Recently in Food Category

We had a couple of events, surrounding a relatively relaxing afternoon. With all of the events and running around of the last week, it was earned. This evening, Will finally lost his upper left front tooth. It had been loose for so long, and today is was barely holding on. But he didn’t want to help it along, so we had to wait it out until dinner time. But it came out then, so Will has now lost 5 of his baby teeth so far. But he’s got that nice, big gap in the upper front to deal with. I guess apples and carrots are going to be more difficult now.

In the morning, everyone woke up close to our normal times and participated in our annual Mummers pancake tradition. It’s something my family started over 20 years ago, when we lived outside of Philadelphia, PA and would watch the annual Mummers Parade on TV. The parade goers dressed up in all sorts of fanciful ways, and so we made a tradition of decorating faces on pancakes with all sorts of fruits, sprinkles, whipped cream and other toppings. Even after leaving the Philadelphia area, we have continued to do the tradition, and Kellie has also bought into the tradition. Some years, we do Belgian waffles, but this year it was pancakes.

Here are a few snapshots from this morning’s festivities. Somehow, we did not get pictures of my parents’ creations, but we have samples from my family.

Today is a non-family news day. I just have a few links I want to dump out there for people to consider/ponder.

For those of us who have been in Scouting before, you’re probably aware that Scouting is becoming less popular as an extracurricular activity. I was a Cub Scout (and ultimately an Eagle Scout)), and my (and Kellie’s) hope is that Will wants to do Cub Scouting) starting next year. The local council has recently launched a new recruiting campaign tied to less refined characteristics of young boys. In some ways, it’s at odds with how you think of Scouts (A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful…), but at the same time, isn’t this what growing up as a boy should be about?

In no way, shape or form do I expect to ever step up to this weight class — of food eating. Ponder it for a minute. I think this is more calories than Michael Phelps eats in a day.

Lastly, are you still on the fence on who to vote for in the upcoming US presidential election? Or just curious about how well you match up with the positions of the various candidates? Well Glassbooth attempts to help you quantify the level of similarity between what you think is most important (and what you believe, on a simplistic 5-point rating level) and what all 5 major candidates’ positions are. Don’t use this as your only source of decison-making, but it will be thought-provoking if you see a candidate you never thought was right for you might be more right than you think.

I’ll post my results on the 5 candidates closer to election time. Anyone willing to post their results in the comments is always welcome.

Today did not involve anything extraordinary. We had another church fundraiser at Noodles & Company. But we remembered to take our camera with us this time, and we got the video of Sean eating his bean sprouts. (He ate them all again this time, just like the time we first discovered his love of them in late June.)

And while I’m too late for the Olympics, I found this amusing little gymnastics routine to be — what? Inspiring? Confusing? Over-the-top? Any way you look at it, that is still some good skill to be able to do a non-standard routine like that.

Our first tomatoes are coming in. We got a couple of cherry tomatoes (not even an inch in diameter) off the plants yesterday. They tasted good. We can’t wait for more of the cherry tomatoes, plus the bigger ones that are on the vine (but very green).

On another food note, Sean continues to prove that he will eat anything edible. (Sand at the beach notwithstanding.) Kellie and I had brussels sprouts for our veggie for dinner tonight, and we offered both Sean and Daniel a few cut up pieces. (We knew better than to offer it to Will.) Daniel ate a few, but left most of his pieces, focusing on the meatballs. Sean started with the brussels sprouts and ate most of them, eventually getting around to the meatballs.

Will successfully completed his second overnight visit (on Saturday night), this time without either parent. That meant he got to spend more time with Ryan, and they had a blast together. He had so much fun that he didn’t want him to leave. He even wanted to go back on Sunday night to sleep at Gwama’s. (That wasn’t going to happen.)

Will has also started to ride his three-wheel scooter more now. We walked/rode down to the pool and back yesterday, which is much farther than he’s ever shown interest in riding it before. He’s still not ready for the two-wheel scooter that Aunt Dena and Uncle Dennis got him, but I see that day coming at some point. Now he wants to ride his scooter every day (even before dinner tonight). I think that’s a good thing for him.

And if you talk to Emily any time soon, ask her about her performance in the NYC Half-Marathon yesterday. She did very well, though I’m not sure you’ll see her in the results. (Again, you’ll just have to ask her.) Congrats on an excellent time — I think it’s a few seconds better than my fastest half-marathon time.

You’ll get that at the end of the post. But first a couple of other news items that caught my attention recently. First, let’s raise a toast to beer as the savior of civilization. George Will diverts his focus to a brief summary of the necessity of beer to allow early urbanization of humans. It brings up some interesting ideas about genetic advantages that might have resulted from urbanized humans versus those that remained in hunter-gatherer situations.

If you are thinking about traveling to Bermuda during hurricane season, some hotels there have intriguing policies on refunds if Bermuda were to get threatened or actually affected by a hurricane. It’s not for every property, but it looks like someone has thought of an interesting way to try to get people past their fears of a storm causing them to lose money on a trip.

Then there is the scourge of lawyers being necessary for any little concern, it seems. Some kids scraped together a wiffle ball field that mirrors Fenway Park, but not everyone appreciates their effort. I’m not sure this is a clear-cut situation for those who made the ball field, but I definitely don’t have much sympathy for the homeowners, especially the last one who is quoted.

And if you’ve made it this far, here is a redneck seafood dinner. Maybe this is one Will would like.

Just a couple of quick notes, as the video of stuff from the 4th of July is going to take longer than I have to post today. But to give you a taste of what you might see, please check out Sean getting down to the Chicken Dance and the Itsy-Bitsy-Spider at a party at his daycare on July 3rd.

As for post-Independence Day events, Kellie and the kids joined me and my parents (who were down for the weekend) at the 30th annual Hanover Tomato Festival. Hanover is well-known for its tomatoes (okay, at least in these parts) and celebrates the season when they are available.

My real reason for posting actually has to do with politics. One thing that you get at the Tomato Festival is various levels of politicking going on, particularly with signs sprouting along the side of the road, as well as patrons who allow campaign volunteers to get them to wear candidate-supporting stickers. Hanover County is strongly Republican-leaning (see the 2006 election results, where the George Allen took 67% of the vote, despite losing the Senate election).

What I found most interesting is that the Republican volunteers were trying to interest attendees in both John McCain and Jim Gilmore (Republican Senate candidate) stickers, but there were very few I saw that had both stickers. I saw quite a few McCain stickers, but not so many Gilmore stickers. On the Democratic side, I saw an okay number of Mark Warner (Democratic Senate candidate) stickers and just a few sporting Barack Obama stickers.

And that’s just one man’s observation in a heavily Republican county at a region-wide event.

First off, there is this pie recipe that I made 2 weekends ago. Before a whirlwind visit to NoVA, I had made a blueberry ginger ice box pie, which we dug into before we left my parents’ house. They were willing participants in the experimental tasting, and so far as I know, it was a hit. (At least no one came up sick.)

OK, those who tried it actually raved about it. It’s relatively easy to make and tastes oh-so-good, as long as you have a few hours ahead of service time to have it chill.

The headline on the story says it all: Judge agrees: Duke football as bad as it gets. And it was Duke that asked for this ruling. You’re just going to have to read the story to find out why.

I’m knocking on wood as I write this, as I certainly hope it never comes to this for Rice.

OK, one of these days, I’m going to finish cleaning up and organizing my office. In the meantime, I can shoot off this quick tidbit from today.

We took the kids to eat at a restaurant called Noodles & Company. We had one open recently in a nearby shopping center. I don’t know if any of you have eaten at one, but the food is good. I had eaten an one several times (when I traveled to Milwaukee on business), but Kellie and the kids had not eaten at one. We went today because a church parishioner had opened the restaurant and was offering a fundraiser for the church youth program if enough people ate there. It was fairly busy when we were there, so I’m guessing it might have been successful.

The kids all had macaroni and cheese, while Kellie and I tried a couple of different Asian-inspired dishes. Please realize, Sean will eat anything. Seriously, we put it in front of him and he’ll eat it — asparagus tips, squash, Daddy’s Texas-style chili, etc. Daniel isn’t quite as adventerous, but often will try things.

Well, Sean saw the bean sprouts on my dish and started pointing at them. I thought he just wanted my chopsticks, but no, he wanted the bean sprouts. So, I gave him one, and in the mouth it went. Crunch, crunch, and suddenly it was gone. OK, I go back to eating. Except there is this insistent grunt to my right, and Sean wants more. A whole lot more, it turns out. And getting one with a bit too much spicy sauce (from my dish) only temporarily deters him. A quick drink from the sippy cup, and he’s back at the pile. He was shoveling them in.

When Daniel saw Sean trying these out, he decided he too needed it. So he picks up the bean sprout, looks at it, then takes a small bite. Then another, and another bite. He doesn’t eat as much as Sean, nor as quickly, but he does get a second helping.

Don’t worry — Will is still like a normal kid. He wouldn’t try it. (Even said No Thank You.)

We wished we had the camera with us. Watching Sean eat them was just jaw-dropping - eating plain bean sprouts over mac and cheese. Not that you would expect to have a camera-worthy moment when just eating bowls of mac and cheese; hence no camera.