Not sticking her in the freezer, after all. Or, a retraction of my rage.

This is my dog.

Okay, so after I took some muscle relaxers and underwent an intense round of anger management therapy (call me Drew now), I had second thoughts about yesterday's vitriolic rant about the bodily functions of my roommate's dog . Live and let live, I say. As long as you stop peeing on my rug, we can coexist in peace.

So I took the rant down. But I left the picture of my dog up, because, well, I think she's pretty damn cute.

onBeing

Jennifer Crandall, the creator of the Washingtonpost.com's onBeing project, came to talk to one of my journalism classes today.

Just felt the need to share this site with you. The way she captures the rich tapestry of human experience is so moving, and often hilarious.

Crandall told us how she finds her subjects (suggestions from friends and meeting random people on the street), and how she manages to edit 2-hour interviews into 2 1/2 minute segments. She also showed several clips from the site.

I'm not going to lie, the clip of this man made me (somewhat embarrassingly) cry big fat tears in front of my class. If we could all be half as good as him, the world would be a much better place.

My name is Richie Cunningham, and this is my wife, Oprah.

Went to a friend's birthday party last night. It was a lot of fun, but there's nothing quite like standing in a room with friends you haven't seen in a long time, couples that you know, and hearing them introduce each other as, "my fiancé." Your heart kind of does a doubletake and you realize that you're at the point where DANG, people you know are getting married, and suddenly fifth grade, where holding hands was a big deal, seems impossibly far away. It's weird the kind of mini-life-evaluation that goes on in the seconds after you hear a friend is getting married. I'm definitely on the career track right now, not the marriage-babies-house track, and it's weird because there was a time when I thought the situation was opposite. (I rather like my life as it is, however - this entry is extremely light on the self-pity.)

My coping mechanism last night, when I felt like life was moving a little too fast, was to go sit in the corner with a slice of the cheesecake I brought to the party, hunched over in a brilliantly anti-social maneuver.

Chocolate always seems to calm me down.

Chocolate Cheesecake

Adapted from Food Magazine

9 oz. chocolate wafer cookies

6 Tbsp. butter, melted

4 bars of Neufchâtel or light cream cheese (8 0z. each)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

4 eggs

1 cup light sour cream

8 oz. semisweet chocolate

Bourbon Chocolate Ganache (recipe below)

chocolate chips (for garnish)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

]2. Place wafer cookies is a plastic bag and hit them with a frying pan until they are finely ground. (There are other ways to do this, such as the use of a food processor, but I find none so satisfying as the beat-to-a-pulp-with-a-large-metal-object method.) Dump cookie crumbs in a bowl and add melted butter, stirring to moisten.

3. Press cookie crumbs firmly into bottom of a 9 or 10-inch springform pan in an even layer. Bake crust for 10 minutes, then set aside to cool.

4. In a double boiler, melt chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth. Set aside.

5. In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugars, and salt with a hand mixer until smooth. Add eggs one at time, beating to incorporate, then add sour cream, then finally melted chocolate, beating to incorporate it all.

6. Pour filling into crust and bake for 1 hour. Turn oven off, then let cheesecake sit an additional hour in the oven. Do not open the oven at any point in the baking process. (This is supposed to prevent the top of the cheesecake from cracking, but I was determined not to open the oven, not even for a peek, and mine cracked like the Grand Canyon anyway. Bollocks.)

7. Cool completely, then refrigerate 6 hours or up to overnight.

8. Prepare chocolate ganache, unmold the cheesecake from the pan, and spread ganache over the top. Rim the edge with chocolate chips if you feel fancy.

Bourbon Chocolate Ganache

1 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips (or 10 oz. finely chopped semisweet chocolate)

2 Tbsp. bourbon whiskey

1. Bring cream to a boil in a medium saucepan.

2. Remove cream from heat, then add chocolate and bourbon. Let stand for 3 minutes, then whisk until smooth.

3. Pour chocolate mixture into a medium bowl and refrigerate until thick and spreadable, 2-3 hours.

Couscous with salmon and other stuff. Postal workers. Scott Baio.

I'm taking this Web writing class for credit, and my professor said to put "taggable" words in your post titles. So, when people search for "salmon + postal worker + Scott Baio," they may come across this. If that person is you, welcome. Stay a while. Let's talk seafood and Teen Beat cover fixtures of the late 1970s.

Here are some good things about today: I had an interview at my top choice law school that went swimmingly, and I went to the post office and the postal worker was nice to me! A government employee! Happy, courteous, polite. I was flabbergasted, like going to summer camp and finding out the girl I hate is actually MY IDENTICAL TWIN.

Also, I don't really have anything to say about Scott Baio other than that he's a little bit gross.

Now, some food. The salmon came out crap, so I'm not even giving you the recipe. Just cook some salmon in some fashion and put it on the couscous and I guarantee you it will be better than mine. The couscous was lovely, though - the mint makes it taste so fresh, and the raisins really plump up and get juicy, while the almonds lend a nice crunch. It reminds me of the couscous I used to get at Monoprix (the French Target, with groceries) for lunch. Je l'aime beaucoup!

Couscous with Raisins, Mint, and Almonds
Adapted from Food Network

1 cup raisins
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
salt to taste
10 oz. couscous (I used one box of Near East plain)
2 cups chicken broth or stock
1/3 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped

1. Combine raisins, butter, chicken broth, cinnamon, and salt to taste in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Stir in couscous, cover, and remove from heat. Allow couscous to sit for five minutes.
3. Uncover, fluff with fork, then stir in almonds and mint. Serve warm or cold.

Sometimes a "hi" is all it takes.

A friend of a friend went on a date with this man.

Read his newsletter about how to pick up women here.

I feel like there are an infinite number of ways to mock this, but all I can muster is a vague sense of pity. God bless you, sir, but females just aren't that complicated.

EatHere

Apologize for the brief hiatus - my term as sorority president officially ended today, so I've been wrapping up some things. With the occasional break to run outside and jump up and down with pure, unabashed glee. Oh the bonds of sisterhood run deep, my friends.

Anyway, ate at EatBar with the Brit (I know, I know, we're On Again I suppose, although who really knows with those creatures?) last night and it was a total blast. I'd been to the adjoining restaurant, Tallula, and had enjoyed drinks at the bar, but never dined there. (The bar has a completely separate, more relaxed, but still delicious menu.) It's just such a fun little place - they have fun cocktails, delcious sandwiches, charcuterie, an impressive selection of beer, yummy desserts, the list goes on. I ordered the BBQ pannino, which was pretty much just pulled pork on grilled bread, but it was delicious. I also had a Wimbledon, a strawberryish cocktail rimmed with Pop Rocks. The cocktail was mediocre but the Pop Rocks made me feel like an eight-year-old, so all was forgiven.

The best part, though, is that Sunday nights at EatBar are movie night, meaning that at 8 p.m. they turn down the lights and play a movie on a big projector screen. They offer complimentary truffle butter popcorn and get this - ALL THE CANDY YOU WANT. Literally, a chick walks around with one of those old-fashioned concession boxes and offers candy bars to everyone, free of charge! POP ROCKS RIMMED MARTINIS + FREE KIT KATS = HAPPY KATE.

This is so clever - the manager told me the bar fills up every Sunday night now. Next week, they're playing Sixteen Candles, and I'm totally dragging my posse. Yes, my posse. Because, after all, POP ROCKS RIMMED MARTINIS + FREE KIT KATS + JAKE RYAN = VERY HAPPY KATE.

This both pleases and sparkles. Sunshine!

Ten points and Official Favorite Reader Status if you get the reference.

But...good news! Next week (Jan. 14-20) is DC Restaurant Week. Participating locations (i.e. a lot of fancy restaurants) will have fixed-price three-course lunch menus for $20.08, and three-course dinner menus for $30.08. This is what is referred to as a bangin' deal.

Unfortunately, I am in Saving-Money-So-I-Don't-Have-to-Live-off-Beans-in-Law-School Mode right now, and also insanely busy, so the opportunity to take part may pass me by this time. If I do go, however, it will be to Hook, Rock Creek, or Zola.

Enjoy!

For more information on Restaurant Week, click here.

Ms. Clinton, I don't want your recipe.

The following is entirely inappropriate, but it makes me pee myself:



More where that came from.

Most days, I miss Paris

"The hardest thing to convey is how lovely it all is and how that loveliness seems all you need. The ghosts that haunted you in New York or Pittsburgh will haunt you anywhere you go, because they're your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. But they become disconcerted, shaken, confused for half a minute, and in that moment on a December at four o'clock when you're walking from the bus stop to the rue Saint-Dominique and the lights are twinkling across the river-only twinkling in the bateaux-mouches, luring the tourists, but still...you feel as if you've escaped your ghosts if only because, being you, they're transfixed looking at the lights in the trees on the other bank, too, which they haven't seen before, either.

It's true that you can't run away from yourself. But we were right: you can run away."

-Adam Gopnik, Paris to the Moon

Will not give you Ham Arm, or Jellbows

"You said I must eat so many lemons, because I'm so bitter; I said I'd rather be with your friends, mate, 'cause they are much fitter."

Hello, darlings. Below is a light version of cheesecake that is just divine, so divine in fact that I've convinced myself that there is no shame in having a slice or two for breakfast. It's made with fat free cream cheese, after all. Substitute Splenda for the sugar, and you might as well eat it for lunch and dinner, too.

Also, have I ever mentioned how absolutely lovely Washington D.C. is?

Lemon-ish Cheesecake
Adapted from Paula and Weight Watchers

For Le Crust:
1 1/2 cups low-fat graham crackers, crushed
1 tbsp. light corn syrup
2 tbsp. butter

For Le Cheesecake:
4 8 oz. pkgs. nonfat cream cheese
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. lemon zest

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Melt butter in the microwave, and combine with smushed graham crackers and corn syrup to form a crumbly sticky mess. Press mess into bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.
3. Beat the 4 packages of cream cheese with a stand mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each egg.
5. Beat in the egg whites, vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
6. Pour into springform pan, and bake for 55-60 minutes until the edges have set and the middle is still a little jiggly, like Aunt Sally's arm fat. Okay, that's gross.