Goal #93 Go to a Shakespeare Play at the Globe Theater in Cedar City

Last night I saw my first Shakespeare play!! I'd read a little Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, and King Lear in high school) and seen some movies (Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado about Nothing--favorite!, and As You Like It), but had never seen Shakespeare performed live. It was incredible! This is definitely the way Shakespeare is meant to be experienced!

Photo ops with all sorts of Shakespearean statues abound

The Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City is endeavoring to represent all the Shakespeare plays in chronological order of the when they took place, at least for the histories. I saw a comedy--The Taming of the Shrew. I had to temper my modern ideals of gender equality, and put myself squarely in the context of 1593, but once I did it was very easy to enjoy. The actors were FABULOUS!

The hearth in Petruchio's house, during intermission, of course!

Tickets are pricey. However, I bought my tickets only a week and a half ahead of time, and at that point, only the cheap seats were left! We got $24 seats on the bench in the center rear of the Globe Theater replica, and it was actually just fine! Most of us stood for most of the time, which sounds awful, but it really wasn't. If I go again, I'll probably get the same seats.

A grainy picture of us in the cheapy seats

Conclusion? It's totally worth it. Get thee to Cedar City! The Shakespeare Festival runs through October 31, although The Taming of the Shrew will only be there till September 5th.

My dollar for completing this goal goes to an organization called Global Minimum. It funds projects (including mentoring) that young innovators are working on in Sierra Leon, Kenya, and South Africa. If you haven't seen this youtube video about this teenage inventor, you need to watch this:

Goal #72 Try 100 new recipes (33-34/100): "Healthy" Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last night I had a hankering for cookies. But I have been reading this book called "Deep Nutrition," which declares sugar and vegetable oils to be toxins. So even though I wanted to cave to my sweet tooth, I also wanted to adapt it to be less bad for my body.

Here are my two experiments:

Normal Chocolate Chip Cookies with Splenda and whole wheat flour

The normal recipe is here. I substituted half of the white sugar to be Splenda. So it still had a lot of normal sugar in it, but I had never cooked with Splenda before, so I didn't want to substitute too much and have gross cookies. I also used 1 c whole wheat flour, only 1/4 c refined white flour, and 1/4 c oat flour (leftover from the recipe below).

They tasted pretty good. The cookie dough was good for snacking, and they're close enough to the real thing to feel satisfied. I give them 4/5 stars.

Vegan-ish Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe found here. I'm the one that gave the designation vegan-ish, since it's self-proclaimed "Best EVER Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies" is completely inaccurate. It uses an egg (not vegan), but my eggs are cage free, so I think some vegans would be fine with that. (I'm not an expert, I just watched a documentary). It uses melted coconut oil instead of butter, which seems vegan to me. They said it was because coconut oil is a healthier fat. According to "Deep Nutrition," butter is also a healthy fat, as long as it comes from grass-fed cows (mine doesn't). And it uses oat flour instead of wheat four. Though gluten is no problem for me, I followed the recipe exactly.

Well, until it came to baking them. Apparently the "stick them in the fridge for 15-30 more minutes before you bake them" advice was for a reason. And apparently it's good to set a timer when you have things in the oven. Oops.

On left: following baking instructions. On right: NOT following instructions.

Either way, following directions did not make them delicious. They were weird. Oily. Coconutty. The cookie dough was definitely not good for snacking. The cookies themselves made me think it's better to just eat an apple than one of these. 0.5/5 stars. Ugh.

Goal #72. Try 100 new recipes (31-32/100): Kale Salad and Apple Crisp

Last week for dinner group I made Kale Salad with Pine Nuts, Currants, and Parmesan (along with gnocchi and pesto, which don't count since they didn't involve recipes). It was delicious! People kept going back for seconds. Someone told me afterward that she had to stop herself from licking her plate. Could there be a better compliment?!

The recipe is found here. It's easy (but you have to do a little prep the night before), healthy, and delicious. An enthusiastic 5/5 stars.

I also made apple crisp for dessert. I tried this twice for dinner group--once two weeks ago and once last night--trying to get it right. I think I succeeded.

First time

2nd time. 5/5 stars!

The first time I served it with Breyer's vanilla bean ice cream and salted caramel topping, which was a good choice. But I had forgotten the cinnamon (it always gets me when they put an ingredient in the directions but not the ingredient list!) and didn't peel the apples (it didn't say to!). It's my mom's delicious recipe, which I have now doctored to be Sabrina-proof for you. ;)

Apple Crisp

Base:

4-5 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced

2 Tbs water

2 Tbs lemon juice

cinnamon

Topping:

1/2 c brown sugar

1/2 c white sugar

3/4 c flour

1/4 c butter

3-4 sheets of graham crackers

Directions: 

Peel each apple, and slice with an apple slicer, then cut each slice in half again to make 16 slices from each apple. Spread slices evenly across the bottom of a greased 9X13 pan. Mix water and lemon juice together; sprinkle over apple slices. Generously sprinkle cinnamon. Mix sugars, flour, and butter (softened but not melty) in a small bowl. Use a pastry blender if you have one; if not, cut in the butter with two knives, until crumbly. Spread over apples. Blend graham crackers in blender to make crumbs, sprinkle on top. Bake uncovered for 50-60 mins at 350.

Goal #23 Kayak La Jolla sea caves

Since I was born and raised in San Diego county, people always think I'll have tips on what to do there. I don't. I didn't get my license until I was 17, and even then I was afraid of driving on the freeway. I much more of an expert on fun things to do in Utah than I am in my home state. So this adventure was one step toward fixing that!

Last summer I took a break from school and went home for the first summer break since I was a freshman. Since I was home, my mom and I continued a tradition we'd had when I was little--going on "birthday trips."

Birthday trips are the BEST! It's when you're a kid, and it's the weekend before or after your birthday, and your mom takes you ANYWHERE you want, and you get to sleep in a hotel and everything! I usually would choose to go to a play. My mom and I went to the Pantages theater in LA, the Lawrence Welk, or Hollywood seeing a new play every year.

This time my mom said she wanted to go on an "adventure" with me--something from my 99 list! I was impressed. So I researched this goal, and found out there were SHARKS! Harmless leopard sharks, but the pictures looked like this. Yikes.

There was no way my mom was gonna do this! I thought. And she looked a little green when I told her. But she still wanted to go. That's love.

We had a lovely time, exploring 7 caves with the La Jolla Bike and Kayak Tours, Inc. We didn't take our cameras with us on the tour, so I stole some pics from the internet of the caves:

Fortunately, they had a photographer taking pics of us as we came in, and he even got us flipping over our kayak! Apparently 2-seaters always do that. They didn't tell us that ahead of time. Luckily my poor mom didn't go too far. I, however, got launched. :) And loved it.

My dollar for completing this goal goes to one of my students' DonorsChoose campaigns (I teach educational technology to elementary ed majors). She wants an iPad mini for her classroom.

Goal # 15. Go to the Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake

Some years ago I heard about this massive (15' by 1,500') earthwork sculpture built by Robert Smithson in 1970 called Spiral Jetty. I think my humanities major friend Lisa, must have told me about it. Otherwise I could have probably lived a decade in Utah without having heard of it.

Apparently it's in all the art history books, and is considered the Mona Lisa of earth art. What's interesting is that it's the least-sighted masterpiece. A few years after it was constructed, water levels returned to normal (it was built during a drought), submerging to artwork for nearly THREE decades. I was concerned that it wouldn't be visible now, so I checked the water levels on this website to make sure it was below 4,195'. I needn't have worried. We had to walk 20 minutes beyond the jetty to get to the water!

On the drive up we read the personal essay "Looking for Spiral Jetty" by Lance Larsen, a recommendation from a different humanities friend. The essay totally colored my perception of the jetty. Despite the author's difficult diction, he created a sacred space around this artwork for me.

Spiral Jetty seemed like a moment frozen in time, yet outside of time. It felt prehistoric, with it's earthy shell-like swirl and ancient lava rocks. It felt like a moment in 1970 with Smithson (see this 2 minute excerpt from his 32-min 1970 film Spiral Jetty). And it felt like now.

I love the reflection in this spiral selfie!

In Larsen's essay, he said that the jetty "takes you where you want to go by going somewhere else." We found that to be true. Because although we came for the jetty, 2/3 of the fun was seeing the unexpectedly PINK water!!!

It felt like I was inside a fantasy novel, exploring some other planet! The sand was black (from the basaltic rocks), the water was pink, the surface underneath the water was white salt with golden flecks, and the soapy-looking foam was actually salt that melted back into crystals in your hand. I kept looking at the sky, expecting it to be green or purple, since everything else was following different rules.

It was a splendid adventure. I highly recommend it as a day trip to anyone living in Utah or Salt Lake Valleys. My ideal itinerary would be to drive up in the morning, get to the Spiral Jetty around 11am, plan to spend an hour to an hour and a half there (we spent an hour 20), then hit up Golden Spike National Monument on your way back at about 1pm for a demonstration of the joining of the Transcontinental Railroad (I didn't go this time since I went a few months ago, but it was awesome!), then go see the ATK rockets (it's 2 miles out of the way as you're driving back, and well worth the 15-20 minute diversion!).

Also as a side note, some of the sites I checked out before coming said you'd need 4-wheel drive. I had no trouble. The road is well grated, and as long as it hasn't been raining, there shouldn't be any trouble going in a commuter car.

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My dollar for completing this goal goes to my student's Donors Choose campaign. She is trying to get books for her classroom library, as she will be a first year teacher this coming school year.

Goal #13. Experience 10 new things in Provo (9/10): Food Truck Round Up

It's Thursday night. You don't want to make dinner. What do you do? Go to the Food Truck Round Up, of course! It's this brilliant thing that our fair city started up a few months ago. We have a ton of food trucks in the valley, and they have excellent food. I've been wanting to go for weeks, and finally went last night!

Facial expression fail! I think I was trying to show excitement?

It's from 6-9:30 in front of the Start Up Building. You should go. And eat a Sweeto Burrito. They're delicious.

Goal #7: Go off roading in Moab (Utah Bucket List)

Moab is one of my favorite places on earth (along with Jerusalem and Provo Canyon). It's like nature's playground. I've been to Arches more than I've been to any other national park. And every time I go, I see people off Jeeping through uncharted territory, crawling over barren sandstone fins like insects on a foreign landscape. The ancient rocks and the newfangled technology make an excellent clash of time. In short, it's alluring. And I've always wanted to do it.

How cool does THAT look?!

And a few weeks ago, I did! I went with my sister and her four kids. We rented a Ranger, since it fit 6 people, and headed out to Slick Rock.

The kids on top of a fin

Flying hair, flying heartbeat

This drop was almost vertical!

But we totally conquered it!

Fun, but terrifying. I think I don't need to do it again. I gave my guardian angels a workout and got an adrenaline fix for at least six months.

My dollar for completing this goal goes to the DonorsChoose campaign of one of my students (I teach an educational technology class for elementary ed majors). She's trying to get Chromebooks for her future classroom. So far I'm the only one who's donated, so if you feel so inclined, please help her out!