librarian's Star Trek Convention

So can I nerd-out on you right now? Public librarian-style, that is. While meeting with HR this week to set up the ol' health benefits and a few things, I asked about an upcoming training the library would be having for Columbus Day. They told me that it was going to be a pretty cool set up and in passing mentioned that the keynote speaker would be Nancy Pearl.

"Nancy Pearl?!!"

Oh yeah, didn't I already know that?

No. I didn't. But I am glad to know that I can spend my next couple months becoming Trekie-level of excited about getting to hear from the legend herself. Afterall, this is a public librarian who not only has her own Wikipedia page and series of hugely popular reader advisory reference books. Not only has she contributed to NPR on subjects like the upcoming Harry Potter installments. But this lady has been made into her own action figure. Come on - admit that is pretty cool. Tell me, do you have to be a library nerd to think that is impressive?

In the meantime, I need to come up with a list of books to do some "booktalks" or "book pitches" for that training day as well. I am think of doing a series of books under the theme of ...

"Books for Reluctant Boy Readers":
1. Airman by Eoin Colfer
2. Looking for Alaska or An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
4. Shakleton's Stowaway
5. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief  by Rick Riordan
6....etc

or

"Great Classroom Read Alouds to Recommend to Teachers"
1. The Truth About Georgie
2. Most any Roald Dahl book
3. How to Eat Fried Worms
4. The Graveyard Book or another Neil Gaiman
5.....etc

Any suggestions to add to either of those lists? Would love your good reads input. Though maybe that Nancy Pearl will also offer some last minute inspiration:)

Life is like a library...weeding makes things grow.

One of the hardest things that any librarian will tell you they have to do is "weeding". Do you know what I mean by weeding? It is a lot like it sounds. In fact, I recently read an authoritative article about weeding in a library that likens a collection of books to a garden. The basic idea is that you have to preen a good collection of books. Things that were once well thought out purchases or generous donations to accept at one time gradually become irrelevant, outdated, unappealing, even inaccurate. So the time finally comes when the harsh judgement call needs to be made about what stays, what needs replacing and what is simply no longer useful to the rest of the collection. And as pretentious as it may sounds, it really does take a professional to do that. Not because it is "rocket surgery" or "brain science";) but rather because you really need to take the emotion out of throwing out a book for the good of the collection. Or for the good of the library. Indeed, there is even a science behind being discreet while going through a thorough weeding process because there are all kinds of well meaning people who will do everything they can to stop you (some public users or teachers just can't tell the difference between necessary weeding and Fahrenheit 451). But the librarian must persevere. A whole collection of resources is at stake.

It is a well known phrase in the library world that "weeding makes things grow". In real terms, getting the weeds out of the collection bring ups circulation and betters the entire collection. Truly, a well weeded collection is a healthy one and thus creates a healthy library. Leaving the weeds in the collection makes resources not only less appealing but less accessible. It forces the library users to search through more than they would need to find what they are looking for (you can see how this could be a serious problem for an institution that can only compete with Google in the quality of results they offer and not in the quantity).

Can you see where I am going with this though? The whole life metaphor and everything?

Matt and I got home last month with just 2 suitcases each, from which we had lived for a year. It was hard to only have that much space to work with up when we headed out to Scotland but surprisingly easy our way back home. The surreal part began when Matt flew out to OK to load up a Penske truck with everything from our storage unit. After moving the stuff into our apartment and unpacking it, we had forgotten about so many things that we had once owned. Everything from clothes and shoes to kitchen utensils and books. How had I never realized how much stuff we owned? And as irony would have it, we have seen fit to send at least half a dozen boxes of some of this stuff to Goodwill after having moved it here! I hear it is easier to do this before a move but I suppose I will just have to keep that in mind for the next time.

Just like the book weeding process, weeding out the stuff from life can be an ongoing process or prolonged until it is a big annual project. At any rate, I think it really ought to be done at least once a year and ongoing may make it more of a habit than an emotional event to have to dread every spring.

And also like book weeding, I think I could have benefited from some kind of unbiased business professional a couple of times. There is guilt with getting rid of stuff. Things people gave you as a gift - things you appreciated but simply no longer need. Things that you once found useful but just no longer can think of a reason to keep. Things that remind you of something significant you never want to forget but really just doesn't have a place in your everyday life now. I feel like I am waxing a Real Simple article here (may I should submit this to them? ha!) but seriously, it can be tough stuff to get rid of things. But what I have found useful to remind myself of is that not only do I have a Master's Degree in knowing what is useful and what is not in a collection of information, I also probably have loads of pictures, blog entries, or dear friends to remind me of whatever I think I may forget. And for all the rest, it was nice while it lasted but I need the space for new things to grow.

Scrumptious Living.

So, in an effort to feel at home and begin to embrace what this place has to offer, Matt and I decided to spend our Saturday evening exploring "Scrumptious" in Old Town Arvada. The missionaries recommended we check the place out after talking to them about all of the sweet and chocolatey wonders we discovered in the UK. The elders promised quality bottled sodas, ice cream and of course Roald Dahl-esque (my words not theirs) variety of sweets. With the description they gave us, we knew it was our duty to check this place out in a timely manner.

Indeed, the shop did offer a good spread of our favorites - both the classics to the delicacies, the new and the old, the American staples and the international specials. This included Curly Wurlys and Chico Sticks, M&M and Jelly Belly assortments, Nerds Ropes and Gummy hotdogs/ hamburgers/ fries/ etc, Boston Baked Beans and Black Jack Chewing Gum. It was your basic collection of confectionary delights you would expect from a proper "candy shop". What truly caught my eye though was the Valomilk...

Maybe it is just because I am coming off of year of the Tunnock's Teacake but still, good use of mallow is hard to beat when it comes to confectionary and I had to give this one a go. It took a bit of commitment too as this indulgence costed me a whopping $2.25 (the Curly Wurlys were $1.50 - UK price was 30P!). For this reason, I am not so keen on the "Scrumptious Scene" as they were charging this same Valomilk price for a simple Snickers bar...shameless really. That said, I will indeed be looking for another source for this wee treat. It was this impressive mix of chewy and sticky, chocolatey and creamy and of course oh so sweet. It may just be able to make everything right about coming back to the Teacake-ignornant U.S. Now to find something which fills my sultana scone and clotted cream empty soul here...though perhaps with me driving a car to work again, I may need to find contentment without as much British influence in my diet.

PS - Do you like conversing on candy? Do you fetishize it like I do? If so, may I suggest a listen to Chase's Kandy Korner? Matt is even featured on Episode 3: Milky Way Simply Caramel. Listening may inspire you to try something new that could change your candy paradigm.

New Places

Looks like buying a car, driving to Denver, finding an apartment, getting the car temporarily registered, doing (and passing!) emissions/inspection, flying to OK to truck up our stuff (I forget we have more than 2 suitcases of possessions sometimes), finishing up school, getting a license renewed, moving in and starting a new job really is doable in 2 weeks. Though I wouldn’t whole heartedly recommend trying it unless you were in a time crunch like we were. What I am trying to get to though is that we are now Denver folk these days and even have the address to prove it:

7805 Allison Way #107
Arvada, CO 80005

Okay, so I suppose we are technically “Arvada” people since we chose a place halfway between the city and my job in Thorton. Still, I have to say that this area offers some nice rolling hills that can’t be found too central or East of city centre.

The drive over on Sunday was actually one of our easier days. We only had to complete one pretty straight forward goal that day as opposed to all the other days that were full of bureaucratic catch-22s that befall anyone ambitious enough to try and get legit enough for employment and housing after not living in the country for the last year. That said, we tried to take it in stride and appreciate all the sites of Wyoming along the way – especially while having our lunch snack of Appleauce, Cheeze-Its and Red Cream Soda (nothing like eating like the locals:)...

No doubt you have road tripped through Rawlins, Wyoming. Is it not the most poetically sad Western spots you can think of? That sky! That landscape! All those out-of-business hotels – can’t help but think of the poor housekeepers that once tried to keep the place tidy and neat looking...

Needless to say it was nice to see the geography change to the familiar Rocky Mountain fare that looks like the homeland. It was funny to me that I am moving to Denver for a couple of reasons. First, I realized that I had always lived in a capital (Salt Lake City, Austin, Edinburgh, now Denver). But what struck me as funny when driving in past the skyline that normally gives me a thrill when going to a new place is that I didn’t know what this place was all about. It seems like when I have moved to a new place in the past I have always thought that I would be taking in a new, unique, rich culture. SLC – the Mormon culture! Austin – the liberal, hippy Texas culture! Edinburgh/Scotland – just about the richest culture you could expect for a place that size. But when I think of Colorado my mind just goes blank. What does Colorado do exactly? Aside from mountains – what are they known for? What do they eat? How do they talk? What offends them – other than all the general things that would offend any other average American? Although, I did get my first wee taste of the flavors I might get here while at the pool last night swimming laps. A mother called to her daughter who was swimming about, “Aspen! Don’t go that deep!” So they name their kids “Aspen” here. Now that is something unique. We will see what else unfolds…

The lack of cultural identity I perceive Colorado has is not at all to say I am not keen on being here. All I seem to hear every time someone figures out I am moving here (whether past or current locals) are all kinds of great reviews. Oh the recreation! Oh the fun things to do! Oh the sporting events! I am hanging on firm to all of that right now because I keep reverting to the dangerous but tempting practice of comparing everything to Austin. I must be careful that nostalgia doesn’t ruin the great things of now. It can be a damaging exercise to indulge in, if not kept in check. Must let this place grow on me instead of wishing it was someplace else.

So I think my Matt and I are up for the new experience (or perhaps less new and more just easy and familiar as it may be) that this Colorado place has to offer. I have said it many times since my big move of ’08 – the more cities I go and stay, the more I realize how many great places there are to live. Though, there are some exceptions…and I think one of those would have to be poor Rawlins Wyoming.