Snow Day for adults.

Yesterday was the first major accumulation of the season. Technically, we were both supposed to be working from home. We had good intentions and started with some laundry but mostly there was a lot of lazing around with extra coffee, multiple shoveling sessions, and a finished pair of knit socks while watching Fargo for the umpteenth time. But this brunch was the highlight of the day.
Homemade corned beef hash and fried eggs with my best loaf of no-knead bread yet, according to Sam. This is my second time making corned beef from scratch. It takes some planning, since you need to brine the beef for 8 days, but it is not difficult and well worth the effort because you can make boiled dinner, reuben sandwiches and hash for breakfast all from one piece of meat. Here's a link to my flickr set when I did exactly that back in March.

All these recipes are available on Epicurious (search corned beef, March 2008), which is my go to recipe source on the web. It has all the recipes from Bon Appetit and Gourmet and reading the reviews of the recipes is sometimes helpful and often hilarious.

I did venture out once the snow stopped for some tp (when you got to go, you got to go!) and took the opportunity to buy a tree.


Believe it or not, this is the first tree I've ever bought as an adult. I never had enough ornaments and I was usually not home on Christmas so I never bothered. I'm also not a fan of chopping down trees for short, one-time use. If you lived through winter in the mid-west last year, though, you might understand my desire to seek out ways to keep things cheery around here. As I dragged it in the house and that pine scent permeated, I instantly felt a lot more festive. I also ordered some bright red snow boots. Wheeee! I say, let the snow come. I'm not letting winter get me down!