State of the Art Dining Facility!

A few weeks back my fellow director of the Croixathlon, Amy, and I found out that our beloved little race has landed in Minnesota's top five most popular multi-sport races.  And before you start tut-tutting and thinking that maybe there are only 6 such races I will let you know that there are over 70.  So yeehaw for the Croixathlon.  It's great for this little fundraiser to get some good props.  We work hard to create an event that is fun, challenging, and raises great money that gets kids out to camp in the summer.  And we might work even harder to encourage people to vote.  We don't tell them who to vote for....exactly.  We might just send a little reminder about the potato chips and the warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies.  And then a link that says "Vote Here for the Croixathlon".  No pressure.
But anyway- where does this get us?  Well, first of all, it got Amy and I to buy a table at the annual Tri-Night Banquet so we could thank our lovely corps of volunteers.  And soon it will get us into a room out in Minnetonka with a bunch of triathletes.  Which has got me a bit scared.  Triathletes are a weird crew.  They wear a lot of spandex and are real detail-oriented- two things I try to avoid.  And the info on Tri-Night keeps mentioning a 'state of the art' dining facility which really has me wondering.  What makes a dining room state of the art?  Amy thinks their will be streamlined forks, aerodynamic waiters, and synthohol.  I totally agree.  Triathletes demand nothing less.  Just think of the calories saved by using a state of the art fork!  My next morning workout will see my cardio/fat burn ratio peaking on a much earlier interval than if I had used the fork in available in my kitchen. Thank god.   
I must admit I'm looking forward to the event despite my general uneasiness when surrounded by people who surely have heart-rate monitors on under their evening wear.  It will be unveiled that evening just which race is number one in Minnesota, and while Amy and I are pretty sure the little Croixathlon will not elbow out it's larger competitors, we have managed to gather a pretty hilarious crew of friends/volunteers to join us at our table.  And while we may have a lower lean muscle mass average than the table next door, I dare say our laughter might help us burn more calories.  And with a crowd full of serious athletes, there just might be more desserts for me! 

Losing some Amish envy

Today on the back page of the paper was a huge ad for a FREE super high quality heater!  There were these pictures of wholesome Amish lads creating the 'mantles' for these heaters with smiles on their faces.  The ad had tons of text with the word FREE in caps and huge font over and over.  All I had to do was call a toll free number at 8:30 this morning and if I was one of the first 9,484 (why 9,484???) people I would get a heater for free!  I am naturally suspicious, even of the Amish, so I read the vast amounts of fine print to find the catch.  And there is one.  Right in the middle of 24 paragraphs (I counted) of text it says: You just can't find custom made Amish mantles like this in the national chain stores.  That makes the oak mantle a real steal for just two hundred ninety-eight dollars...  Man did that take the wind out of my amish sails.  Those sly dogs.  I expected more from them.
I might have expressed my indignation and disappointment to the boys as they were eating breakfast.  Theo asked what I was going to do about it (he does listen to me!! This is what I say to him whenever he starts to amp up his victimtude), was I going to write a letter to the editors?  I thought about it, then said, no, the Amish enjoy such warm feelings that if I was to say something against them I would be villain-ized in the American media.  The boys took it from there.  They wondered if anyone would do a little research and find out about my membership in the so-called Amish Envy Club and what they would make of that!  And once that got out it would just be a matter of time before we would find anonymous black buggies parked inconspicuously down the block.  Men dressed in black lurking around the yard with slingshots bulging under their wool sweaters, stuck in the straps of their suspenders.  Their fantasy (and I do think the thought of their mother being hunted down by angry Amish was a real fantasy for them) ended with me encased in a wooden jail cell, one with high quality crafted bars of course, rotting away in the back of a barn somewhere in southern Minnesota.  But here's the good news- they continued on to craft an escape story for me.  It involved me getting some benefits for being a good prisoner and being granted time with my lovely pets- the ever hungry rabbits.  The boys would have taught the rabbits to chew more quietly in the interim, and under the cover of darkness Penny and Gunnar would gnaw me to freedom.  All in all it made for a lovely breakfast conversation.  All enjoyed while eating my work of art chocolate chip pancakes.  Today I made a traditional smiley face, then branched out to a peace sign, and ended with a pickle.  It took some imagination to see the pickle in the pancake, but the boys had proved to me already this morning that they did not lack creativity. 

Washing Machine

Have you ever thought about what a dull name we have for the machine that washes our clothes?  I've never thought of it without picturing this fabulous labor saving device in my head and therefore not really focusing on the words- just the image.  Believe me, after living for two years without one and having to wash everything by hand, when I think of a washing machine, it's always with a warm glow of loveliness. But this week as I was doing some searching for specs on the damn things it struck me how dumb the name is.  Washing Machine.  I imagine that it was perhaps one of the first 'machines' available to be sold to individual consumers and was named such because machine had such futuristic, tech-y, connotations.  What would have happened if that trend had continued and we put our bread in the 'toasting machine' and then poured our morning beverage from the 'coffee making machine'?  It kind of cracks me up.  Which is a good thing because nothing else about the breakdown of our once trusted machine is too funny.  Especially the bill for the new one.

Ok- there is one other funny thing..... How it all happened.  I was home unexpectedly from work to care for a slightly ill Theo.  Only he wasn't really needing any tending so I decided to get something done that I had been putting off for a long time gave the bathroom a deep clean.  I threw the plastic shower curtain and bath mat in the washing machine.  Like I have done many times (although not nearly as often as I should).  Once it hit the spin cycle it clearly got out of balance and started knocking around so loudly I could hear it from the second floor.  I ran down, redistributed the load and then restarted the spin.  I decided to wait around to hear if it would get off balance again.  As I stood there, leaning on the machine, my mind drifted.  The spin started and then just seemed to get faster and faster and faster- going like I have never heard it spin before.  Instead of taking any action, I got lured into a daydream, wondering if this is what it sounded like to hear a helicopter take off.  From inside my basement.  I came out of it when the screeching, whirling noise hit a crescendo with a loud pop.  Then complete silence.  I admit that it made me chuckle.  Ok,enough for today, I need to go and get myself some water out of the refrigerating machine. 

Amish double header

Two Saturdays in a row have been devoted to ye olde Amish Envy Club, and while I admit that I went into this Amish double-header with some grumbling and stress about all the things being neglected on the homefront, I came out with no regrets.  We spent the Saturday of the slush storm over at Amy and Jeff's- working to remake a laundry/office room into a bedroom as they try to find room in their house for their own exchange student who arrives in January.  We arrived after a harrowing drive through the slush to find 7 kids in the front yard, in various stages of winter wear, pelting each other with the wettest snowballs I have ever seen.  Within 5 minutes of arrival both of our boys were drenched.  We let the kids continue their Lord of the Flies unsupervised morning outside while we got busy ripping up linoleum.  After lunch Shannon and I walked the crew of kids over to Como Zoo.  I was getting all uptight because none of them could resist the temptation to lie down, to lick, to roll, to throw the snow.  I was thinking about how hot and humid it is in the conservatory at the zoo and how they were going to be steaming.  But they weren't thinking about that.  They were thinking SNOW and they were loving it.  So I let it go.  When we did arrive, they were literally steaming as we walked through the different rooms, but no one mentioned their soggy condition once. 

Here's what I love about the chitlen:  Of the nine, seven are boys between the ages of 5 and 11.  One of the girls is right in the middle of the boy pack and she holds her own.  I dare say she could kick all of their butts if she wanted to, and sometimes I think she wants to...  But the other girl is only 2.  And each and every other kid loves her dearly and looks out for her.  As we tromped through the zoo with 9 kids and two adults, all of us in dripping snow gear, little Harriet would fall behind.  She's of that age where when encased in snow clothes she is wider than she is tall and mobility is severely limited.  But she'd fall a little behind and without a word amongst them, one of the boys would fall out, wait up, bend down to alter some piece of clothing and then hustle her back up to the crew.  It was never the same kid- they just all had their eye out for her and stepped up when it was needed.  It actually got me a little teary.  Or that might have been the steam from my clothes.

Something less cute about the Amish at the zoo- each and every room we went into a volunteer was instantly at our side.  The sight of 9 soggy kids with only two adults apparently made people nervous. But we were mostly in control.  Harriet would have only fallen into two of the ponds if she hadn't had a boy bodyguard by her side. 

That first Amish wrapped up early because the NeskeMoens had to light out to the big city for an evening engagement.  That and the storm cut out their power.  Cutting subflooring by hand saw did the pseudoAmish in.  Eli was the one who pointed out the irony of an Amish gathering ending early due to a power outage.  We had to take him out into the yard and give him a serious whitewash in the slushy snow for his blasphemous attitude.

The second Saturday of Amish togetherness was at Jason and Shannon's were we put up drapes, painted a bathroom and put in a new floor in their upstairs.  There were no poignant teary moments for me this time, but I did laugh to the point of crying more than once.  The crew is funny, if not always completely focused and productive.  

Independence

It just keeps happening.  This weekend Eli's friend called to see if he could play.  We could have driven him over, but before we knew what was happening, Eli had a map, had talked over the route with us, taking the described turns around the dining room table, and then he was off.  Biking to Simon's, some 2 miles and a couple of very busy roads away.  At the same time Ildar set off to take the bus to the Mall of America.  We had also shown him a map, told him to remember to get a transfer and hoped he got on the train going the right direction.  But off they went- one biking, one busing.  We weren't sure we'd ever see either of them again. 
But they made both made it there, and back.  When I was telling my mom where Eli had ridden too and said he was 'really' proud of himself, he corrected me and said he was not.  Really proud.  Just semi-proud.  That seems like the perfect amount.

Hanging out with Max

My three year old nephew Max did not have preschool today so I got to hang out with him for the morning.  We walked his cousins down to the corner where they jump into the walking line to school and realized we were halfway to a pretty great park.  It was 9am on November 9 and surprisingly toasty out, so we decided to make an outing of it, spur of the moment.  Max was really into what he could smell or hear while we were there.  There's a lot of road construction going on just out of view of the park and every time we heard a rumble Max would stand stock still and yell, "What was that?!?"  I would say it was a truck, and he would say, "No.  I think it was a cement mixer," or some other specific piece of heavy machinery, something he knows way more about than me.  But about the smells- he had pretty unique descriptions of the things he was smelling.  One that sticks out in my mind is the wooden post that 'smelled like it had a whole bunch of bees living in it.' There were several others in that vein and then I saw him with his nose up to his sleeve.  I asked him what that smelled like and he gave me the most blank stare and said, "A jacket."  Like there was no way I should expect it to smell like anything else...
The park was populated with monsters this morning- they were flying by our space shuttle, they were hiding in the garden, they might have been on the top of the slide- but Max vanquished them all.  Then we were walking home along Randolph in the sunshine and some homeowner had a construction sign up on their fence.  For Monster Construction.  You should have seen Max jump when he caught the picture of the logo out of the corner of his eye.  I almost died laughing.  Once I assured him it was ok, of course.  But the way he jumped and shrieked is something I will chuckle about for quite a while into the future.
Back here he got me giggling over his very serious requests for me to contact Mr. Von Flugel (the aviator from Richard Scarry) to see if he could babysit Max for the afternoon.  I was to hurry, because Mr. Von Flugel was surely going to leave work soon and we didn't want to miss him.  When his real babysitter (a lovely girl-really, a young woman, damn I'm getting old- named Misha) showed up at the door he was disappointed with me for not arranging an afternoon in BusyTown for him.  But then as we were walking to the door I somehow stepped on his sock which pulled it off of his foot and he went tumbling down.  We both could not stop laughing over that one.  He walked out the door, holding Misha's hand, still giggling.  Love him.

Still digging out berries

It's November and we still have a good deal of berries in our freezer.  This morning I made the boys some Swedish pancakes and we dug out a bag of Lake Namakon blues to roll up inside them.  We didn't defrost them all the way- the hot pancake wrapped around chilly wild blueberries with just a touch of sugar sprinkled over the top.  That's one heck of a way to start a Friday. 

I am getting out my summer 2011 calendar right now and penciling much time for berry picking.  I thought that I might have over done it last summer, but we're already nearing the tail end of our crop.  We still have a couple smoothies, maybe some waffle topping, and at least one more small tart before the well will run dry, however.  They will brighten some dark winter mornings, I am sure. 

Making the most of our CSA veggies

Jon and I have been members of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) off and on for the past 15 years.  When we first started, back before Eli was born, we split a box three ways and still could not finish off the veggies most weeks.  We ended up with some good results from our experiments on the shelf life of beets and rutabagas.  Over the years we have gotten a little more adventurous and have learned several ways of pounding the always abundant beet crop into submission.  We can now also identify a few more greens and roots. 
But it wasn't until this year that we reached the point where we could consume everything on a weekly basis. Sure, there were some stressful Wednesdays as we tried to use up the last of a week's harvest before the new load appeared.  And having two rabbits as fellow housemates did indeed help- but they mostly ate the tops of the radishes, beets, and carrots- although I know a serious cook would have ingenious uses for those as well. 

Here are my highlights of CSA cooking this year:

Butternut Squash Bread.  It took a little effort to bake the squash, then puree it, then start the bread making process, but I do declare it worthwhile!  The whole family enjoyed this one, which has not always been the case with my experiments.  I have very high hopes the butternut squash ravioli I plan to make tonight with the left over puree.

Roasted Vegetable Sandwiches:   This was more of a hit with Jon and I, but the boys gamely ate there's and only 'accidentally' knocked a few of the harder to identify vegetables off of their sandwiches on the sly.  I am on to them. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the rutabagas and turnips in this one.

Beet Burgers:  When you get 6-10 beets a week, you have to get creative.  My family would only eat the beet/arugula/feta salad so often.  Beet burgers were a mess to make, but I made a load of 15 at once and we are still pulling them out of the freezer and roasting them up in November.  They are a nice alternative to a veggie burger every now and then.

Chocolate Beet Cake:  I didn't tell my boys that there were beets in this cake before they ate some.  And they never knew!  Yeehaw.  Of course, there was also at least 3 pounds of sugar in the recipe as well.

Carrot Cake:  I've never made one before, and Ildar proclaimed my first attempt as the 'Best American Carrot Cake' he has ever had.  It was his first American carrot cake, but I'll log that praise in my little book anyway.

American Borscht.  As I have mentioned earlier, our Russian expert insisted that this soup was good.  But it was not borscht.  Oh well.  It was my first attempt at a beet based soup (but not the last, I am sure) and I think it came out ok.

I'd call it a successful harvest from our perspective.  From the farmer's newsletters I know the season was a struggle with heat and too much water, for a change, but they managed to get a pretty bountiful crop to our table.  We will miss it as we settle back into the store bought groove for the next 6 months or so.