Raving Amicks

More than a month ago, Tyler, some friends, and I went to the first weekend of Leavenworth’s Oktoberfest. Most places in the US have one weekend of festivities, but not Leavenworth. They have three weekends because they are just that much greater than the rest of the US.

Almost anything goes at this Oktoberfest, too. It’s not like the boring Seattle one where people just get drunk and pee in the open. No, people here take it the next level. They wear lederhosen and dirndls (both fake and authentic), or random costumes like beer kegs and pirates. The more “subdued” people stick to funky hats that may or may not have anything to do with Oktoberfest, beer, or Germany. Case in point: Tyler picked up a “rice picker” hat to wear.

The six of us (Elaine, Chris, Vlad, and Lam—whom I think the Amicks have all met by now) had a lot of fun. We originally had two rooms in the same hotel, but Elaine and Chris had a bunch of crazy army guys in the room next to theirs and couldn’t sleep. So we carried their mattress complete with sheets and covers into our ridiculously huge room the second night and the six of us had one giant slumber party. Our ridiculously huge room also had a ridiculously spacious bathroom and an awesome balcony that overlooked the main street. That awesome balcony was most definitely the best spot in all of Leavenworth to watch the Saturday Oktoberfest parade that goes along Front Street and ends at the mayor’s Ceremonial Keg Tapping.

There is talk of going again next year, maybe the week after we go to the real Oktoberfest in Munich.

1. Obscene double-decker, grilled zucchini and goat cheese quesadillas topped with tomato-basil salsa from some dude named Bobby Flay.
2. The infamous cherry pizza. The awesome magazine that published this recipe folded in June, so I do have the original in case the link ever breaks.
3. And a new favorite of ours: Quinoa and Avocado Salad with dried fruit, almonds, and a lemony vinaigrette.

This site needs an update, so here are some shots of delicious foods I made in the past two weeks.

Stuffed zucchini using the zukes we swiped from Jennifer’s garden a few weeks back. The recipe is Zucchini Stuffed with Feta and Dill. It’s definitely a recipe for zucchini lovers. But my all-time favorite zucchini recipe is Zucchini alla Scapece, which is basically lightly fried zucchini slices marinated in balsamic and mint.

I also made this Cherry Pie using the awesome pie cherries the Amick parents sent home with us. I drained the cherry juice into another vessel for a day in the fridge while they thawed, and then made this pie using a teeny-tiny star cookie cutter I had laying around. I added some orange zest, but the orange we had was super-fragrant and overpowered the pie. I later mixed one part cherry juice to one part standard orange juice and drank that, which was super tasty.

Both pictures feature our insanely awesome Heath plates. We started collecting a new set of plates because the old ones Tyler bought had really stupid bowls that were not good for eating soups on your lap (very important in this household with Movie Nights at least once a month), plus the matching plates were not oven safe. Since we don’t have a microwave, being oven safe is also a huge plus. I highly recommend Heath Ceramics if you have the extra cash to spare on plates that will last you a lifetime. They’ve been around since the ‘60s and aren’t going anywhere, so it’s also easy to add new plates as they break or you decide you need more. I also just scored an an awesome vintage salad bowl made by them, but that is for another food post.

Most everyone knows that I’m back at that old job yet again, but I figured I’d share what I’m doing these days since it completely changed from when I left in February. So here’s the job in a nutshell: I currently write and produce four “shopping” slideshows a week.

My all-time favorite piece would have to be the first slideshow I wrote: 25 Fall Fashion Classics Under $100. I actually had the time to really focus on writing this slideshow, so of course it’s the best one.

My other favorites are Costume Ideas for Couples and this particular slide in Sexy Halloween Costumes—but only because of the absurdity of these Halloween costumes. The copy for these two is nowhere near my ideal quality, but each was written in under 30 minutes.

Lastly, I’m working on a secret project that should launch next week. This secret project is awesome and will focus on writing quality content over pumping out sheer quantity (as is the current process). So yeah, I’m super excited about this. Although, Tyler can attest that I’m also a raging, stressed out bitch due to the overwhelming amount of conflicting projects I had this week.

Tyler and I just got back from our three-week trip to Germany and Ukraine with our friend Vlad. During our trip we visited Lübeck, Berlin, Munich, Kiev, a small village in Western Ukraine, and Copenhagen. It’s really hard to write a single blog post about a three-week trip where we took 1,968 photos, so Tyler and I are going to split the duties (he’ll write a post about Ukraine sometime this weekend).

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With Tyler’s help during President’s Day Weekend (he had a three-day weekend back then), I reupholstered our dining chairs that he had picked up for $10 years ago. They originally had dirty and cracked white vinyl on the seats, plus they were really hard and uncomfortable. Now they have high-density foam seats covered with beautiful white leather, and our butts sigh with delight each time we sit on them (or maybe it’s just the leather sinking into the foam that sighs). One of the chair seats isn’t quite as taut as the other (surprisingly, the second one we did), but they’re still infinitely better than before. Now I just need to strip and re-stain them during a summer dry spell and we’ll be dining in style.

Osa also approves of the new seats: