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			February 24, 2010
	
	

					With More Drama Than the Olympics
		
		
			
				Here's the story I alluded to at the end of this post.
Bill and I take turns putting the kids to bed, alternating nights, for the most part, and last night was Bill's turn.
I had spent most of my day in the kitchen, baking cookies for the aforementioned post, and baking rosemary garlic bread that smelled soooooo good it made my stomach hurt.  Really.  I made a lovely pasta-with-red-clam-sauce for dinner, and I did the dishes, ran a bath for Julia, and finally, happily, I gathered my laptop, a couple of cookbooks, a notebook and a pen, and settled myself down on the couch.  I reclaimed the tv remote from the kids at 7:30 and switched to the Olympics.  I didn't care what sport (or curling) was (sorry, that's a JOKE - please, no rabid curling fans hollering at me here) on, I just wanted a break from whatever the kids wanted.
Actually, it was very nice for a while.  Alex wanted to read with me.  He's really into reading now, which fills me to overflowing with joy and pride.  It's a little bit of me mingling in there with all the Bill things: the guitar playing, the skiing, the really loud burping.  So whenever he suggest that we "snuggle together and read," I'm all for it.
He's reading Ereth's Birthday, by Avi, which part of a series Alex was introduced to in school.  It's part of the Poppy's Stories series, Poppy being a brave little deer mouse and Ereth's friend.  They actually read the second book, Poppy, of the series in his class earlier this year, and after they'd finished that, we went looking for it at the local Barnes & Noble.  I didn't even know who the author was, but Alex found the book anyway, and we discovered (to my series-loving delight) that there were a whole BUNCH of books in this series.  I wanted him to want to buy the first book, so he could start the series from the beginning.  This is because I am a little on the obsessive side about reading things in order.  Okay, maybe more than a little.  I can read books out of order, but it causes me twinges of anxiety to do so.  Alex hasn't inherited this trait, fortunately, and he didn't really want to read the first book.  He looked at the others...third book, fourth book, fifth...and was actually leaning toward book five, while I tried to at least steer him toward book three, as it comes right after book two and would be the LOGICAL next step.  But Alex wasn't having it.  And I backed off, because I could feel myself wanting to CONVINCE Alex that he NEEDED to read book three next BECAUSE THREE COMES AFTER TWO!  He chose book four.  And I have settled down about it.
So, back to last night.  We snuggled on the couch, and we read.  Alex read a page to me, then I'd read a page to him.  Back and forth we went, through Chapter 8.  And then it was almost bedtime, so Bill got the kids all nicely riled up by wrestling with them and flipping them over with his feet while lying on his back on the floor...and then they went to bed.
Ah, peace.  I could write my Tuesdays with Dorie post, and maybe the one for the bread, and listen to the Olympics, watch some of the events, and make myself a nice cup of hot chocolate as well.  (By the way, I also made a grilled cheese sandwich for Bill with the rosemary garlic bread.  Reeeeeally good mix of flavors there.)
So I'm watching (I switched over to NBC which had the Women's Figure Skating short program interspersed with women's bobsled, and ski cross, and whatever else.  I really wanted to see the skating, but unfortunately most of it was on much later and I ended up going to bed at ten.  Ah well.), and uploading pictures, and typing my little chattery stuff, and sipping my hot chocolate.  Bill is watching the tv and, eventually, dozing on the big chair.
And then, just as I was finishing up the TwD post, I took a mouthful of hot (warm) chocolate, started to swallow, but some of it went down the wrong way and I could feel that desperate urge to cough, to get the liquid OUT OF MY LUNGS!  BEFORE I DROWNED IN IT!  OR SOMETHING!  But at the same time I didn't want to cough because I still had most of the hot chocolate IN MY MOUTH.  But the itch to cough won out and suddenly I was coughing violently and spraying a gallon (it seemed) of chocolate liquid all over everything - me, the blanket, and MY LAPTOP.  OH NO!  I couldn't stop coughing.  It felt like that little bit of liquid still in the wrong pipeline was STILL THERE and I had to cough it OUT before I contracted pneumonia in my lungs and DIED!  RIGHT THERE IN THE LIVING ROOM!  So I'm coughing and coughing and coughing - LOUDLY, I might add - and eventually Bill murmered "are you okay" and I don't even know that I answered, because I was still COUGHING and at the same time grabbing tissues and trying to wipe all the chocolate splatter off my laptop screen and from in between the keys because CHOCOLATE KILLS LAPTOPS, DOESN'T IT? and he mumbled "you know I'm half asleep, right?" I suppose that was his way of excusing his lack of concern for my IMMINENT DEMISE FROM COUGHING.  It's a damn good thing I wasn't choking on a piece of food because he'd probably sleep right through that.  As it was he didn't even turn his head.  I could have collapsed right there on the floor, and some time later that night he'd have found us, me and the laptop, completely lifeless and reeking of chocolate.  He'd mumble "going to bed now" and head upstairs, probably.  
Anyway, I finally, finally, FINALLY coughed the dangerous molecules of chocolate liquid out of the way and I could breath without hacking up any more lungs.  
And then my laptop screen went black and the whole thing just shut off.  
OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I tried to turn it back on, thinking maybe, ohpleaseohpleaseohplease, I'd somehow shut it off myself in my frenzy moments earlier.  The little lights flickered above the keypad for a moment, and then they went black.
This can't be happening.
I flipped the laptop upside down and shook it hard, hoping to fling any remaining moisture out from behind the little keys.  Nothing seemed to come out.  It wasn't breathing.  I was losing precious time.  I had to do something drastic.  I had to...TAKE IT APART.
Now me attempting to operate on my laptop is probably a WORSE idea than me attempting to operate on one of our pets or a kid or my husband because while I have a pretty good knowledge of how mammals are laid out on the inside, I have no idea what anything is on the inside of a computer.  But so frantic was I to save my laptop, my link to EVERYTHING in the internet world, and repository of pictures I've taken recently that haven't yet been saved elsewhere, and who knows WHAT other VERY IMPORTANT STUFF, I was determined to make the attempt.  
So I got a phillips head screwdriver with a small enough tip, unplugged the laptop from its electrical cord, sat myself down on the floor in the living room, and started unscrewing the teeny tiny screws.  I laid the screws out on the floor beside me in the same pattern they were in on the bottom of the computer, so I'd be able to put them back in the right spots later.  Softie danced into my vicinity with one of her little rattling cat toys, and I grabbed the toy and shoved it under one of the chocolate-splattered blankets on the floor because I didn't want to encourage her.  WHAT IF SHE RAN THROUGH MY PATTERN OF TINY SCREWS AND MESSED THEM ALL UP???  THEN WHERE WOULD I BE????
I unscrewed and unscrewed and cared nothing for whoever was skiing on the tv.  Bill, however, had perked up and was occasionally commenting on a terrible fall or whatever.  Sure, get all riled up about THEM and their silly Olympic event!  Never mind that your wife almost asphyxiated!  And that she is now frantically trying to save the life of her EXTERNAL TECHNOLOGICALLY ENHANCED BRAIN!!!!!  Or something.  I just kept unscrewing all the little screws.
And when I got them all out?  Thing still wouldn't come apart.  Okay, it probably would have if I'd pulled harder, but that didn't seem like a good idea.  So, defeated, fearing the permanent loss of this precious piece of hardware, I started screwing all the little screws back in.
I almost cried.  But I stopped myself.  Maybe, just maybe, while I had the thing upside down, the chocolate had seeped out.  I took a look, and sure enough, there were little rivulets of chocolate along the edges of the keyboard and on the monitor (which had been underneath all that while I was attempting surgery).  I wiped them up with more tissues, held my breath, and plugged the cable back in.  Then, I pressed the power button.
And it came on.  OH THANK YOU GOD AND THE ANGELS OF TECHNOLOGY!  L'CHAIM!  
There was a little error message thing that showed up, too.  
Something along the lines of "Your laptop shut down because it was overheated from sitting on pillows on the couch for too long, you idiot, not from a fine mist of lukewarm cocoa.  Get a grip and restart this thing and you'll be fine.  Moron."
Oh.
Duh.
The end.
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 24, 2010  | Permalink
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			February 23, 2010
	
	

					TWD - Honey-Wheat Cookies
		
		
			
				 Okay, Dorie.  This was sneaky.  I figured I'd probably like these, and I hoped that the kids would.  But I really didn't expect to find them instantly addicting.  So much so that the first dozen I baked just...kind of...disappeared somewhere.  My kids were at school, so they didn't eat them.  My husband was at work, so it wasn't him.  I think I'm going to blame the cats.
This week's recipe was chosen by Michelle of Flour Child - thanks, Michelle!  She's got the recipe posted right here, and if you'd like to see how everyone else did this week, you can get started here.
Dorie's Honey-Wheat Cookies are very easy to put together, and now that I know how yummy they are, I wish I'd doubled the recipe.  Although...maybe it's just as well that I didn't.  Given how...the cats like them so much.
So here we go - ingredients are gathered.
 
Dry ingredients are whisked together.
 Lemon zest and sugar are rubbed together...oh, the kitchen already smells great.
 
Zesty sugar and butter are creamed together.
 
Honey and egg are added.
 Dry ingredients are incorporated, and the whole (very sticky) thing is wrapped tightly in plastic.  Into the fridge it went for a couple of hours.
 And then it was time to bake.  Oven was preheated.  Pans were lined with parchment.
 
I sliced them into strips and then cut each strip into 6 portions.
 
Then I rolled each sticky little piece of dough into a ball.
 
And then I rolled each little ball around in the wheat germ.
 I forgot, however, to press them down with the bottom of a glass.  
  But I don't think they were ruined because of it.
 
No, not ruined at all.  In fact, they smelled pretty good.
ERT
And...well, we don't really need to go there, do we? 
Oh, and come back again soon, as I'll be telling you all about the horrible thing that happened just as I was finishing this post Tuesday night.  
 
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 23, 2010  | Permalink
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					In the Garden...
		
		
			
				Something's up.
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 23, 2010  | Permalink
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					Before My Day Starts
		
		
			
				A thin coverlet of snow on the ground when I first got up this morning.  It's melted on the roads and driveways, and will probably disappear completely as the day moves along.  At 38 degrees (last time I checked), it's too warm to keep snow.  We'll be getting rain, though.  Rain, rain, rain basically on and off through the rest of the week.  
I've got some baking that I want to do today.  The cookies for Tuesdays with Dorie that I didn't do yesterday because I was cleaning out the pantry and reorganizing it for the spring/summer portion of the year.  I'm a little early, I know.  But I was in the mood to do it.  I gathered all my empty canning jars and got them all in one spot.  I know I'll need more because I gave away jars of jams for gifts at various times.  But that's okay.
I'm really geared up to do a lot of canning this year.  Hopefully the weather and gardens will cooperate.  We're also thinking of investing in a vacuum sealer this year.  I know we'd make good use of it, so it seems a very practical and very "us" thing to buy.  Any suggestions as to what brand is the best?  I haven't started researching it yet, and I'm open to you opinions.
Thinking about changes to make to the website.  Layout.  Content.  Stuff.  Still thinking.
Time to make a lunch for Alex.  I suppose I could have him make his own lunch, now that he's a pb&j pro, but I actually like doing it, so I think I'll keep that job for now.
And, of course, laundry awaits....
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 23, 2010  | Permalink
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			February 22, 2010
	
	

					Cooking With My Kids:  Cranberry Orange Walnut Pancakes with Cranberry Orange Syrup
		
		
			
				 A few nights ago, after dinner, we were all downstairs, flopped out on the couch and the big chair, watching tv.  We were probably either watching the Olympics or some nature show.  
Because bedtime was approaching, both my kids were suddenly hungry.  It's funny how they are starving to death ten minutes before they are due to go to sleep, despite big meals and maybe a dessert, too.  What amazing metabolisms they have.
Anyway, OH!  I know what we were watching!  Julia had wanted to watch a movie, so we'd pulled Ratatouille from the shelf over an hour earlier, and we were all watching the end of it.  That makes sense.  It has this effect on Alex....
Anyway, as the movie wound down, and the kids - influenced, no doubt, by all the cooking and eating on the screen, were hungry.  I had no intention of getting up from my comfy spot on the couch, but before I could even say that, Alex OFFERED TO GET JULIA SOMETHING TO EAT.  I ran down the list of acceptable snack items, and she chose one, and off he went, to get it.  (A Go-Gurt.)  He returned, yogurt-like-treat in hand, and presented it politely to Julia.
Then he asked me, "Mom, am I being a good waiter, or whaler, or whatever it's called?"
Yes, Alex, you're being a good waiter.  
Then he went back upstairs to find something for himself.  He was gone a little while, and I heard various doors open and close in the kitchen, and a scraping sound on the floor up there, but since it was Alex, I wasn't all that worried about it.  And I didn't hear anything fall or break, either.
A bit later, he returned, with a little dish of raw walnuts in one hand, and a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich in the other.  He'd been up there making himself a sandwich.  He's never done that before (because usually I am the waitress/cook/dishwasher), and I just kind of stared.  With delight and amazement.  Really.  He just...made himself a sandwich!  No fanfare, no asking if I'd do it, no rolling on the floor wailing that he was hunggggggggggggryyyyyyyyyy or anything!  (That's Julia's schtick anyway.)  
He just...did it.  YAY!  I told him I thought it was great he'd made the sandwich and I was very happy, and he went a step further and offered everyone some walnuts.  
Some days I worry that I'm screwing up my kids somehow...and then my son just goes ahead and makes a sandwich for himself, and I can exhale again.  My son is taking another step into self-sufficiency!!!  YAY!
Anyway, it occurred to me that it's time to get him (and Julia) into the kitchen on a more regular basis.  Yes, they help me already, especially with the cookie-baking.  And Julia's here in the mornings, so she's got more opportunity.  But still.  I need to make the effort to bring them in here and actually TEACH them stuff, not just let them help me.
So we made a date for Sunday morning to make pancakes.  I figure the best place to start is with foods they already like to eat.  Julia, for instance, can make scrambled eggs.  Herself.  The only thing I don't let her do yet is light the burner, and I stand there while she stirs the eggs in the pan.  She IS only five, despite her occasional teenager attitude.
So - pancakes.  
And that is how this post came about.
On Sunday morning, we met in the kitchen, my kids and I, and I put aprons on them and made them wash their hands.  Julia brought a chair to stand on, and Alex brought the little stool from the bathroom (which he doesn't even need all the time, he's so tall, but it helps if he's stirring something in a big bowl.  It just gives him that extra 5 or 6 inches above the countertop), and we discussed our menu.
Alex's favorite pancakes are blueberry; Julia's are plain.  Alex likes maple syrup.  Julia likes butter.
First news - we had neither blueberries nor syrup, and I wasn't planning to go out and buy any.  So we needed to get creative and come up with something else.  I poked around in the freezer to see what our fruit options might be.  I found a half-used bag of cranberries.  We also had a variety of fruit in a bowl on the table.  Apples, pears, and some citrus.
By unanimous decision, we opted to use cranberries...and an orange (actually a blood orange), and I suggested we use the rest of the walnuts, too.  Agreed!  Time to get to work.
I gave Alex the cookbook with my go-to pancake recipe and had him just read all the ingredients so I could get them out on the counter.  We'd worry about measuring them after.  So he read, and I pulled things from the pantry and the fridge, and that was simple enough.  Time to measure and mix.
I had Alex start by zesting the orange.
 And we needed buttermilk for the basic pancake recipe, and we don't actually have any, so it was time for a science lesson as well.  First, I had Julia hold this gorgeous measuring cup that Ralph gave me while we were in Maine.  It's made in Italy, it's hexagonal and each of the six panels offers measurements for different things...flour, rice, sugar...then there's a panel that's just cups, another one with ounces and mililiters, and I can't remember the last one.  But it's the perfect size for the total of 3 cups of milk I needed.  Thanks, Ralph!!
 Alex, meanwhile, had finixhed with the zesting and had moved on to squeezing juice from the orange into a bowl.
  
More posing from Miss Candystripes....
 
And then some fun food science.  I told them - in a very basic way - what buttermilk is and why we use it making pancakes (flavor, tenderizing qualities, it helps give baked goods rise), and then I told them that since we don't actually have any, we would make something like it.  And then I had them smell the vinegar.  Heh heh heh.  Oh, they LOVED that.  Then I poured milk almost up to the 3 cup mark, and then I topped that off with vinegar and a few seconds later showed them how the milk was already starting to react to the vinegar.
 
See, children?  See how it's starting to separate?  The same thing happens when you make cheese, kids!  Isn't that cool?  "Mom, what can I measure now?"  Fine.  Be that way.
Notice, though, that while I'd asked Alex to hold the spoon so I could take the picture, Julia had to get in there, too, so she's doing her Price is Right "Here is the lovely Frigidaire that could be yours!" gesture in the left portion of the picture.  
 
They measured out dry ingredients in turns...Alex did the flour...
  Julia measured the sugar.  
 
Oh, and here's the mise en place for the fruit and nut component.  Blood orange juice, zest, and some chopped walnuts.  I did the chopping.  Not ready to deal with bloody little fingers just yet.
 
I poured melted butter into the egg yolks while Julia whisked.  Julia was the one who cracked and separated eggs earlier.  
 Alex mixed together the juice, zest and nuts with the cranberries.  I chopped some and left some whole.
 
Cranberries are sour!
 Time to whisk the egg whites!  I gave each kid a turn with the whisk and had them whip the whites 20 times.  Then I finished them up - soft peaks.  
 Julia poured the fake buttermilk into the flour mixture.
 
And she stirred it together first.
 
Then we poured in the melted butter/egg yolk blend and Alex got a turn to stir.  And then I folded the egg whites in and we were ready to heat up the griddle.
 
I brushed some oil on the griddle and showed Julia how to ladle batter onto the hot surface.  And then I let her have a turn.  She did well, so I let her have another turn with the next batch, just so I could get a picture.
 Yum!  The biggest two are Julia's work.
 Then it was Alex's turn.  Again, I showed him what to do, and he was off and...well...ladling.

 And he sprinkled some of the cranberry-orange-walnut mixture on the pancakes (the ones he could reach - I did the ones farthest back)....
 And we waited while they cooked on the first side....
 And then Alex and I flipped them over.
  
While all that was happening, I also asked him if he wanted some sort of syrup on the pancakes, or if he was going to have butter.  Since he doesn't like butter, he opted for a syrup of some kind, so we made a cranberry-orange syrup with the remaining cranberries in the bag, the juice of a tangerine (so okay, techincally it's a cranberry-tangerine syrup), a bit of butter, some sugar, and a little water.  This boiled away while I finished cooking the rest of the pancakes and had the kids set the table. I gave Alex the choice - a smooth syrup or one with the crushed cranberries in it.  He opted for smooth.
 
In case you're interested, here's the recipe.  The basics I got from The Best Recipe, put out by the fabulous Cooks Illustrated people.  I've enlarged the basic recipe and, as you know, the kids and I added a few things.
Cranberry Orange Walnut Pancakes with Cranberry-Orange (or Tangerine) Syrup
(I make half the recipe as plain pancakes and half as cranberry-orange-walnut, because Julia doesn't like stuff in her pancakes.  If you want to make them ALL filled, then either halve the pancake recipe portion or double the fruit/nut portions.)
2 7/8 cups milk
2 T white vinegar or lemon juice
6 T butter, melted and cooled
3 eggs, separated
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 tsp sugar 
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
~~~
1 cup whole cranberries, about half of them roughly chopped
Juice and zest of one orange (blood or otherwise)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1.  Pour vinegar into milk, stir briefly and set aside
2.  Combine dry ingredients; whisk together.
3.  Combine cranberries, juice and zest, and walnuts.  Set aside.
4.  Whisk together cooled melted butter and yolks.
5.  Pour soured milk and butter/yolk mixture into flour and stir until just combined.  A few lumps are okay.
6.  Whip the egg whites to soft peaks and fold them into the batter until mostly combined.
7.  Heat griddle and brush with vegetable oil.
8.  Ladle batter onto the griddle and cook pancakes until lots of bubbles appear on the top side and the bottoms are golden brown.  Flip over and cook another minute or two to finish.  Use up about half the batter this way for the plain pancakes, and then, when you are doing the fruit/nut pancakes, after you pour the batter on the griddle, sprinkle some of the cranberry/orange/walnut mixture on each pancake.  Not too much or the pancakes will be soggy.  You want enough so that every bite has some tartness and sweetness.
To make the syrup:
1 cup whole cranberries
juice of one orange (or tangerine)
2 T butter
1/4 cup sugar
about a cup of water
1.  Combine all ingredients in a small pot on the stove and bring to a boil.  
2.  Continue boiling vigorously until the cranberries are very soft.  Test the texture of the syrup by spooning some out onto a dish and letting it cool a bit.  If it has thickened somewhat, you've got syrup.
3.  You can serve as-is or, if you are like Alex and prefer a smooooooooooth syrup, pour everything through a strainer and press the fruit to get all of the liquid out.  Serve warm.
 The kids enjoyed the experience so much that we're going to try to make it a weekly event.  Maybe another batch of pancakes next Sunday morning, maybe muffins, maybe something else.  Who knows.  But I'm really looking forward to it.
I think Alex is, too.
 
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 22, 2010 in Cooking With My Kids, What's for Breakfast?  | Permalink
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			February 21, 2010
	
	

					Woohoo!  Time to Start the Vegetables!
		
		
			
				Some of them, anyway.
Spring's not here yet, but we don't care.  And neither will our seeds!
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 21, 2010  | Permalink
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			February 20, 2010
	
	

					Snapshots from Maine - Skiing with Daddy
		
		
			
				More pictures, for the most part.
On Thursday, our last morning in Maine, we had breakfast, loaded up the truck, and then Bill and Alex skiied over to the South Ridge Lodge and Julia and I drove over to meet them.  
Julia and I waited by the outdoor fire pit until Bill and Alex arrived.
 No idea where Julia's hats keep disappearing to.  This is the third one she's worn this week, and it's too big for her.  I usually wear it, if I wear a hat at all.  Oh well, at least it's pink.
 After a few minutes, I spotted Bill and Alex coming down one of the trails.
     Julia got her skis on and demonstrated her ability to get up from the ground.  No, really, this is a big deal for Julia.  Until this past week, she hasn't been able to get up, unassisted, from a fall.  Now she can.  Yay, Julia!  She can also get in and out of her bindings without help.  Huge progress for the little girl. I asked them to stay in a group before taking off, just so I could get a some pictures of the three of them together.  In the last one they're finally all looking at me.
   And off they went, to the lift line.
     
The next batch of images comes via Bill, who got some shots of the kids as they were skiing. 
Apparently while they were out, they took turns being the "line leader" as they went down various trails.  They went over some jumps, took some falls...at one point Alex and Julia were shoving each other as they skiied next to each other.  Didn't get pictures of that stuff, though.  
Here's what he did get....
   
Riding up the magic carpet...
      
They gave me a call when they were done, and I met them back at the fire pit.
  Apparently she had a couple of falls.  But she bounced back up again, and that's all that mattered.  Still, she was not above working Mommy for some sympathy.  That's what mommys are for, right?
 
And after that, we headed back to the truck.
Bye, bye, Sunday River.
 
 
   
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 20, 2010  | Permalink
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					Where is Mo?
		
		
			
				We went out to lunch today at our favorite sushi restaurant, Sakura, in Providence.  
Bill's birthday was earlier this week, and this was how he wanted to celebrate.  We bought a couple bottles of sake and headed north early in the afternoon.
We've been to Sakura several times in the past, and every meal has been a lovely experience.  The food and service have always been excellent, and this is why Sakura is our special occasion restaurant.
Best of all was when we walked in and the two sushi chefs recognized us and called - to Alex - "Lotsa sushi!" They remembered his appetite on previous occasions.  We gave one of the bottles of sake to the sushi chefs, and our waitress heated the other one up and served portions of it to us throughout the meal.  
After we'd ordered the first round of items, we were sent a sampler platter that included an octopus salad and a little whitefish tartare appetizer.  The platter was drizzled with a wasabi dressing and a soy dressing, and the appetizers were served on a leaf (banana)?  with a bit of shredded daikon radish and a bit of curly kale for garnish.  There was also one of those little paper umbrellas in the kale, which Julia claimed.  The waitress brought her a handful of extra umbrellas once she saw Julia's delight.  
While we waited for the rest of the food to arrive, Julia was, for some reason, choosing between Bill and Alex for something.  Maybe it was who she would give an extra umbrella to.  I don't even remember.  But she was doing the "Eeeny, meeny, miny, mo" thing, and Alex said she wasn't doing it right, and that she'd said "mo" when she was pointing one place instead of another.  They debated this back and forth for a while, until finally one of them - Julia, I think - demanded to know "Where is Mo?"  At least they weren't fighting about anything.  Just pondering the location of the elusive Mo.
Next up we had their oyster tempura special (fabulous), their Samurai roll (shrimp tempura and avocado inside, and lobster, tobiko and little crunchy bits of tempura batter on top), more tobiko, baby octopus, and sea urchin.  I think that was it for that round.  Bill also had a huge bowl of an udon noodle soup with duck and onions.  He shared that with anyone of us who wanted a taste.  The broth was fabulous - rich, flavorful and slightly sweet.
We ordered a bit more, because we knew Alex - our Lotsa Sushi boy - was looking forward to some tuna and salmon sashimi, so we ordered that, eel sashimi, more tobiko (flying fish roe) and a tuna and avocado roll.
Julia, by the way, LOVES tobiko.  I think she loves it more than I do - the little tiny crunchy flying fish roe.  I glanced at her at one point during the meal and she was bent over her plate, guiding the roe into her mouth with one chopstick.  
After that, the kids (of course) wanted dessert.  Julia requested strawberry ice cream, and then the waitress suggested ice cream tempura - either green tea or red bean.  So I requested one of each.  We all tasted a bit of everything - the deep fried ice cream was the favorite - both flavors - and finally rolled out of Sakura with appetites sated.
Alex wants to go back to Sakura on his birthday.  I think that's a distinct possibility.
 
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 20, 2010  | Permalink
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			February 19, 2010
	
	

					Snapshots from Maine - Part 4 - A Bill's Eye View
		
		
			
				Bill had Alex's camera during our trip so he could take pictures from the various summits at Sunday River.  Alex has a little Nikon point and shoot, which fits better in an inner pocket of a ski jacket than my camera does.  And the resolution is better than Bill's cell phone.
So here we go.  Here are some of the gorgeous views you get when you go all the way up.  (Some are taken from various points along the way up, some were taken near some of the lifts - and I am not labeling them because I don't know where Bill was for each of these, and he's busy painting the repaired wall upstairs, and I don't want to interrupt that.)
               Bill took this one just before skiing down Vortex.  That's a reflection/silhouette of his head there on the right part of the sign.
      One of the cool things about staying on the mountain, besides not having to get up super early to get the kids to their classes on tome, was that you could roll out of bed, get dressed, eat your fill of breakfast, get your skiis from the ski check room, and practically ski right out the door to the nearest lift.
Bill did this with Alex both Wednesday and Thursday mornings - they rode lifts up and skiied down various trails, working their way across various mountain faces until they got to the main camp where the classes are.  Pretty cool.  Then at the end of the day on Wednesday, Bill and Alex also skiied back to our hotel.  Nice father-son ski time.  At one point, when they were at one of the summits, Bill had Alex just stop moving and take a few minutes to look at the view.  Alex agreed it was pretty cool.
On Thursday morning, our last part of the day there, Bill took Julia along, too, and they hit a bunch of the green trails together.  Bill took a few pictures while they were out, and I'll share them in another post.  
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 19, 2010  | Permalink
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			February 18, 2010
	
	

					Snapshots from Maine - Part 3 (Less Chatter, More Pictures!)
		
		
			
				I took these Tuesday morning on the way to Sunday River.
   Yep, those are Elk.  That's an Elk Farm.  We're hoping to stop there on the way home.  Alex recognized them as Elk from the Wii Hunting game he's borrowing from his cousin, Joe.  Education comes from many places.
      
And then the batch below were taken Tuesday afternoon, after the skiing was done for the day.
These are views of some of the mountains that make up Sunday River Resort.  As you can see, the sky was a bit overcast later in the day.  I'm going left to right here, by the way.
     Below - the entrance to where we were staying for two nights.  Woo hoo!  
  And these last two were taken from our room Wednesday morning.  I showed the kids the low clouds hovering at the top of the mountains in the distance, and Alex said "Take a snap, Mom, take a snap of that!"  So I did.  I couldn't open the door to our little balcony - I'm thinking they lock them somehow in the winter months so people can't leave them open all day or something, so I shot through the windows, which had screens.  Which is my explanation for the slight blur to both pictures.
   
			
			
			
		
		
			
				Posted on February 18, 2010  | Permalink
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