In anticipation of a grilled dinner!

Caley and I have been grilling a lot! His favorite of course is sausage from Sunflower or our new found Beaver Market:) Tonight will be an experiment! Grilled portabella mushroom caps and maybe some grilled red pepper? From looking up a bunch of general recipes, this is how I imagine I will grill them:

4 portabella mushroom caps with stems removed and wiped with damp towel
4 cloves of garlic
some olive oil
chopped shallots?
some balsamic vinegar

Marinate mushroom caps for ~20minutes in mixture of oil, vinegar, chopped garlic and shallots

Grill caps 3-4 minutes each side!

Serve with grilled peppers on buns, or just eating them like steak! Whoo, very excited! Most recipes I've looked up are a variation on the theme of olive oil, some simple spices, and maybe some vinegar, but since I'm a huge fan, we're doing the vinegar for sure:)

I'm also going to try grilling some summer squash later this week, and if the salmon is on sale at Sunflower...maybe that too! Grilled salmon is just about my favorite ever!

Last night we had a delicious shrimp curry a la master curry chef Caley :) It was called peppercorn shrimp in the book, but we substituted normal pepper (didn't have peppercorns) and substituted cumin seeds for mustard seeds cause we didn't have any of those either, but it was soooo delicious! I love the taste of curries with coconut milk in them, a lot more mellow and sweet than some of the non coconut milk ones we've tried. We are big curry fans :) Not sure if I mentioned the smoky eggplant curry I made a couple of weeks ago, but WOW is all I can say!! Definitely going to make that one again!

I wish Caitlin would blog some more and put up some awesome recipes that she's been making...:P
-Megan

Political Thoughts

I don't believe my generation of U.S. citizens, brought up with the belief that you can do anything you want but not taught the value of the hard work that goes into achieving those goals, could ever lay down their lives for something they purport to believe in. I myself, don't believe I would lay down my life for an ideal. Of course military types are the exception, but they're crazy anyway:) Case in point, a lot of us feel that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were sent under false pretenses and are losing their lives in an unjust war. It's tragic! I don't want this to be about Iraq though, what got me thinking is all the unrest in Iran at the moment. Hundreds of thousands of people are marching against the result of their presidential "election". Basically, the old president "won" in a landslide "vote" and the opposition party is calling fowl (justifiably in my opinion). Yesterday the military fired into the crowd killing up to 7 people so far. These people are standing up for democratic ideals in a country where I'm pretty sure their system isn't even set up in a democratic way. I'll have to ask Caley, but to my understanding, even if the vote is one way, the Supreme Leader of their council of 12 religious leaders has the ultimate say anyway. I'm not saying that the people should give up fighting for rights and freedoms they probably won't have, at least in the short term, I'm just saying the concept is so foreign to a middle class white girl from CO, USA. I guess the freedoms we've come to expect here in the US haven't really ever been threatened in a serious way; but if I can be convinced to move to France just because of our lack of a good health care system here, then I sure as hell probably wouldn't stay if our entire political system failed.
Hopefully I will never face a situation that calls for me to put my life on the line for something so abstract as "country" or "values" until then, I'm not going to worry about it any more :)
-Megan

While I drink my Coffee

7:30pm, getting some caffeine for a late lab night....
This weekend has been so lovely! Friday started with patio beers at NB and Odells, followed by sushi at Suhiros, then early back to the homestead but a late night snuggling with Sebby and watching online TV. Saturday was a sleep late, eat a great breakfast then bike ride day. I rode up to horsetooth, then glade road to Loveland and ended up back in FoCo at Fossil Creek Park for the family bike festival. Emily hooked me up with free cotton candy, and I sat around getting a tiny sunburn watching bike polo. Bike polo is like polo on horses, only with bikes, and a little be slower I imagine. It looks like so much fun!!! I would be terrible due to my lack of eye/hand/bike coordination... but fun nevertheless.

Then, after a great nap, I met up with Emily and another friend Amanda for some homemade pizza and cold ones on the porch, followed by thirty seconds of the Sugar Ray concert (I just wanna fly...goodnight folks!) and ice cream at Walrus! The crowds were amazing, and we probably sat outside Walrus for a good 45 min just watching people go by and stumble around outside the Rio...Today began with delicious breakfast at Uncle Kevins, and Kylie and Meara were home!! Yay! I haven't seen Kylie since Christmas time, and Meara isn't around that much either. I should have gone down to check out Taste of Fort Collins, but went for another bike ride instead :) I did Rist and back down Buckhorn to the Poudre. It was pretty awesome, I got rained on at the top of Rist, but I had some extra clothes, and no hail, so I survived. I def. have a good tan going after two days...wonder how dark I can get! :) I always wear sunscreen of course! I will be finishing today up with some lab work, need to have something to show Dr. Black when he gets back in tomorrow morning...boooooooooo. Plus, that's where my phone charger is, soo, must go to work. I will be wearing sweats though!
Hope you all had a great weekend!
-Megan

ps. I'm still waiting to hear how Bryn is doing after giving birth to her first child! Congrats already Bryn!!!

New Address and stuff

So you all know...

710 City Park Ave B221
Fort Collins, CO 80521

Unpacking is progressing well only the bathroom and clothes left...probably a lot going to goodwill....

Alison Krauss and Norah Jones are perfect for rainy days.

I love thunderstorms with hail and lightening and light flooding of gutters! I am sorry for everyones gardens, but its just so exciting!

I got to work at 10 today, and still beat more than half of my coworkers! :)

Time to get back to it!
-Megan

Update from CA

I have been feeling exceedingly grown up the past few days out here at the conference in CA. I wear nice clothes, heels, drink wine with dinner, present on research, hobnob with world famous scientists (hours of hobnobbing=exhausting), and read the paper poolside before dinner:)
My talk yesterday went well, I was super nervous and felt like I was being unclear...but, people have complimented me, and everybody now knows who I am due to Dr. Blacks insistence on calling me Meganita and correcting anyone who calls me Megan instead :) Oh well, at least I'm not like the grad students from London, they haven't contributed anything to the discussions or given talks. Dr. Black is an awesome advisor for making me go to this thing and forcing me to present my little project (totally against my will, but I'm supremely grateful now).
I've also had a change of heart about my project. After hearing all about the whole project from everyone, and seeing how I fit in, and how much my stuff will be able to help, I feel a huge sense of accomplishment and can't wait to get home to make some real progress the rest of this summer and next school year! It really was a good thing that I had to come :)
Also, I found out I'll be going back to Tapachula late Aug....which I'm sure means I'll be missing my birthday or the first week of school or something I was looking forward to I'm sure. However, I have been thinking a lot about the last trip I was on down there and how much fun I had, and I'm actually looking forward to the coming trip! I'm not sure how long we're planning on being down there, I hate being away from home and Caley and Sebby for more than a week...I'm such a home-body.
Still looking for the picture thing dammit! I'm going to order one next week off of Amazon if it doesn't turn up as soon as I get home! In the meantime I'll take pics of my swanky digs here at the hotel, AND I get to go to the beach tomorrow since we don't have any obligations here at the conference!!!! Woooo!!!!
ciao,
Meganita :)