Joy to the Kitchen

Wow, it's been a long time since I've been here. I am pleased to announce that my semester is officially over. It was a whirlwind, but all is done and there is a calm after the storm. The papers are done, the practicum is done, and my Christmas shopping is actually all done too! Hopefully I'm feeling this good when grades come in in a few weeks, but I think everything will be alright.

Today is actually my One Year Anniversary! Without getting too sentimental or saccharine, I can say that this year has really been just the greatest. I positively love being married. People told us a variety of things about what to expect for the first year, some saying that it would be great and others saying that it would be a hard transition. Joy and I both agree that our transition has been pretty simple and really, quite enjoyable. I think what I like the most is that it's just so much stinkin fun. We laugh all the time, usually at ourselves and each other. For our anniversary, we're going out for lunch with Joy's family today and then we're gonna make dinner together (with meat from the HBB: Horner's Butcher Block!), open a bottle of champagne, and watch our wedding video. On Tuesday, we're celebrating our anniversary by going into Chicago to go ice skating, go out to dinner, and go the opera. Romeo e Juliette by Gounod at the Chicago Lyric. It will be great. We're staying downtown and then plan on spending some time in the city shopping and stuff on Wednesday. We're pretty excited. Perhaps I'll get back to my blog a little more often and put up some pics from the week sometime soon.

Well, the point of this post was to let you know that Joy and I met a celebrity cook last night: Rachael Ray. In our first months of marriage, Joy and I quickly discovered the Foot Network and attached on like leeches to blood. We cooked, we wrote down recipes, and we even began planning for our own cooking shows. We've got some good ideas going. So Joy immediately loved Rachael Ray, and actually, became a master of some of her 30-minute meals. My wife is a dang good cook, largely thanks to Rachael, bless her. When I heard on the radio of Friday afternoon that Rachael was going to be doing a signing at a nearby Barnes and Noble the next day, you better believe I called Joy immediately and our Saturday night plans changed.

We arrived at the B&N at about 5:30; Rachael was scheduled from 6-8. There were already hundreds of people standing around in a line on both levels of the store. We got in line and got our number: 257. They stopped giving out numbers at 300, but we got ours. Once you had a number, though, you could leave and then come back, so Joy and I watched Rachael come out to her masses and then we went to do some shopping. We jumped back in line an hour or so later and only had to wait about 20 minutes before we were able to meet Ms. Ray. Well, you may remember my disaster when meeting Ms. Renee Fleming, but I was much more cool about meeting Rachael. Joy, on the other hand, was not. At one point, she was shaking and jumping and when I grabbed her hands to get her to calm down, they were sopping wet and sickingly fish-like. I laughed and laughed.

Rachael herself was perfectly pleasant, laughing and chatting with the peeps. I was hoping she would comment on my Williams & Sonoma bag (with my pasta roller since Joy and I are working on making our own raviolis!), but she didn't. We did get a picture, which is quite good. We left in a frenzy and Joy smiled as if she had just run in to her long-lost best friend (which is how she often describes her relationship, or lack there-of, with Rachael Ray). As we left the Barnes & Noble, we opened the book she had signed, and there it was; Rachael had signed "Joy to the Kitchen." Joy smiled even bigger. Perhaps I'll tell you someday about the time I met Ryan Seacrest.

Rachael Ray and the Beckers