Egg in a Nest

This morning I write to you with a belly full.  Making breakfast is one of my favorite things about the weekend.  Today I made a childhood favorite of mine: Egg in a nest. 

It's one of the simplest recipes I know.  Just grill your favorite bread on both sides for a while with a little butter in the frying pan, cut a hole in the bread, crack an egg into the hole, add salt and pepper, and cook until the yolk is done to your liking, flipping once. 

As simple as it is, I thought this might be the perfect breakfast to make on a day like today...the day that I share with you that there's an egg in my nest!  Translation: I'm pregnant! 

I'm onto my 15th week of pregnancy, which officially puts me out of my nausea-filled first trimester and into the much welcomed second trimester.  The egg is now the size of an orange and I'm waiting for the day when I start to get a little more round myself because right now I just look like I've been drinking too much beer and have the gut to show for it. (And no, I haven't been drinking beer or any other fun libation while pregnant.) 

Our little one is due September 20th and Ian and I cannot wait to meet him or her.  (And in case you're wondering...we are going to find out the sex of the baby but we have to wait a few more weeks for that.)

I'm thinking that much of my blogging from here on out will be related to my experience as a first time expectant mom.  I invite you all to offer up your thoughts, memories, and advice about motherhood as I continue on this brand new journey.

Valentine's Day with the CIA

How, you may ask, did our Valentine's Day celebration affect national security?  Well, only if eating too much French food is a crime.  The CIA I'm referring to is the Culinary Institute of America.  The main campus is located in Hyde Park, NY...about an hour and a half drive from Albany toward The City.  The CIA is the place where chefs like Anthony Bourdain, Cat Cora, and several of the Top Chef winners acquired their culinary skills.  As part of the training, the Institute has several restaurants that are run mostly by the students.  Since moving to Albany, I had heard from a number of people that the French restaurant at the Hyde Park campus was by far the best and so I have had Escoffier on my list of Places to Eat in/around Albany for quite some time now.  The trick was getting a reservation.

Along with all of the raves, I had also heard that you needed to make reservations to dine at Escoffier months in advance.  Around November I began thinking about how I could get The Haags into hog heaven.  Just for the heck of it I went to the CIA's online reservation site and looked to see if there were any reservations still available around Valentine's Day thinking that it would be a great surprise for Ian if I took charge of our Valentine's Day plans but preparing myself to be shot down by the world wide web.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that not only was Escoffier still accepting reservations for the Saturday night before Valentine's Day, but that my only option wasn't to dine at either 5:30 or 10:00. So I jumped on the opportunity for a one-of-a-kind fine dining experience with my husband at 8 pm the Saturday before Valentine's Day.  As I began the reservation process I realized the CIA required a credit card deposit for the reservation and I knew I wouldn't be able to get this charge on the credit card statement past Ian without causing him to raise an eyebrow.  This called for some covert ops...

I called special agent/brother Ryan and asked to borrow his credit card number to cover the reservation deposit.  He was in.  Then when I saw him on our visit to NC in early December I slipped him cash to pay him back without leaving a paper trail.  Then came the hard part....keeping a secret from Ian for 2 months and secretly hoping that he wasn't also planning the same thing.  The week before Valentine's Day I told him that I had planned something for us to do.  He was surprised and went along with it.  That Friday I put the address for the CIA in the GPS and saved it.  The next day I told him to be ready to go by 6:15 in something "business casual."  All dressed up we got in the car and Ian started driving to an unknown destination.  I turned the GPS away from his view so he wouldn't see that our ETA was an hour and a half away.  We were finally almost there, starving and weary, and I had begun to wonder if this was such a great idea after all.  Then it happened...we passed a Dairy Queen!  You see, since we moved to Albany we've been tormented by commercials for DQ and all of its glorious blizzardness and the closest DQ is 25 miles away.  It turns out the next closest DQ is 60 miles away in Hyde Park.  All 4 of our eyes lit up and we vowed to stop for blizzards on the way back home.  Even if it meant I had to pass on the CIA creme brulee. 

The next hour and a half was pure gustatory bliss.  We dined on foie gras, sweetbreads, roasted sea bass and beef medallion.  You could see into the huge kitchen from our table and watch the students and teachers prepare our meals.  The students did a wonderful job on the culinary aspect of the dining experience.  The service, however, left a lot to be desired.  I guess I didn't realize that our waiter(s) would be sweaty-faced, nerve-wracked students who were probably resentful of the fact that they were on serving rotation instead of in the kitchen.  We waited a long while before our order was taken, water refills were non-existent for the first 15 minutes, one kid couldn't seem to get the 2 forks to stay in his hand while attempting to serve us bread using traditional French service, and our gnocchi in truffle oil didn't make it to the table with the rest of our dinner.  Still, the food was delicious and the apologies and oversight of the exceptionally well trained maitre d' made up for the other faux pas.  The maitre d' was a bit concerned that we did not order dessert as he feared they had "run us off."  We assured him that was not the case but thought it would be less than high class to tell him that we intended to get our dessert at Dairy Queen instead. 

Ian and I would have skipped out of the CIA if it weren't for our extended bellies.  DQ would be the perfect end to a lovely evening.  As we approached the place where we left that DQ behind...eyes peeled for the big red and white sign... our spirits began to sink little by little.  We couldn't find it.  We kept thinking that it must be just a little further down the road than we remembered it.  So, we kept driving until we realized that we were back on the rural highway well on our way back to Albany.  All we could figure was that it must have been closed and the sign dark when we drove by.  I rationalized my disappointment by telling myself that I saved the calories and (added) gastric distress that would have accompanied a mint Oreo blizzard.  And I comforted myself with a package of gummy bears I bought at a gas station that we stopped at to get gas.  Maybe I'll plan a surprise trip to Dairy Queen for next Valentine's Day. 

Dutch Baby

I got the message LOUD and clear from some of you that my last post had some shortcomings, if you will.  Mea culpa.  And now my penance...(you might be the sorry ones after this post...)

This morning Ian made me breakfast.  He found a recipe for Dutch babies in his latest issue of GQ and has been keeping it in mind for just the right Sunday morning.  In case you're wondering what a Dutch baby is, look here:

It's a big, puffy, eggy, delectable pancake.  And the smell of one (or 3) of these baking in the oven is like nothing else I've ever smelled.  It was a wonderful treat. And it got me thinking about the Dutch origin of my married name...which is just one of a few of its origins by the way. 

I'm someone who finds herself intrigued by names and the origin of a name can tell you so much about a person and where they came from (physically and psychologically).  For example, we've all heard someone tell the story that they went to school with twins named Oranjello and Lemonjello.  What kind of upbringing do you think those poor souls had?   Just the other day a friend and retired school guidance counselor told me she had a student named Takila.  Wow.  Now, before I got married I never really questioned the ethnic origin of my name.  Katie Fitzpatrick.  As my parents would say, "it sounds like she just got off the boat." But ever since I adopted Ian's last name I've found myself up a creek without a paddle so to speak. 

If you look up "Haag" on Wikipedia you get this:

Haag may refer to:


The Hague, in the Netherlands (Dutch: Den Haag)


Several places in Germany:


Several places in Austria:

It turns out that the name Haag was first found in Bavaria and some of the first settlers with the family name were Hans Caspar Haag and his wife Andreas Haag, who immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1752.  Interestingly (or not), Albany was founded by the Dutch in the 17th century.    So us Haags are right at home here.

I started actively looking into all of this after a strange encounter with a TSA officer at the security checkpoint at the Asheville airport.  We were at the outset of our return trip to Albany. As we approached the exceptionally senior citizen behind the podium at the ID checkpoint, we snickered at how rinky-dink and hassle-free the security line appeared.  I handed the man my boarding pass and New York State driver's license and started to feel a bit anxious after it seemed like a minute went by with my documents still in his hand.  When he finally relinquished them from his wrinkly cold hands he looked at me and mumbled something that I had to ask to be repeated.  I was holding up the rinky-dink line now.  He mumbled something again and I figured out that he was asking me something to do with the origin of my last name.  I panicked and paused and looked at Ian...a silent but desperate plea for help. I noticed the middle-aged couple behind us react to the fact that I, a grown woman who unbeknownst to them just received her Ph.D., did not know where her last name originated from.  I just mumbled and nodded and moved quickly past the podium.  I could hear the couple laughing with Ian that I had to look to him for the answer.  Needless to say that was a humiliating experience.  Then the officer operating the body scanner commented on the "originality" of my socks and sweater.  Yikes. As you can see from this post,  I'm determined to avoid a repeat of that kind of situation, namely.   

On my first Kansas Christmas...

my true love gave to me...

4 games of poker

3 (or more) glasses of wine

2 fashionable and high-quality wigs

And the cutest nephew in a cool tee.

The First Thanksgiving

So the real first Thanksgiving featured three cornered hats and headdresses and the consumption of turkey is debatable. This year was the first Thanksgiving that I hosted and my how the times have changed in 389 years.  This modern celebration was quite intimate.  The attendees included myself, Ian, and my mom...oh and let us not forget that Abby (along with her infamous appetite) was certainly in attendance.

As for the apparel...I donned an apron and bedroom slippers during my day-long commitment to cuisine.  Instead of deer and squirrel, turkey was the piece de resistance of this feast...or at least I hoped.  I couldn't help but fear a reenactment of The Griswold's family turkey scene on Christmas Vacation.  Behold...

Fortunately, my turkey tasted at least half as good as it looked.

The rest of the menu consisted of Paula Deen's green bean casserole, Bobby Flay's stuffed sweet potatoes with pecan and marshmallow streusel, Tyler Florence's velvety mashed potatoes, and sausage and sourdough bread stuffing.  I must say it was all really delicious.  I look forward to hosting many more holidays but I certainly earned a new appreciation for all of the holiday meals that my parents prepared in the past.  I really had no idea how time consuming it can be, but totally worth it. I have so much to be thankful for.

 

Southbound

On our way to NC we stopped at Brother Ryan's place in Washington, D.C. for a night. Abby had her first trip to the House of Representatives (well, the Cannon House Office Building where Congressman Heath Shuler holds office....hopefully for another term) where she was much more popular than a politician. She lobbied for pets and treats and drank water from a cut crystal Old Fashioned glass. Lucky dog.

The next day we drove to Asheville and arrived just in time to make Abby's appointment with the veterinarian there. She had a growth on her tailbone that rapidly and exponentially enlarged in a matter of a couple of months and was a source of constant worry for me, particularly while our vet in Albany was between clinics at the moment. Dr. Riggle did a thorough examination and aspiration of the growth. Abby was plied with spray cheese atop dog biscuits and then spent the next several days being spoiled and smothered by my dad while I drove east to visit friends.


My next stop was Apex, NC where I met the adorable and well-named Graham. He is the baby of my friend Ashley. The last time I "saw" Graham was when he was curled up in utero at Ashley's baby shower...just waiting to use all of those baby products he scored that day. While he didn't seem nearly as ecstatic to meet me as I was to meet him...we weathered the storm and eventually became buddies over biscuits and pancakes and Sophie the giraffe. Our friend Charlene came from Raleigh for some much needed girl time even though she had a million things going on that she could have been tending to. The girls surprised me with a little early birthday celebration with some decorations and lovely gifts.

From The Piedmont I headed to the coast to surprise my very pregnant friend (now just a little over 1 week 'til her due date!) with a visit while her family was together on a trip to the beach.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to make a trip to NC anytime soon once I started my fellowship, so I wanted to be sure to get some time with one of my favorite people before her life completely changed forever!  Somehow her family managed to keep my visit a secret and Kari was completely surprised when I showed up at the beach house.  It was truly amazing to see her with this pregnant belly and to hear her give people the "what for" when they try to stop her from going on with some of her superhuman ways.   It was so hard saying goodbye to her when I had to get back on the road a couple of days later...knowing that the next time I will see her she will be a mother.  These are the times that make me feel so far away from home.  The distance should be a little more tolerable with webcams.  Now at least I'll be able to see Baby Silas all the way from Albany.  I can't wait. 

As hard as it was, I got back in the car and headed west to meet my dad and Abby in Durham.  After lunch and another difficult goodbye, Abby and I headed up north toward home with an overnight stop in D.C.  The next day we made it all the way back to Albany, both of us ecstatic to see Ian.  What a trip.

Gone for September

I'm just going to stop apologizing for being tardy for the blog post party because I was taught that a sincere apology implies making a concerted effort to avoid repeating the faux pas. So, given my track record of repeatedly missing Sunday posts, I feel the most respectable and realistic thing to do at this point is to vow to you, the faithful few (possibly fewer given the nearly 2 month long lapse in posting) that I will put my all into the posts that I do write. So, here it goes...!

September came and went leaving so much in her wake. Last month began with a trip to South Florida to join my big fun Italian family in celebrating my grandmother's 80th birthday. No wait! Actually, last month began with my completion of my doctoral degree requirements! On September 1, I completed the final requirement (a year long internship) and earned my Ph.D. THEN Ian and I went to Florida for a 3 day celebration of Grandma's birth and the 6 children, 10 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren that followed (plus spouses and countless granddogs).

When the last party died down leaving The Haags (actually only one of us) with one soaking wet wallet, a broken camera (status post a swim in the Intracoastal), the kind of sunburn you can only afford to get once in a lifetime, bruises resulting from extreme tambourine playing (don't ask), and one hangover with a side of regret...we packd our bags and loaded up Gramma's Explorer for our Key West adventure.  (It was probably in everyone's best interest that we left the scene at that point anyway).  Actually, when Ian and I began making plans to go to Florida for Gramma's birthday, we decided that we would extend the trip to include Key West as a kind of first anniversary gift to one another.  We were there for a couple of days and had an amazing time filled with fantastic food and drink, adventures on a rental scooter, six-toed cat sightings, and the list goes on. 

(Do any of you notice a pattern in the pictures Ian and I take?)

So, with full bellies and peeling backs the Doctors Haag returned the Explorer to Rita Rentacar and spent some quality time with the proprietor before we made our way to the Ft. Lauderdale airport. 

It seemed that while we were tanning our hides in Florida, the summer had set on Albany and autumn had arrived.  Ian and I needed to turn the heat on when we got in the car at the airport!  Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.  Although autumn is my favorite season, I like it best when it comes when I'm ready for it.  Is that so much to ask? 

Once we got home, I had about 48 hours to regroup and repack for the week-long road trip to North Carolina that I planned at the last minute.  Thankfull, my little southern stint afforded me another week of summer-like weather before having to truly face the reality of the impending Albany winter that follows the beauty of fall.  So, Abby and I loaded up in the car and left Ian to be a bachelor of sorts once more.  Tune in to the next post to see what happens....!