Name Games

From a very young age, I grew up watching "The Young & the Restless." I won't divulge the details of how that guilty pleasure came about, but from 5th grade on through college, if I was ever home at 11:00 a.m., I made it a point to catch up on the lives of those in Genoa City. Surprisingly, not much had changed.

One thing that will always stick with me from my stint with soap operas was the ridiculous use of romantic and elaborate names:

Victor Newman and Nikki Reed and their children Victoria and Nicholas Newman. 
Christine "Cricket" Blair and her relationships with Phillip Chancellor III and Danny Romalotti. 
Isabella Williams. 
Michael Baldwin.
And the list goes on.

It's no wonder then that I took such a liking to the Soap Opera Name Game I learned in high school. It's really something of an ice breaker. The game goes like this:

Let's pretend you are going to join a soap opera as a new character. How do you choose your cast name? I believe this formula to be 90% reliable. It is as follows:




For example: If your name was Judy Marie Smith and you lived on Lozier Lane, your soap opera name would be Marie Lozier.

All that is to say, for the last 6 months, Andrew and I have been Stephen and Danielle Greene. Not bad. Personally, I think it just screams good-looking philanthropic power couple. 

Well, as I mentioned earlier, Andrew and I have been in the process of moving from Augusta to Savannah. We decided early on we didn't want to play the renting game anymore so we would just buy. As in buy a house. As in lock ourselves into a mortgage payment for essentially the rest of our lives. It was an intimidating process.

Of the many properties we saw, I couldn't help applying the Soap Opera Name Game to each and every house. Did I want to be Danielle Laurel Hill? Or Danielle Ivey? I knew I didn't want to be Danielle Hwy 144...but choosing a house is really difficult. How do you pick the "right" one? How do you know if the house you like is the one you should buy...or what if a better one comes along later? So in true adolescent style and in my fear of commitment, I often resorted to this name game. Eventually, after weeks of searching, it came down to two names: Danielle Bristol or Danielle Savannah.

And I'm pleased to say that on Thursday, we officially changed our name to The Bristols:



I'll be honest, Danielle Bristol sounds slightly more...bratty, but I'm pretty in love with our new house. We spent the weekend unpacking boxes. This was more exciting than normal because our stuff from Oregon finally arrived. It was like Christmas. A person can forget how much stuff they actually own.

Soooo back to that name game tangent that seemingly has nothing to do with the fact that we just bought our first house, I'm always looking for a good soap opera name. I think it says a lot about a person's alter ego. At one point in her life, Karyn was Virginia Apple. It's not hard to figure out what that character would be like. My friend Mandy grew up as Rae Shady. Again, I think the name speaks for itself.

Unfortunately, if you currently live on Corban's campus, you are sort of disqualified from the game. Sorry Kari, but anything Deer Park Drive would never cut it in Genoa City. Not even Esther Deer Park.

I'm dying to know any noteworthy soap opera names out there -- I think it says a lot about a person. Are you the good girl? The rich one? The heartbreaker? A plain jane? Inquiring minds want to know.

More from the Bristols soon...

Basically the Best Apple Pie Ever...

I really hate when people use hyperbole to describe inconsequential things; however, it just might be appropriate in this case. With apple season right around the corner, I thought I'd share this apple pie recipe that I've been perfecting-ly tweaking for the last few months (again, I've had a lot of time on my hands due to that whole "there are no intelligible beings in my life with which to interact between the hours or 7 a.m. and 5 p.m....therefore I bake a lot). The crust recipe is a variation from my dad's semi-famous pie crust and the filling recipe is modified from an allrecipes.com find. This really is the best apple pie I've ever had. And now, I offer you the chance to try it.

Note: you should not eat this pie if you are interested in things like losing weight, not consuming sugar, feeling good about your eating habits or are allergic to eating three slices of pie in one sitting.

I also apologize for not picking up my camera until about halfway through this process. Sometimes I'm a stress-case when I bake.

Thus we begin:

Preheat oven to 425*

For the Crust:
2 cups AP flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbl sugar
2/3 cup shortening
5-7 tbl cold water
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tbl apple cider vinegar

Mix flour, salt and sugar in a large bowl. With a pastry cutter (or two knives), cut in shortening until pea-sized crumbs begin to form. Sprinkle water, egg and cider over top of dough and with your hands, combine until a soft dough begins to form (it will be slightly crumbly). Split dough into two mounds, with one mound being ever-so-slightly larger than the other.

Take the larger dough and on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll out to desired circle size. Gently fold the dough into quarters and place inside pie pan; unfold and press gently into pan and cut off any extra sides.

For the filling:
apple mix:
6 granny smith apples, cored, peeled and sliced
1 tbl cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
sauce:
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup apple cider or apple juice
3 tbl AP flour

For the apples: toss apples in a bowl with cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour into prepared pie shell.



For the sauce: melt butter in saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in flour. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer five minutes or until thickened.



Next, pour the sauce over the top of the apple mixture, making sure to coat the apples as evenly as possible.



Roll out your remaining pie crust dough, and if desired, punch out meaningless shapes and set the shapes aside.



With water, wet the top part of the dough all along the rim of the pie pan. Again, fold the top pie crust into fourths and place on top of apples and gently unfold.





Granted, you really don't have to do this decor portion. You could simply cut slits in the top of a normal pie crust...but why would you do that?

Seal edges of pie crust with fingers or a fork and cut away any excess dough.

And now just because it's even more obnoxious, take those punch outs, dab some water on the back of them and place them lovingly on and around the pie.



Now pop that baby in the oven for 15 minutes at 425*. Then reduce heat to 350* and bake for 30-40 minutes more or until pie is bubbly.

Finally, remove, slice and eat. I didn't even get a good picture of the finished product because I was so distracted by how tasty this pie was.



Obviously, you should serve this pie with ice cream. Or, if you're feeling particularly evil, you could even toss some cut-up caramel pieces on top of the apple filling before you put the top crust on. Ooooor you could use a crumb topping. All those things would be swell and guilt-filled experiences. K...besos!