Sourdough

I started a sourdough culture from scratch a couple of weeks ago. I grew up eating sourdough bread made by my mom and I love the acidic taste. The starter my mom has is supposedly 50-100 years old. My starter is only 14 days old but it did pretty well. I made some no-knead bread today using starter for 20-30% of the dough and it turned out great. Hopefully Winnie (our dog) won't get these loaves off the counter.

No Knead Bread

I've been making bread more lately. These two loaves were made using the no-knead recipe that's been popularized by Mark Bittman at the NY Times. Drew sent me a tip about the America's Test Kitchen (ATK) version of this bread. I made both breads. The ATK version uses less liquid (66% liquid) than the NY Times version (86% liquid). The ATK version also uses a little beer and vinegar in their recipe to mimic some sourdough characteristics. As expected, the dough with more liquid had a more open crumb which I like. I could taste the beer/vinegar combo in the ATK loaf, but I don't think it made that much of a difference. Both loaves are good but I like the simplicity of the Bittman version. Easy to make in the middle of a busy work week.

Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We've just been working a ton and skiing a little bit, and climbing in the gym (BLAHHHH!) to stay in climbing shape. The dogs got rope toys and winter coats from Santa (they are such wimps about the cold, and constantly shiver, especially when camping and on road trips). Adam got TWO new pair of skis, Verdicts and Voodoos, and Melissa got under cabinet lighting from Ikea, along with a new kitchen light thanks to Grandma Holmes. We also enjoyed lots of good food and friendship with friends. We missed Adam's family for Christmas, since we had to reschedule our trip to the Northwest, but we did enjoy lots of good times at home. Hope everyone had a good Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.

Melissa returns to skiing in full form after 17 year hiatus!

Melissa tore up the slopes today at Alta and this ski area didn't know what hit it. Mike Musenbrok was overheard saying, "She's getting after it!" Despite blizzard snow and cold temps, Melissa skied until the chairs stopped running. She even went into a race tuck trying to speed down to the chair for that one last run. Expect to hear more from this new rising ski star. Vancouver 2010?

Flashdance...

He's a maniac, maniac on the flooooor...and he's dancin' like he's never danced befooooor...

Second 3Form Panel

Just finished installing the larger panel in our master bedroom. It's awesome- completely allows light while giving full privacy. This one is called Fossil Leaf. Check out these shots of it on the website: http://www.3-form.com/materials-varia-organics-fossil_leaf.php. There are real leaf skeletons in the panel.

We made a small molding to support it- hopefully it holds, because that panel is HEAVY!

Our Life in a nutshell (operative prefix being NUTS)

So, Adam and I thought it would be a great idea to buy a house when we werent' really planning it, and try to sell our other house at a time when the nation's real estate market is in major crises. We thrive on chaos, what can we say.

I haven't climbed pretty much since my last post titled Bronson, which amounts to about a month ago. I am totally OCD in many aspects of my life, and usually when I am climbing, that provides a focused outlet for that energy. Without it, I am forced to hand arrange cranberries on wreaths, paint an entire 1500 sq. foot new house, and scrub and rescrub floors, tubs, and toilets on my hands and knees....but that's allright, we don't need to psychoanalyze that right now.

Here are lots of photos of our new home, which is pretty rad. It was built in 1910, but an architecht who lived here remodled in the early 90's, and it's pretty creative and gave us a great space to live in. The house needed no work, except for a thorough paint job (we had to un-do some Miami Vice colors...my favorite was Grimace Purple- remember Grimace from McDonalds?). We've also added some panels from Salt Lake company 3Form, of which my good friend Wendy is an integral part. Check out http://www.3-form.com/ for some of the sweetest design you'll ever see.

Thanks to Tina, Tom, and Kevin who donated their time and elbow grease to help us paint the entire house!Thanks to Kimmy for food, beer, and friendship during hellacious 12 hour painting days and Wendy and Dave for their awesome ladder and for help with the panels!

Our New Home

Our new home...and our first big snow of the year.

My O.C.D. in effect...I rearranged the f**king cranberries by hand for over an hour and tied and retied that f**king bow at least 10 times...this is what happens when I'm not climbing-but it looks good, right??

Win's new perch with a great view of the street

The backyard with Adam and the dogs, having fun playing in the snow

Additional view of guest bathroom

The future master bathroom

The future guest room that we are temporarily staying in

Guest bathroom

The view from the top of the steep loft stairs (there is an additional, more traditional staircase on the other side of the house)

View from the loft

The loft, future office

Additional view of the loft

Another view of these fantastic stools

The loft stair case, one of the hardest areas to paint with cutout to bar area

Another view of the loft staircase with built in book cubes

Our living room, with high ceilings and beams

Our new bar, set up and ready to booze!

Our new home at night...so cozy

The breakfast bar, with fabulous deco stools thanks to Mom and Dad Lipani for the housewarming present

Our new kitchen

Tiggs LOVES the snow!

The Welcoming Committee

One of our new 3Form panels

Our new entryway, festive for Christmas

Bronson, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah

After many, many tries over two seasons living here in SLC, yesterday I sent Bronson in LCC. This problem had only seen one other female ascent two years ago, and was ready for a long awaited female repeat. I sent it on my third day in a row climbing while my friend Cat from Montreal was visiting, and so it was extra special. She was filming the whole thing, and at the end, when I belly flopped and beached whale myself to the top, the camera is shaking up and down as she laughs hysterically at my ridiculous top out of the problem. I was so tired and so pumped, and my hands were numb from the cold. I have never tried so hard to stay on a boulder problem, and the whole time, part of me just wanted to let go...but the other part of me just held on, knowing that I would probably get hurt if I let go, and worse, if I didn't get hurt, I'd probably kill myself for giving up. I hope you enjoy this little funny film and you will be rewarded at the end with a good laugh!

The End of Summer- our vacation to Rochester and Rhode Island

Well, we just returned from an all out food, booze, and family fest in the Northeast. We had a great time with family, and we enjoyed our side trip to Rhode Island very much. We ate, drank, then ate and drank some more, then we checked out the bouldering in Lincoln Woods, Rhode Island. No pics there, but we did get some video of the climbing there which we may be able to upload at some point.

Enjoy some of these pics that highlight our trip. Thanks Mom and Dad for the great times!

Do I look like Tinkerbell here or what??? Why do I look so small? Here we are after another great meal on Federal Hill.

The Temple lounge in our hotel in Providence had really cool grafiti art everywhere.

The view of the Capitol from our room in Providence.