Hannah and Tally TravelPHOTO Blog

Tally and I went on a trip.
We've been friends since 6th grade, but the only time we traveled together was for swim meets, 7th grade swim camp and 8th grade horse camp, so it was time to test our adult friendship.

Lessons learned:
Boston is super cold.
Don't take the Megabus during rush hour on a three day weekend Friday.
Just don't take the Megabus.
The "T" is super confusing.
When flying with Tally, get to the airport at least 3 hours before boarding, or she will freak out.
The second half of the Freedom Trail? Not really worth it.
Tally is a sport when I drag her to experimental theatre pieces that are naked.


Things we did:

Tally's first gay club

The outside at least.

Hungover trips to the science museum.

Lots of brewery tours.

Did you know that beer is super cheap in MA? 

Being super historical.

Tall people are not made for Mega Buses. 

Things we ate:

Free Cheese!

Super fancy cocktails

Tally's first pizza in the subway

Tally's reaction when I tried to teach her the art of folding pizza. 

Tally and Carly made cupcakes!

I made a mess.

Add caption

Eating a Boston Cream doughnut in Boston at the start of the Freedom Trail. It doesn't get more American than that. 

Isn't that @awpz from twitter? 

Pho + Sriracha = true love

Last night on the East Coast Indian food. 

And then I went to Juneau and Tally went to the Bahamas.
There will be a semi-Juneau post soon.

New on the DSSJ front:
Mayer Hawthrone's "retro soul".

Yes please. 

TravelBLOG: Mags & Val go to Musicfest NW

Hey, KDP-ers! Long time no updates. Sorry, but it’s been an eventful summer up here in the Last Frontier. We’ve been super busy conquering mountains, catching giant fish, picking massive amounts of berries, and generally complaining about the weather.

Dorks on a mountain.

 

Internet, meet Tina the halibut. She was delicious.

 

My view for 90% of this summer.

Around the beginning of July, Val and I decided we were going to need a respite from the Southeast Alaska rain and get at least a few days of real summer. Fueled by the shitty-weather-sads and, as usual, some generously portioned whiskey cocktails, we purchased our tickets to Portland in September for four nights of live music and, fingers-crossed, sun.

(This is going to be a massive post. Sorry, scrollers.)

9/6/12

We arrived in PDX on Thursday afternoon, and set off on the Max to find Val’s cousin’s apartment. Surprisingly enough, these two country mice made it with pretty much no incident and were able to sit down in front of the air conditioner for a few minutes before setting out on our first night of Musicfest NW. (80°+ is really damn hot when you’ve spent the entire summer in 60° rain.) After delicious tacos and margaritas at the appropriately named ¿Por Qué No? Taqueria, we headed to the Crystal Ballroom for Passion Pit.

And then we drank too many whiskeys and I elbowed a drunk chick in the head.

9/7/12

The next day, we woke up late and headed downtown for the ubiquitous out-of-town shopping day.  We headed over to Mother’s for lunch as the temperature outside slowly crept towards 90°. We ate salads, each with their own respective fresh Oregon fruit, and drank nearly a gallon of water before heading back out into our tiny slice of 2013 summer. This also marks the day that we tried chocolate macadamia nut frozen yogurt and will be remembered forever.

For dinner we shared some appetizers at Paragon, one of which was pretty much just a plate of heirloom tomatoes (heaven).

 

The other plates were pulled pork sliders and some awesome calamari.

Full and happy, we set off to see Beirut.

 

People who don't like crappy concert picture may want to skip this whole post.

They were wonderful. (Disclaimer: the author of this post may have been so starved for live music that every show was the best show ever.) The main concerts were held in Pioneer Square and being outside in the nice weather in the middle of downtown Portland was amazing. We stood in the pit for Beirut, since we got there a little late, but it turned out for the best because we had a great view of Zach Condon’s dreamy hair.

After that concert, we headed back over to the Crystal Ballroom to see Helio Sequence. My head cold was starting to kick my ass, so we got some cocktails and scouted out a seat in the balcony. The band playing when we first got there was Portland-based Unknown Mortal Orchestra and were a pleasant surprise.  Helio Sequence was still definitely the main attraction. Their live music comes across much differently than their produced stuff (more fun?) and the drummer, Benjamin Weikel, is a kick-in-the-pants to watch play.

9/8/12

On Saturday, we went to brunch at Meriwether’s and enjoyed some pretty fabulous mimosas (Irish coffee for Val) and phenomenal farm-fresh veggies.

 

One half of the unfairly good-looking couple that hosted us.

After a bit of time for digestion, we met up with an old friend at a Rogue Taproom where we sat in the sun and drank too many Hazelnut Brown ales (beer flight for Val).

After that it was time to get ready for the next big show: GirlTalk!

 

In this picture, you can just barely make out all the half-naked ladies.

Which of course provided the best part of the evening:

Bota bota bota box! Like they knew we were coming!

Opening band Starfucker was awesome. GirlTalk definitely puts on a show, but before too long I was jonesing for something a little more rock and roll. So, we packed up and headed over to Ted’s Berbati to catch a band I had been listening to recently, Brooklyn-based DIIV. (It’s pronounced “dive”, by the way. Guess how long it took us to figure that out.) The smaller venue and awesome performance made for one of the best shows we saw the whole trip.

After that, we booked it up to the Roseland Theatre to catch the last bit of Sebadoh’s set and wait patiently for Dinosaur Jr.!

 

I want to be this cool when I grow up.

The energy of that show! We almost got bowled over by a mosh pit consisting mostly of 30+ year olds. Unfortunately, my head cold started to take its toll and we checked out a little early to catch the bus home.

Inked.

9/9/12

It’s good we headed home when we did, because we were texted a wake-up call early-ish the next morning that we were late to meet more of Val’s family for breakfast. In a record 20 minutes, we were on the road to the Tin Shed. After grapefruit mimosas and delicious breakfast (I had a scramble with chicken apple sausage and brie, yum!) we headed out on our next adventure: wine tasting.

The view from the White Rose tasting room.

Neither Val nor I had ever been wine tasting before. (I guess that’s what happens when your favorite wine comes from a box.) Drinking 12+ different wines in the course of an afternoon, plus eating our weight in cheese? New favorite vacation activity.

 

Best cheese ever invented?

When I got home, my dad asked me if we figured out how to taste wine without getting shit-faced. He should really know better.

In this picture, we see drunk Mags trying to remember which vineyard she's currently visiting.

After a refreshing nap in the car, we made our way back downtown for the (arguably) main attraction.

Val: "Bass player's got a bad case of the babies." (Twins! Girlfriend had to play her axe all the way to one side.)

We somehow managed to keep our pants on through an entire Silversun Pickups show.  It was a little touch and go for me when they started playing “Catch and Release”, but I am a lady and kept it together.

After the show, we headed over to Nostrana for a farewell dinner with Val’s incredible, accommodating cousins. (Seriously, Aaron & Stephanie, if you ever read this, you guys are amazing.) We split some pizza, drank some more wine (gin for me!) and told embarrassing stories until it was time to head home to pack and get ready for our morning flight.

9/10/12

After a mix-up at the airport (a story I will only tell you if you buy me a drink), our 8:30 a.m. flight ended up being a 6:00 p.m. flight. Val and I suddenly had time for more shopping and at least one more meal in Portland!

At Aaron’s recommendation, we found ourselves in the garden of Veritable Quandary, sipping cocktails and pretending to be important amongst the besuited professionals around us. We also had some of the best pasta salad I’ve ever had, which we will hopefully be recreating here soon.

Properly boozed and broke, we got on the plane to return home, already plotting our next adventure.

Dudes, one of us is GETTING MARRIED. (I'll give you a hint: it's not me, or Val, or Hannah.)

Happy Birthday KDP!

Kitchen Dance Party is one year old. 

To celebrate, we made you a present. 

Subtitled: 

Ode to cookie butter;

Trader Joes should come to Juneau; 

We don't know how to use a webcam, or edit videos;

We secretly desire to become Youtube sensations. 

Moral of the story, KDP video blogs are only going to be a special occasion event.
Here are some pics from the day (especially of the camera shy Liz and Mags)

Matzo Brei

Yes, it looks like cat vomit.

(serves 2)

You'll need:
2 sheets of matzo (or 14, depending on how you roll)
2 eggs (or 8, see above)
salt
pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil

-Break the matzo into 1/2 inch pieces. Put in a bowl. Rinse under hot tap water for 30 seconds. Drain.
-Whisk eggs in another bowl. Mix matzo and eggs, season with salt and pepper. -
-heat oil in a skillet. Put batter in skillet, either in one fell swoop or in smaller pancake style discs.
-Fry into golden.

Cookie Butter

Tasty things to make them taste like something:

applesauce
yogurt
cookie butter
peanut butter
pesto
sriracha
fruit
cinnamon
nutmeg
syrup
jam
peanut sauce

Music Land: I just posted about this, but we legit spent the weekend listening to Of Monsters and Men. See my previous post.

Sorry, I had to learn my way around iMovie (let's be honest, Mag's did the majority of it). 

But video blog easter egg- There might be some David Bowie love in KDP's future. 

KDP Reunion + Epic Blogsgiving

Connie and Mags visited for Thanksgiving!

And Monagle crashed in the spare bedroom while he looked a place of his own.
It was the reunion to end all reunions.

They'd never been to New York before.
They were scared of the subway.
They are still scared of New Yorkers.
They got lost pretty easily.
I don't know how life happened before Google Maps.

But...
We made a pumpkin pie at 2am.
My kitchen capacity was tested with 3 people. (Monagle doesn't cook... See Fig Newtons)
We cooked a lot.... A LOT.

Keep an eye out for T-day recipes/adventures.

2 am Pumpkin Pie

Roasted Pear and Cranberry Salad

Ninja Bread Men

Cranium + Wine= The reason why Hannah's not allowed to play board games 

There are more photos coming, as soon as I can raid Connie's camera. Look out for sidewalk sushi picnics, sleeping on public transportation, pumpkin hummus, gingerbread whales, waiting in line to see Harry Potter dance and sing and many empty bottles of wine.



This is pretty amazing:
The Recipe Project

If you love me, you'll buy me this book.
It's a band that's put together a book and CD.
They take top chef's recipes and sing them word for word.

There is something that is so right about a world that can create this.

Moving Day!

Dear loyal readers (Hi Mom),

Some of you may know this, but I have accepted and am moving for an internship in New York City.
It's a one way ticket.
Though the  Juneau umbilical cord is stretching, it hasn't snapped.

So, the question that lingers on every one's mind is...
What does this major change mean for Kitchen Dance Party?

The answer:
Not a whole lot.

We live in "The Age of the Internet, " and as we KDP bloggers and guest bloggers begin to spread out in the world, KDP has unknowingly become an experiment in one of the many forms of communication that are available to our eager fingertips and how we can make this over and (sometimes) un-meaningful communication worth something.

Sorry if this becomes sentimental in the coming weeks as we try to figure out how to go on without directly cooking with one another, but know that you are watching a major shift in KDP and it's contributors.
There will still be recognizable elements. I'll still nag the shit out of everyone else to post, scones will be judged and drunken cornbread will be made, never fear.

Upcoming at KDP- it's going to be a little patchy on my end. I have some back log posts to take care of, but it'll be a little while before I can start cooking in NY.

Be very excited for the New York cooking though, because I am bringing this out of storage

It's been a while, dear Cuisinart, hope your processing abilities are up to speed.

So keep reading, Dear Readers (even you Mom). I promise that change is good.
-Hannah

Dorm Food: Take 2

It's always only good for the 1st week. 

I don't care if there are other people washing the dishes and I could have pizza every day, 

I would do terrible terrible things for a meal that didn't consist of the standard hot dogs/waffle fries/cereal cafeteria options. 

I would also do terrible terrible things for a hot plate. I miss cooking. 

I'm dreaming of these. 

Music land:

Still working on Gershwin, but now electronica Gershwin by Sarah Vaughan. It's weird, but I kind of dig it. 

Food Klepto

A quick lesson in how to steal dorm food:

1. Invest in ziplock bags and tupperwear.
2. Carry a bag that is easy to access, preferably a sling, or a large backpack. Depending on the items.
3. Collect the food on a plate, then transfer to container while at table.
4. Be cool.


Fruit is the easiest.
I've been making trail mix with dried bananas, walnuts, raisins and granola.
Vegetables are pretty easy too.

I'm going to graduate to warm food this week.
And perhaps ice cream.


I've also accepted a challenge:
To steal an entire tray of mashed potatoes, in one meal sitting, through the use of ziplock bags.

I'll keep you posted.
Or call you if I need someone to post bail.

Dorm Trail Mix- my down fall. 

Music wise- I've been listening to a lot of Gershwin, for my composition. Also some Old Crow Medicine Show (also for the composition, but that's all I can reveal, until we perform on Wednesday).

Grown up Dorm Food?

For the next month, I'll be on the Skidmore College campus in Saratoga Springs NY, taking part in the SITI Company Summer Theatre Workshop. It's intense, but I'm so excited to live, breath and sleep theatre, train with some amazing people and solely do art for one month.

So what does this mean for KDP?
I'm still going to blog, but it'll be my dorm food creations. I'll be living on the campus and eating dorm food for the 1st time in over 6 years.
Last time I was here, I survived on ramen.
I'd like to think that I've grown up enough to avoid the ramen route (plus, I still can't even look at it without feeling sick), but there is a solid chance that chick pea salads will fill the ramen's shoes.
I'm going to blog about the Frankenstein dorm dishes that I throw together, any good scones I find and I'm keeping up to date with music, so keep an eye out for that.

And Mags and Val (and other contributors) will have to step it up on the home made food part. I'm not allowed a hot plate.


Music Arena:
I just went through a music buying binge.
I'm really into Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi's "Rome" with Jack White, Norah Jones and some of the musicians who recorded Ennio Morricone's  film scores. It's been a long time coming, but totally worth the wait. "Timeless" is a really good word for it.

Bellingham!

Hey, y'all.

I'm going to attempt to live blog my trip to B-ham on my twitter. You can follow the adventure by following me! @automaticmags

Listening to: Lady Gaga's new album, trying to figure out if I like it or not.