Category Archives: Food

2022, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

Food Feelings

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Daughter has made some wonderful friends in Tacoma, and they all seem to have a shared interest in good food. Daughter tells me weekly what she is cooking, and has really expanded her cooking repertoire.

The other week, Daughter and a friend realized the extent of their food obsession when Friend and her husband went out to eat at a favorite restaurant and found that a beloved spinach artichoke dip with sun-dried tomatoes had been discontinued permanently. Her friend was horrified to find herself actually bursting into tears at the disappointment. Her grandfather had died quite recently, but Friend said that had nothing to do with her reaction to the loss of the dip. That dip was really special to her.

Daughter is always eager to point out when I haven’t been a perfect parent, and the spinach dip incident reminded her of the time she phoned me in tears because a friend had forgot to put a pan of enchiladas that Daughter had made in the fridge overnight, rendering them somehow spoiled. She admits she reacted to it like a 13 year old girl. Her takeaway from the phone call, though, was her hearing me say “You talk to her, Chris. I can’t deal with her right now.” Husband proceeded to say all the right things to her, about how this wasn’t about the enchiladas but about her disappointment that her friend had been careless. Dad 1, Mom 0.

What foods do you have an emotional reaction to? How did your parents differ in their ways of interacting with you? What is your favorite artichoke recipe?

2022, animals, Art, Business, Food, History, Music, Mysteries, Travel

Where in the World is VS?

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A friend of mine recently re-located here and just moved into her new townhouse; she invited me to come down for a few days to visit.  Although I have been to this state, I’ve never been to this city before, despite having sent a few groups here over the years.  I’m looking forward to a few relaxing days of sightseeing and entertainment.

    • The city is named after a Continental Army general during the American Revolutionary War.
    • The person who first called the U.S. flag “Old Glory” lived here.
    • The largest songwriter’s festival in the world is held here.
    • There is a full-scale replica of the Greek Parthenon in this city.
    • President Theodore Roosevelt coined the phrase “good to the last drop” here.
    • This was the first city in the nation to be granted an FM-broadcasting license.
    • The first seeing-eye dog training school in the U.S. was founded here.

Where am I?  And if you know, what should I see while I’m here?

2022, Family, Food, Health, Uncategorized

Fat Lip

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Husband had a dental filling on Monday. He came home, mouth and lips still numb from the anesthetic, and ate a slice of bread and laid down to take a nap.

I came home at 5:00 pm, and was shocked to see Husband’s lower lip. I exclaimed “You look like you were in a fight! What happened?” His lip was terribly swollen. He didn’t know what I was talking about at first, as his face was still numb from the dentist. Closer inspection revealed a gash on the inside of his lip, suggesting that he had bit his lip while eating the slice of his homemade sourdough loaf, and didn’t feel it because of the anesthesia. We iced it, and by yesterday it was much reduced although still red and sore looking.

One of my coworkers told the story of her husband the day before their wedding deciding to eliminate a hornets’ nest and getting stung on the eyelid, causing his eye to swell shut and turn all sorts of lurid colors.

Got any fat lip or black eye stories? Ever given anyone a black eye or a fat lip?

2022, Family, Food, Kids, Uncategorized

A Gift Of Chard

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Our next door neighbors are a delightful pair of educators whose children we involve in our gardening. One of their extended families has a German tradition of eating cooked Swiss Chard doused with vinegar. That is certainly not our experience with German cuisine, but who am I to judge. We always grow chard so I can make an Italian pie of greens, but our harvests have been so plentiful we always have chard to spare. This year is no exception, and we have so much frozen chard from previous years that I shall not need much this year, except for a bit for a butternut squash and fresh chard phyllo pie recipe husband found. We always grow Argentata, a white chard variety.

The neighbors have happily harvested our chard on two occasions this summer, always looking sheepish and guilty, as though they were robbing us or doing something illegal. We are so happy to share chard with them, and would probably plant chard even if we didn’t need it, just because we believe family traditions are important. The neighbors consider it a real gift.

What family traditions do you think are important to keep? What traditions do you want to eliminate? What simple things do you consider a good gift? How do you prepare chard?

2022, Food, Gatherings, News, Uncategorized

Butter Board?

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I don’t consider myself a trendy person although I do like to think that I at least pay attention to what’s going on in the world.

A few years ago when charcuterie, although not a new concept, became a big deal, I noted it.  I’ve never served a charcuterie board; I don’t have a good reason, just never got around to it.  (Aside: I DO have a stamp set of a board with all the normal charcuterie inclusions – meats, cheese, olives, tomatoes, etc.) 

Now I see that “butter boards” are all the rage.  At first I thought butter boards were an assortment of butters, which seemed a little weird but now that I’ve read a few articles, I understand the concept.  You start with a board, spread soft butter lavishly all over it and then add various seasonings.  Salt, lemon zest, garlic, red onion, various spices, greens, even honey – you name it, there is probably already a recipe out there for it.  You serve these butter boards with bread and there are lots of opinions about that as well.

They look fun but I don’t know if I’ll get around to serving it.  In my circles I envision spending more time explaining it to people than I would eating it!

What would you like on your butter board?  Will you miss charcuterie?

2022, Family, Food, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Hand Pies

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Despite already having way too many kitchen toys, last month I couldn’t resist a set of hand pie molds on sale in a catalog of cooking fripperies.  I had never heard the phrase “hand pies” until I moved to Minnesota and even then, I don’t hear it often. 

Now that YA and I are overloaded with apples from our trip to the orchard on Sunday, I decided to try out one of my new molds – the apple one.  I didn’t use any particular recipe, just some thinly chopped apples with sugar and a bit of cinnamon.  At the last minute I tossed in a half cup of raspberries from my canes.  I also used refrigerated pie dough (Trader Joe’s) since I wasn’t sure how it would all come together.  I hate wasting dough made from scratch!

They turned out pretty well considering that I was just winging it.  I figured out pretty quickly that flour was needed in the mold and that although I was using an egg wash on the outside, I should have used water as the binder between the two layers of pastry.  The last issue is one I’ve encountered before; when working with store-bought pie dough, you have to really work the edges together when you roll out the scrap pieces or they don’t hold.  I know this but didn’t follow through well because I was rushing a bit (I had already made an apple crisp at YA’s request).  They turned out OK but not as pretty as any of the online pictures.  That’s OK, I didn’t expect masterpieces the first time around.

The good news is that even though they weren’t picture-perfect, they taste great.  The addition of the raspberries gave them a bit of a twang and being able to pick up your pie and eat it without a fork or spoon is a lot of fun.  Maybe I’ll try blueberries next time around.

What kind of food have you discovered as an adult? 

2022, animals, education, Family, Food, Kids, Mysteries, pets

Dog Beds

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Guinevere has multiple beds.  YA can’t resist them so there is one in her kennel in the breakfast room, one in my room and one in YA’s room.  Recently we’ve changed up sleeping arrangements; during the day Guinevere and Nimue pretty much ignore each other but nighttime is a different matter. The last month or so, Guinevere has moved from my room to YA’s room at night.  Every day YA moves the dog bed from my room to her room because “Gwen likes that bed during the day”.   I noticed today that both of the upstairs dog beds are still in YA’s room. 

Beds & Lambies

In addition, Guinevere has FOUR lampchop chewy toys.  This is in addition to a huge basket full of other balls and toys, but the lampchop ones are definitively her favorites.  YA and I used a giftcard last spring and bought several of them, so we have extras on hand if the current flock gets nibbles too much.

Guinevere is also refusing to eat her kibble this week.  This happens every couple of years when she just decides that her currently dogfood isn’t fitting the bill.  While YA and I are both fine with changing her food, neither of us is willing to throw out half of a large bag of kibble.  I voted for letting her go hungry on the theory that she won’t starve to death and eventually she’ll eat what we have.  YA is frantic about the non-eating.  So far this past week on different occasions I’ve seen lots of delicacies added to Guinevere’s dish: peanut butter, vanilla yogurt, maple syrup, pumpkin and also some very smelly dog sauces in pouches.  Each of these items worked moderately well but we’ve still got at least 2 weeks before we’re ready for a new brand of dry food. Good grief.

Have you ever had a hand in spoiling someone?

2022, Food, Games, home, Mysteries, Technology

Dish Drainer Jenga

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I saw a funny picture on Facebook last week – dish jenga.  I laughed because it’s true – at least in my life.

Usually it doesn’t come to this but on Monday, it was the perfect dish drainer jenga storm.  YA took the last brownie to work – an empty Tupperware.  Cooked down the last of the raspberries into a sauce. Made a bundt cake – mixing bowl and then bundt pan.  Three jars of pesto – that was a biggie as it uses the salad spinner and most of the food processor and accessories.  Then add in the dishes from breakfast as well as all the measuring cups, spoons and spatulas for all the morning endeavors and I was well and truly jenga’d. 

If the dishwasher were working I suppose I could have filled it up instead and if I’d been willing to get out a dishtowel to dry, I could have put things away as I was working.  But for some reason, while I am willing to stop between steps of projects to wash things, washing AND drying doesn’t seem like a good use of time when I know dishes will dry on their own.  I’m guessing this is the kind of thought process that results in most folks who end up with dish jenga.

I’ve never liked the actual Jenga game very much.  The groups I’ve played in haven’t managed to keep the game going very long and it’s not that much fun when you are constantly having to pick up all the pieces.  And life-size Jenga is terrifying; I only played it once on the beach in St. Thomas and it gave me nightmares.

What are your favorite board games?

2022, Family, Food, Mysteries, State Fair, Uncategorized

Corn Fed

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I remember the first time I saw someone take a picture of their food about 20 years ago.  It was dinner with a client at Swan Court, at the Hyatt in Maui.  It was a lovely evening and we were seated outside along the lagoon when we noticed a young couple sitting close to us taking photos of their plates before tucking in.  The client and I were too polite to laugh out loud, but we did roll our eyes and we talked about it more than once over the next two days. 

Little did we know that we were witnessing the beginning of a worldwide trend.  These days social media is filled with pictures of people’s snacks, meals, drinks…. any edible will do.  For this trend, YA is all in; we can’t ever eat anywhere without the obligatory photo before she begins to eat.  And often I have to move my plate or my glass or my coffee cup so it doesn’t mess up her photo.

State Fair is about the only time I join in the food photo frenzy.  Cheese curds and cookies subtitled “Breakfast of Champions” got texted to several friends.  My pretty Margarita lemonade made the cut as well as the French Toast Bites but most of my comestibles went undocumented.  YA took photos of everything, including her roasted corn in the photo above. 

Considering how common food photos are these days, I was really surprised when a woman standing near YA said in a loud voice “Oh it’s just food.  Eat it already!”  YA just ignored her; as the aggrieved mother, I was mustering up a zinger for this woman but she had already disappeared into the crowd.  I was really stunned by this, first because YA wasn’t obstructing any traffic at all and second because taking pictures of food is so very common these days.  I can only surmise that this poor woman had been driven to distraction by her kids that day at the fair, keeping her from all her first bites of fair food by taking photo after photo!

Tell me one of your favorite corn recipes!

2022, Family, Food, Kids, State Fair, Uncategorized

Fair Eats

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My stomach was a little unsettled yesterday.  Not actual distress… just feeling a little sensitive.  I suppose after five days of fair food, it’s only to be expected.  Especially Sunday.  In looking back, except for the cookies and the Hawaiian shave ice, every single thing I ate was fried.  Yikes.

I’m blaming a lot of this on YA and the State Fair marketing types.  For years YA and I have gotten our coupon booklets ahead of time; we used to go through them on the bus on the way to the fair but last year and this year, YA went through a week in advance and put post-it notes on the foods she was interested in.  Then the marketing types sent us an email listing all the new foods for 2022.  YA perused this seriously and then made a list.  Yep, she’s my daughter, isn’t she?!

A few items got listed after I took the photo and what you also don’t see is that each night that we got home from the fair, she highlighted any of the foods we’d eaten during the day.  Truly the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

It will be much easier to tell you what we DIDN’T get to.  We passed the vegan corn dog trailer more than once but it never seemed the right moment.  I’ll try harder next year if they come back.  We did want to try the sweet potato poutine but you have to really want it to stand in the lines at The Blue Barn in the afternoon.  We stopped at the global market for arepas and moletes but neither of them looked that good so we tried something else.  And even though YA put the tirokroketes on the list, she was never in the mood when we passed Dino’s.  She also decided against the cotton candy float.

Some of the items got multiple tastings (cookies and Hawaiian Shave Ice are daily staples) and cheese curds, of course.  We hit the fried blueberry pie more than once – it was a new food and it was terrific.  Cheesy Siracha Funnel Cake Bites (way better than you’re imagining), Fried Pickles and Roasted Corn are favorites.  We got the pickle pizza on the first Saturday before it went viral; the lines were blocks long in both directions on Sunday.  It was fun but again not worth standing in line that long.  In fact, I always buy my cookies in the first hour and put most of them in a Tupperware that I raid as the day goes on, because I can’t do the afternoon lines. 

Just reading through all of this had made me realize that as much as I love the fair, it’s probably a good thing it only happens once a year.  It might take my stomach until next year to recover!

When was the last time you got carried away with anything?