SUNDAY COOKING FOR WEEKDAY LUNCHES

I love to cook on Sundays.  I find that it's a great way to wind down from the weekend and also prepare for the week ahead.  I’ve gotten in the habit of bringing my lunch to work because if my food choice has already been made, I’m less likely to go out and eat something I shouldn’t, especially right now when I am really trying to watch everything I put in my mouth.

My mother is an eclectic chef and while she isn’t professionally trained, you would never know the difference.  Her food is amazing and will please any pallet: Southern, Spanish, Greek, etc.  My latest craving from her kitchen is a Tibeten soup packed with healthy ingredients.  It is filling, flavorful, low in fat and a perfect lunch in the middle of a freezing Colorado February.  It’s also incredibly easy to make.

She learned this recipe from a monk named Jamjung who was traveling through Oregon several years ago with about 15 other monks.  She hosted them at her home while they were touring the US and a fabulous friendship has since evolved.  She now knows a variety of Tibeten recipes and on occasion, does an incredible spread. 

Soup Ingredients:

½ - ¾ Lbs. Beef – preferably tri-tip

2 Tbs. Olive Oil

1 Large Onion

2 Cloves Garlic

1 ½ tbs Fresh Ginger

1 Large Jalapeno

1 Large Tomato

1 Bunch of Spinach

¾ Lbs. Daikon Radish

Salt & Pepper to taste

Heat ½ of the olive oil in a large stockpot.  Rough chop the onion, fine chop the garlic, ginger and jalapeno and put in the pot on a medium heat.  Sautee for about 10 minutes or until the onion turns clear.  Chop the tomato and beef into small cubes and add the tomato to the onion mix on the stove.    Let the vegetables cook together on medium heat for another 10 minutes.  Remove from pan.  In the empty pot add meat, generously salt and pepper and cook until browned.   Put the vegetables back in to the pot and stir in between 1-2 quarts of water.  Cover and simmer for 1 hour.  Add salt to taste.

While this is cooking, peel and slice the dakion radish and set aside.   Rinse spinach, remove stems and rough chop.  

After one hour, add daikon radish and continue to simmer.  

After a ½ hour, turn off the heat, add spinach and cover. 

Sibeh Topping

1 Large Tomato

1 Large Jalapeno

1/8 Cup Red Pepper Flakes

2 Cloves Garlic

1 Cup water

1 Bunch Cilantro

Now for the best part.  Sibeh is a topping – similar to a dipping sauce.  Place chopped tomato, chopped jalapeno, red pepper flakes, garlic and water in a food processor.   

Top with cilantro (stems removed).  

Blend for about a minute or until smooth.

To serve, put soup into a bowl and top with Sibeh and a few sprigs of Cilantro.  The Sibeh is pretty spicy, so use in moderation.  My mother reminded me that the Tibetens would include fettuccine pasta but since I’m trying to avoid carbs, I leave this out J  

Enjoy!

DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS

Jimmy has an obsession with the University of Kentucky Wildcats.  He is one of those fans who paces, yells, pumps his fist multiple times in the air, reads recruitment blogs and watches games on a laptop mini screen when they aren’t televised in Colorado.  His heart pounds so fast, I’m sometimes worried it might stop completely.  Basketball is his thing and while it can get a bit excessive, I’m happy to step aside and watch him enjoy it.  When I found Garters by Kristi on Etsy, I not only found my garter, but also my something blue! 

Kristi makes sports themed garters for every team you could imagine.  The U of K version has a little gold basketball in the center and while a bit tacky and totally over the top, perfect for the die-hard in my life.  Kristi provides two, one for tossing and one to keep.  Though I’m not sure Jimmy will allow whoever the lucky guy is to catch it, keep it.  He’s devoted. 

I love personalizing the must-haves in our wedding.  Tradition is important to me and throwing in twists here and there to make it representative of us has allowed for many “A-Ha!” moments. 

Kristi's garters can be found at: www.gartersbykristi.com 

SAVE THE DATES

Steve Cyborski is a total genius in my humble opinion.  His artwork is inspired, unique and has a flair of vintage design.  His objective?  To provide aesthetically sound and functional creations which execute each client’s purpose.  I love it.  Steve lives in Lake Tahoe and worked with Jimmy and I at the Lake Tahoe Brewing Company.  Originally from Chicago, he relocated to the North Shore and has been there ever since. 

I knew I wanted to use an engagement photo for our Save-The-Date and for them be in the form of a postcard.  I spent a lot of time on Etsy looking through various shops and drew my inspiration from Beyond Design.  I immediately thought of Steve to create and print these.  I emailed him two of our engagement photos and what I got back was perfection.  I was so excited to mail these out, I literally sat on the living room floor the day after his box arrived and hand addressed all of them.  I took several mini breaks for some hand massages from Jimmy and I’m pretty sure I still have a sharpie indention on my right hand.   This was really the first big thing I had done for the wedding and I felt that planning was underway.  I was thrilled.

Check out Steve's website at: www.allyancedesign.com

PHOTOGRAPHER? CHECK!

I discovered the Style Me Pretty website almost the second we got engaged, which has an abundance of wedding information.  I found a directory called The Little Black Book, which was able to guide me towards the best wedding vendors in Colorado.  At the time, this website was really my saving grace.  I wasn’t super familiar with Colorado, having only lived here for a year and this helped narrow down who I wanted to meet with.   First up?  Photographer.  I scoured websites and blogs for HOURS.  It drove Jimmy absolutely crazy because half the time I was in tears at the beauty of these captured moments.  Happy tears of course, but this was obviously an emotional period for me!   Two months and four meetings later (I cheated), I was ecstatic to find Julie Afflerbaugh. 

Based out of Boulder, Julie has an infectious smile and an extremely warm personality.  She has the ability to make you feel completely at ease in her presence.  Her style?  Artistic and spontaneous.   "The energy in my photographs comes from the relationship I build with my clients.  Because we have fun and grow comfortable with each other, the photographs are more natural and real."

This shines through in her work because she makes clients feel at ease, obviously making for better shots.  She is incredibly talented and I’m so excited to have her photograph our wedding!  We met Julie in Vail almost a year before our wedding day to take engagement pictures.  The weather was perfect and even Jimmy enjoyed himself!  We had a blast.

Check out Julie's website at: www.julieafflerbaugh.com

DESTINATION WEDDINGS

The thing about having a destination wedding is that its highly unlikely guests will know anything about the area they are traveling to.  It’s really the bride and groom’s responsibility to provide as much information up front so people who are attending can make educated decisions on how to spend their time.  For many, this might be their one vacation of the year so you want to make it as easy as possible.  This requires some extra thinking and planning but your guests will be very appreciative in the long run. 

In our case, many people have never even been to Colorado so I wanted them to have a resource they could check out when questions came up.  A website is the best way to do this because you can house all the information in one place and continually encourage guests to refer back to the site rather than playing travel agent. 

Our website has the basics: how we met, the proposal story, etc.  but I also include transportation information from Denver International Airport, directions to/from our ceremony and reception location along with details about weekend events.  I added several links to Vail specific sites so guests can plan their trip without having to do a whole lot of extra research.  

We decided to for-go traditional programs in an effort to save money and be more environmentally friendly.  Our website has photos of the wedding party and information about our relationship to each person.   We also added pictures and stories about our parents, which was a great way to personalize the site and accredit them for all they have done for us.

Website options are endless.  After much research, I decided to go with Wedsite because the templates were like nothing I’ve seen before and I loved the layout.  Some other favorites include: Wedding Paper Diva’s and Wedding Jo Jo.  But really, there are SO many to choose from, a majority of which are free!

Check out www.wedsite.com , www.weddingjojo.com and www.weddingpaperdivas.com 

PERFECT LITTLE THINGS

For me, a wedding color pallet screams bridesmaid dresses.   I have worn my fair share of these poofy little numbers so I decided from the get-go that I would choose from J.Crew.  The appealing thing about going this route is there are a number of different styles to select within each fabric category so each lady has the option to pick what would look best on her body type: strapless, halter or straps.  The not-so-appealing part is that there are only eight stores across the entire US where you can try on actual samples.

I worked with one of J.Crew’s wedding specialists and requested a fabric swatch of almost each color, from each line.  She finally had to cut me off but I felt like I had a good foundation to start. J One of the things I tried to keep in mind was my setting.  I am getting married in the mountains, in spring so I wanted to make sure whatever I chose would compliment our surroundings.  I must have changed my mind 18 times but after driving myself crazy, I finally I sat down and wrote the email to my girls.  And I even hit send. 

I decided to go with graphite and light chartreuse silk chiffon dresses because I thought the contrast would be fun and the bouquets would end up tying everything together.  The yellow is pretty bright - so bright that I almost had the girls return them - but in the end I stuck with my gut, as every bride should do.  The best asset, according to my future sister-in-law, is that the Juliet dress (shown in light chartreuse) has pockets!  

Up next?  The bridesmaid gift.  I have 8 bridesmaids and they are comprised of a really amazing group of women, which meant I wanted to do something extra special.  I scoured Etsy looking for the perfect accessory, saving nearly 100 favorites to my account.   I was searching for something that would accent the colors and bring them together even when bouquets weren’t there to do so.  Featured on Style Me Pretty, I found Amanda at Untamed Petals.   She had made headbands for this absolutely GORGEOUS wedding and I knew instantly that was what I wanted.  Headbands were a little risky but if she could somehow turn these flowery bits of heaven into a belt, I was sold.  SHE DID and I’m now anxiously awaiting their arrival!  I sent her color swatches of each tone (my favorite benefit to J.Crew) so she could match the fabric and use both.  I’m so excited!  Finding that perfect thing is always such a relief!
And seriously... aren't they beautiful?!

Check out Amanda's blog at: www.untamedpetals.blogspot.com and her Etsy shop: Untamed Petals.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Jimmy and I knew we had to get married in the mountains, mainly because we met in Lake Tahoe and wanted to incorporate that history into our wedding day.  We briefly toyed with the idea of Kentucky or Lake Tahoe but decided that Colorado was a central location and since our guests were literally coming from coast to coast, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains would best suit us.  We took to I-70 on a Saturday morning in February with a map and a list of locations.  After a quick stop at our local coffee shop, we were on our way and 3 hours later we had found our dream location.

Donovan Pavilion is owned by the city of Vail and has an undeniable charm.  This mountain lodge sits on the West end of town and allows clients to bring in all their own vendors – a great way to save some $$.  We wanted a site that could host both the ceremony and reception and we were also looking to really showcase the scenery.  Vail creek runs past the back patio so guests can hear the sound of water when they are outside.  There is also a huge fire pit, creating fabulous mountain ambiance.  Our minds were instantly set!

Once a location is determined, brides are really able to start planning.  For me, the venue made all the difference as I could picture set-up, colors that would be prominent in May and core elements I wanted to include.   It was such a relief to finally start narrowing down my ideas!

THE BEGINNING

When we first got engaged, I was totally overwhelmed.  Jimmy proposed to me on the beach in Cabo San Lucas, the day before New Years Eve - which happens to be my favorite holiday and the mark of two years (officially) together.  It was an amazing vacation but reality hit hard on our way back to Denver on January 4th.  The flight was flawless - the ladies from The Hills happened to be on our plane so Jimmy's head kept bobbing up, down and sideways to get a glimpse.  This stalking from afar kept him occupied for the majority of the flight duration. 

We landed in Dallas, TX and had approximately 2 hours to kill before boarding again.  After wandering around the airport for a bit, I found myself standing in an airport kiosk looking at bridal magazines.  I burst into tears!  Because this isn’t completely out of the norm, Jimmy looked at me with bewilderment (as he usually does when this happens), gave me a hug and proceeded to take each magazine from the shelf and walked up to the cash register.  Love him!

My initial thought process was a complete cluster.  I had a million and a half ideas, themes and color schemes but no real direction.  So I started to read – magazines, blogs, vendor websites - anything I could get my hands on.  My mind started to clear and I was back to being an excited wedding planner / bride-to-be.

After scouring through pages and pages of magazines, one of the most helpful tips I learned was to meet with three vendors in each category (categories include: photographer, coordinator, caterer, etc).  No more, no less.  This encourages a thoughtful selection process without wasting time and to avoid being super stressed.  Be prepared when going to these meetings - you have already done your research so think about what you are looking for.  Bring photos, talk about your likes/dislikes and try to have as much decided as possible.  For instance, if you are meeting with a photographer, know what pricing package you would select (available through most websites), and discuss a potential timeline for the day-of.  Photographer blogs are a fantastic way to see a portfolio of their work.  Happy reading!

THE STORY

Before diving into my wedding planning extravaganza, since that is essentially my inspiration for writing in the first place, I wanted to tell the story of how Jimmy and I met.  I think it’s fun to hear all about the projects and process, but to bring the people to life is just as important.

In 2002 I moved to the North Shore of Lake Tahoe during the last semester of my senior year in college.  I attended California State University, Chico so being there was about 3 ½ hours from all my friends in Chico and 6 hours from my hometown of Ashland, OR.  I had to complete an internship and figured Tahoe was the perfect place to do so…if you’ve ever been there, this is a no-brainer.  About a year after I settled in, I met Jimmy.  I had started bartending and doing internal PR at the Lake Tahoe Brewing Company and absolutely loved it.  I was 23 years old and spent my days skiing or laying out depending on the season and had surrounded myself with an incredible group of friends.  It was heaven. 

I had been given the Sunday night bar shift, which in November was usually very mellow with the local crowd dazily coming in and out– and after a Saturday night, it was a perfect way to end my weekend.  Around 9PM my girlfriend Sam showed up with about 6 guys in tow, one of which was Jimmy.  He was tall, blonde, outgoing (very cute) and instantly told me to turn off my favorite Dave Mathews CD because “my head is going to explode…his music is terrible!!”   I was taken by him.  Totally and completely, but no one tells me what to play in my bar so instead, I turned up the volume and handed him a beer.   Not even a week later Jimmy started working as one of the head line cooks and a very flirty friendship began.  

We spent that winter skiing and snowboarding, working and partying, and when summer came we enjoyed a few weeks of beautiful Lake Tahoe weather before going separate ways – me to New York City, Jimmy back home to Louisville, Kentucky. We stayed in touch by phone calls, texts and emails; even meeting up a few times back at the Lake when we happened to be there at the same time.  We remained good friends and while there was no denying the attraction between us, the many miles between NYC and Kentucky posed a bit of a problem.  

In May of 2006, myself along with four other Tahoe friends decided to visit Jimmy for the Oaks and Kentucky Derby weekend.  I almost missed my flight after staying out way too late the night before and being so delirious, I went to the wrong airport (genius).  But low and behold, I landed in Louisville as scheduled and there he was.  Just as I had remembered: fun, loud, handsome…his thick southern drawl made my heart skip beats.

That weekend proved to be the beginning of a lifetime.  We both realized that the spark from three years prior had developed into a whole lot more.  My crush had turned into the love of my life and over a year later, after many visits and vacations, Jimmy moved to Denver where I had since relocated.  And on December 30th, 2009, I said yes!

INSPIRED

I never imagined I’d be disciplined enough to keep up with a blog; capturing photos and sharing my thoughts, ideas and projects with an online community.  Then I got engaged, started planning my wedding and met Brooke via one of my favorite wedding websites: www.snippetandink.blogspot.com.   Brooke and Raf’s wedding was featured one day and I fell in love.  Much of Brooke's wedding was DIY and she had made these gorgeous CD cases stamped with a “B”, which just happens to be the first letter of my fiancés last name.  I had to have them.  

With Brooke's encouragement and the many DIY projects I have taken on for my own wedding, I thought it would be fun to document the process.  So here I go. In 98 days I will be saying "I DO" and am up to my knees with planning and projects...and now a daily blog.  I just didn't think I had enough on my plate. J

Check out Brooke’s blog: www.apt345.blogspot.com and her etsy shop: Bumble Designs .