Mild Amusement

As you can imagine, the Mild Fiancée and I have been spending a lot of time corresponding with vendors and guests lately. There are florists, photographers, venue coordinators, and various other vendors to work with. We tried to do as much of the work as we could up front, but there's always something that comes up. It's not necessarily stressful, but it does require some attention. Now, the Mild Fiancée and I are both getting married, so we decided long ago that we would both participate in the process. Sure, there are certain things that I don't care as much about, much the same way that there are certain things she doesn't care much about. For those items, I tend to take a back seat. However, that doesn't get me off the hook. There's still quite a bit that I do want to concern myself with. That particular tidbit is relevant because we tend to send emails that include the other. In short, we CC each other on a lot of emails. It's the quickest, simplest...

As part of the lead up to the Mild Wedding, we've had to put a bunch of things together for the event. I don't mean "put together" as in plan them or hire a vendor, I mean more like assembling items that we'll need. Most of it has involved small things for the check in table, or a small sign welcoming people to our event. As is the case with pretty much everything on this blog, though, there was a little bit of unexpected hilarity involved with the whole thing. First of all, we had to purchase the supplies for our crafts. The Mild Fiancée and I did a fair bit of this shopping together, but for parts of it, I was on my own. The end result was that I had to wander the aisles of a Michaels trying to figure out what kind of construction paper, lettering, or stickers I wanted. In these cases, I had free rein to purchase whatever I thought we needed. Of course, the problem with choice is the responsibility that comes with making a good choice. If I bought the wrong...

So, the Mild Fiancée and I like to cook . We make all sorts of stuff, but one of her favorite things to say is that we should know how to make our favorite foods. After all, you like eating it. Why not learn how to cook it? That way, you can make it yourself. It's a sound enough plan, so we will occasionally venture into recipes rooted in our respective cultures. I mean, I like hamburgers and all, but the food that really hits the spot is always Peruvian food for me. Similarly, the Mild Fiancée really likes Filipino food. So, we've both learned how to make some of these dishes. In this particular case, we occasionally make papa a la huancaína. Never heard of it before? Oh, you're missing out. It looks something like this: Decorate it however you like, but the sauce is a must In our particular case, we added in some bacon because, well, we like bacon. That said, the real star of the show is the yellow huancaína sauce. In fact, I would argue that the potato and...

The Mild Fiancée is a better cook than I am. I'm not useless in the kitchen, but she's a better cook. She's had more practice, and has more of a passion for it. She'll look up recipes or watch YouTube videos about cooking, for example. She has favorite chefs that she likes to watch. I do not. So, basically, she has a head start in the cooking department, and she puts in more work than I do. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that she's much more of a culinary whiz than I am. However, that doesn't mean that I leave all of the cooking to her. For one, that doesn't seem particularly fair to me. I eat the food, too, after all. And for another, I might as well learn how to make some of the dishes, particularly if I like them (this is one of the Mild Fiancée's favorite refrains). So, I still wash, prep, chop, stir, and generally take care of other supporting type tasks in the kitchen. The other relevant bit of information here is that we tend to m...

As I mentioned last time, the Mild Fiancée and I inherited quite a bit of wine . We had no intention of coming home with that much wine, but we did so anyway. Inevitably, that meant that we were going to try some of them. What would the point be otherwise? So that we could store them instead of someone else? That simply wouldn't do. So, on one fine evening, we decided to be adventurous. We decided to crack open one of those wine bottles. Now, we're not connoisseurs by any stretch of the imagination, but we understand the basic chemistry well enough. Some of these bottles were old, and had not been stored in precise, temperature-controlled environments. Some of them were bound to be losses. The odds just weren't good that every single one was in good, drinkable shape. So, with a laugh, we started in on our very own wine tasting. The first bottle we drew (randomly) happened to be a Chardonnay: You can tell it's a Chardonnay because the bottle says so That seem...

I have an interesting relationship with shopping. To begin with, I tend to do a fair bit of it online, since I find it's easier to find what I need that way. It's also rare that I need a particular item in that exact moment, so I can usually wait a few days for my package to arrive (though there are definitely exceptions to this rule ). I tend to shop from home, basically. Now, that's not to say that I don't ever frequent brick and mortar retail stores. In fact, I've written about an adventure or two that I've had when stepping foot inside of these stores. One of the more interesting ones was a recent one, when the Mild Fiancée (then the Mild Girlfriend) and I swore up and down that the cologne I liked had somehow changed its smell . It all got settled in the end, but it was a pretty amusing way to get to that point. Lately, though, I've noticed that there's another, implied type of shopping that we end up doing. I call it shopping at home, because i...

A while back, I remarked that I like to get creative when serving the food . It doesn't happen all the time, but every now and then, I come up with something good. All in all, though it's mostly just a way to have some fun with putting food on the table. And since I'm the sous chef and we're cooking more these days, that gives me more opportunities to play with the food. My favorite example of this was with a simple brownie. The Mild Fiancée and I were sitting on the couch, and she asked me to serve the brownies for dessert. As I was pulling the brownies out of the pan, I noticed the rounded corner. Now, I can't tell you exactly what it was about that corner that triggered a memory, but the shape of that corner harkened back to my childhood. I'd seen that rounded edge before. I knew it from somewhere. As soon as I realized what it reminded me of, I knew I wasn't going to just plop the brownie on the plate. Oh, no no no. I was going to have some fun wit...