it must be bunnies

Over the past few days, I finally watched the most recent season of Only Murders in the Building and I enjoyed it tremendously. I feel like I laughed a lot more than I did last season. The thing that is so great about this show, other than all the other things that are great about it, is that the cast is so stacked that you can't play the "most famous guest star is the murderer" game. I mean, this season alone, we had ( spoilers )

In other news, we are - and possibly you are too - supposed to be getting a big winter storm this weekend so I'm thinking about baking plans. I will definitely post if I make something good. *g*

*

I did indeed get in bed by 9:30 last night and slept pretty hard. I probably could have slept even more, but 11 hours is a pretty good night!

For some reason, I woke up with Barely Breathing by Duncan Sheik in my head, and when I wondered to angelgazing whatever happened to him, she said he co-wrote Spring Awakening, which I did not know, so good for him! From one-hit wonder to Tony winner!

On the Mets front, they finally got a centerfielder in Luis Robert Jr. I guess if he can stay healthy, he'll be an upgrade over last year, offensively at least, though I am still a Tyrone Taylor fan for his A+ defense. #better call tyrone

In other sports news, my attempt to get interested in basketball seems to have done serious damage to the Knicks. They have been losing a lot lately. Plus, everyone I mentioned it to was like, don't do that. I didn't realize people in my wider circle felt that way about basketball. I guess there's always the Liberty! I should figure out when that season starts. Or the Sirens for hockey, but I don't think they've been very good either. Just a bad time all round for NY sports, I guess. And it's not like I'm a fair weather fan, though this certainly sounds like it - it's just I'd like to root for a team that isn't completely terrible, you know? As a treat!

On the books front, there is finally cover art and a real blurb for Dungeon Crawler Carl 8: Parade of Horribles, but still no Kindle* or e-book edition, so I broke down and pre-ordered the hardcover. (I can't do audiobooks. I've tried.) I also decided to do a reread of the series, because I've been trying to map out all the various stuff that needs resolving - and it is A LOT - so I wanted it to be fresh in my mind. So at some point there will be a post that is basically me as that Charlie Day-at-the-murder-board meme trying to figure it all out. *hands*

*I realize that I probably need to do a "free trial" of Kindle Unlimited to get the Kindle edition but I do not want to do that at this time. As the release date gets closer, we'll see if a Kindle edition shows up and I end up cancelling the hardcover, as I would prefer not to buy a hardcover tbh. I have all the rest on kindle, which is where I do 99.5% of my book-reading these days.

So anyway, I guess for the Wednesday reading meme, I just finished a reread of book 1 of Dungeon Crawler Carl and started rereading book 2: Carl's Doomsday Scenario. And I will probably read book 3: The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook after that and so on and so forth. *wry*

***

I used one of my Christmas gift cards to order a 12" carbon steel frying pan. I have a cast iron one but it is very heavy. I don't need it often, but when I do I'm always worried I'm going to drop it when it's full of hot food and I have to transfer it from stove top to oven or broiler, or vice versa. So we'll see how the carbon steel pan goes. I love the one I have for crepes, but it is much smaller and flatter.

It was top of mind this weekend because I decided to make this skillet chicken parm, but I was able to use my 10" (enameled) cast iron pan for it, which is more manageable, since I only had 2 chicken breasts. And it was pretty good! I made the Marcella Hazan simple tomato sauce for it and it worked out well. It's definitely easier than breading and frying a bunch of cutlets, and it gives a decent approximation of the best bits, which are the breading and cheese and sauce all melding together.

Then today I made this slow cooker creamy lemon chicken and it was okay - needed more lemon, imo, and also after reading the comments, I was prepared and added more cornstarch when the sauce didn't thicken much. I also thought it was weird that they want you to brown the chicken in butter first, but not saute the shallot and garlic. I didn't bother with searing the chicken, since generally I don't bother when I'm using the slow cooker, but I did saute the shallot and garlic first and added the dried herbs and let them sizzle for about 30 seconds before removing the pot from the stove and fitting it into the Instant Pot.

So it's been nice and cozy in here while the weather has been stupidly cold. Sadly, I have to go to a conference on Tuesday, when the high is supposed to be like 20°F. The agenda sounds interesting but I already told my boss if it was snowing I was staying home, but I don't think I can bail if it's just super cold but clear and dry. Who runs a conference in New York in January!? This is the time of year to be someplace warm. (Not that they would pay for me to go to a conference someplace warm! We're not even paying for this one - the tickets are comped because our head of HR is moderating a panel.)

I'm just glad I don't have to go out tomorrow, when it will be messy.

*