Treat yo' self (to homemade pasta!)

Today was my last vacation day of my intern year, and it was a treat yo' self day for me. I've been doing outpatient family medicine for the past month, and it has actually been a pretty relaxed time. I didn't have to get to work until 8 am, I took several days off when Chris's parents and brother were in town for Easter, and, as an intern, I usually only see 8-9 patients per clinic day. But I needed a preemptive vacation for the 4 straight months of inpatient medicine that will start on Cinco de Mayo (ICU, family medicine inpatient service, inpatient pediatrics, and another month of family medicine inpatient service).

So today, as suggested by my lovely husband, I treated myself to a haircut AND an hour-long massage. I woke up late, took Tessie for a leisurely stroll, did a few sun salutations, and headed over to the Aveda Institute (I tend to seek out Aveda schools wherever I live for haircuts because of the price, the tea, and the scalp massages). It was glorious. And it cost a total of $59 (plus tips). After my spa morning, I came home, did some reading, watched a couple of episodes of A Chef's Life, ate a maple-glazed donut that Chris bought me on his way home from work, drank an iced latte, and relaxed. 

For dinner tonight, we made our own pasta (Chris has done this before, but I feel very excited when I participate in making dinner)! One of Chris's students sells eggs from his family's chickens by placing an icebox full of eggs at the end of his driveway next to a lock box and a sign that reads, "$2 per dozen eggs." And people actually leave money in the box! Chris was lucky enough to have his eggs hand-delivered by the purveyor, and we used those eggs to make our very own pasta. 

It was actually quite easy: eggs + flour for the dough, roll it very thin, then roll up the thin sheet, slice it thinly, and unroll the strips before placing them in boiling water for just a couple of minutes. 

While I was rolling and slicing the dough, Chris made an awesome mushroom ragout. We had a discussion about ragout versus ragu (which was fruitless--I still don't know the difference, aside from one being French and one being Italian. Maybe there is no difference?) and laughed about the time that we went to an upscale restaurant and I ordered "rag-out." French pronunciations aren't really my thing.

{the final result}

We don't have much planned for the weekend, aside from a Vermont Restaurant Week trip to a popular restaurant in a nearby town tomorrow night (it's so popular, in fact, that I called 3 weeks ago and the only reservation available was for the last night of restaurant week at 9 pm). Aside from that, we will probably drink some coffee and enjoy my last two-day weekend for...a while.