Foodmomiac

Our Bunco Adventure

Holy crap
Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

Last night was the first-ever meeting of my Chicago Bunco group. When we lived in Toledo, Bunco Night was one of the highlights of every month. A few weeks ago, I realized that I finally had enough friends and acquaintances to pull a group together here.

The night was awesome. I totally procrastinated the preparation, so I just ran over to the big Korean market and picked up a bunch of food there (Kim Bap, which is Korean sushi, Vegetable Mandoo - dumplings, and pre-marinated steak - Bulgogi). I also made a giant pot of sushi rice in my rice cooker, and put out lettuce leaves, sliced scallions and kimchi.

At about 9pm, we had finished dinner and were sitting around drinking and laughing. I decided that it was time to start actually playing Bunco, so we all got up and moved into the Dining Room/Living Room. It was then that I noticed that the tablecloth on my dining room table was soaked. And I looked up at my ceiling and saw a huge bubble of water about to burst. Well, all I can say is THANK GOD Jeannie from House in Progress and HouseBlogs.net was there! She totally took control of the situation. She figured out that the leak was from the kids' toilet. She drained the tank, turned off the water, came downstairs, stood on my table, popped the water bubble with a grapefruit knife, drained it, and then removed the soggy latex paint from the ceiling. It was remarkable. And I think we all have a new home improvement hero.

We ended up playing Bunco in my kitchen, and had a fabulous time. I am so happy to finally have a Bunco group again. It was worth the leak!

My Latest Award - Worst Slacker Mom Ever

I love her eyes in this photo
Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

Dylan is starting kindergarten on Tuesday. Her orientation (meeting the kids, meeting the teacher, playing, eating pizza) was last night.

We missed it.

I thought it was tonight.

I'm ready to throw up I'm so upset.

Corn Fritters

Corn Fritters
Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

Guest Post by Dylan Wiley

(Recipe is here.

The corn fritters were great. And we loved them so much that we ate so much of them that we were so full. And the flavor was so good. It had corn in it. And it was so good that we just ate and ate them. We were so full that we couldn't finish them. We'll eat them tomorrow and we hope tomorrow is a great day. I ate mine with plain yogurt. All done.

Beyond side dishes

Michael is still trying to be vegetarian during the week (though I forced him to eat the city's best turkey sandwich for lunch today). I thought that I wouldn't mind this new diet, but it is driving me up a wall. I am having the hardest time coming up with meal ideas! I know that this is ridiculous, and that there are tons of cookbooks and resources out there, but I'm stumped. Every day, I'm stumped.

I think that it is so easy to rely on meat for weeknight dinners when you work. Just pick the meat, and then add a side dish. Voila. Without the meat, though, it's all side dishes, all the time. (Except when I make tempeh, but how often can I do that??)

Take tonight, for instance. I have fresh corn, fresh sweet peppers, baby arugula. Staples at the house include eggs, tortillas, cheese, heavy cream, pasta, rice (but we had rice last night), beans. I was thinking of making these corn fritters, but then what? They would be awesome with shellfish. Or chicken. Maybe with some black beans?? Caribbean-style beans and rice maybe?

Ideas anyone? What are the best vegetarian food blogs? HELP!

Bringing Families Back to the Table

  Yay! 
  Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

Last night, we gathered up the family (including Paty, the newest member), and headed to a big event at Crust: Eat Real. Crust is the first certified organic restaurant in the Midwest, and we had wanted to try it for a while. This event was the perfect opportunity.

The evening was a fundraiser for an organization called Purple Asparagus. Here is the mission of Purple Asparagus:

Purple Asparagus is dedicated to bringing families back to the table by promoting and enjoying all the things associated with good eating.

By sharing food, we strengthen family and community ties, support local farmers and producers, gain respect for the earth and for the diversity of cultures all over it, and pass important traditions on to the next generation.

We seek to be a primary resource in our community for food-related activities, education and fun for families of all kinds.

Purple Asparagus was founded by Melissa Graham, who lives in my neighborhood, and who I met a month or two ago at the Farmer's Market. For most of the summer, Purple Asparagus hosted the Sprouts table at the Green City market. Kids can head over to the table for great food and fun crafts. We were introduced to Melissa by her son, Thor. He came over to Dylan and Max and recruited them for the Sprouts table. Max didn't want to stand still long enough to do anything, but Dylan loved planting parsley seeds in an eggshell.

But anyway, last night's event was lovely. I really enjoyed all of the food, and it was a good feeling to be around other people with a similar philosophy towards eating and family. It was a nice thing to do with Paty, too. It was very casual, and she seemed pretty relaxed.

(You can click the above picture to see more photos of the event.)

Cross posted at: Chicago Moms Blog.

Adjustments

Paty finally arrived yesterday afternoon. I didn't expect the adjustment to be so hard (even though everyone told me that it would be!). She is almost painfully shy and soooo soft spoken. I took her to the supermarket today, and she was too overwhelmed (and timid?) to ask for anything. I did manage to get it out of her that she'd like some Diet Coke and some QTips. And nail polish remover.

Tomorrow we'll need to find an empty parking lot for some practice driving. I guess my car is way bigger than the car she usually drives. And, with all the trees down in the city, it probably seems incredibly overwhelming!

The kids do seem to like her very much, despite the fact that she's not really talking. I think she is a bit surprised by how hard the English is for her. We are working on teaching her some of the slang we use everyday. Today we taught her "yucky," "lollipop," and "whining." Dylan is FABULOUS at demonstrating "whining." A real champ.

I think I am going to do some cooking with her this week. Yesterday, i asked her about Feijoada, the national dish of Brazil, and she really lit up as she described it. We will be near a Brazilian grocery tomorrow, so I'll pick up the specialty sausages and maybe some snack food for her. Michael thought it was weird that I wanted to get her Brazilian food when she is supposed to be experiencing America, but she must be so homesick. Also, I think it's great for us to experience her culture as well.

Anti-Climactic

Well. There is no au pair at my house right now. She is stranded in Connecticut, thanks to global warming. (or maybe just a standard summer storm, but I don't know - things here have been a bit extreme lately)

The poor thing sounded so tiny and tired when she called me from a pay phone at LaGuardia. I think the phone was installed sometime around my birth in the early seventies, so of course we couldn't hear each other. I just heard the tired tone and perhaps a faint hint of weepiness.

I spent about an hour and a half on hold with American Airlines (a total of three times) trying to reschedule her flight. First, they tried to tell me that the only available flight out of NY was tomorrow night and had a transfer in North Carolina. Oh HELL no.

I managed to find an early afternoon flight out of Stewart Airport in Newburgh, NY, near my old stomping grounds in Poughkeepsie.  The flight details have been faxed to Paty's hotel, Dylan and I re-created our welcome sign in brighter colors, and I now have another evening and morning to procrastinate the organization of the house. I DID manage to clean out my car, but due to the storm, I had to do it next to a garbage can in my parking garage at work. And while I was doing it, some nasty garage pigeon crapped on my car. BUT, the inside is clean. What's a little bird crap when you're Cheerio free??

What I Should Be Doing...

Paty, our au pair, is arriving tomorrow, and I'm sitting in my giant arm chair just screwing around. I'm playing Scrabble on Facebook, reading blogs, hitting refresh on Flickr and Twitter over and over.

I should probably deal with all of my clutter so we don't scare her away. I could put away some laundry. I could DO some laundry. I could get the coffee pot ready for the morning so I'm not doing it at 6am when I'm groggy and grumpy.

I could finally organize my damn home office that has been sitting in a state of disarray for two months. I could organize my clothing like Susan has been doing all week.

I could drink some water to offset the prosecco I drank tonight at our local wine bar. I could catch up on my work email. I could work on one of the zillion PowerPoints I have on my to do list.

I totally don't feel like doing any of those things, and tomorrow morning is going to be INSANE as a result. I do this every night, by the way. Sigh.

I'm not used to being this productive

Twice Baked Potatoes
Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

We have gotten way too much accomplished over the past few days. I am not used to functioning at this level. It's rough!

First, let me explain last week to you. I thought I had already written about it, but I realize that I just twittered it. Not blogged it. So, most of you have no clue what happened last week. It was insane.

The kids and I were in NY for Grandma Ana's birthday party and then my mom came back with us. Dylan's camp ended on the 10th, so my mom offered to watch her for a few days. This was fabulous. Unfortunately, I also told my mother-in-law that I needed help with Dylan, so she also made reservations to come in. For a few days, it looked like their visits were going to overlap. Now, don't get me wrong. I love my mother. I love my mother-in-law. That said, I really don't need them both in my house at the same time. Luckily, my mom was totally understanding and switched her flight. I had a good four hours between visits. Plenty of time to wash the sheets in the guest bedroom. I also squeezed in a haircut.

So, last week was insane, and Paty, our au pair, is arriving on Thursday. This meant that instead of taking our guests around the city, we had to instead use them as cheap (free) babysitters so that we could do stuff. Stuff we did included:

- Going to the Container Store twice.
- Going to Menard's for a shed.
- Putting the shed together.
- Installing the shelves that we bought at the Container Store.
- Setting up Paty's room.
- Moving all of our furniture around. (I think this is the most impressive. While Michael's Mom and Dylan directed us, Michael and I moved every couch in the house. We moved the giant sectional from the first floor to the basement. We moved a chaise lounge and armchair from the basement to the first floor. Finally, we moved a couch and another armchair from the living room to the family room. I'm achy and I've realized that it's high time I get my butt to the gym.)

You are probably wondering at this point what any of this has to do with the food picture up top. Well, on our way back from our first visit to the Container Store, I talked Michael into stopping at NYC Bagel. I've wanted to try this place for a while now, but it's not terribly close to our house and is in one of the most congested areas of Chicago. But, the stars aligned and we were in the right place at the right time, so we were able to pick up a slew of bagels and fixings for a Sunday brunch. I was the only one to eat the vegetable cream cheese, though, so there was a ton of it left over. Tonight, I used it to make Twice Baked Potatoes. I baked three small potatoes in the microwave, cut them in half, and scooped out the middles. This got mashed up with vegetable cream cheese and placed back into the shells. I sprinkled them with grated cheddar and put them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes. These were the highlight of the meal. The main dish was barbecued tempeh (the sauce was too sweet - I should have made my own) and some salad.

And now, I need to get some sleep.

Old Photos, New Job

  separated-at-birth-bw 
  Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

I am a huge fan of Flickr. I think it is the smartest photo site out there, and I am on there every day, no fail. But, that wasn't always the case. Back in 2001 when Dylan was born, there was no Flickr, so I used Yahoo! photos. Now that Yahoo! owns Flickr, they are closing down their original photo site and offering to export all old photos to Flickr (or another, non-Yahoo!-owned site such as Snapfish or Shutterfly) (which is pretty cool - I can't believe they are offering to help people move away from Yahoo! altogether)

I only had about 100 photos up there, but it was so much fun to see them! In addition to the photo here, which shows Dylan and Michael at 3 months, side-by-side, I also found photos of Dylan with my Papa and with my Grandma Lilly, both of whom have passed away since then. Very sweet to have those on my Flickr site.

In other news, I'm packing up my office today because I'm switching departments. I am so excited! I am going to be a part of the food group at Edelman, working with the teams to make social media recommendations and helping with new business efforts. Being a part of the food group is like coming home. I can't believe that I found a job that combines blogging and food. It's almost surreal.

OK,  back to packing.