A Mojo-less Monday

Most mornings, during most morning runs, after most of my 12-ounce cups of coffee, and before I check the trending topics on Twitter, I find it. That is, the perfect theme for the article I'm writing - that one thing that can aptly sum up an activity or a friendship or a weekend worth of fun and make it slightly relevant for readers outside of the family and friends circle.

Today was not one of those days. This morning was not one of those mornings. My cup of coffee was not one of those 12-ouncers. Basically, I had a mishmash of big stuff - meaningful stuff from the weekend to commit to paper and I couldn't find one ounce of poetic commonality to tie it all together.

This weekend, we returned to the Ville in style with a Lou Malnati's pizza on Friday night; we mourned the loss and celebrated the life of Great Aunt Winona at an internment service on Saturday morning; we went for runs and we unpacked; we got a first look at Meredith's new hairdo and shared many laughs with her and Adam on Saturday evening; we celebrated Epiphany; we said our final tearful farewell to Baum and cleaned up Christmas; we cheered, paced, and then cursed in front of the Steelers Game; and of course, we cooked.

And it wasn't just any old cooking - it was epic, big deal cooking. The most fun I've had in the kitchen since last week cooking.

Once upon a Tweet, Peter's friend Jess, a Blogger with a capital B and Chef with a capital C, asked me if I would like to test some recipes for her. She said she had a fast approaching deadline for her cookbook and needed some help. My spastic eagerness joined the Twitter Stream and she sent me several recipes. This weekend, Adam and Meredith got to taste and critique the devilled eggs; and last night, Peter and I sat down to dine and provide feedback on the Cornish Hens with Poached Prunes recipe. It was an amazing experience all around.   

That was my weekend, stripped of the witty, old-lady humor analogies. I'll blame the lack of creativity on Monday - the end of the weekend, my vacation, and the holidays. Monday - the return to rush hour, cubicles, the remnants of holiday food left out for mindless grazing, and a cramped back from hunching over to respond to emails all day. And I'll hope that by the time Cinderella comes over for dinner on Sunday, I'll get my mojo back.

Lo.

Let Us Eat Cake

On Friday, Peter and I watched Marie Antoinette. I had told him about it when we were walking through the Tuilleries in Paris a couple weeks ago. "We should definitely watch it when we get back!"  I alluded that it would be able to provide an accurate historical representation of 18th century Paris and would be fun for us to learn from together.

Honestly, this was mostly a selfish act as I had seen it countless times before and knew it was Sofia Coppola's artsy adaptation of the youthful, beautiful, party-going queen. I also knew it was in Peter's terms, "a girl movie." I first saw the film when it came out in theaters in 2006 - a year when the theme and, as Peter put it, "plotless story line," seemed to hit home. When I felt like I was more or less in Marie Antoinette's pointy-toed, courtly shoes leading a life of shopping, dining, and drinking in fancy long gloves (yes, I wore gloves on a couple occasions) with no real goals in sight. As MA said, "it's fun!" And that was the sole explanation I was looking for.

This time around, on Peter's first viewing and my 10th perhaps, I had a different sentiment. I still loved the costumes and the modern music and Jason Schwartzman's awkward portrayal of Louis Auguste and the Swedish captain with the dark eyes who fought valiantly in America. But instead of opening up my own closet after the film, getting dressed, calling my ladies in waiting and Mini Coopering over to SOBA for French martinis a la Rob Hirst, I had a bedtime of 9:30 and alarm clock set to 5:30 to look forward to.

There were no French fetes to attend this weekend, and I found myself more or less among the common masses, incredulously ogling the behavior at Versailles, dismissing any desire to be a part of it, but simultaneously disappointed that we weren't invited. I became one of the people who was supposed to eat cake while Marie Antoinette and the Contesse and the Dukes and Duchesses were partying.

So I did.

The next morning I made and ate old fashioned sour cream cake donuts - recipe courtesy of the one and only and totally amazing Jess Thompson who just published her first cookbook about what else, mmmmmmm, doughnuts. (Rolling pin made by her equally amazing husband Jim.)

And I made some petites madeleines - perfect little French sponge cakes.

And in an effort to make sure no one in this house went hungry and revolted against Naperville's own revelers, the cougars at Jilly's, I went all out last night and made an entire stuffed, roasted chicken, which we will be eating tonight as well.

At which point my mind was really off going to court, because I wouldn't have been able to fit into any of my ruffly dresses.

It was the first weekend in a long time when Peter and I had nothing planned and no parties to attend, and I've got to say, it felt weird at first. So I spent a significant amount of time making a scrap book about all the places we'd been over the past year, all the people we had partied with, and all the times we had said, because it's fun!  

And then I realized something while showing off my weekend's worth of work to Peter last night, I had a lot of pages left to fill. My scrap book was far from finished.

Sometimes though, you need a time out and a whole weekend when it's just you and me (and Roscoe), to reflect on where you've been, to confirm that the future of your life in your little ranch house is far rosier than that of those living at Versailles, and to make sure that life together will always be happy and the kind of private party that everyone wants to emulate. And that's really fun. 

Now, I'm off for a morning jog with my new running partner.

Lo.