Klosekraft

Le Weekend

I had an interesting weekend. It was a good one to tack an extra hour onto. Friday night I had dinner with a friend from out of town and rearranged furniture when I got home. Saturday, I ran around most of the day, starting with a haircut (I just had an inch or so taken off, nothing exciting). When I was walking to the subway, I noticed this:

I've walked down this block literally hundreds of time, gone into that deli on several occasions and never once noticed the medieval-y turret on the building. It freaks me out when that kind of thing happens. What else am I missing?

After the haircut and a trip to the library to return/get some books and movies, I did something I almost never do: went to midtown on a Saturday afternoon and went shopping without any intention of buying anything. I was early for meeting a friend at Takashimaya to have lunch in their tearoom and look at beautiful stuff so I spent half an hour or so walking around Bergdorf Goodman. There was some interesting knitwear, but nothing that interesting. It really made me want to start doing swatch development; there's a lot of room in the market. I met a swatch agent a few years ago through someone who worked for her occasionally and I think it's something that I'm going to pursue this winter. I wouldn't want to do it as a fulltime job, but putting together a couple of small collections once or twice a year would be an interesting way to stretch myself.

The way she described the process the one time I met her, the knitter develops collections of 4-6 pieces that are clearly connected by color, texture, style and feel. Rather than the square or rectangular swatch knitters may or may not do to check gauge, these swatches usually incorporate most elements of the sweater—neck treatment, lower edge treatment, partial sleeve—and are about 1/4 the size of a completed sweater. Then she shows the swatches to companies who buy them for inspiration or to knock off as is. She, naturally, takes a cut of the sale.

The one thing I was looking to buy was a new perfume. I went for years without wearing any because I never found one that I liked. Then last year, I happened to catch a whiff of something coming out of a magazine that I loved and flipped through until I found the corresponding fragrance strip and it turned out to be Prada. I wore it all last winter (can't stand to have much scent on in hot weather). It was spicy and warm but subtle and a little sweet. I broke the nozzle on the bottle and I've been thinking about finding something new. Scent is so primal and elemental, I really feel that finding one that I like and that I want to associate with my very own person is a big deal. Takashimaya stocks a lot of unusual fragrances that aren't as strong and scary as I find a lot of commercial perfumes. I ended up with Acqua di Biella Janca. I'm not usually drawn to florals, but this one is really great, not too sweet, a little bit  woodsy/spicy: something I'd like to smell like.* I went to the movies (The Prestige. I liked it.) with my friend Max yesterday and when he hugged me hello, he exclaimed, "You smell like prettiness!"

So that's a good sign. I may send it to them as a marketing idea. Janca: The Smell of Prettiness.

Saturday late afternoon I made the soup I described in my last post, then a friend who has just barely begun dipping her toes into the online dating (cess)pool came over so we could look through all the guys who've written to her. There was wine. And hilarity. Then we went out to a party I had really wanted to go to. It was sponsored by a pickle company and featured lots of pickle samples and an old-timey jug band. Unfortunately, it was in a really small back room at a bar and it was overheated and overcrowded and everyone was dressed up for Halloween except for us and a ladybug's antennae kept hitting me in the eye and it was hard to get to the pickle table so we left. We ran into her last boyfriend on the way out (she looked gorgeous, he didn't: score one for our team!) and we went to another bar where no one was wearing costumes and they have Chimay on tap and everything was better.

Sunday I didn't do much. I went to the gym and tidied my room and listed some stuff on ebay and went to the movie and worked on a sample knit that's due this week. I'm not going to know what to do with myself when I don't have these knitting deadlines. I might actually be able to produce something blog-worthy.

For the people I know who are fans of this sort of thing, I give you Dylan, the neighborhood cat who hangs out at our office all day, sitting on my desk:

*This reminds me of a funny story about my dad. We were talking, as we do, and the topic of perfume came up. I said something about not having found one that I want to smell like. He said something that didn't make a tremendous amount of sense in context and we finally hashed out that he thought I was talking about not having a boyfriend because I hadn't found one I want to smell like. Honestly, I think that's a pretty good way to explain that wacky chemistry between people, but I don't think I would have said it that way to my dad. There are limits, people, and me telling my dad that I want to find a guy I want to smell like is most definitely outside those limits. To his credit though, he was utterly unfazed.

Kale and roasted vegetable soup

For my first Cooking with Intention installment, I made this soup last night. I tweaked it a little because of not paying enough attention to the recipe, but it's pretty close.

The changes I made were:
Used sweet potatoes instead of squash. I have a bunch of squash recipes I want to make soon and didn't feel like adding it.
Used canned tomatoes instead of fresh. It seems silly that a recipe lauded as a winter soup would call for fresh tomatoes. I bought a large can of whole tomatoes, roasted them with the other vegetables and added the juice to the broth.
Used chicken broth instead of vegetable. The good low-salt chicken broth is cheaper than the good vegetable broth at my grocery store.
Didn't realize I was supposed to keep the carrots and squash/sweet potatoes off to the side until the kale was done cooking. All the veggies went in the broth as soon as they were out of the oven.
I made some rice on the side to mix with it. It just didn't seem quite substantial enough to keep me going for an evening out.

Verdict: Tasted great, will modify in future to streamline the cooking. This would be a really good thing to make if you feel like you've been overindulging or eating poorly because it's substantial yet low in fat, has no dairy and is high in nutrients and flavor. I crave vegetables if I've eaten a lot of rich or fatty food but it's hard to find a satisfying way to eat them in cold weather. This soup could be my new default for that role. The kale was good in it. The beans and sweet potatoes do a lot to fill you up. If you mix some plain brown rice in, that makes it even more filling without adding much in the way of calories or fat. I don't think I'd bother roasting the vegetables in the future. That had turned me off of this recipe in the past and I don't know how big of a difference it would really make. I think I'd just saute the onion and garlic in a little olive oil and then sweat the rest of the veggies for a while before adding the greens, broth and beans. And I'll just use a can of crushed tomatoes in juice and dump the whole thing in.

Saturday sky

This is one of my favorite things: dark clouds in one direction and bright sunshine behind you. Pure magic.

Cooking with Intention

Carolyn posted a challenge? suggestion? on her site recently: get out of your cooking rut by making one meal a week with intention—choose something you really want to make and enjoy the process—and post about it. She's doing it on Sunday nights. I really love this idea. Even though I do a fair amount of cooking and baking, I feel like I frequently make the same things over and over again and shy away from stuff that looks too hard. I want to use this an an opportunity to really push myself to try new techniques or ingredients I haven't used before. Below is a link-fest of some things I've never made that I'd like to try. This list is only from a couple of online sources, not from cookbooks or other online sources or things that I'm imagining. There's just SO MUCH out there.

Ingredients that I either don't really like but want to give another chance or that I haven't tried before:

Kale and roasted vegetable soup. I've never loved kale. I feel like it gets slimy when it's cooked and the flavor has never really floated my boat, but it's so good for you that I'd like to eat more of it. It gives me hope that she introduces the recipe by saying she doesn't really like it either but it works here.

Quinoa is another thing that's really good for you that I never eat. A friend picked some up for me recently and I'm going to use it to make this.

I don't like pureed carrot soup. There's something so baby-food about it that I can barely choke it down. I don't have that problem with other pureed soups; I should ask my mom if I was force-fed carrots as a baby or something. That said, this recipe sounds great. I have a pomegranate at home that I should eat soon and I can pick up pomegrante molasses at Sahadi's at lunchtime today. This may well be my first entry. It's the kind of thing I'd like to be eating more of: healthful, interesting, cheap. Ditto this one.

Oatmeal made with steel-cut oats. No shortcuts.

I've never made meatloaf. There are approximately a million and one recipes for every possible variation. I'll try out one or two.

I want to eat more yogurt. Here I can put it into a cake.

This pie sounds delicious and would give me a chance to practice crust.

This salmon in broth recipe sounds delicious and light and healthful. It would also require me to steam fish, which I've never done.

I know that stewed prunes sounds like possibly the most geriatric thing anyone could possibly cook, but I like prunes and I love the sound of this recipe. I also really like the restaurant it's from.

Figs in whiskey!

I cook very little meat, so I want to try a couple of things. I've never made short ribs. These braised short ribs look amazing or I might go with a recipe my friend Joanne sent me recently, where a bottle of red wine is reduced by 2/3 and the short ribs are cooked in that. There were shallots and mustard involved too. It sounds divine. Or this one. There will be short ribs. Oh yes. There will be short ribs.

I've never cooked pork. I'm not good at gauging when meat is done and at least with beef or lamb, you don't have the danger of trichinosis. (I used to babysit a girl who had been adopted from Korea when she was older, six or seven, I think. She started having seizures a few years after she came to the US and the eventual diagnosis was the aftereffects of trichinosis from eating pork out of the garbage when she was essentially a street kid. It's not to be taken lightly.) This recipe looks relatively foolproof in terms of cooking long enough to kill any microbes while still being moist and tender.

I've never made crab cakes and it looks like a recipe worth trying. There's a good fishmonger near my apartment so I know I can get good crabmeat.

I've never made pasta carbonara the real way. I think I have an email saved somewhere with Carolyn's very own recipe, which would be a nice one to use. Also her arancini recipe.

Things that other people rave about:
These crostini. Having to track down an exotic cheese would be part of the fun.
This pear-cardamom upside-down cake.
This soup. Normally, having to cook rice separately before pureeing it into the soup would make it too fussy for me to bother with, but she seems to love it.
Coconut bread.
I don't think I would have ever looked twice at this recipe without her glowing recommendation.
The rice from this recipe.
Lemon risotto.

I'm tired of looking at recipes for the moment and should do something vaguely related to my job today. I'll post another list of stuff I want to try from my cookbook collection this weekend.

Disjointed thoughts

I think this is kind of hilarious. Not hilarious enough that I'm going to pay money to attend (plus I wouldn't be able to sport the requisite two items of corduroy), but hilarious none the less.

I finished reading The Year of Magical Thinking a few days ago and haven't quite been able to decide how I felt about it. Was it powerful and strongly written and insightful and painful? Yes. Did I like it? Not especially. I don't know if that's partly because I had gotten the erroneous impression that her daughter dies also and I was braced for that the whole time or because her pain is so raw and palpable the whole time, but I found reading it to be very stressful. It took me a while to get through it and it's not a long book—only 240 pages, relatively large print and pretty widely spaced. I didn't finish Letter to a Christian Nation. There was an underlying belligerence and not-so-underlying condescension that were really off-putting, in addition to the fact that a lot of his arguments lacked any sort of logical coherence (Logic 101: stating two things that are true does not mean there's a causal relationship between them). Even though I agree with a lot of his broader statements about maintaining a clear separation between church and state, he doesn't present them well and he's kind of a dick about it.

I'm almost finished with the sample knitting. I'll finish it up after work and then am meeting a friend for drinks tonight who happens to be the person I need to hand it off to. So that works out well. The knitting is pretty easy and straightforward—it's a garter stitch, raglan toddler cardigan with a hood—but the sizing is going to be a pain. The gauge is weird (2 1/3 sts and 5 rows =1") and sizing is a pain generally, but that's what they're paying me for. Being able to invoice for it does a lot to take the sting out of annoying tasks.

One of my freelance clients sent me a manuscript this morning to copyedit, so that's nice. Will I start working on it this weekend and not push it off until right before the deadline? I don't know. That doesn't really sound like me, but I could turn over a new leaf any day now.

I have another sample knit that's due soon, but it's just a hat and it'll be a nice, easy knit with nice yarn. Then I can get back to my other projects. It's cooled down enough lately that I've been wishing for some new handknit hats so I'll work up a couple. And I want to knit something for a friend's new baby, ideally something frivolous. It's her second baby and she has all of the basic stuff she needs already. I'm thinking a cardigan for the kiddo like this one. I have some really sinfully soft cream cashmere that I've been saving for a hat and scarf, but may use for this instead. I should have enough left over to knit a hat for the mom as well and maybe the dad and the older brother too, though that's probably stretching it. I'm sure I have plenty of mother of pearl buttons that'll be lovely for the sweater. And, yes, she is absolutely someone who will appreciate and take care of cashmere. No worries on that front.

Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Kit Kats, I'm realizing that I'm going to have to go to Japan, just for the limited edition flavors: bitter chocolate, mango, passion fruit, different kinds of milk for the milk chocolate, pineapple, green tea, chestnut (chestnut Kit Kats?! I could die happy), kir... And then these, which I had to copy and paste because really, look at them:

• Kit Kat Chocolatier Noir (Dark) — Japan limited edition — dark petits with almond creme filling and dusted dark cocoa powder on outside
• Kit Kat Exotic Hokkaido — Japan limited editon — Hokkaido cheese white chocolate coating, blueberry & passionfruit creme filling in the wafers
• Kit Kat Exotic Kansai — Japan limited edition — Milk chocolate, lemon, passionfruit and yuzu (Japanese Citrus)
• Kit Kat Exotic Kyūshū — Japan limited edition — White chocolate, orange, mango and caramel
• Kit Kat Exotic Tokyo — Japan limited edition — mixed berry and passion fruit creme filling in the wafers

Can you even stand it that you won't ever taste any of those Kit Kat varieties? I bet that if Hershey didn't run the US Kit Kat empire, that we could get better flavors than we have now.

Yum.

I roasted a Sweet Dumpling Squash for dinner last night—cut in half, scoop out strings and seeds, feel mildly guilty about not saving seeds to roast also, bake at 400 with the cut side down until tender, turn over, put some brown sugar and a little butter in the cavity and bake until it melts. The observant among you may note that this dinner is literally a vegetable with caramel sauce, which sounds like horrific experimental cooking but was in fact extremely delicious as well as really, really easy. I like the kind of dinner that takes care of itself while I run back and forth to the laundromat and then can be eaten quickly while I get ready to go out for drinks.

What else?
I'm getting the urge to rearrange the furniture in my room. Thinking about buying myself a present. I'm procrastinating on writing an article about Barbara Taylor Bradford's new book. It's a third of the way done. I have sample knitting due at the end of the week that I really need to crank out. Interestingly, it's also about a third done, now I think about it. (It's small. I'm not worried.) Making all kinds of plans to keep myself busy and cheerful; friends to see, museums to go to, restaurants and bars to try, out-of-town visits to make...  I'll play at being Girl About Town for a while and see how that goes. As always, plenty of other stuff percolating—books to read, food to cook, things to make, NaNoWriMo getting closer and closer—but I need to spend some time OUT for a while. I've watched too much tv lately, been too stagnant, too stationary, too internal. I'm going out. After I finish my sample knitting.

Secret project revealed

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, wait, it actually is a bird.

The person I made it for has a thing for birds and asked a while ago if I could knit him one. I could have, but one of the few things I like about crochet is how sculptural it is and how easily you can build shapes with it. I was aiming for generic bird, but ended up with a pigeon, what with the grey-iridescent (handspun) yarn and his puffed-out chest. The recipient can add the beak, feet and tail if he wants. I wasn't happy with anything that I tried. It's crocheted in seat-of-my-pants style: head first, decrease by half for the neck, double the stitches for the chest while leaving the back of the neck flat and then some sort of increasing and decreasing for the body. There was a fair bit of trial and error. I'm not sure I could reproduce it.

In time-honored Curse of the Handmade Object fashion, the guy I made it for broke up with me immediately afterward. (Yes, it sucks, but I'm okay, thanks. My post-breakup routine has been well-honed: I tend to want to do more yoga, get more exercise, buy some fabulous underwear he'll never see. I'm thinking about going slutty for a while, just to shake things up a little. I'm not really a crying-in-my-Ben&Jerry's, woe-is-me kind of girl.)

Beef Stew

As per usual, I didn't do nearly as much this weekend as I wanted to/meant to/felt like I should. It wasn't a total wash though—I made stew.

I used a recipe from this book and changed it a little: I couldn't find pearl onions, so didn't use them, I knew I wanted to have it with noodles so left out the potatoes, I substituted wine for half the water. It's a good basic recipe to play with, easy to do and relatively quick to put together in terms of actual hands-on work.

Beef Stew
2 lbs stew beef
1 T oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced (I used three or four)
1.5 t salt
1 t sugar (left this out--yuck)
1 t Worcestershire sauce
1/2 t paprika
3 c. water, divided
6 carrots, sliced
6 small potatoes, quartered
6-10 small white onions
1 c. fresh or frozen peas
1/4 c. unbleached flour

In a Dutch oven, brown the meat on all sides in the oil over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic and seasonings. Pour in 2.5 c liquid (I used half wine, half water). Cover and simmer an hour and a half. Add the carrots, potatoes and white onions. Cover and cook 30 minutes. Add the peas and cook for 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, shake the remaining 1/2 c. water and flour until thoroughly blended. Slowly stir into the stew and stir until thickened.

This 'n' That

This will be much more of interest to NYS residents than the rest of the country/world: a list of haunted sites around the state. My teensy-tiny high school is listed, oddly enough, though the story has been removed out of respect for the family (not sure what they're referring to; a lot of weird things go on in the woods at night out there). There's a factual error though: everyone knows that the statue of Mary that cries blood is in Pinewoods Cemetary in Troy, not the Troy Cemetary.

I've made the executive decision not to go to Rhinebeck this year. My plans to go up for the whole weekend fell through and going up just for a day would be really expensive and kind of a pain in the ass. Not to mention that I don't really want to buy anything. So I'm taking the money I had budgeted for the train and cabs and entry fees and all the rest of it and having fun with it here this weekend. I'll go to the movies and get a manicure and take myself out for soup dumplings in Chinatown. Maybe get my hair cut. And so on. I want to make a batch of soap this weekend and maybe some jewelry. I still have half the series of Firefly to watch. It's supposed to be on the grey and dreary side, weatherwise. I'd like to get outside too. We'll see how ambitious I'm feeling, whether I go explore somewhere I haven't been or go wander around Prospect Park or Green-Wood. And I'd like to cook something delicious, maybe something in the stew family.

I have been knitting, but don't really have anything to show. I've done some stuff for money and have been working on a secret project for a few days that I'll be able to reveal soon. It's a fun one, but it's a gift and has to wait until I give it to the recipient. I really want to start a new sweater or two for myself, a long cardigan and/or a black and white striped pullover and/or a fairly plain black pullover. They're things I'd like to have in the ol' wardrobe and I have yarn that'll work. Nothing too exciting to knit, but good, solid, workhorse items of clothing. I've realized that, despite the many great sweaters I've knit for myself, the ones I reach for most often are commercially made. Not a good record.

Meme du Jour

48 Things You Could Care Less About

[I don't know if this is the official name, but I'm keeping it.]

1. FIRST NAME?
Stephanie

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Not my first name. My middle name (Karin) was after my mom's college roommate.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
I rewatched the finale of Veronica Mars Season 2 the other day because I had forgotten some of the finer points and cried both when she thought her dad had died and when he walked into the kitchen the next morning. (I'm such a neeeeeeeeeeerd!)

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Yes. More when I'm using a fine-point gel or ink pen, less with a ballpoint or pencil.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT?
Ham.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Absolutely, if only for the baked goods.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL?
Just this.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Not for all the tea in China.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Granola, preferably with yogurt and fruit. But also Lucky Charms.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Um, just the ones with laces.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
I am a tough cookie, but somewhat lacking in the upper body strength department.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Any chocolate/peanut butter combination.

14. SHOE SIZE?
8.

5. RED OR PINK?
Red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
There are a lot of things that need work. I'm willing to share that I wish I were more outgoing around people I don't know well.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
A couple of my closest friends who've moved out of New York over the last couple of years.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
Nah, but leave me a comment if you put it on your own blog.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Black, white and red plaid flannel pajamas. Black and white cotton tweed socks.

20. LAST THING YOU ATE?
Homemade tomato soup with macaroni. (Saute an onion, add a big can of low-salt broth and two big cans of whole tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Blend. Stir in cheese if you like, maybe a little half anf half. Serve with macaroni or leftover rice or drink as is out of a mug. It makes a lot.)

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
The rain.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Burnt sienna had the best name, but probably one of the dark blue-greens.

23. FAVORITE SMELL? Wood smoke. Cardamom. Apples.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
A publicist.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO?
Whether they are a man or a woman, which line I am blatantly stealing from Katherine Hepburn in Desk Set.

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON you stole THIS from?
Yes, and Carolyn knows it, which is why I don't feel like I'd be misinterpreted if I muse on what a stupid question this is. Who the hell is going to say no to this question? Do I like this person? No, I do not. I only read her blog to scorn and mock it and I want to tell everyone on the internet about it so that they too can go forth and hate. WTF people?

Since you learned exactly nothing from this question, I'll offer up this fact: I love to rollerskate and never get to do it.

27. FAVORITE DRINK?
Coffee (milk no sugar). Belgian beers. Dry, fruity wine. Real margaritas. Sidecars. Water. I actually almost always drink more than the recommended eight glasses of water a day.

28. FAVORITE SPORT?
Rodeo, but only in person, not on tv. Since I live with two guys who are big sports fans, I've learned a lot about football and baseball, but I still don't really care.

29. EYE COLOR?
Blue.

30. HAT SIZE?
I make my hats 21-22" around.

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Oh, yes. And how. 15-18 hours a day for almost 17 years. Possibly the greatest invention of all time.

32. FAVORITE FOOD?  
I can't pick. Really. As long as it's fresh and reasonably well-prepared, I love almost everything except ketchup, carob, papayas and green peppers.

 

Okay, if I had to pick: soup, bread, cheese, fruit and the occasional decadent dessert.

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy endings. I'm a sap.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Winter.

36. HUGS OR KISSES?
Both. Duh.

37. FAVORITE DESSERT?
See #32. I don't like things that are really super-sweet (like canned frosting) and I'm not crazy about cooked bananas (unless they're in banana bread), but I'm happy other than that.

38&39 deleted.
I was *really* curious about 38 and 39. Why was Carolyn deleting them? What was she trying to hide? What kind of deep, dark secrets is she keeping? Turns out they're just two more dumb questions about who I think is and is not going to do the meme. They should stay deleted.

Two more random factoids to help make up for asinine questions: I really like archery and could get very involved in it if there were any ranges closer to me than deepest Queens. Broccoli rabe is my favorite vegetable, along with winter squash. And regular broccoli.

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING?
The Year of Magical Thinking. Letter to a Christian Nation. The Kite Runner. Dark Assassin (Anne Perry. Victorian mystery).

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE Pad?
It's grey. It has one of those gel wrist rests. When you look up "function over form" in the dictionary, there is a picture of it.

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV?
Grosse Point Blank, then back-to-back episodes of Family Guy.

43. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
I'm totally borrowing from Carolyn: rain, laughter, the hiss of heat coming on. I don't really think of having favorite sounds. I hate hearing a tv that no one is watching and I really, really hate hearing water run that no one is using. It plucks my last nerve in a forceful and primal way.

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES?
Stones.

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME?
I guess Italy is the farthest in that direction. The whole west coast in the other.

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT?
I don't know if it's quite a talent, but I don't meet many people who can bend their thumb quite the way I can.

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Albany, NY.

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Since I think this qualifies as another dumb-ass question, especially since I answered it already, I'll share that I usually have polish on my toenails, but almost never on my fingernails.