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I don’t know if it was the two years we spent in a country without anything resembling Mexican food except in looks, but when we returned to Missouri, Rob surprised me by craving Mexican food.  I didn’t hesitate and ask, “Why, all of a sudden, do you like Mexican food?” I just hopped in the car and directed him to my favorite place, Cielito Lindo.

Since that day, we’ve been trying every Mexican restaurant we can find in Springfield (our favorite is El Sombrero by the Super Dillons at Kansas Expy. and Battlefield), but we love making our own food at home. Here’s what we had for dinner tonight.

Appetizers: Southwest Salsa Rice Bites; Chips and salsa with queso
Main: Tacos with home-made flour tortilla

Recipes below!

Southwest Salsa Rice Bites

Source: recipe kiosk at Bistro Market
Servings: 8
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

3 c. cooked brown rice, cooled
1 c. shredded Pepper Jack cheese
4 eggs
1 can (16 oz) chunky salsa*
1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
3/4 c. crushed corn tortilla chips
additional salsa and sour cream for garnish (optional)
* We made the salsa ourselves too, with tomatoes from our own garden!

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine rice and cheese in large bowl; set aside. In medium bowl, beat eggs until well blended. Stir in salsa, sour cream, salt, and pepper. Add salsa mixture to rice and cheese; mix well. Spray miniature muffin pans with vegetable cooking spray. Spoon approximately 1 1/2 Tbsp. rice mixture into each cup, filing to just below the rim. Sprinkle crushed chips over filling, pressing slightly with back of spoon. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve warm with additional salsa and sour cream, if desired. Serve as an appetizer or along with chicken fajitas for a complete meal.

Tomato Salsa

Source: Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook*
Makes: 3 1/2 cups
Prep time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

3 lg. tomatoes, seeded and chopped (3 cups)
1 sm. green bell pepper, chopped (1/2 cup)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 c. sliced green onions (5 medium)
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp. finely chopped jalapeno chilies
2 to 3 Tbsp. lime juice
1/2 tsp. salt

Preparation

Mix all ingredients in glass or plastic bowl. Cover and refrigerate until serving. Serve with tortilla chips, crackers, vegetables, fish, chicken.

A word on tortilla chips. As we’ve been trying Mexican restaurants, we always evaluate three important elements: chips, salsa, and queso. Our favorite chips by far were at our least favorite restaurant, so we were happy to discover chips at Price Cutter that are exactly like those thin, crispy, light tortilla chips. They are in a brown paper bag and called Xochitl (so’ cheel), They’ re nearly $5 for 16 ounces, but they are pure, only four ingredients–stone ground corn, water, lime, and oil–plus have no preservatives, trans fats, or gluten. They might not be your favorites, but they’re definitely ours!

Queso Blanco Mexican White Cheese Dip

Source: Food.com
Because of copyright issues, please click the link above to see the recipe. We followed the directions exactly, except that we kept the pan on low and stirred often, instead of using a double boiler. We used asadero cheese.

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Source: Rockin Robin’s Cooking Mexican Recipes
Because of copyright issues, please click the link above to see the recipe. Be sure to start these at least an hour in advance. The dough has to rest and you’ll need to roll out the tortillas.

* Elizabeth told me about this cookbook a long time ago, and it is still my absolute favorite and the cookbook I turn to first whenever I have any question about cooking or need a good recipe. I’m going to be reviewing it soon, but in the meantime, here is the version I have, and I think this is the new version, although I’m not sure.

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100 Things About Me

1. My right eyes waters. A lot.
2. I have had two surgeries to fix this. Neither one worked.
3. This is one reason I don’t wear makeup very often.
4. The other is: I just don’t want to.
5. Ich wunsche dass ich könnte Deutsch wie ein Deutscher sprechen.
6. I love having my toenails painted passion red.
7. I like my nose.
8. But only from the front; I think profile gives me a huge honker.
9. I love scary movies.
10. . . . which has made me afraid of the dark and/or given me a wild imagination.
11. . . . but I don’t really mind getting freaked out when I’m home alone. It’s an adrenaline rush of sorts. Some people jump out of planes, I make spooks and boogeymen out of creaks and knocks.
12. My favorite letter is K.
13. I’m also deferential to a’s and g’s since I changed the way I write them:
14. My favorite part of speech is the verb.
15. It doesn’t bother me one iota how nerdy that is.
16. My favorite pen is the Uni-ball Vision.
17. When I see others using that pen, I know we’re kindred spirits.
18. I test the clickiness of pens before buying retractables, when possible. If the sound and resistance of the clicker do not please me, I won’t buy it.
19. Sometimes I can’t stop saying “Gabourey Sidibe” over and over in my head. I love the rhythm of her name, I think.
20. Rob and I have six perfect kids’ names picked out, three boy names and three girls names.
21. We won’t use them all.
22. And no, I won’t tell you what they are. We’re keeping them a secret.
23. is my favorite number.
24. Well, 10.23 is, but I have adopted just 23 for brevity’s sake.
25. If you know why 23 is my favorite number, we must be good friends.
26. I also like squares, 16 and 49 being my other favorites.
27. I remember medium-length number strings (think phone numbers and birthdays / dates) very easily.
28. I can type 70 to 80 WPM.
29. I attribute this to 10 years of playing the piano.
30. . . . and lots of Mavis Beacon as a nerdy teenager.
31. Speaking of nerdy, my best friend and I spent our junior and senior high school years playing all sorts of card games, eating Cheez-its, and listening to the Beatles.
32. Sometimes we’d play Monopoly, just to switch things up a bit.
33. She’s the reason I started running.
34. I was never an athlete in school.
35. In fact, I had to go to the nurse’s office and the the doctor’s office after running a mile in PE class one day my junior year.
36. If I hadn’t paced off a cross country runner, I might have been okay.
37. Since January 2007, I’ve run several 5- and 10ks, 2 (utterly horrid) half marathons, and one marathon.
38. I ran my first half mary 14 days after moving to Gießen.
39. I was lapped by several Nordic walkers.
40. That totally killed my mental endurance.
41. I ran my second in Joplin this past June on the hottest day of the summer to that point.
42. My running partner was 16 weeks pregnant at the time. She was pushing me.
43. I am very greatful for that.
44. I practically swam in the horse-trough ice bath afterward. It felt great.
45. The first half of my marathon was just over an hour faster than the Joplin half.
46. . . .and I followed that PR by running the second half!
47. This bothers me, so I am determined to dominate a half mary one of these days.
48. . . . but it won’t be on any of the 30 days in June (or July or August, for that matter).
49. I ran my marathon in Berlin, and I loved it.
50. . . . so much that I got the Brandenburger Tor tattooed on my left wrist as a reminder if what I have and can accomplish.
51. I’m going to add “marathon runner” in red and in Greek to it later this year, on the 4,500th anniversary of the first marathon ever run.
52. I like symbolism.
53. I also like lists.
54. . . . and sleeping in a cold room. If I could afford it, I’d keep my bedroom right around 63F/17C.
55. I like being all snuggled under my nice down-alternative blanket.
56. Germany changed me.
57. Before we moved back home, I was very afraid that none of my old friends (or family, for that matter) would like the new Linden.
58. . . . but they still do, apparently!
59. So anyway, Germany proved to me how easy green living can be.
60. . . . and it frustrates me how hard it is in the States.
61. Even the country road we’d run on in Gießen had a nice, wide sidewalk. Here, I can’t walk the shortest route to Walmart because there are no sidewalks and it’s a busy, 4-lane road.
62. Stores encourage shoppers to bring their own bags instead of just eating the cost of plastic bags.
63. Sorting trash is mandatory and that is supported in every public place, like on the train platforms and in malls.
64. Living there for two years convinced me that what I had believed since my first European trip at age 15—that a part of Me is German—is true.
65. On top of that, living somewhere is to leave a piece of you (not dissimilar to a Horcrux) there. I miss Gießen, Schönow, and Berlin terribly some days.
66. I fell in love with Rome while we were there for Holy Week 2009.
67. I also fell in love with Gelato. We ate as much of it while we were there as possible.
68. I also fell in love with Roman churches, which are on every corner (worse than Springfield, I swear!)
69. I really got hooked by soccer. During the season (August to May), there’s a game every weekend day, and often during the week as well (we follow the Bundesliga, Premier League, and the UEFA championships/cups).
70. Nothing beats live soccer when you can hear the fans’ cheers!
71. I have a two-year hole in my already shoddy American culture knowledge; if It was popular anytime from September 2007 through September 2009, I probably don’t know about It.
72. This does nit bother me, but it has made for some embarrassing conversations, (“How do you not know about THAT?!”), but also saved me from a few interesting characters (Lady Gaga, anyone? I barely know who she is, thank goodness).
73. I have a phobia of talking on the phone.
74. It’s stupid, I know, and I’m working through it, but I still prefer SMSs or email/Facebook/Twitter.
75. Some of my best friends share this phobia or have a general dislike of phone convos. I’m convinced that this is one reason we’re such good buddies.
76. I’m working on a novel right now.
77. It’s a weird one. We’ll see if it ever (a) gets finished and (b) gets published. I don’t have any illusions about the likelihood of (b), but (a) will happen.
78. I understand how truly blessed I am to have the good friends that I do. I try to never take that for granted, but I often fail, I think.
79. I have secrets.
80. Some of them are in this list, but some are not.
81. Listening to certain types of music (classical and jazz), along with certain meaningful songs, is a religious experience for me.
82. I believe that “different” shouldn’t mean “bad”; it should just mean “different.”
83. I don’t like talking about my political or religious beliefs because too many people let those topics be too divisive.
84. Chocolate and peanut butter is my favorite flavor combination.
85. I love the smells of bacon, leather, Aspen cologne, and this one particular type of men’s deodorant.
86. I am a very deep sleeper, and I think that’s the way to go.
87. I can pretty much sleep anywhere, especially (but not only) when I’m really tired.
88. Throughout my high school years, I never ate in the cafeteria. My friends and I ate in the band room, outside, or in the classroom.
89. I think I did that because the cafeteria always stressed me out. Maybe I don’t like large groups of people chattering all around me when I’m eating.
90. I really, really hate ticks. They disgust me.
91. Sometimes I’m convinced that I’m a pretty big failure.
92. . . . but usually something will happen to remind that I’m not that bad and I can do things right every once in a while, that I do have some useful skills.
93. I don’t like pulpy OJ.
94. . . . or stringy bananas.
95. I have a hard time remembering how to spell these words: definitely, bureaucracy, recommend, and words ending in -ance/-ence.
96. However, I can usually feel that a spelling is wrong, rather than know it.
97. I used to have the paragraph on the front of the Absolut vodka bottle memorized.
98. My closet is organized by color within seasons and then dressy / casual.
99. I usually sleep on my right side.
100. I am left-handed.

So there you go. Now it’s your turn! Go write 100 things about yourself down. You don’t have to share the on your blog, but I bet you’ll find the experience as refreshing and fun as I did.

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Many ladies in the book club enjoyed this story, which deals heavily–and a bit too heavy-handedly, in my opinion–with the issues of self-image and environmental economy. Fifteen-year-old Tally, the protagonist, travels to the Rusty Ruins, a dinosaur field of sorts from the time when humans relied on dirty fuel-burning transportation and stayed ugly their entire lives. In the end, Tally’s eyes are opened to the realities of the pretty surgeries and she must make a choice.

The plot was compelling, but I didn’t find myself identifying with the self-image issues the uglies feel. Oh, I have self-image issues, but their “solution” (1) isn’t possible for me (unless I want to look like poor Jocelyn Wildenstein) and (2) it isn’t really a solution. I am pretty sure that Westerfeld isn’t actually condoning pretty surgeries, but without reading the rest of the series, readers cannot be sure what he is actually condoning. I support magic Shallow Hal glasses or something.

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Now that both America’s and England’s Summermärchen are over (and Germany is through to the quarter finals!!!), I think some inspiring World Cup design might lift losing spirits (unless you’re rooting for Germany, in which case, party in the streets!!!).

[image source]

In her Weekly Reader: World Cup Edition, Lorraine shared a great article on World Cup iPhone apps ;), a history of the World Cup logos (I like Mexico 1970 and 1986, and Italy 1990; totally disagree with the author about the Germany 2006 logo), a very German World Cup guidebook, and a beautiful bracket tracker.

In closing… AUF GEHT’S DEUTSCHLAND, SCHIESS EIN TOOOOOOR!!!

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I’ve been recording quotations from it, and there is one that I read last night that perfectly describes a sensation I’ve experienced before in my life but never tried to shroud in words, and I just have to share it here in my pensieve.

Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleetingly, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity has come to enrich time. Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed up in turn–and in all this sound and fury, amidst eruptions and undertows, while the world goes its merry way, bursts into flames, tears itself apart and is reborn: human life continues to throb. (91)

Have you ever experienced this?

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It was very hot and very humid. Some clouds and wind made the third 5k to the end bearable, along with the aid stations with lots of water and ice. One even had a high-powered mister, and another had water spraying from a hose. It was awesome.

We had a great cheering squad! My mom and Sarah’s husband, Chris, followed us around Joplin and they met up with us several times throughout the race, ringing cowbells, yelling, blowing an air horn, and waving signs. Nothing helps power a tired, hot runner forward more than cheers. Remember this if you ever attend / happen upon a race. Cheer nonstop. We need it, and we love you for it.

Finally, Sarah. When I wanted to stop, she said, “Not until that stoplight.” When I asked her if she would quit or keep running if I dropped out, she hesitated, and said, “It doesn’t matter because quitting isn’t an option. You will finish this race.” And I did because of her.

I would be remiss to ignore the excellent organization of the Boomtown Run Half Marathon. I definitely recommend this race (and would all the more so if it weren’t so hot) because of how well the entire event was put together. Registration was smooth. The course had plenty of aid stations, lots of medical support, and they reacted to or had already planned for the forecasted heat. Which I am very glad about; wouldn’t want another Chicago. My favorite part of the race support? I have to choose three experiences. (1) A volunteer named June at about mile 10.4 (just before the course turned south into Schifferdecker Park) who cheered and cheered and cheered! It was so uplifting! (2) The swag! We got a technical jersey at packet pick-up and a sweet medal and technical race hat at the finish line. That’s the best swag I’ve ever received in a race! (3) Ice tubs at the post-race party. See picture below. Very very cold, but I love the restorative effects of an ice bath on sort muscles and joints!

And that’s about all the nice things I can say about the Boomtown Run, no discredit to the organizers, only to the frickin’ weather. :) I’m starting to think I’m not made for half-marathons. *sigh*

If you want to see the rest of the pictures Chris took during the race, click here.

UPDATE! I was just about to publish this post when I found out that out of about 850 people who started, 400 DNFed. Wow. That makes me feel a LOT better about how poorly we did.

Update #2: I have to correct the information above. There were 850 total runners in both the half marathon and the 5k. Of that, 290 were 5k runners and 443 were half-marathon finishers. That means there were 117 DNFers, not 400. Still, that is 26% of the entrants who did did not complete the race. Even if 30 of those did not even start the race, that leaves 20% who DNFed. So I still feel good about crossing that finish line, even if it took me way too long.

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What’s the best way to follow your favorite team? Or at least to stay in-the-know so you’ll have something to discuss with your footy-obsessed friends between June 11 and July 11? With an iPhone app, of course! But which one? Here are my recommendations, for everyone from serious Fußball fans with office pool standings to keep track of, to soccer fans who want to know what’s going on. I’ve even included an embarrassing entry in the World Cup iPhone arena.

Best All-in-One App:  ESPN2010 FIFA World Cup

I have a feeling that this strong, well-balanced app from sports behemoth ESPN will be my go-to app for World Cup 2010.The app is free, but to get all sorts of cool options, like live audio, play-by-play commentary, and alerts for all 64 matches, you have to buy the World Cup Premium Package for $7.99. I don’t know that I’ll pay 8 bucks (!) for those features. They do sound nice, but for 8 clams? Hmm. We’ll see.

Unlike a couple other World Cup apps (who shall, for now, remain nameless), ESPN’s news section stays current (nice feature, right?), and this is an absolute must-have for a sports event with up to three games a day during the group stage.

There is a small news ticker along the bottom of the app, but unlike the Fox Soccer Channel app (honorable mention, below), it is minimalist and well-designed. It doesn’t detract from the main function of the app, which is to share World Cup info.

This app also features your chosen favorite teams front and center. (In case you’re wondering, mine are, in no particular order, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, and Brazil.)

In the spinner below your favorites is where all of the other useful information is located, including Scores & Schedule, News, Video, Tables, Stats, and Teams. All of this information is just a finger slide away. Great design.

Best True Footy Fan App: World Football Tracker

Warning: This $0.99 app is for serious fand only! Or for people who really like entering numbers into boxes.

This app lets you plug in your predictions for every game, then figures group stage tables. Based on group stage scores entered (and maybe on world standings, which can be updated with a single click from the Options menu), it predicts round of 16, quarter finals, semi-finals, and final stage face-offs! Rob and I usually make predictions and compete for highest score (3 points for a spot-on correct prediction, 2 points for the right spread, or 1 point for correctly identifying the winner), so this will really help me to see the effects of my predictions and adjust as necessary. Shh, don’t tell him my secret.

But the app isn’t just useful for score predictions. It shows the time, date, and location of every match, includes a knockout table, and lets you choose a favorite team (although I can’t quite figure out how to do that, and there aren’t instructions in the Help section).

For a buck, it’s a great app for serious footy fans.

Best Year-Round App: iFooty (and iFooty Plus for $2.99)

This is the soccer app that I use year round, and even though I can’t see any World Cup-related stats yet because the app displays results and game breakdowns, I am sure that it will be as useful during the World Cup as it was for checking Champions League, Premiere League, Bundesliga, La Liga, or whichever world league(s) you want to follow. It offers push notifications for any teams you specify. As a fan who just can’t watch all the games I want to live, I really love this feature.

Honorable Mention: Fox Soccer Channel

Wow. This one was disappointing. While it supplies the basic, expected features, like displaying group tables and team information (in a style that I found overly difficult to navigate), the news ticker is flashy and distracting, news items were almost two months old, and the gallery images? There are some “fun” galleries, like World Cup of Hair and Hunky Soccer Players Gallery. The captions in this one sound like they were written by a dude whose women told him which players were hot but not why. Now, I am not one to disagree with anyone who says soccer players are hot. But I think serious commentary is expected. I get the impression that some of these galleries were created ahead of June 11 just fill out the gallery section.  They are entertaining, that’s for sure, but junk food when I’m looking for meat and potatoes. Check out the hormonal captions Fox Soccer Channel subjects users to.

Have another great soccer app? Share it in the comments! If you feel like writing about it, email it to lam (at) lindenamueller.com; I’d love to feature it as a guest post!

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Instead, I found a tale about a sometimes wiser-than-her-years, sometimes naive teenager who lived in a beautiful world muddled by thick, stumbling prose, often distracting in its put-on complexity. To be fair, there were shining gems of sentences that captured the beauty of winter in the Ozarks, the misfortune of living in an island of interrelated meth families, and the chill isolation experienced by a teenager thrust into the role of parent, caregiver, and bounty hunter.

Unfortunately, the book ends up, for me, being a flat, family feud of a story that doesn’t tell the story of what it’s like for most people who are close to a meth addict (trust me). Instead it follows a daughter around who is searching for her dad among doors-close-in-your-face communities. That’s it.

To be fair, many of the ladies in my book club loved the book, so follow Levar Burton’s advice: you don’t have to take my word for it.

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Throughout the entire book, it seemed to me that none of the characters took the war seriously. Some were busy scheming and getting rich (Milo Minderbinder, “What’s good for M&M Enterprises is good for the country”). Others were trying to understand why they were being tormented by other bombardiers or their officers (poor Chaplain Tappman was constantly being challenged and undermined by his atheist assistant; Captain Flume was certain that Chief White Halfoat would slit his throat in the middle of the night). Some were falling in love with whores in Rome (Natley’s girlfriend plays a pivotal role in the ending). The book is filled with adventure after dizzying adventure, and many of them epitomize “catch-22.”

I really enjoyed this book, although I think it would be difficult to follow if you read the paper book. I listened to it in audiobook format, and the reader gave each character his own voice. It is an excellent production, and I definitely recommend checking this one out as an audiobook.

Currently Reading

Well, I’ve juggled several books in the last couple months, partially because I started reading Der Vorleser auf deutsch, which is hard for me. So I needed a book that I could read and really relax instead of feeling like I was working. Here’s what I’m reading right now.

• Der Vorleser
• Dancing on My Ashes
• The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Going Rogue

I’m going to focus on the first two before I continue with the second two. Oh! I read Winter’s Bone with the book club I’ve joined, so I’ll be writing a blog post about that soon. Preview: I was not impressed, but many of the other ladies in the book club loved it.

Follow my progress in detail here.

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