Paint and pasta

We went by the new place last night to remove the blue masking tape and do a little picking up.  It looks so much brighter and happier now in that place without all of those dark colors.  Seriously, it's a daylight basement and a good choice of paint colors is not anything remotely dark.  So I know have a pale pale green bedroom and a BRIGHT green dining room.  It makes me super happy.  I also got to meet one of my new neighbors.  He was really nice and has actually spent a lot of time recently on the gulf coast assisting with the BP oil spill recovery effort.  So yay!  Good neighbors!  My landlady is in the process of replacing the oven/stove and the fridge.  The ones that were in there were in definite need of an update.  I'm going to try to insert a couple of pics but this is my first time attempting this so we'll see how successful I am...

Living room before painting

Living room after painting! Now it's happy!

Bedroom before painting (see the horribly dark wall?)

Happy pale green bedroom after painting!

So, after we finished up at the house (and dropped of the sweaters that I most certainly won't be needing when I get home) we ran by the awesome co-op grocery store that is soon to be MY grocery store.  I grabbed some chocolates as gifts and we got a few things to make dinner.

We got back to L's and made a recipe for pasta that I had when I was in Italy.  So freaking simple and delicious...

-Make fresh pasta (yum)
-Heat up some chicken stock (I winged it but it was probably about 1.5 or 2 cups)
-Add a pinch of saffron to the stock while it heats.  I used homemade chicken stock so I also had to add    some salt.  If using store bought this should not be the case.
-Cut bacon into lardons and cook over medium heat until cooked but not crunchy.  Throw in several handfuls of arugula and let it wilt with the bacon.  Cook the fresh pasta briefly and then drain and transfer to the pan o bacon and arugula.  Pour the saffron chicken stock over the pasta/bacon mixture and let it all cook together until the sauce is almost totally absorbed.  Turn off head and pile as much pasta as you can eat on a plate and grate copious amounts of parmesan (the real stuff please.  not that shit that's scraped up off of the floor and put in a green plastic container) over the top.  Eat w/ good wine (and return for seconds)!

Up for tonight and tomorrow...happy hour hopping tonight.  And then tomorrow hiking up Tiger Mountain to watch the parasailers fly off into the distance.  Then on to wine tastings in Woodinville.