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Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Welcome to Buffalo!
We were very excited to welcome Jay and his soon-to-be wife, Lauren, to our home last week. They arrived on Thursday, and Abby, William, and I met them at the airport. Abby was SO excited to see them - she even had a sign, which she excitedly held upside down. The week went by too quickly... Here are a few pictures we snapped along the way:
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Check, please.
One of my dreams is to own a restaurant with Chip. I'd love to serve up some of my Grannys' chocolate syrup and biscuits and runnin' butter beans and cream-style corn (not all together, mind you). Chip's forte is BBQ and steaks and fish and pasta and, well, I guess everything is his forte.
Truth be known I do enjoy cooking, but my passion is baking. Since it would be nutritiously unethical to feed my family pastries for dinner, I decided I needed to expand my cooking repertoire.
Thankfully my mom gave me a cookbook filled with family favorites, but even with this resource I find myself falling back on a select few recipes: meatloaf, pasta/meat casserole, peach cobbler, etc. To prevent my family from refusing to eat the same meals every week, I subscribed to a food magazine in order to expand my cooking horizon.
The magazine proved helpful time and time again.
Last Sunday I plopped myself down, sipped on some tea, and thumbed through the latest edition of the magazine. The pantry was bare, and I needed to make my grocery list. I settled on some good looking recipes. One of the recipes that caught my eye was "pico de gallo." The helpful editors paired the pico de gallo picture with a picture of baked plantain chips. Just in case there was any doubt as to what you should serve the pico with, there was a helpful hint that said, "Serve with baked plantain chips."
Hey, I liked how the recipe looked, and I liked that the editor took the guess work out for me by suggesting a side dish (plantains).
*Just for your information, I'm sure many of you know what pico de gallo is. I had never heard of it before. It looked good, so I thought I'd give it a try. I assumed it was some sort of tomato-y entree. But I digress.*
Last night I decided to whip up some of that good looking pico de gallo and baked plantain chips. We were especially hungry, and I didn't want to wait the required half hour it would take to bake the plantains. I decided to fry them instead.
All the while I'm chopping up the veggies for the pico de gallo, I'm thinking, "Man, this sure doesn't look very hearty." I kept chopping, and then I started fryin' up the plantains. I was fully aware that the plantains would fry up like French fries because I've fixed them like that before.
Once the food is done I get each of us a bowl for the pico de gallo, and I get us each a small plate for our plantains and ketchup. After I sit down, I realize how odd our meal looks: a bowl of diced tomatoes, onion, and jalepeno on one side and a dish of plantains and ketchup on the other.
Chip kept commenting on how good everything tasted. I agreed. After a few minutes of quiet, Chip said, "Honey, I think this is some kind of salsa that's supposed to be served with plantain chips."
How on earth did I not realize pico de gallo was salsa? Talk about feeling inadequate, in terms of my culinary knowledge. I just laughed.
Salsa and French fries for dinner. Awesome. Maybe tonight we'll have saltine crackers and ice cream.
Truth be known I do enjoy cooking, but my passion is baking. Since it would be nutritiously unethical to feed my family pastries for dinner, I decided I needed to expand my cooking repertoire.
Thankfully my mom gave me a cookbook filled with family favorites, but even with this resource I find myself falling back on a select few recipes: meatloaf, pasta/meat casserole, peach cobbler, etc. To prevent my family from refusing to eat the same meals every week, I subscribed to a food magazine in order to expand my cooking horizon.
The magazine proved helpful time and time again.
Last Sunday I plopped myself down, sipped on some tea, and thumbed through the latest edition of the magazine. The pantry was bare, and I needed to make my grocery list. I settled on some good looking recipes. One of the recipes that caught my eye was "pico de gallo." The helpful editors paired the pico de gallo picture with a picture of baked plantain chips. Just in case there was any doubt as to what you should serve the pico with, there was a helpful hint that said, "Serve with baked plantain chips."
Hey, I liked how the recipe looked, and I liked that the editor took the guess work out for me by suggesting a side dish (plantains).
*Just for your information, I'm sure many of you know what pico de gallo is. I had never heard of it before. It looked good, so I thought I'd give it a try. I assumed it was some sort of tomato-y entree. But I digress.*
Last night I decided to whip up some of that good looking pico de gallo and baked plantain chips. We were especially hungry, and I didn't want to wait the required half hour it would take to bake the plantains. I decided to fry them instead.
All the while I'm chopping up the veggies for the pico de gallo, I'm thinking, "Man, this sure doesn't look very hearty." I kept chopping, and then I started fryin' up the plantains. I was fully aware that the plantains would fry up like French fries because I've fixed them like that before.
Once the food is done I get each of us a bowl for the pico de gallo, and I get us each a small plate for our plantains and ketchup. After I sit down, I realize how odd our meal looks: a bowl of diced tomatoes, onion, and jalepeno on one side and a dish of plantains and ketchup on the other.
Chip kept commenting on how good everything tasted. I agreed. After a few minutes of quiet, Chip said, "Honey, I think this is some kind of salsa that's supposed to be served with plantain chips."
How on earth did I not realize pico de gallo was salsa? Talk about feeling inadequate, in terms of my culinary knowledge. I just laughed.
Salsa and French fries for dinner. Awesome. Maybe tonight we'll have saltine crackers and ice cream.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Progressively Shocking
Chip and I found that the best way to maximize our dates is to have a progressive dinner. Instead of having dinner at one place and then wondering what in the world we were going to do with the rest of our time (not that we couldn't be creative...), we decided to go to different places for each course. One of the oddest meals we've ever had was due to this plan: appetizers - sushi; entree - Wegman's supermarket cafe; dessert - Cheesecake Factory. Weird? Yes. Fun? Absolutely.
We went on a date last Friday night, and in keeping with our newly established progressive-dinner trend, we decided that we would have dinner at a barbeque restaurant, walk around the mall, and then end the date with dessert.
After gobbling (quite literally) our dinner, we rode around and then decided to walk the mall. We found ourselves wandering aimlessly through the stores, which is such a pleasure considering we can't normally do that with the kids in tow.
Of course we wound up in the Mac store. It's hard to resist the brighter-than-the-sun fluorescent lights. Wait, what? That's not the reason people go in there? Oh yeah. Must be all those gadgets they have. Chip would really like an iPad. I'd really like a stand mixer.
We perused several other stores, but the time to decide on dessert was drawing close. There really wasn't much debate over where we should go.
Surprisingly there was no wait at the Melting Pot. We told the hostess we were only there for dessert, so she seated us and gave us our menus. The waiter took our drink order. Chip wowed me by ordering a bottle of wine (although I told him I'd have been happy with a TALL glass of milk). We decided against our usual dessert choice and went instead with the "flaming turtle." The waiter assured us that was his favorite. Sure.
Chip poured us each a glass of wine and we eagerly awaited our flaming chocolate. I'm not sure what happened - maybe the wine was extra effective or maybe our giggle boxes were turned over - but Chip and I just started acting silly, and I mean SILLY. There was just something about the dark booth and wine that made it seem like no one could see us.
I'm sure we broke a rule or two when Chip decided to turn up the heat on our burner. The chocolate wasn't as hot as we would have liked, so Chip took it upon himself to kick up the heat. I just knew our waiter was going to catch Chip fumbling around under the table. Soon after the chocolate was bubbling, much laughter ensued.
It all started with the music. It was strange, strange music. I commented to Chip that it sounded like electricity, as if someone was being shocked. That's all it took for Chip to start acting like he was being electrocuted. I mean, he was acting full-out electrocuted. Then I started in with the acting. We took turns shaking violently, laughing, eating chocolate covered stuff, and then shaking violently again. We were having ourselves a good ol' time.
Not long after the "electric" song went off, a man in a suit came to our table.
"How is everything tonight?" he asked.
I replied, matter-of-factly, "Oh, it's wonderful as usual."
"That's great," he said. "I'm the manager and I just wanted to stop by."
The manager had no sooner stepped away than Chip said, "I bet he was making sure we were okay. I imagine he saw us acting crazy on the hidden camera."
I almost spit the wine out of my mouth. I almost... well, I laughed really, really hard - harder than I've laughed in a long time. Just the idea of someone witnessing our electrifying dance was hysterical to me.
We laughed and laughed (and I'm still laughing). That was such a good night.
I can't wait 'til our next date. Shocking, I know.
We went on a date last Friday night, and in keeping with our newly established progressive-dinner trend, we decided that we would have dinner at a barbeque restaurant, walk around the mall, and then end the date with dessert.
After gobbling (quite literally) our dinner, we rode around and then decided to walk the mall. We found ourselves wandering aimlessly through the stores, which is such a pleasure considering we can't normally do that with the kids in tow.
Of course we wound up in the Mac store. It's hard to resist the brighter-than-the-sun fluorescent lights. Wait, what? That's not the reason people go in there? Oh yeah. Must be all those gadgets they have. Chip would really like an iPad. I'd really like a stand mixer.
We perused several other stores, but the time to decide on dessert was drawing close. There really wasn't much debate over where we should go.
Surprisingly there was no wait at the Melting Pot. We told the hostess we were only there for dessert, so she seated us and gave us our menus. The waiter took our drink order. Chip wowed me by ordering a bottle of wine (although I told him I'd have been happy with a TALL glass of milk). We decided against our usual dessert choice and went instead with the "flaming turtle." The waiter assured us that was his favorite. Sure.
Chip poured us each a glass of wine and we eagerly awaited our flaming chocolate. I'm not sure what happened - maybe the wine was extra effective or maybe our giggle boxes were turned over - but Chip and I just started acting silly, and I mean SILLY. There was just something about the dark booth and wine that made it seem like no one could see us.
I'm sure we broke a rule or two when Chip decided to turn up the heat on our burner. The chocolate wasn't as hot as we would have liked, so Chip took it upon himself to kick up the heat. I just knew our waiter was going to catch Chip fumbling around under the table. Soon after the chocolate was bubbling, much laughter ensued.
It all started with the music. It was strange, strange music. I commented to Chip that it sounded like electricity, as if someone was being shocked. That's all it took for Chip to start acting like he was being electrocuted. I mean, he was acting full-out electrocuted. Then I started in with the acting. We took turns shaking violently, laughing, eating chocolate covered stuff, and then shaking violently again. We were having ourselves a good ol' time.
Not long after the "electric" song went off, a man in a suit came to our table.
"How is everything tonight?" he asked.
I replied, matter-of-factly, "Oh, it's wonderful as usual."
"That's great," he said. "I'm the manager and I just wanted to stop by."
The manager had no sooner stepped away than Chip said, "I bet he was making sure we were okay. I imagine he saw us acting crazy on the hidden camera."
I almost spit the wine out of my mouth. I almost... well, I laughed really, really hard - harder than I've laughed in a long time. Just the idea of someone witnessing our electrifying dance was hysterical to me.
We laughed and laughed (and I'm still laughing). That was such a good night.
I can't wait 'til our next date. Shocking, I know.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Parlez-vous Francais?
Abby loves to play with our answering machine. She likes to push the buttons and listen to the messages. Sometimes Chip will call me on my cell phone and ask why I'm not answering the house phone. I'll go check the answering machine only to find that Abby has pushed the "do not disturb" button, which turns the phones' ringers off.
One of Abby's favorite buttons to push is the language button. There are three language options - English, Spanish, and French. As a result of Abby's most recent meddling, the language is set to French.
Two days ago the phone rang and Chip couldn't get to it in time to answer. He heard the answering machine pick up and give its message in French. The unsuspecting caller immediately hung up. Chip said the phone rang less than a minute later, and he answered it. It was a lady from church. Poor thing probably thought she dialed incorrectly the first time and wound up calling someplace around the world.
Last night my cell phone rang. It was another lady from church. She apologized for calling my cell phone, but she explained that when she called my home number she got a really strange message. She couldn't decide if the number was wrong or if we were just playing a joke on people. I told her what happened, and she said she should have pressed '1' for English.
One of Abby's favorite buttons to push is the language button. There are three language options - English, Spanish, and French. As a result of Abby's most recent meddling, the language is set to French.
Two days ago the phone rang and Chip couldn't get to it in time to answer. He heard the answering machine pick up and give its message in French. The unsuspecting caller immediately hung up. Chip said the phone rang less than a minute later, and he answered it. It was a lady from church. Poor thing probably thought she dialed incorrectly the first time and wound up calling someplace around the world.
Last night my cell phone rang. It was another lady from church. She apologized for calling my cell phone, but she explained that when she called my home number she got a really strange message. She couldn't decide if the number was wrong or if we were just playing a joke on people. I told her what happened, and she said she should have pressed '1' for English.
Monday, March 23, 2009
We Made It!
There is a little diner around the corner from us that closes for the winter. Their last day is October 31 and they re-open April 1. I am always EXCITED when they re-open. Of course, I do enjoy their hot dogs and ice cream, but my happiness is based on more than just the food. Their re-opening signifies that we made it through another winter!
This is the second Buffalo winter that we've "survived." You wouldn't believe it (well, maybe a few of you would), but after a long, frigid winter, 40 degrees really feels quite warm! The sun is shining, and I'm hopeful that the temps will rise into the 50s.
Ah, only 8 more days 'til April 1. Woo hoo! We've really almost made it!
This is the second Buffalo winter that we've "survived." You wouldn't believe it (well, maybe a few of you would), but after a long, frigid winter, 40 degrees really feels quite warm! The sun is shining, and I'm hopeful that the temps will rise into the 50s.
Ah, only 8 more days 'til April 1. Woo hoo! We've really almost made it!
Friday, March 20, 2009
This and That
We celebrated Abby's second birthday on March 15! No, I didn't cry, but I certainly did my fair share of reminiscing. I kept thinking about our two-day stay at the hospital. We were so stressed! Who knew a newborn wouldn't sleep at night? Not us! Poor Abby.
Abby's "party" was held on Saturday the 14th because Chip was on call on her birthday. We bought her a rocking horse, a shopping cart, two puzzles, and a Mickey book.
We've all been sick lately. Abby caught the stomach bug, then I got it. Thank God Chip didn't get it, yet at least. He's dealing with his own problems - coughing!
I've been experiencing nausea for about five months. I went to the doctor and he ordered some lab work and an ultrasound (he suspected it could be my gallbladder), and he referred me to a GI doctor. Well, my lab work and ultrasound revealed nothing. So, I will be seeing a GI doc at the end of April. I'm no stranger to GI issues or doctors. Sigh. They'll probably want to do another EGD. It's possible my H. pylori (bacteria) has returned. Ugh.
I took Abby to her 2-year well-check today. She was wonderful! She is 34 inches long and weighs 25 lbs. She is in about the 50th percentile for height, but only the 25th percentile for weight. They also did some bloodwork - hemoglobin and lead. We were asked to hang around for a few minutes to find out the result of the hemoglobin. Abby's level was 19 - the normal level is 11 to 16. Hmm. They want to re-check it in three months. Me, being me, came home and looked up "high hemoglobin levels." I didn't like what I found. I pray that things return to normal next time. It could be because she is dehydrated; she did vomit for five or six days... In the meantime, I'm trying not to let my mind run wild.
Chip and I want another little one. No luck on that front yet. I'll keep you posted.
'Til next time.
Abby's "party" was held on Saturday the 14th because Chip was on call on her birthday. We bought her a rocking horse, a shopping cart, two puzzles, and a Mickey book.
We've all been sick lately. Abby caught the stomach bug, then I got it. Thank God Chip didn't get it, yet at least. He's dealing with his own problems - coughing!
I've been experiencing nausea for about five months. I went to the doctor and he ordered some lab work and an ultrasound (he suspected it could be my gallbladder), and he referred me to a GI doctor. Well, my lab work and ultrasound revealed nothing. So, I will be seeing a GI doc at the end of April. I'm no stranger to GI issues or doctors. Sigh. They'll probably want to do another EGD. It's possible my H. pylori (bacteria) has returned. Ugh.
I took Abby to her 2-year well-check today. She was wonderful! She is 34 inches long and weighs 25 lbs. She is in about the 50th percentile for height, but only the 25th percentile for weight. They also did some bloodwork - hemoglobin and lead. We were asked to hang around for a few minutes to find out the result of the hemoglobin. Abby's level was 19 - the normal level is 11 to 16. Hmm. They want to re-check it in three months. Me, being me, came home and looked up "high hemoglobin levels." I didn't like what I found. I pray that things return to normal next time. It could be because she is dehydrated; she did vomit for five or six days... In the meantime, I'm trying not to let my mind run wild.
Chip and I want another little one. No luck on that front yet. I'll keep you posted.
'Til next time.
Monday, March 2, 2009
'Bout Time
Boy, I've really got to keep up with my blog...
Rather than recount ALL the things that have happened since November 1, I figured I would just start fresh, and tell you a little bit about what is going on now.
Abby is pacifier-free thanks to her Uncle Jay! All it took was him saying, "Abby, you don't need a pacifier. Those are for babies." She took it out and never put it back in. What?! Not fair. I call Jay every now and then for baby advice. He'll have a great career as a "Baby Whisperer."
My little girl will be two on March 15th! Wow. Where has time gone? She is so loving. She's REALLY good at giving kisses, blowing kisses, giving hugs, dancing, and singing. She can sing Amazing Grace, Jesus Loves the Little Children, The Wheels on the Bus, and other nursery rhymes. One thing we have to work on is her "sugars." When I tell her to give me sugar, she procedes to wipe her nose all over my cheek. It's cute, but it's NOT sugar!
Chip is in the midst of interviewing for a pediatric surgery fellowship. He has three interviews left: Gainsville, FL; Philadelphia; and Oklahoma City. We'll find out May 6th where (and if) he matched!
I'm steadily making my way through my final semester of graduate school! [I shouldn't say final. It's kind of like the old saying, "You should never say 'never.'" I can totally see myself pursuing a Ph.D., but, shhh, don't tell Chip!]
Well, I really should be doing schoolwork, but like most nights, I find myself doing nothing productive. Sigh. It's so hard to use my "me time" to do "work."
Until next time, which hopefully won't be several months from now!
Rather than recount ALL the things that have happened since November 1, I figured I would just start fresh, and tell you a little bit about what is going on now.
Abby is pacifier-free thanks to her Uncle Jay! All it took was him saying, "Abby, you don't need a pacifier. Those are for babies." She took it out and never put it back in. What?! Not fair. I call Jay every now and then for baby advice. He'll have a great career as a "Baby Whisperer."
My little girl will be two on March 15th! Wow. Where has time gone? She is so loving. She's REALLY good at giving kisses, blowing kisses, giving hugs, dancing, and singing. She can sing Amazing Grace, Jesus Loves the Little Children, The Wheels on the Bus, and other nursery rhymes. One thing we have to work on is her "sugars." When I tell her to give me sugar, she procedes to wipe her nose all over my cheek. It's cute, but it's NOT sugar!
Chip is in the midst of interviewing for a pediatric surgery fellowship. He has three interviews left: Gainsville, FL; Philadelphia; and Oklahoma City. We'll find out May 6th where (and if) he matched!
I'm steadily making my way through my final semester of graduate school! [I shouldn't say final. It's kind of like the old saying, "You should never say 'never.'" I can totally see myself pursuing a Ph.D., but, shhh, don't tell Chip!]
Well, I really should be doing schoolwork, but like most nights, I find myself doing nothing productive. Sigh. It's so hard to use my "me time" to do "work."
Until next time, which hopefully won't be several months from now!
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