Home Sweet Alaska

Friday, January 23, 2009

Cookie recipe

Whoa -- I saw these cookies on another blog and promptly scooted over to the Domino website for the actual recipe. One of my all time favorite combos is chocolate and coconut. These look amazing -- and the best part is that the recipe looks easy-peasy.

Chocolate-Dipped Macaroons
from Domino Magazine
Makes 12

The Ingredients
2 egg whites
salt
½ cup sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
2 cups finely shredded coconut
2 ½ oz. bittersweet dark chocolate

Preheat oven to 350° F. In medium bowl, add a pinch of salt to egg whites and beat with an electric mixer until stiff. Fold in sugar and vanilla, then stir in coconut. Using a small ice-cream scoop or a spoon, form cookies on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly golden, then let cool for 30 minutes. Melt chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat. Pour into a bowl, dip macaroons into chocolate, and return to baking sheet until chocolate has hardened. Store in an airtight container until ready to serve, up to 3 days.

Enjoy!

Sick of photos yet?

Cool mariachis at a restaurant in the La Isla area of the hotel zone.

This guy was ensconsed in a huge tank at the La Isla aquarium. He posed for quite a few photos.

We journeyed into the actual town of Cancun via autobus to visit Walmart and Sam's Club. The Walmart was very nice - clean, spacious, featuring food AND liquor. Don't have that here in Anchorage. The bread area was different -- I had to grab a big pizza pan and pile on the bread we wanted. Then a lady weighs it and wraps it all up.

The Mexican shoppers thought were big weirdos, rightly so.

Humongo bottles of liquor at Sam's. They're actually a pretty good deal -- the Johnny Walker black on the far left is about $140 USD.

We walked up and down the aisles of wine and hard liquor. I have never in my live seen so much tequila in one place. At amazing low prizes even.

Post dates

Hmmm, I just noticed that my new template does not add the date of my posts -- gonna have to dive back into the html and see if that can be fixed...

Ok, I got it to show up at the bottom of my posts. Better than nothing I guess.

I wanna go back

Can't see them here, but the coconuts in Cancun all had smooth exteriors. We couldn't figure out if that meant they were not yet mature or if Mexican coconuts were somehow different than Hawaiian ones.

Resident lizards at our hotel/condo -- one is hiding behind the tree and the other is in the foreground.

During a nice long walk on the beach. I went crazy beachcombing and looking for shells. Was knocked over a few times by waves for my troubles.

D enjoying the surf.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Cool things

Holy trapdoor, Batman! If we really, really loved wine and had a ton of money, this might be an option: spiral wine cellar.

Housecleaning

Hi all - please bear with me as I remodel my blog. I have had the itch to make a change for a while now...hopefully I won't muck it up too much!

Warmer than normal!

Holy crap (or like D says, crap is not holy, water is) I just saw this illustration in our local paper, the fabulous Anchorage Daily News:

Warmer than usual? Hallelujah! After last year's infamous summer, all Alaskans are hoping for a sunny and warm season starting in June. Hurry up and book your tickets peoples!

Local updates

When we left Alaska for Mexico, it was 10 to 15 degrees below zero. When we returned, about 85% of the snow had melted during a freak warm period -- the temperature got up to 40 degrees for a few days with warm Chinook winds blowing through town.

It turns out that school was cancelled for 4 DAYS because the streets turned to sheets of black ice after the melted snow would refreeze at night. I can't remember classes being cancelled for 4 days the WHOLE time I attended school in Anchorage. But like my dad says, safety first!

The weather has hit a more normal level now -- overcast and about 20 degrees. It's a tad bit depressing without our normal snow cover though. The snow is hard packed and bad for skiing and snowmachining. Bummer.

I took my barking cough with me to Mexico -- I'm sure my fellow airplane mates really appreciated that. D says he knows what it's like to date a smoker now -- the cough was awful. Probably the second most annoying sound in the world. And the best part? I'm pretty sure I have bronchitis. Have an appointment to see my doctor about that and my possible bruised ribs from a night fishing incident in Cancun. Ah, I'm the luckiest girl alive!

I'm supposed to participate in the Ski for Women on Superbowl Sunday, but we'll see what the doc says about that. A couple of my coworkers have experienced bruised ribs and they say it takes between 2 to 4 weeks for a full recovery. This race isn't very challenging but I don't want to push it.

Cruise in May

In conversations with multiple people, I've heard that amazing cruise deals can be found RIGHT NOW. We can't afford to take another vacation so soon, but the rest of you lucky people could snag an Alaskan cruise for cheapo.

We've never done a cruise before, but lots of friends and family have -- this deal is for Holland America Line: Vancouver to Seward, 7 nights. Must leave May 10 or May 24. $540 for oceanside room. Taxes and fees are $111 each person. But I think you also get $100 worth of shipboard credit per room.

Come see us this summer...we'll pick you up in Seward!

Market Tote - DIY

This is a neat little project -- no sew tote bag -- I plan to make a few to use at the grocery store. They would be great reusable produce bags. I feel so guilty bringing home fruits and veggies in those throwaway plastic bags...

More nightlife

This lobster restaurant was sooo good...we sat outside on the deck and had a beautiful view of the lagoon.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Nightlife

They call this area of Cancun "Vampire Alley" because everyone comes out to the clubs at night, but it's deserted during the day.

A few times every hour the bars would release a storm of paper into the air:

Ugh - this guy STUNK, literally. He fully covered himself in gold glitter and then flitted from bar to bar posing for photos and asking for tips.

We saw this guy twice during our trip. He rides the buses through the most popular hotel zone areas singing one song and then stopping at each row to ask for tips. The second time we encountered him, a rowdy group of drunk middle aged Americans were also on the bus and they made him sing two songs instead of just one.

We're back...sigh

Transported back to reality...and colder weather. But we had a wonderful time in Mexico! D and I didn't realize how much we needed a warm-weather vacation, just the two of us, until we were down in Cancun.

The weather cooperated for about two days, the rest was pretty overcast and windy/wet -- but we made the most of it and planned fun activities regardless. Our flight from Seattle to Cancun was delayed for 5 HOURS! So cruel. And then to top it off, we couldn't get into our condo because the lock box number we had been given was incorrect. I seriously expected to be sleeping on the beach that first night. After two hours of phone calls and trying every possible number combination we could think of, D managed to figure out the code, thank god. I haven't been that relieved in, well, EVER.

That being said, the condo we stayed in was really, really nice. Small kitchen, nice bathroom, everything recently remodeled, just steps to the beach. Here is the view from our 3rd story digs: