Those of you who read this blog in a feed reader probably haven't noticed that PastaQueen.com got dressed in a new blog design last night. The reasons for this are explained in the next post. Like any renovation, it took a lot of work and even more time. Unlike other renovations, I had to say up until 1:40am to get everything working. Now that it's up, I want to give you a tour of the changes and new features. Follow me The left sidebar is dedicated to widgets. The first one is the new "Follow me" section which links to my Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook pages if you want to follow me outside of this blog. My last 3 tweets also appear in this box so you can keep up with my micro-blogging. Better archives and search Previously, you could only view a complete list of my archives or...continue

Last April it was dark and early and my bed was shaking. Alas, I was not having mind-blowing sex. I was lying in bed alone at 5:36am which is a time that I am almost never awake unless my cat is very hungry and I have forgotten to shut the bedroom door. As the movement shook my brain awake, I realized what was happening. I was in an earthquake! In Indiana! Finally! I have always wanted to be in an earthquake, just to know what it feels like. I know people sometimes die in earthquakes, so I didn't want to be in one of those earthquakes, just a safe little earthquake where the ground moved and the plates rattled and perhaps a picture fell off of the wall. I don't live in California though, and I don't have any plans to move to a major fault line, so the possibility...continue

Last month I spent 10 minutes in the makeup aisle deciding between "Rum Raisin" and "Dark Brown" eyeliner. I was absent the day they taught 13-year-old girls how to use makeup, so I've only been learning recently. As my red shopping basket grew heavier, I knew it was absurd to be standing there debating the relative benefits of dark brown over a slightly less dark brown with a cutesy name, but I just couldn't make up my mind about makeup. "Rum raisin is a much better name than dark brown," I thought as I picked it off the metal rod. "Yeah, but you shouldn't judge a color by its name. Dark brown might better match your coloring," I thought as I put it back and reached for the other product. "Wait, if I wear an orange dress does brown break a rule of complimentary colors? Is there a color wheel...continue

This is Java Bean.* Java Bean came to live with me three weeks ago after a friend of mine adopted his whisker-biting sister. I can't turn down free donuts and I can't turn down free kittens either. Java Bean was born in the wild (or as wild as Indiana gets) and survived a respiratory infection that killed three of the nine kittens in his litter. When I stopped by the vet, four of his brothers and sisters had been adopted, leaving me in the position of deciding which of the last two kittens would be picked last for dodge ball. After Java's brother bounced around the room and tried opening my purse, I decided the more low-key cat was the one for me. I took him home four days later and he spent the weekend inspecting the quality of my box springs. I slowly lured him out on the second...continue

"Would you like a glass for your soda?" my friend Jenny asked after she handed me a can of Sprite Zero. Usually I just drink soda straight from the can, leaving me one less dish to wash and saving me all that time pouring. But when I'm visiting other people I like to pretend I'm not the low-rent individual that I am who has reused the same bowl three times without washing it, so I said yes. Then she brought out the Charlie Brown glass. "OMG!" I exclaimed, only I actually said "Oh my God" instead of shouting out the acronym, because even I am not that geeky. "We used to have glasses exactly like this! From McDonalds!" "We also have a Smurfs glass from Burger King," she said, showing me her Smurfs glass. "Oh, we never went to Burger King. We were McDonalds people," I said as I admired...continue

I think it's odd that I have a PO box. When I was a kid, PO boxes were only mentioned at the end of commercials for Topsy Tail or Picture Pages. They didn't seem like things real people had. Yet, now I have one and I'm pretty sure I'm a real person. It was really easy too. Last year I went to the postal counter, asked for a PO box, and they gave me a key and an address after I handed them my credit card. Credit cards are like magic wands. It's kind of fun to check my PO box because I never know what will be in there. Sometimes it's a bait and tackle catalog addressed to the previous owner. Sometimes it's a nice letter from a reader. And sometimes its an ad for a retouching service that promises that you'll "look great in your summer pics," though...continue

I called the maintenance man to fix my kitchen light because it was obviously having wiring problems. I flipped the switch last week, the light flickered and then died. There are two bulbs in the light, so there was no way they would burn out at the same time. The kitchen light fixture is heavy and made of glass. I avoid removing it because one day I'll try unscrewing it, lose my balance, break my neck and my cats won't even be able to eat my body for sustenance because I will be surrounded by deadly broken glass. So, the maintenance man came and checked my breaker box, flipping the switches enough times that I had to reset my stereo clock. Then he got on his ladder, unscrewed the light fixture, replaced my light bulbs and before God could say "Let there be light" the kitchen was bright enough that...continue

I've flipped the layout of the blog so the content is on the left and the sidebar is on the right. Enough people told me they had usability issues with the old format that I decided it was worth taking the time to change it. If anyone runs into an error with the modified design, report it as a comment on this entry. You might have to refresh your page to see the new images. Try holding down the "Shift" key while clicking the "Refresh" button if you can't get the new images to load. I liked trying something different with the old layout, but I suppose it would have worked better if we read right to left. If I ever start a blog written in Hebrew, I might revive the design :)...continue

This is my recipe binder. See its plastic, mayonnaise-proof covering? See its overly designed pages? See how I've collected all my favorite recipes into one binder? Recently I've received several requests for recipes I've given a thumbs-up to which presumably won't make the scale numbers go up too. I also talked to a food blogger a couple months ago who said the weekends are her highest traffic days because people search for recipes on the weekends. I put one and one together, and I didn't get three, so I'm going to start posting my favorite recipes on the weekend for those of you who want to try new dishes. We'll start out with Catfish Tuscany (made with orange roughy in Indiana). I was strolling through the fish section of the grocery store when I saw the big yellow "Manager's special" sticker slapped on a package of catfish. I'd never eaten...continue

I have listened to "Read My Mind" by The Killers 87 times. I have no excuse for this. It's a good pop song, but 87 times? 87 times?! It's a four-minutes long, which means I've spent almost 6 hours of my life listening to this song. The number is probably even higher because it doesn't count all the times I listened to that track in my car. The Last.fm plug-in I have installed in WinAmp and iTunes counts every MP3 I play on my computer and calculates these embarrassing statistics for me. It almost seems like an invasion of privacy putting my actual musical preferences out there, instead of just what I tell people I like. It's like the difference between all the healthy stuff in your food diary and the Oreos you're actually stuffing in your mouth and "forgetting" to write down. We tend to judge people by what...continue

I bought a bike. I probably paid fifty dollars more for it than if I had shopped around. They charged me extra for the kickstand and the water bottle holder too. But I decided I needed to buy a bike already or I would never do it. So I bought a bike - a beautiful, blue bike. I've named her Bluebell. She has flowers and bubbles imprinted on her handles and seat. And stylish decals painted on her frame. Basically, this bike is targeted at young women who aren't as concerned about performance as they are about riding a pretty bike, a demographic I fall squarely in. If you fall in that demographic too and want to buy your own, she's a Trek 7100 WSD. I rode Bluebell to Butler University to buy Avenue Q tickets, saving money on gas and obscene TicketMaster "convenience" fees which I have never found...continue

Woah, did you know pumpkins could grow warts? I walked into the Fresh Market yesterday and saw a pile of these ugly creatures in the corner past the sliding doors. I thought they must be the victims of a pernicious pumpkin disease, but according to this site they bred these knucklehead pumpkins on purpose. "In fact, it has taken over 10 generations of breeding to obtain the size and consistency of warting for these varieties." Now, I LOVE pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin bread and canned pumpkin mixed with instant pudding mix. Pumpkin is my favorite squash. I love that it's pumpkin season again. These pumpkins are probably just as tasty as their clear-skinned cousins. So, I know it's looks-ist of me, but I want to take a knife or a bottle of liquid nitrogen and freeze the warts off that orange skin. It looks so gross. But...continue

Yesterday someone on Twitter said that "lime jello + orange jello = awesome" and this statement instantly lighted up the part of my brain storing the memory of Jell-O 1-2-3. Jell-O 1-2-3 was a triple-layered product that had normal Jell-O on the bottom, a foamy layer on the top, and the most scrumptious, creamy, mixture of the other two layers sandwiched in the middle. The product was discontinued in 1996, which means Jell-O 1-2-3 has not been available since before I could drive (legally). I googled around and quickly found a hack recipe for Jell-O 1-2-3 at the Kraft Foods site. (They must get asked about it a lot.) It seemed simple enough, so I tried making it last night. Here is the recipe followed by my experience. Jell-O 1-2-3 1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Strawberry Flavor Sugar Free Gelatin, or any flavor 3/4 cup boiling water ice cubes 1/2...continue

I was running on the trail a while ago and passed someone wearing a Nike t-shirt printed with the company's slogan, "Just do it." It was at that moment, as I was huffing and puffing, kind of wishing I could go home and lay on the couch, that I finally got the Nike slogan. Just do it. Oh! Like, just do it. Don't whine. Don't bitch. Don't moan. Just get off your ass and do it, it being whatever you want to do in life. It was like finally understanding the punch line to "Why did the chicken cross the road?" (Which I understood instantly as a child and did not take a couple of years to parse and appreciate the humor of.) I've seen the Nike slogan plastered all over the place so frequently that I never stopped to think about what it really meant. I was trying to...continue

There is a box of clothes on my closet floor labeled, "Fat clothes (in case of emergency)" which is slightly less full than it was two weeks ago. Sound the sirens and alert the diet police because this is most definitely an emergency. I stepped on the scale two weeks ago and a scary number appeared in the window, like a gremlin peering in. Aaah! It wasn't so much a surprise as an inevitability, considering that I'd stopped exercising for three weeks are started eating whatever the hell I wanted. Oh, the cashiers at Kroger could tell some tales! Let it be known that I have discovered the secret to weight gain: eat more, move less. I was sick of exercising. I was sick of eating salad. I was sick of seeing everyone eat donuts at meetings while I was eating carrot sticks. I resented how much time exercise...continue

I was at dinner with some friends a couple weeks ago. Some of them had worked at their jobs for 7 or 10 or 14 years. "Does it get boring working the same job for that long?" I asked. "YES!" "Oh God, yes." The other just nodded. These weren't the reactions I wanted to hear, but at least they were honest. Everyone agreed that they liked their jobs and the companies they worked for, but even the best job had spurts of boredom. Healthy living can be like a job. It certainly is a lot of work. Recently I started to get bored with it, so to get back into it I decided to make things interesting and fun again. Something new...and shiny First off, I decided I needed something new, so I got a two-week trial membership at the fancy ladies gym. It's small enough that the receptionist knows...continue

We've merged with another department at work, and not since the Indians threw a party for the Pilgrims has there been this much food proffered as a greeting. At the meeting announcing the merger there were chocolate-iced donuts sitting in a pink box at the back of the room. At the new monthly departmental meeting there were cookies passed around the table, sweet chocolate wafting right past my nose as I passed them on. Last week there were bagels (a shitload of bagels, like bagel diarrhea) on the kitchenette table all day long to entice the departments to mingle. And yesterday, I got an email announcing the monthly pitch-in that is a tradition in the other department. God only knows how we'll celebrate birthdays, but I'm assuming it will involve several sticks of butter and a defibrillator in the corner in case of emergency. The pitch-in announcement said something like,...continue

I've absconded to North Carolina until Wednesday, so there will be no recipe posted this weekend. I'll try to check in with a post, but it may be midweek before you see these scraggly curls again. You can play with the funny kitties while I'm gone. And don't worry, I didn't forget to pack the cat....continue

I am still in North Carolina, visiting my brother before he celebrates the first anniversary of his 29th birthday. We were in the backyard of his new house, trying to identify which trees are worth keeping and which ones are worth putting out of their misery. Can anyone identify this tree for us? Are these dead flower blossoms that will be brilliant bursts of beauty next summer, or are they just signs that this tree is dying? Thanks!...continue