I’ve finally emerged from my Thanksgiving food coma. We had a wonderful feast at our house Thursday. Everyone contributed a dish or two (or three). I’m very thankful for all the great cooks in my family!

Favorite Thanksgiving food: impossible! I can’t pick one!
Favorite snow activity: skiing
Favorite Christmas song: Jingle Bell Rock
Favorite holiday: I like them all, but I really like the Halloween / Thanksgiving / Christmas triumvirate.
Favorite Christmas movie: I like the Christmas scene in the fifth Harry Potter movie where all the Weasleys toast Harry for saving their father’s life. I also like all the weird knitted things Mrs. Weasley gives each of her seven kids every year. It makes me want to learn how to knit.
Name a Christmas decoration: tree
Favorite thing about the Christmas season: crisp air

Favorite Christmas treat: I’m not usually a big fan of chocolate, but this season makes me crave chocolate.
Favorite pie: pecan
Name a reindeer: Dancer
Name something you wear to go sledding: knit cap
One thing you do on Christmas Eve: put presents under the tree
What month do you start shopping for Christmas? I buy year-round.
Popular Christmas TV special: Charlie Brown Christmas
What other holiday might the Grinch want to steal? Valentine’s Day
Name something given in the 12 days of Christmas song: “Eight maids-a-milking…” This song is so weird.
Another name for Santa Claus: Père Noël
Name something at the North pole: stars
One thing you do on New Years Eve: watch the countdown on TV

PS: Guess what? Alex has a blog!

Categories: food, harry potter, memes
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I love Gmail’s new themes. This one called Terminal reminds me of the bad old days of playing games in the computer lab at school. It also looks a little Matrix-ish. Our long-time readers might remember a version of Juvin.com designed in this style. One of you commented it was hard to read I agree. After about a minute of using this theme in my Gmail I changed to something white and much more readable.

I found this article about a food columnist with an abysmal kitchen very entertaining. Back when we moved from apartment to apartment, our kitchens were even smaller than his 7×8 space, and I complained endlessly about them, but I cooked a lot! At one point I was making pizza regularly, from the dough on up, and this was before I got my KitchenAid mixer. I stopped cooking so much after Alex was born. Ironically we bought this house soon after that. By the way, we’re almost done with our kitchen remodel. It will definitely be finished by Thanksgiving. I’m so excited!

I just sent Kevin this interview with Will Wright, creator of SimCity, The Sims, and Spore, which the kids have been playing non-stop. Quiz time: which of the following things does Kevin have in common with Will Wright? 1) enjoys reading about stuff more than actually buying them, 2) buys Russian-y gadgets from people named Alexei, or 3) likes to play with power tools? If you answered all of the above, you are correct!

Categories: food, games, memes
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This year Ana was Belle and Alex was a pirate. Ana’s not all *that* into the princess thing, but she likes it when people tell her how pretty she looks. Alex was totally in his element. I doubt I’ll be getting my skull-and-crossbones bandanna back from him.

We tried something different this year and went to the local city Halloween festival instead of the usual door-to-door march. It was packed. There were, no joke, close to a thousand kids there. There was a massive line for the ho-hum petting zoo and pony rides. There was an enormous line for the too-scary-for-a-four-year-old haunted house. There was a line for everything.

After about 20 minutes of wandering around and playing carnival-esque games to win candy, the kids pronounce it lame and ask to go trick-or-treating instead. It was all good. The kids and I had fun wandering up and down our block extorting the neighbors for candy.

Categories: food, kids and parenting, memes
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I haven’t been able to cook as much as I’ve wanted to since I went back to work, but I’ve been trying. Monday I took the day off, and I ended up cooking a couple of dishes that fed us all week. Tonight at 10:30, instead of getting ready for bed I was sauteing garlic and spinach to put into a Tupperware container, for eating whenever.

This latest bout of interest in cooking started a few months before Angie was born. I attributed it to nesting behavior, but Angie is now four and a half months old, and it doesn’t seem to have diminished. This article puts it in context. Reading this, I found myself nodding in agreement quite a bit. I’m definitely buying more organic foods, and I can totally relate to the comments from Alice Waters and Rachel Ray.

My next goal is to include the kids more in my cooking. I know Alex is dying to crack an egg, and Ana has already proved herself capable of using measuring spoons. Hmm, maybe we’ll bake some muffins this weekend.

Categories: food
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During my time at home this summer we’ve been eating very well. I’ve been cooking and baking up a storm. I only wished we ate this well during the rest of the year.

Then I had what could only be called an epiphany.

Here’s the situation. During the work/school week, we’re so famished by the time we get home that we end up getting fast food or heating up frozen meals instead of cooking from scratch. This has been the case for YEARS, and we’re sick of it. With the kids returning to school and me returning to work in a couple of weeks, I was desperate to find a way to fit home-cooked meals into our busy lives. Finally I thought, if we’re too hungry and tired to cook dinner as soon as we get home, why not cook AFTER eating dinner?

So this week I’ve been running a simulation. Every night, we’ve been eating dinner around 6:30. Afterwards, I clean off the table, put the dirties in the dishwasher, and then get to work.

How is it going? In a word, WONDERFULLY. Tonight we had chicken sausage / broccoli (cooked 2 nights ago) and turkey chili / brussel sprouts (cooked last night). We have so much leftover that I didn’t need to cook tonight (for tomorrow). I could really get used to this.

Categories: food
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