Encyclopedia of Me - E (Stacy)

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Eggs - I LOVE eggs. Love. It may even rank as one of my favorite foods (along with avocados, sushi, Mexican, etc.). Weird collection of foods, I guess. I think what I'm trying to say is that eggs are my food of choice for a quick snack, preferably before bed. I enjoy eating them before bed more than in the morning (I'm not a "big breakfast" person). Eggs amaze me - there are so many ways to prepare them! I like them scrambled, fried (dippy), you name it. I love when a salad has boiled eggs on it. I love eggs in my fried rice. One of my favorite ways to eat them are as Dutch Babies (or German Pancakes) - which is like a Yorkshire pudding without the meat drippings. I prefer to eat them salty (some people cover them with sugars and fruits). I'm way more into salty foods than sweets. I'd much rather order an appetizer than a dessert, if it came down to a choice between the two. I really love farm fresh eggs (they taste SO much better) and am grateful we live in a place where those are easy to get. Eggs are, in my opinion, the kind of food (like grilled cheese sandwiches and hot cocoa) that taste so much better when someone else makes them, and even though my husband doesn't like eggs (it's taken me years to be okay with this), he makes me the best eggs and he's such a good sport to do that. They are so yummy! One time, he brought me some scrambled eggs that immediately brought back so many wonderful memories of my childhood, much of which was spent with my grandfather, who made me delicious eggs. Well, when Mark brought me these particular scrambled eggs, they tasted just like my Vavô used to make them. I asked him about it right away, wanting to get the recipe of whatever he had just done while it was fresh in his mind. Turns out, Mark had accidentally let the butter sit a bit long, so it had browned. Well, that is the secret to Vavô eggs!! Those are now one of my very favorite ways to eat scrambled eggs, which I simply call "Vavô eggs." :)

Emerson - Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of my very favorite authors/philosophers/thinkers to read. I became enamored with him when I was in college. I was walking through my University bookstore and picked up a book and started flipping through it. I don't know how much time went by as I stood there reading, but I couldn't stop reading what were, to me, words reflecting my own mind and thoughts, but so poetically and beautifully expressed. It was Emerson. I know it might sound strange, but I felt a connection with him and I bought the book. To this day, it's one of my most treasured books and if I'm feeling the need to read something beautiful or to feel inspired, I pick it up, open to any page (it's a book of mainly his essays), and read. I'm always uplifted. He has such a gift. I love to study the time period in which he lived. Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott . . . all the transcendentalists and the area of Concord and Lexington (one of Mark's and my favorite areas to visit). I love their ideals and their ways. If I were to go back for a PhD, I would get it in Humanities and my thesis would have something to do with the transcendental period. A while back, I read a great historical fiction novel entitled, Mr. Emerson's Wife. It was about Mrs. Emerson and in the book, she had a thing for Thoreau. I loved it! I wrote the author to tell her how much I enjoyed it and I heard back from her, too. I love Emerson's writings.

Equality  - I have always been justice minded, even as a child. I have always felt extremely confused and saddened when I've watched people deny rights to others just because they're different than them. I have never, ever understood that. Why anyone would think of someone as lesser, simply due to the color of his or her skin or due to pigment is a complete and utter mystery to me. Always has been. Always will be. It's prejudice and racism, pure and simple. I have no patience for rights being infringed upon due to someone's gender or sexual orientation either. I think the counsel to love others is a good one and I believe in compassion. I don't believe in imposing one's morality on others, especially when those others are doing nothing to harm people. Racism is evil and wrong and there's no okay way to couch it or allow it; bigotry is no different. I believe in equality for everyone - the same classrooms for all, the same drinking fountains for all, the same rights for all. I applaud and support those who work toward equality and I won't affiliate myself with organizations who try to limit it or slow its progress. There were groups back in the 60s who were fighting for and against civil rights. We watch footage of them now and are appalled at the hatred spewed by those who fought it. They felt justified. Sadly, the same is true today. People feel justified, but someday when the tapes are played in museums and foundations for social justice, people will look back and see the same thing. I want to be on the right side of history and the right side believes in progress and equality for all. It always has. There has never been a time in history that has shown different.

Elliott - Elliott Yamin is my all-time favorite American Idol contestant. You know, I have the intention of blogging nearly everything we do - my intentions are good, the reality doesn't always match up. :P Well, we saw Elliott in concert a couple of autumns ago and it was wonderful! We got to see him, enjoy a fantastic concert (he is crazy talented!), and meet him. He is such a sweetheart! I got to hug Elliott Yamin and tell him that I power dialed for him!! It was a great night. We also got to become familiar with his opening act, a great singer-songwriter named Mikey Wax. Mikey Wax just got signed with a major label. We have liked him for years. I have something exciting to share about that, too, but it really deserves its own post. I need to do that! Anyway, I love Elliott's soulful voice and manner. He's a very talented musician.

Enchiladas/El Torito's - Ah, my dear El Torito's. It was my favorite Mexican restaurant growing up. I believe they've closed many locations and are hard to find now. My favorite thing to eat there? Chicken and sour cream enchiladas. Oh, they were delicious. I love chicken enchiladas! Theirs were yummy - the tortillas, the sauce, the sour cream . . . all of it. And they always put that little sweet corn cake on the plate, too. Yum! We've found a copycat recipe of that and sometimes make it when we do Mexican here at home. For our birthdays, we do breakfast in bed and then choose one meal out and one favorite homemade meal in. One of my very favorite meals is chicken enchiladas. When we go out for Mexican, it's usually what I order above all else. I have a legendary story from my teenage days about El Torito's. Jim used to take me to activities and he also helped teach me to drive. When we'd go out like that, we'd sometimes stop and get a bite to eat, just me and him. One time, we went to El Torito's. Okay, so you need to know that I am known for my doggie bags. To this day, when I eat out, I generally (depending on the kind of food) eat half my meal and take half home for later and make at least one, sometimes several more meals out of it. I love food and like to make good stuff last. So, he and I were done eating and they brought us our receipt and told us to have a good day and I asked where my doggie bag was (they'd taken my food back to box) and the waitress said, "Oh, I'm so sorry! I threw it out!" Noooooooooooooooo! It pains me to waste food (another thing to know about me). PAINS me. I do not throw out food if I can help it, stretch it, make a meal out of it, what have you. I think it's wasteful to throw out perfectly good food and don't understand people who are anti-leftovers. The woman must've seen the look of horror on my face and she felt so bad, so they gave us gift certificates for free meals to make up for it. So, naturally, I took Jim at a later time and we used them. I was so sad that they threw out my half meal, but so happy I got two more meals out of it!