Happy Fathers' Day!

Last week was Fathers' Day, a national holiday celebrated and not celebrated in a wide variety of ways across the country.  While for Mothers' Day, the month before, most church congregations do something, Fathers' Day is more of a hit or miss kind of thing.  For Mothers'd Day, at the end of sacrament meeting, there's almost always some kind of remembrance.  Flowers, a small book of poetry, or some other small token of remembrance and gratitude.  However, its not unknown for Fathers' Day to pass with little more than a mention and brief comment over the pulpit.  That's has always been fine with me, I'm not complaining in the least here.  I don't miss the attention at all on those years when next to nothing happens. 

This year was a year that they (and by "they" I mean I'm not sure who came up the idea) asked all the guys to hang back after sacrament meeting and then the youth gave a can of root beer to all the adult males.  Fathers' Day (and Mothers' Day, for that matter) remembrances have become "safe" that way in recent years, something for every father or potential father, just in case. 

Anyway, I thought root beer was a pretty nice thing but I didn't want to just drink it right then and there.  I've sort of lost my taste for soda over the last several years and don't drink much of it any more.  However, I still appreciate a good root beer float.  So I took mine home and stuck it in the fridge.  Something else I got for Fathers' Day was a pear - I happen to really like a good pear and this one showed great signs of promise. 

But it wasn't quite ripe, which is a common aliment with store bought fruit.  So the pear went onto the window sill in the kitchen.  There it enjoyed the ripening benefit of the sun each day over the coming week.

So the week passed and each day I'd check the pear to see how it was coming along.  Each day it got a little riper, a little softer.  This was looking good.

Today I decided it was time to enjoy them both.  We had acquired some vanilla ice cream during the week.  It was a special purchase, normally ice cream at our house is a little more exciting than just plain, old vanilla.  So I got out my A&W mug, poured my A&W Root Beer in it, along with a couple of scoops of ice cream, and got about the yummy business of enjoying them both.

And they were good!  The pear was at the perfect stage of ripeness, so juicy it was almost messy to eat.  It was perfect.  And a good root beer float is good in any case.   I love how the ice cream makes the root beer all creamy and smooth.  Oh, it was so good.

All too soon, the pear and root beer float were gone.  But it was sure good reaching that point!

I wouldn't go so far as to call it idol worshiping, but I do have a wonderful reminder of the virtue of a good root beer float that I can't help but think upon at times like these.  The pear was courtesy of Maulbeere, the artwork the courtesy of Erdbeere, and the root beer float courtesy of some thoughtful people at church.  It was an excellent way to celebrate Fathers' Day, I thought.  I'd happily do it again, given the opportunity!

Mission Critical - The Birthday Cake

Brombeere had a birthday, which is a happy thing.  We like having her around and having birthday after birthday.  The last several years her interest in birthday cake has declined, preferring instead fruit of one sort or another.  Or occasionally she'll go for cheesecake.  She likes cheesecake and her favorite is the Jello mix, the quick, easy stuff.  This year she was leaning toward watermelon but then saw a recipe for berry cobbler that was supposed to be real easy and real good.  So she looked at me and said, "You ought to make that for me!"  When we went shopping and she got all the ingredients then I knew I was on the hook.

So, as is my custom, I got everything I was going to need out and ready and got started.  This recipe called for the juice and zest of two lemons. I had reservations about the zest, last time I cooked and included the zest I hadn't particularly liked how it turned out.  But I decided to take a chance and include it. 

The recipe also called for the juice from the lemons.  So I'm looking at all the seeds in the lemons and thinking, how am I going to keep all those seeds out of my cobbler?  I wasn't excited to be picking out seeds so I squeezed them into a cup, fished out all the seeds, and then dumped the juice in with the rest of the berries.  Now that probably seemed like the obvious solution to you right up front but I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of it.

Then, as I got a little farther along with the recipe it called for powdered sugar and I'm thinking, What powdered sugar?  But when I looked back up at the ingredients, there it was.  I had missed it.  So I got some out, measured it up, and dumped it in.

So far it was looking pretty good.  I liked this because it didn't call for having all the berries sliced, chopped, or otherwise cut up.  Just dump them in whole.  That was pretty nice.

So once I had all the stuff together for the berries I stirred it all up and set it aside.

Then I got out my favorite cooking toy and whipped up the batter.  I put all the dry ingredients in, along with the butter, which I had chopped into chunks, and it the button.

It made pretty short work of mixing all the stuff.  Very nice.

Then I added the Half and Half until it was the right consistency.

Then the berries went into the pan ...

... and the batter went on top and it all went into the oven for an hour.

Our oven cooks a little hot and I forgot so it got just a little bit over done.  But it still looked and smelled pretty good.

Served it up with a nice dollop of ice cream to melt over the top of it and it was all ready.

And then, the taste test - it passed!  It was yummy!  Couldn't even tell the zest was in there at all, blended in quite nicely.

Good to the end.  Have to admit, I thought it turned out pretty good!

Nothing left but a sink full of dishes.  One of these days I'm going to figure out how to cook without leaving such a pile of dirty dishes.  Then it will be perfect!

A Fun Birthday

It was Himbeere's birthday and we decided to go all out, or at least a little ways out, and grill some steaks.  That meant we first had to dig the grill out.  I don't think we grilled even once last year.  So it was all covered and buried under all the other junk that got piled just outside the garage because the garage spent the last year or so stuffed clear full of our kids' junk.

So first I had to locate the grill.  Then I had to move all the stuff that was piled on and around it.  It looked worse than it actually turned out to be.

Once I got the stuff moved away and the cover off, I had to clean off cobwebs and other stuff.  Then I  opened up the grill.  That was not encouraging.

It looked pretty dismal.  I was not encouraged.  I wasn't sure I'd even be able to get it lit, even though I knew there was plenty of propane in the tank.  After all, I knew I had refilled the tank shortly before the end of summer the last time we used it.  But after finding a wire brush and giving the whole thing a real good going over, I turned the dials to the right position and hit the lighter.  Lo, and behold, it fired right up!  Amazing!

We had gone to a meat market and got some nice steaks.  We had a coupon so it hadn't really cost us $19.  More like six cents.  Yeah, good meat is expensive.  Good thing we had a good coupon. Otherwise it might have been just burgers.

So Brombeere spiced it up and used the meat tenderizer.  Yes, she beat on the steaks a while and got them all tender and ready.

Then they went on the grill, which was all warmed and ready by then.

As they cooked they got close supervision from a four legged fellow who made sure to stay close by. He initially tried to act disinterested.

But you could tell he really was very much interested.

I left it to Schwartzbeere to determine when the right moment arrived to take the steaks off the grill. Actually, they turned out pretty good, I thought. Schwartzbeere is good that way.

After the steaks we brought out the traditional birthday cake. Well, not quite traditional. It was a double thick brownie "cake." That also was very yummy.

With the candles lit it presented a small fire hazard but Himbeere remained calm.

Rather than expend his precious breath putting out the fire he got a piece of paper and waved it over the flames which actually worked quite well to put them out.

Cake and ice cream - chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate.

Then came the gifts.

He had fun with it - actually smiled a bit.

Then he set into the serious business of opening the presents.

Paper went flying ...

... out came the goodies ...

... and when it was all over he was worn out by the exertion.

Nothing left but the wreckage.

And thus Himbeere arrived at the grand old age of twenty-five. A quarter century old. Truly a milestone worth celebrating. And it was a good time. Happy birthday, Himbeere!

A Fun Visit

We recently took the opportunity to go visit Erdbeere and her family.  It was a good visit.  Now, let me say right up front that this post is going to make it look like we only saw the grandkids, Townsend and Moon.  But that's not the case, we saw their parents, too.  Its just that the grandkids ...  Well,  you know how it is.  We love our kids but their kids sometimes end up getting into more pictures than they do.

Anyway, we did a whole bunch of fun stuff while we were visiting.  When you're not around them 24/7, isn't everything they do kind of cute and fun?  Sure!  One of the first things was some painting.  I thought it was interesting to see the different style, or techniques to their painting.  They both had pretty much the same choice of brushes but Townsend chose a brush whereas Moon basically "stamped" his painting.

Lots and lots of dots.

But they both had fun and they both ended up some pretty nice paintings.

When they were all done, the paintings went up to dry and be on display.  Pretty nice.  Townsend was willing to interrupt his scootering to stand by his painting briefly.

Moon not so much.  He was on to other things.

The next day we had planned on going to Shedd Aquarium but when we got looking at admission, parking, and all that jazz it was looking pretty expensive.  So we opted for the nearby Maggie C Daley Park instead.  The kids probably enjoyed that more anyway.

So we drove into the city.  We could have taken the train, Townsend would have loved that.  But we opted to drive instead. 

So we drove and actually ended up in a pretty decent parking spot in the garage under the park.  We took the elevator up and there it was!

Kids are funny at a big park like this - they struggle to know what to play on first.  It all looks so fun and inviting that they end up running from place to place before finally settling on a place to stay and play for a while.

Slides and all kinds of stuff to climb on.

Padded walk ways, ridges to climb on ...

... things to spin ...

... swings.  It was a good time.  We took some sandwiches and ate while we were there.  We wore the kids out - it was a great time!

Later the playdoh came out.  They have some cool toys to use on the playdoh.

Even grandma got into the game.

Almost looks like something you'd find painted on the wall of a canyon.  I thought it turned out quite nice.

We also hit a story time for a little while.  First the kids heard a story.

Then the kids got to use popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, and other crafty stuff to make things from the story.  They had a good time.

During a quiet moment I was playing an LDS version of hangman and Townsend came over to watch.  I was kind of surprised that he was that interested in it.  I usually start by trying all the vowels and then filling in the consonants.  That works pretty well for me, I win more than I lose.  Townsends didn't know his vowels when he first started watching but by the time we stopped he was getting them pretty good, he could name them.  But what really surprised me was how many of the words he guessed.  He was doing pretty good!

It was a fun visit.  There's lots to see and do in that area but, really, the best part is just being there and visiting.  That's the best part.  It was a fun visit.