The Menu

Another shabbos, another fun meal!

For dinner...

SUSHI BLOWOUT (special request for ima's birthday!)
asparagus tempura/cream cheese
cucumber
cucumber/avocado/surimi
egg/sweet potato/chard w/shiso gomashio
salmon/avocado/asparagus
salmon/cream cheese/cucumber
seared salmon nigiri (seared with a blowtorch!)
salmon/scallions/surimi
salmon nigiri with shiso
and LIME CHEESECAKE for dessert (if we can even eat dessert!)

And for lunch...

steamed carrots (from the garden!)
roasted balsamic beets (from the garden!)
salmon salad (from the garden!)
beef stew
shiso gomashio rice
guacamole/chips/salsa
roasted bananas
corned beef sandwiches
and ORANGE CAKE for dessert

And thank H' for shabbos. Still feeling tired post-bug and hoping to get plenty of extra sleep over shabbos. Good shabbos, all!

Pastries

I've not really had all that many jobs in my life... music teacher has been my professional one, as was working in the fundraising office of a science museum at UC Berkeley. I still dream about being back there once or twice a year. It was a lovely place to work for eight years! I'm not doing much music teaching right now, but I know one day I'll go back to it again. I loved teaching classroom music for all those years, and teaching 50+ private students every week, but I imagine a much smaller schedule than that in my future. :) I did love creating/composing/writing operas with my K–5th grade students. Those operas were definitely the highlights of my school teaching years.

But the job I dream about the most often? Serving coffee and pastries at La Creme de la Creme Pâtisserie for 8 years (all through high school and then during college vacations). I loved that place. The quirky owners, and the really stupendous food. I can still remember the tastes 30 years later, especially the...

coq au vin

spinach lasagna

quiche

raspberry vinaigrette for the salads (made in the giant dough mixers!)

handmade (often by me!) pasta - carrot & tarragon; onion basil; spinach; tomato; and plain

baguettes (real ones, crispy on the outside moist and soft on the inside but NOT chewy)
 Russian salad (carrots, peas, and turnips)

potato salad (French style...)

chicken apple salad (it was $8.95/lb!)

pasta salad with artichoke hearts, olives, and pimento

breakfast pastries - croissants (real ones!), chocolate croissants (fresh and still melted inside...), almond croissants, raisin croissants (YUM), apricot soleils (apricots over pastry cream on a round croissant), beignets

desserts - truffles, grand marnier chocolate mousse cake with raspberries, lemon mousse, strawberry mousse with lady fingers, lemon tarts (perfection), napoleans (perfect puff pastry), strawberry napoleans (perfection perfected), creme caramel (oh, sigh), chocolate mousse with rum, black forest cake, apple tart, the strawberry/kiwi fruit tarts, the raspberry tarts,

and the coffee, the perfect coffee... the hot chocolate (50% powdered sugar, 50% cocoa)... the iced lattes...

I'm sure there are many things I've forgotten. Every time I think of my time there I feel so happy. What a wonderful, wonderful place to be. Every time I put on an apron part of me visits back there and then. I don't know why I wanted to post this. I suppose it's just a small ode to a place I was very fond of once upon a time. :)

Readaloud: Fever, 1793

Tonight we finished this most riveting of readaloud books, Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. The book follows the story of a young teenager, Mattie, as she endures the yellow fever epidemic that hit Philadelphia in 1793. The descriptions of life before and during the epidemic are wonderfully rich. The bravery and character of Mattie are inspiring. There were several very poignant moments where my own voice was cracking while reading the story. It gave us a very good sense of what it might have been like to live through such a terrible times.

The book also provides ample material for discussion on:

•18th-century medical science
•the first hot-air balloon, which is part of the story
•the role of the Free African Society and of black people in general in Philadelphia
•how food supplies were historically affected by a health crises
•the state of yellow fever today and the history of yellow fever in our own city, Savannah
•how panic affects people's decisions
•why Philadelphia was the capital at that time

I'm so very glad we read this book. The kids weren't enthusiastic about starting it (and were clamoring for another Nancy Drew mystery!), but we all became very enamored of this book, and particularly of the main character, Mattie. A very inspiring story.

The Menu

Last week, the menu consisted of Gatorade for many of us, and a dinner/lunch brought to the rest of us. Terrible stomach bug. We're just now finally recovering. Gevalt, and baruch hashem!

For dinner:

challah
eggplant with fresh basil and red pepper
roasted zucchini with preserved lemons
stir-fried swiss chard with garlic, ginger, and cumin
baked Japanese sweet potatoes
coq au vin
linguini
roasted cabbage
layered sorbet: mango, tofu sour cream, strawberry

And for lunch:

beef barley stew w/homemade kishke
deli sandwiches
garden salad
anything left from dinner

No guests this week. :( Wasn't sure if we'd be operating at 100% or not, and I definitely didn't want to pass along this intensely nasty bug.

Calm Puppy

I never knew there was such a thing but (sh) our puppy is quite a calm little guy. I'm not sure if it's just a phase or what. I was expecting, well, mayhem! He politely eats his food, goes outside to run with kids,  and practically wipes off his feet on the mat before he comes inside. He's just... sweet. Mellow. Perfect. We were wondering about his hearing, but the vet says he seems to be hearing fine. He does roll two lazy eyes towards the source of a sound, but doesn't startle or cock his head or anything. He's just... mellow. This is just so unlike the puppy experience I was braced for (and still am braced for, really!). Could he change? Could he get a little more wild? Or is this it? So curious to see... He's in good health, other than testing positive for giardia, but then we are the poster children for giardia (no longer, thankfully) so we can help a puppy through that too. Seems like the medication is simpler for the puppy than it was for the humans. He did bark when Mrs. B. (formerly of next door) dropped in to say hello (but wasn't allowed in because of a stomach virus that had DH in the emergency room for several hours!), so we're glad he'll be a bit of a watchdog. He's just a dear, and I don't think of myself particularly as a dog person either. But this one? He's special.

Puppy

Today we went on our second puppy browsing expedition... and (surprising ourselves!) came home with a puppy. I mean, not totally surprising ourselves. We did decide - a year ago - to get a puppy, and we knew it likely we would be getting one soon, but we didn't really think we'd actually be bringing one HOME today! But we did. We went to a rescue organization that had 60 puppies (plus probably 120+ adult dogs). It was overwhelming with so many and I could hardly separate one puppy out from the next. D. described what we were looking for and the lady knew exactly which one was the right one for us. As soon as D. saw him, that was it and he was ours. He's 10 weeks old, probably 25 pounds (for now... note those BIG paws!), and is an English Shepherd mix. Very calm and sweet. And his name? Basil Rathbone.

And on top of that, we also acquired two rabbits in the last week! One from the Humane Society, a white female rabbit we have named Amelia Earhart (EER-hart... ha ha ha), and another from an individual, a white rex with black splotches that we have named Horatio. Horatio and Amelia are living in a condo next to the chickens. We also built them a little run outside the chicken run where the kids can play with them, and the rabbits can also hang out with the chickens in their run. We'll use their waste for garden compost, and could also use it to feed/fertilize a future tilapia pond. Pictures of them to follow soon, IYH! What a week...

Down Two Teeth!

Raizel has beaten Eli to the punch and lost two teeth! The top two are wiggily too, so I'm sure she'll be down four any day now IYH. Eli has some wiggling around too. Looks like with might have a toothless club around here!

The Menu

Another week has evaporated!

For dinner:

challah
caesar salad
rosemary garlic beef roast
steamed broccoli
roasted asparagus
roasted potatoes
roasted mushrooms
miniature chocolate cakes

And for lunch:

challah
caesar salad
oregano chicken
white bean salad
orange onion spinach salad
tomato avocado salad
mushroom tart
and from our guests... a chocolatey conglomeration

Simple food to cook this week!

Good shabbos, all!

The Menu

We're baaaaaaack, after two weeks away and a few days of post-pesach recovery. I have no idea what we ate for pesach. Wait, yes I do. I'll try to recreate it even though most of the post-pesach meals were completely improvised. :) We were definitely in vacation mode!

For dinner:

challah (YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!)
roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots
roasted bok choi
roasted sweet potatoes
roasted balsamic onions
steamed (for a change) corn
strawberries and mixed fruit sorbet

For lunch:

beef barley not-cholent with homemade kishke
mint-stuffed eggs
pesto orzo broccoli salad
potato torta (potatoes, sausage, onions)
marinated pan-fried zucchini
carrot salad
peanut butter cup bars

Good shabbos!

Paw Paws

Our own paw paws are leafing out in the front yard. We can't wait to try them, IYH!

The Rest of the News

Oh, my. A tricky week. We did only a half-week of learning since I'm just a bit distracted with pesach preparation/packing, but that was fine. Amirah had a siyum for finishing parshas vayeira. She read every word! Usually students skip chunks of it, but it was all going so well and her vocabulary and grammar knowledge was deepening so nicely I just let it continue. It means we spent a lot more time on this parsha than most do, but I love alpidarko! It was working for her, so why mess with it? :)

Then we learned about three car break-ins in two days on our block. Bleah. Nothing much of value taken, it seems. Just property damage. D. thinks we should just leave our cars unlocked so it's easier for them to see what's inside! It's not like a 2003 Odyssey minivan is on their most-wanted-vehicle list. Humph.

Then, worst of all, our dear kitty, Lucy, got hit by a car and died very early this morning. We barely had her three months. Amirah is very, very sad, but handling it pretty well. Her first desire was to get her a blanket to cover her up. Tomorrow we'll have a kitty funeral and bury her in the side of the yard where she liked to hang out. Poor kitty. We will really miss her sweet little face. So many lessons come from these things - lessons about street safety to reinforce, lessons about human lives versus animal lives, lessons about learning to grieve so that when bigger grief comes into our lives we have a sense of how to handle it, and knowing that all that Hashem brings to us is for the good.

The Menu

So much more than the menu happened this shabbos, but here, at least, is the menu! :)

DINNER
challah
fish cakes
caesar salad
beef roast
chicken & broccoli kugel (from a sheva brachos earlier in the week)
roasted asparagus
roasted potatoes
roasted carrots and zucchini
brownies (from friends!)

LUNCH
sushi
baba ghanouj
balsamic roasted mushrooms
barley with chimichurri sauce
meatballs with apricot curry sauce (just took duck sauce and added curry powder!)
Irish beef stew (meat, can of beer, can of tomato paste, 2 cups brown rice, water - LOOK, a recipe!)
curried carrot pear salad*
green salad
strawberry kiwi sorbet
almond meringue cookies*

We had 12 people for dinner and 18 for lunch. Really good company!

*RECIPES!

Curried Carrot Pear Salad
8 large carrots, shredded
2 pears, chopped
2 T. white wine vinegar
1 T. curry powder
2 t. sugar
1 t. salt
1/4 cup olive oil

(This was YUMMY, light, and very refreshing. Definitely a keeper.)

Almond Meringues

16 ounces almond paste
4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325. Break up the almond paste in a food processor with a few pulses. Add sugar. Whip egg whites and combine with almond paste. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper (I usually lightly grease the pan and the paper). Drop spoonfuls of batter onto sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 20 minutes, then leave in oven to dry out (turn off oven).

(Easy, and very delicious. I think I'll make my own nut paste and do this over pesach too.)

The Menu

So ready for shabbos. It's been a very, very full week...

For dinner:

challah
roasted chicken stuffed w/lemon and garlic
mashed potatoes
gravy
roasted cabbage
roasted cauliflower
green salad (from the garden!)
steamed spinach
apple rhubarb crisp

For lunch:

challah
surimi wonton salad
Irish beef stew
sausage rice eggplant salad
roasted peppers
coleslaw (w/rice vinegar/sesame oil/sesame seeds)
pumpkin kugel
apple rhubarb crisp

The Beach!

Today we went to the beach for the first time in quite a while. Dean came home early and we ate a little dinner and left around 5:30. It was a lovely day. The water was a bit cool at first, but they quickly got used to it (maybe 70?). Amirah got to fly her new kite and our old kite. The beach felt pretty perfect.

Botany

A few weeks ago, we began our study of botany. Given the state of the garden, and the beautiful spring that arrived in Savannah last month, the timing is perfect. I've started a new schedule of making every other Wednesday dedicated to botany and history in the morning (after davening/parsha) and music and art in the afternoons. It's so hard to squeeze these in during the week. Having a good chunk of time dedicated periodically to these subjects makes me much less worried that we won't have time for them! (Of course, yesterday was Tuesday, but normally we do this on Wednesday!)

Yesterday, we dissected camellias and identified the sepals/calyx, petals/corolla, stamen (anther/filament), carpels (stigma/style/ovary/ovule), and pollen. Then we took tiny pieces of each part and prepared slides for the microscope. It was so interesting to look at all the different parts up close. I also had some purchased slides of various pollens, spores, and plant parts, so we looked at those too. FUN!

I'm not sure we've ever even used the microscope since we got here (it was Dean's for college/grad school), and I sure hope to make more use of it. So interesting.

Our First Eggs!

This morning, Amirah went to check to see if we had any eggs yet. The chickens are 21-1/2 weeks old and typically this breed lays between 16 and 20 weeks. She came back to report that there were no eggs, but that one of the chickens was squatting in the nest box. "Isn't that weird, mama? Wait! Squatting!" Shrieking, she ran back outside. Sure enough, she came back excitedly bearing our first egg. First eggs are smaller than a normal egg, so we scrambled it and each had one dainty bite. Everyone pronounced it delicious. It definitely had a better, more complex taste. Yum.

In the mid-afternoon, I heard quite a ruckus (lots of pa-KAWKs) and thought for sure another egg had landed. But no, no egg in the nest box. But an hour later I noticed one on the floor of the run! Egg number two had arrived! Very exciting, and now regular trips to the nest boxes will be a welcome part of our morning routine.

Our first brown egg next to a grocery store egg. Dainty! For now...

Belated Purim Pictures

We had such a fun Purim. B"H three of them wanted to be the same thing as last year, and Amirah's costume was pretty simple. Avi was Mordechai, with sackcloth and ashes. Eli was King Achashverosh, but this year we added the royal red cape and a new crown. Raizel was Queen Vashti by night and Queen Esther by day. Our shaloch manos were fun and simple - a cranberry muffin, some yummy (VERY dairy) caramel, a juice, and, um one other thing? Guess it's been a while already! :)

Everyone...

Amirah...

Eli...

Raizel...

Avi...

The Menu

Well... there isn't one!

Dinner is being brought to us. I'm just making challah and a salad or two.

And we're out for lunch.

Mommy dance time. And a little extra time to do a little more room re-organizing after the room shifts. YAY!

Good shabbos, all!

Great Dinner

WARNING: All measurements are my best guess! :)

Tonight, I took some turkey necks I had bought a month or so ago and boiled them with onion and garlic to make a broth (8 cups). After straining it, I added rice noodles, soy sauce (2 T.), and sesame oil (1 T.). It was good, but a little bland. I knew the kids would like it best that way, but I like to jazz things up. So I decided to make a kind of "pesto" for us to spoon into our own bowl. Here's about what I came up with: 3 cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, 1/4 preserved lemon, 1/2 cup walnuts, 1 T. lime juice, 1 T. olive oil, salt to taste. A spoon of this made the soup delicious!

Along with it, we had steamed soybeans, and roasted plantains, carrots, and cauliflower. Everyone was actually enthusiastic! And Eli, who likes very few things, really liked the soy beans. He now has soybeans and broccoli in his repertoire of foods that make me really happy to see him eat.

So, there. A recipe. I hope...

Room Switch

We switched everyone's bedrooms around (except ours) and they are all very happy with the changes! Raizel is now in the formal learning room. I had to keep the narrow, deep closet for our materials but she has a gigantic chest of drawers that has plenty of room for all of her clothes. She also still has the piano in her room, but she doesn't mind. She's very happy.

Amirah is in the smaller bedroom where the boys used to be. She is blissed out in her own, private space, reading and listening to classical music. We're hoping to paint it before too long since the colors in there (orange and brown) are pretty bleah.

And the boys now have the biggest bedroom in the house. The girls had two full-sized beds in there. The boys have a twin bunkbed, so the room has much more space in it now. They're very happy to have room for more building and WWII battle scenes.

It took a bit of shlepping but it was really worth it. Now if Amirah loses patience with Raizel she can escape to her own retreat room and be by herself. And Raizel feels very grown-up to be sleeping in her very own room. A good move all around!