Little Jenny Goddammit

In case anyone was wondering, the infamous toothpick incident occurred sometime between the taking of these two photos. It makes it funnier (to me at least) to see how little I was when I first started spewing profanities.

This is for Kelly

I went to a benefit with a silent auction this weekend, and this handsome fella was up for auction with a minimum bid $500. I did not bid on him, but I did bid on and win a purse and framed drawing. Woo-hoo!

Hey girl, wanna make some pizza?

Ever since I read the Orangette post where Molly spoke of her husband's obsession with pizza, I've been itching to make pizza myself. I found a recipe on Epicurious for pizza margherita, with a dough recipe from Pizzeria Bianco, which was mentioned in the Orangette post. I always pay attention to COINCIDENCES, so I knew this would be a good recipe to try for my first pizza-making venture.

I made a pizza date with Tyler so we could incorporate some time playing with his dog-sitting charge, Otto Skinner.


Stir together yeast, 1 tablespoon flour, and 1/4 cup warm water in a large bowl and let stand until surface appears creamy, about 5 minutes.

Add 1 1/4 cups flour, remaining 1/2 cup water, salt, and oil and stir until smooth.

Stir in enough flour (1/4 to 1/3 cup) for dough to begin to pull away from side of bowl. (Dough will be slightly wet.)

Pulse tomatoes with juice in a blender briefly to make a chunky purée.

Cook garlic in oil in a small heavy saucepan over medium-low heat until fragrant and pale golden, about 2 minutes. Add tomato purée, basil, sugar, and 1/8 teaspoon salt and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened and reduced to about 3/4 cup, about 40 minutes. Season with salt and cool.

Knead on a floured surface, lightly reflouring when dough becomes too sticky, until smooth, soft, and elastic, about 8 minutes. Note: This is really fun! I couldn't take any photos of me kneading because the dough was so sticky I didn't dare touch the camera.

Form into a ball, put in a bowl, and dust with flour. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, about 1 1/4 hours. Dough pre-rise.

Meanwhile, snack on Cheetos and a kalimotxo, then move the whole circus over to Otto Skinner's house.

Marvel at cuteness of Otto. Aww.

It has risen!

Do not punch down. Dust dough with flour, then transfer to a parchment-lined pizza peel or large baking sheet. Pat out dough evenly with your fingers and stretch into a 14-inch round, reflouring fingers if necessary. Thanks Tyler!

Spread sauce over dough, leaving a 1-inch border. Arrange cheese on top, leaving a 2- to 3-inch border. Again, thanks Tyler!

Play with Otto while pizza is baking. Notice that he smells kinda like tortillas. (This guy freaking loves me. He kept climbing into my lap, then wouldn't let me put him down for anything--he fought and fought and broke my necklace when I tried to put him down! I love him, though. He's adorable and sweeter than any other schnauzer I've ever met).

Slide pizza on parchment onto pizza stone. Bake until dough is crisp and browned and cheese is golden and bubbling in spots, 13 to 16 minutes. Using peel or baking sheet, transfer pizza to a cutting board. Cool 5 minutes. Sprinkle with some basil leaves before slicing.

Enjoy pizza with yummy Asian salad provided by Tyler. Continue snacking on pizza as you fart around on the internet looking at things like this, until pizza is completely gone!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been so busy the past few days and I'm not going to do anything for the rest of the day except watch TV. Yay! Here are some things to look at:
These whole fried shrimp came with my sushi roll the other day at Happy Fish. April told me I'm supposed to eat them, but I'm a little squeamish when there are eyes still on my food. Tyler poked one with a chopstick and became very alarmed because it was squishy.

I just got the album Youth Novels by adorable Swedish Singer Lykke Li. Everyone should listen to it, it's sooooo good. Here is a photo Tyler took of her at the Doug Fir in September or October. According to her website she's coming back to America for another tour in February. Yay!
I had breakfast with Baby Squirrel on Monday:
Here are some outfits:
Dress: Anthropologie (It was marked down to $50 from $100 because it had a broken button, but there was a replacement button sewn into the lining. Score!); hat: Urban Outfitters; boots: Urban Outfitters.
Dress: vintage; tights: Urban Outfitters; boots: Frye; belt: Target.
Dress: J. Crew; tights: Urban Outfitters; shoes: Frye.

I finally figured out how to style this crazy short haircut:
Happy Thanksgiving!

It came from my cell phone

I recently noticed that my cell phone has photos I've been saving for over a year. I don't know what I intended to do with them; some were taken to send to other people and some I took to amuse myself. I now share them with you, gentle readers:

1. These signs grace the interior of the newest parking garage at BSU. They were the first thing I noticed when the garage opened last fall. Can you spot the glaring typo? It really adds to the perception that BSU is not a very good school. The signs were fixed by spring semester; someone stuck a piece of white tape over the "D" on all of the signs. Go BSU!

2. I saw this public art the first day of spring semester '08. It stayed there for months. The Conservative Arts building may be the most decrepit building on campus, but I have many wonderful memories of taking classes there. Ah.

3. I don't know if this is the work of the same clever grafitti artist as the last one or not, but I found this on the outside of the geology labs. I'm not sure if it's an order, a suggestion, a comment on the busy-ness of grad life, or a description of the genderlessness of the Math and Geosciences building itself. Perhaps some meanie was making fun of the supposed lack of sex in the lives of math nerds...

4. The way this is abbreviated makes it look like it says "JC's lord." In that case, I guess it would mean that this car belongs to a lord and the person driving it is JC, who is a serf on said lord's manor. Or that JC worships his or her car, making the car itself JC's lord. Really, of course, what the license plate is saying is that Jemaine Clement is Lord.

5. When I first saw this at my friend's house, I thought it was a tube of acrylic paint. Not so! Even better, it's "a lubricant for the elimination and prevention of hair balls." And in tasty tuna flavor, at that! I love the fact that there is a comb next to it. I wondered if you comb it into kitty's hair, but that is not so according to the Laxatone website. Too bad; it's a funny image.

6. Notice the figure on the right of the window. I think it's supposed to be a ghost, but to me it really looks like a condom. The fact that he seems to be saying "Ooo!" rather than "Boo!" doesn't help.

7. This picture comes from a baby changing table in the restroom at Flying Pie Pizza. As my friend Ryan said, you know those damn babies: leave 'em alone for a second and they fall right on their heads. This baby appears to have a spring on his or her head, so hopefully he or she wasn't injured in this fall. On a slightly unrelated note, Ryan and I experienced a weird sort of synchronous coincidence. We watched an old episode of Star Trek at Ryan's before heading out to Flying Pie (a hilarious episode involving an evil woman/cat in which the redshirt actually didn't die and made it back onto the Enterprise). When we got to Flying Pie, their sign read "Pizza from a chain? Spock, are you out of your Vulcan mind?" Spooky.

Since you asked...

Here's the outfit I wore today. Sweater: Fred Meyer; Skirt: Target; Tights: Target; Shoes: Frye.

I don't know why my photos keep turning out so blurry. I'm going to have to mess with my camera to get that fixed. Bloody technology!

I'm going out for Halloween tonight, even though I have no idea what I'll be doing! I suspect hanging at the usual place will occur, but who knows? Hopefully dancing will be on the agenda at some point! I'm not sharing my costume right now; I'll save that for later when I have pics of me and my friend whose costume corresponds with mine. Instead, here are some photos from Halloweens past:


















I'll stop myself now, but I have soooooooooooooooooooo many more!

Unprecedented third post in one day: trees!

As my friend Heather discovered a year and a half ago when I went to visit her in Portland, I can be happy for hours with a camera and some trees.


Throw in a water feature, and it's basically a party for Jenny.
So imagine my delight when I realized that the pond by my condo is surrounded by golden-leaved trees. Inspired by these photos of an adorable blogger girl in a Norwegian Wood, I snapped some photos right before dinner. Here are some that look like they belong on a record sleeve from the '70's: