Welcome to Rocktoberfest
Pretty busy lately - midterm, huge house-party, frisbee frisbee frisbee, and playoffs!Watched the Rockies tiebreaker game all the way to the 11th inning last week at the bar before heading home and missing the excitement in the end. Even better was that case conference that day was cancelled because 2 of the attending MDs were going to the game which meant Beau and I could hit up Casey's early to get seats at the bar to watch the game. Awesome!
This past weekend, met up with some classmates downtown for Oktoberfest which was pretty much a 4 block Rockies-Sweep pre-party. It was pretty spectacular being downtown around Coors Field with all the fans just going nuts. Saw a sea of purple and have to give props to the guy who not only dyed his hair purple and stenciled CR on the back of his head in silver, but also dyed the soul patch purple to match. Awww yeah. Wish I'd remembered I had my camera with me. Noticed that there are a lot of different fans all representing out here - Cubs, Phillies, Red Sox were all out in form on Saturday. That's pretty cool. Was a little sad not to be at Fenway, though, and I'm still totally jealous of Craiggers who got to go to game 1 vs. LA.
We wound up not only doing the pre-game at a bar right by the field (see that great view above?), but also staying for the entire game (outside on the balcony - brr!) and then the post-game celebrations. It was wicked fun! Plus there was a 7 sec delay to the broadcast of the game so every time we heard the crowd cheer at Coors, we knew to look up at a TV. We decided that it would be spectacular if a giant screen was hung off the stadium that broadcasted the playoff games: the stadium is sold out anyways....
So, in summary, everyone is all amped up out here for a Rocktober to Remember. Hah. I'm pretty much "hearting" Josh Beckett right now and so happy Cleveland beat the Yankees. It'll be interesting if it's Rockies vs Red Sox for the World Series and I will be kicking myself for not getting in line for tickets.
Other highlights of the weekend including all us gals from the program getting hit on by a lot of middle-aged men (drunken, no less) AND getting stiffed on the bill for drinks/food that they were having! Chivalry is dead as a dodo apparently. Still fun times were had by all. Oh we also met an ultimate fighter at the bar downtown. Random stuff.
A new quirk that I've discovered about Denver is that parts of the town smell like the dentist's office. Like up at Dick's Sporting Goods Park (league Tuesday nights) and various points of my ride to the various campuses (not near any actual dentist offices, mind you). Strange. And I'm not really that huge of a fan of the dentist's so it's a slightly unpleasant olfactory sensation.
Oh yeah, we also just moved from the old Children's Hospital to the new and ultra-modern digs which means all the headaches associated with organizational chaos, but also consolidation onto the fancy-schmancy new campus. A little less mileage/week, but I'll deal.
Anyhow, it looks like I'm not going to be able to get tickets for the Great American Beer Festival this weekend (rats!!) despite my valiant attempts Monday in procuring tickets. Boo. Good for the liver and wallet, but bad for morale. On the bright side, this means that most likely I will not be hungover for my Sunday games this week.
I noticed tonight that I jump more to intercept the disc when cutting - hopefully that means I'm reading the disc better, improving my closing speed and teaching my legs to get some ups. Or it means the handlers don't realize that I'm a short gal. Hmm. We practiced taking physical exam measurements in class today and it served to confirm that not only are my legs incredibly short, my arms are surprisingly long proportionally (positive ape index!), and I have a pretty large noggin'. My partner's was even bigger, though, which made me feel better.
Oh and if you are reading this, Liz, a gal on my team told me that when she was just down in Belize(?), she would get fresh coconuts, hack the top off with a machete and mix the coconut water/juice with rum for an instant delicious beverage. And I instantly thought of you. So sharpen your machete and get yourself a coconut tree!
Midterm next week so I'll probably be cook-crastinating this weekend. Stay tuned!
Comments
that is the half recipe for one crust. (you have to log in for the full article, but its just double all the ingredients.) i haven't baked it yet, but so far i'm unsure.....waaaayyyy too moist for my comfort when i tried to make it into discs before chilling. like cookie dough. maybe it will be better after chilling. will report later after pie is complete.
And for anyone interested in the science behind it:
"Pie dough gets its structure from gluten, long chains of protein that form when flour mixes with water. But too much gluten will make pie dough tough. That's why traditional pie doughs are so stingy with the water. I discovered that vodka lets you add more liquid (so the dough is easy to roll out) without toughening the crust. Why?
Eighty-proof vodka consists of 60 percent water and 40 percent ethanol. While gluten forms readily in water, it does not form in ethanol. Thus, my recipe, which contains 4 tablespoons each of cold water and vodka, gets the benefits of 8 tablespoons of liquid (supple, easy-to-roll dough) but actually has the equivalent of about 6 1/2 tablespoons of water—an amount that limits gluten formation and ensures tenderness. As for the alcohol? It vaporizes in the oven." -Cooks Illustrated
I am imagining a nice time in the kitchen "1 Tbs for the dough, 1 swig for the cook...." Definitely plan on using up the vanilla vodka in the pie crust though - no one at the house drinks it anyways!