WEIRD AL CONCERT!!!

On October 19, Carlos and I went to my first ever Weird Al Yankovic concert (despite trying to see him in concert for at least a decade!) and it was the best concert I have ever been to (of the three total concerts I have seen).

I had such a great time and I think I now have to become a Weird Al groupie. I will DEFINITELY try to see him in concert again. He was such a fantastic showman and all of the music sounded just as good or BETTER than it does on CD! There were tons of costume changes and Weird Al played some GREAT songs; these are the ones that I think were on the set list:

- Polka Face (a polka medley of current songs)
- TMZ
- Smells Like Nirvana
- Skipper Dan (I like this song about the skippers on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland)
- Party in the CIA
- CNR (a cool song about the awesome Charles Nelson Reilly)
- Canadian Idiot
- Wanna B Ur Lovr
- Money for Nothing / Beverly Hillbillies
- Medley (included tons of great older songs like 'Eat It')
- Amish Paradise
- Perform This Way
- White and Nerdy (LOVE THIS SONG!)
- Fat
- The Saga Begins
- Yoda (played as encore)

Here are a bunch of pictures that I took during the concert (no flash) and Al is pretty washed out in all of them. We had great seats pretty close to the stage!



I also tried to put together a little video of the clips I recorded at the concert with my little point and shoot camera. The sound quality is not the best, but you can see bits from: (1) Smells Like Nirvana, (2) Money for Nothing / Beverly Hillbillies, and (3) White and Nerdy (look at Al's Segway skills!)


I HIGHLY recommend checking out a Weird Al concert and if I'm visiting you, we should go together!

Crafty cards for friends

I made a some cards a while back for a couple of my friends. I made the Donkey Kong card for my buddy Julia to thank her for the radical birthday present she sent me and I made the Emerald Honeycreeper card for my buddy Christina for her 30th birthday goal of receiving at least 30 cards in the mail. I was really into making little watercolor cards at that time and I like the way the colors in both of these cards turned out!

Vegetable tarte tatin

Well, Disney blogging is over (for now!) so I should return to blogging about the random things that go on in my day-to-day adventures!

I recently tried out a recipe for something completely new to me: a vegetable tarte tatin (a kind of French upside-down tart). I think this is usually made with apples and butter, but my version is made with roasted potatoes, sage, onions, garlic, and gouda. First, you roast some potatoes, then make a carmelized sugar mixture with vinegar, with which you coat the bottom of a glass pan. Sprinkle on sage, potatoes, onions, garlic, and gouda. Top with a rolled out piece of puff pastry, coat with an egg wash and bake until delicious! I LOVE this meal -- surprisingly, it tastes like "France" to me! It is savory and sweet, pretty, and fairly easy to make. Yay for trying out new things~

Here is the recipe for the vegetable tarte tatin

Ingredients:
- 3 or 4 red potatoes, cut into ½ inch-thick rounds
- 4 or 5 small purple potatoes, cut into ½ inch-thick rounds
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cut into ½ inch-thick rounds
- 1 small onion, cut into ¼ inch-thick rounds
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 1 small bunch fresh sage or taragon, chopped
- 6 ounces gouda, shredded (about 1 cup)
- 1 8.5-ounce sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
- All-purpose flour, for dusting
- 1 egg, for egg wash

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toss the potatoes, olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper in a bowl. Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet; bake until tender, about 20 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Meanwhile, mix 3 tablespoons water and the sugar in a skillet and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook, swirling the pan, until amber, about 7 minutes (Watch carefully. Once the caramel turns amber, it burns very quickly.) Remove from the heat and stir in the vinegar and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Quickly pour the caramel into a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish and spread with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle the sage on top.

Arrange the roasted potatoes and parsnips in a single snug layer on top of the caramel and herbs. Scatter the onion and garlic over the roasted vegetables; sprinkle evenly with the gouda.

Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface into a 9-by-13-inch rectangle. Pierce the pastry all over with a fork, then lay it on top of the gouda, folding the edges under to fit, if necessary. If making ahead of time, cover securely and refrigerate until baking. Before baking, use a pastry brush to brush the egg wash over the crust.

Bake 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking until the dough is cooked through, 15 to 20 more minutes. If the crust turns golden brown before the baking time is through, cover the baking dish loosely with foil and continue to bake.

Let the tart cool 10 minutes in the baking dish. Then carefully invert it onto a cutting board. Replace any vegetables that stick to the dish, if necessary.

Cut the tart with a pizza roller and eat!

WDW sisters trip! - Day 7

Waaaaaah -- today was our final day at Walt Disney World and we were sad, but determined to get the most out of it!! Shannon and I started the day as usual, waking up, getting ready, and catching the 8:30 am bus to Magic Kingdom from our super-close bus stop.

When we arrived at the Magic Kingdom, we headed over to Tomorrowlad where we rode Buzz Lightyear (we were getting pretty good at finding high-scoring targets on this game!). Next, we rode a nice relaxing favorite: the Peoplemover.

After a cool slow-paced tour of Tomorrowland, we wandered back to the central plaza to look at the castle. Usually the walkway underneath the castle is closed, but this morning it was open so we passed through to admire the pretty Cinderella murals.

Next, we visited the Haunted Mansion (I love this ride!) then stopped for a Dole Whip to refuel. We visited the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean (classics) before catching a quick little lunch at Pecos Bill’s Café.

After lunch, we rode Big Thunder Mountain then hopped on the Disney Railroad at the Frontierland station. We relaxed and rode the train around the park once before wandering back to Tomorrowland for another spin on the Buzz Lightyear ride (our scores were great!). By this time it was about 1 pm and we took a bus back to the hotel for our regular mid-afternoon break (these breaks were a good idea).

Around 1:30 pm, we set back out to our final park visit of the trip: EPCOT of course! We rode Spaceship Earth again (such a relaxing and interesting ride). Next, we checked out Innoventions and rode the Sum of All Thrills -- a ride that uses a Kuka robot to create a virtual roller coaster than you design. Our roller coaster (known as the “Slippery Phantom”) was a little lame because I didn’t want to go upside down, but the ride itself was pretty cool!

Shannon and I ventured out to the World Showcase and visited Mexico to ride the Gran Fiesta boat tour (MEXICO!). We wandered around all of the countries and stopped for a Kaki Gori (shave ice) snack in Japan. This is another of my favorite Disney snacks! I love the bright green melon-flavored ice. It looks absurdly sweet, but it is just right -- and it doesn’t even make your mouth bright green!

We looked around Japan before our dinner reservation at Teppan Edo (a teppan yaki restaurant). This was one of my favorite meals of the trip! I had shrimp, rice, and noodles (Shannon had the same but with filet mignon instead of shrimp). We also had green tea pudding and ginger chocolate cake for dessert. Such a fun and delicious dinner! We wandered the Mitsukoshi shop to pick up some last-minute souvenirs before heading to Canada where we watched Illuminations.

EPCOT was open until midnight tonight so we shopped for souvenirs and visited Germany where we tried a little wine flight (apple wine, Riesling, and ice wine -- all good!). In Norway, we rode Maelstrom again and took our time as we headed to the exit. We were back at Coronado Springs around midnight -- wah! Shannon and I packed a little and prepared for our departure tomorrow.

The next day, Shannon headed out to the Magical Express early (her flight was changed by the airline a few weeks before the trip so she left earlier than me) and she was on her way back to California. I visited Downtown Disney in the morning and ate a very tasty veggie sandwich at the Earl of Sandwich before heading back to the hotel to grab my bags and catch the Magical Express to the airport.

This was such a fun trip and everything worked out very well for Shannon and me -- we had great weather, low crowds (we barely needed to use fast passes to bypass lines), good travel mojo, a great hotel (minus the nachos at Pepper Market), which all combined to a great vacation! I had a really nice time traveling with my sister and I know we should try to take some more sister-trips in the future. I also came back to DC with a lot of souvenirs! Most of the things I bought were gifts, but I came back with two EPCOT t-shirts, a cookbook, CD, Christmas ornaments, and pins! We are already thinking about planning an entire family trip back to Disney World some time in November of 2013, woo-hoo!

WDW sisters trip! - Day 6

Today was our 6th day in Disney World and it also happened to be the day that I turned 30! I can’t think of a happier place to turn 30 while running around and acting like a kid~ We had a fun-filled day planned, which involved hanging out at EPCOT, having a fancy birthday lunch at Le Cellier in Canada, and touring the Magic Kingdom!

As usual, Shannon and I woke up and got ready to head out and catch a bus at 8:30 am to EPCOT! Again, the park was nearly empty (we were there right after opening at 9 am) and we walked right on to Test Track, riding it twice with no wait.

Next, we went on Soarin’ and the Seas with Nemo and Friends. The Seas is pretty nice (you get to ride in a cool clam-mobile), but I really like looking at all of the underwater creatures in the aquaria -- especially the manatees and cuttlefish!

We wandered over to Innoventions (an indoor place with lots of random games and mini-rides) and checked out the Great Piggy Bank Adventure -- it taught us how to save money, woo hoo! It sounds boring, but was actually pretty cute and fun.

We were done with Future World (for now) and decided to head up to World Showcase, starting at Mexico and next visiting the bakery in Norway. Shannon and I had a nice pastry breakfast (I had a cloudberry horn and Shannon had school bread) before riding Maelstrom and then continuing our walk around the world.

In Germany, we stopped by the Werthers caramel store and picked up a little bag of fresh caramel corn to fortify ourselves -- it was really good, but there was SO much in this tiny little bag! We ended up saving some that we browsed on over the next few days (it wasn’t as good when it was stale).

We walked through Italy, the USA, Japan, Morocco, France, and the UK before stopping in Canada for our long-awaited lunch at the steakhouse there: Le Cellier!

Reservations are really hard to get at this restaurant, but we planned ahead and were able to get some for an awesome birthday lunch. Shannon and I snacked on tasty sourdough and pretzel bread while we waited for our entrees. We both had the same thing to eat: the mushroom risotto filet mignon (a specialty of this restaurant) and it was so tasty! We both cleaned our plates (almost!) and had dessert: maple crème brulee for me and a chocolate “moose” for Shannon. That chocolate moose was so cute!

After our huge meal, we waddled over to Spaceship Earth and rode it to relax and digest before taking a bus back to the hotel for our afternoon break (it was around 4 pm). Around 4:30 pm, we took a bus over to the Magic Kingdom to ride a few of the rides that we had missed on our previous visits (especially Splash Mountain). When we arrived, we were very surprised to learn that the park would close early for a “special function” (not my birthday party) and we would have to leave at 6 pm -- that gave us only an hour and a half to play! Bummer, but we were really lucky and a couple of nice ladies gave us four fast passes (for any ride) as we entered the park. Yay, that meant no lines for us so we went right on Splash Mountain and got only a little soaked.

After Splash, we visited another nearby mountain: Big Thunder Mountain!

We didn’t have a lot of time left before park closing, so Shannon and I headed to Aloha Isle and shared a delicious Dole Whip float (pineapple soft serve ice cream with pineapple juice)! I love Dole Whips -- they are definitely another Disney tradition (along with giant dill pickles!).

The park was closing soon so we walked to the bus stop and took a bus back to Coronado Springs around 6 pm (so early!). We had an uneventful dinner at the hotel (worst nachos EVER!) and spent some time playing in our pool before calling it a night. I had such a fun birthday!