24 Hours Of Christmas 2012

   
Picture this: It's Christmas morning and the kids wake up at the crack of dawn, dashing into their parents room.  Even though their parents are still asleep, they don't care!  All they want to do is go downstairs and look under the tree.  The kids bounce on the bed and try everything to wake their exhausted parents.  
Now return to reality.

On Christmas morning I didn't wake up early like these kids, I was out like a log.  I had stayed up late the night before, putting out fudge and milk for Santa, playing Wii all day with my friend Effie, and listening to my grandparents noisy friend on speaker phone when I was trying to sleep.  I had cracked. I was saying, "Who cares if Santa comes while I'm awake?  Who cares if he even comes?"  Deep in my heart I knew that I would definitely care, but I wasn't ready to tell myself that yet.  Soon I fell asleep, and if this was a cheesy Christmas story, the sugarplums would come dancing in my head right about now.  Sadly, no enchanted candy visited my dreamless sleep.  I don't think I would have gotten up if it wasn't for my dad in his Santa hat.  He barged into my room, bombarding me with early morning Ho Ho Ho's and sitting on my bed.  I reluctantly got up and donned my elf hat.

I checked on my fudge happily noting that it was all gone.  Then I moved to the milk, which hadn't been touched.   My dad shrugged, "I told you that you should have left wine for Santa."  I sighed and moved to the stockings, taking mine and Stella's.  We sat down in our playroom and opened our respective stockings.  Stella's stocking is red with a black lab stitched into it.  The stocking contained a collar, a big puffy red velvet collar with bells.  It was very classy.

I left her to inspect her new gift and try to take it off, and moved to my stocking.  There was a bear surrounded by presents worked into the material.  The stocking held many great gifts, a new grip for my tennis racket, animal butt magnets, and some not so great deodorant.  Then it was time to open the gifts underneath our wooden Jewish star tree.

 I received a gift all the way from France, a hand stitched donkey ornament to match the painting in my room.

I opened a box that contained a porcelain mask, the face had sparkly golden eye shadow and lips with a very elaborate turquoise hat.

My parents gave me an Ipad and a very cool keyboard case for it.

I acquired my very own hairdryer and curling brush.  Loads of new makeup for me to "experiment" came pouring in.  All in all, it was a very successful Christmas.  Most people would be content with their gifts and decide to sit around all day and wait for Christmas to be over, but not me.  The moment that the last present was opened it was time to start getting ready to go to my uncle's house for breakfast.  I donned my rather space age silver pants and black shirt, accenting the outfit with a red scarf and stylish Santa hat.

My parents had on rather similar color choices, so we looked like a family car full of red, silver, green, gold and black wrapping paper and tinsel.  During the long drive out to New Hall I plugged in my headphones and listened to some music.  Most of the music was purchased using my birthday gift cards, especially the six minute song that I accidentally bought.  It's a very good thing that I now like that song, or I would be a very angry Kellen.  I was jolted out of my music world a couple of times from the wet nose of Stella who was next to me in the car.  Soon we rolled to a stop and I opened my eyes to find the familiar outdoor facade of my uncle's home.  I threw open the door, grabbing the first bag that I could find from the trunk (letting Stella out in the process), then ran over to the gate.  I pulled on the little black string that pushed the gate open.  I stared into the beautiful back yard and then I was run over by two black Labradors.  In a storm of black feet, wet pink tongues, and jingling bell collars, the dogs started to wrestle playfully around the yard.

I picked myself up and fixed my toppled hat.  Once I walked through the back door I was almost run over again, but this time by relatives.  The first in line was my uncle Timmo, next my grandmother Jeanne gave me a hug, then my aunt Elisabeth, my uncle Kurt, cousin Mathew, and finally our family friend Kit.  Everyone was especially festive and gathered around the counter to catch up and chat.  I walked into the backyard and immediately saw the three black labs rounding a corner, frantic for more attention.  It was hard to pick out which was which; Tonka was like a large bear running towards me, Stella was distinguished by her fluffy collar, and finally Striker was the oldest, identified by his white beard.  I wrestled a new toy from their gaping mouths, and chucked it down into the vineyard, slinking away as soon as I could.  There was a very inviting smell coming from the barbecue and I decided to go and check it out.  My uncles were crowded around the silver grill, layering different sausages onto its hot surface.  I clapped my hands when I saw the ham (made just for me) and stepped back when the meat began to spit and sizzle with delight.

Inside, uncle Tim was cooking some breakfast sausages on the stove.

There was a big bowl of vibrant raspberries, dark blackberries, and fluorescent blue berries.

My parents had brought Rugula cookies as their contribution, which were filled with various things.  They were encrusted with granulated sugar, which made them even more enjoyable.

Tim was also tossing some scrambled eggs in their clean black pan.  The yellow yolk was consuming the white as he stirred the mixture with some milk.

 Once the entire buffet was set up, we all loaded our plates with delicious food.  The hash browns were perfectly seasoned, with just the right amount of salt.  They were also fried, not burnt, but crispy which made them a nice honey brown color.

The sausages and ham were all cooked to perfection, and I tried the ham with my meal.

 The hash browns tasted kind of sweet but also had a strong flavor of potato in them, but that it understandable considering that they are potatoes.  The ham was charred on the top and had a rather smoky taste to it.  After breakfast was finished, my brother Pat and his girlfriend Zsanett arrived.  We were trying to scold them for missing breakfast, but that didn't work because they had some really big news!  They were engaged!!!!  I was totally taken aback, and super duper happy for my brother and Zsanett!

We chatted while they ate their breakfast and the rest of us opened our presents.  My aunt Jeannie and my uncle Chris gave me a really pretty yellow striped scarf and a headband to warm my ears in cold weather.  I received a super nice Barnes and noble gift card from my grandmother, a cute handbag from my uncle Tim, and a cool tank top from my brother and his FIANCEE!  Most people would have given up at that point, being way too Christmas-ed out on Christmas.  Not me.  My parents, Stella, and I drove home to prepare for  Christmas dinner at our house that night.  My dad, still in his bright red pants, began to cook the rib.  Using his very favorite seasoning from our dear friend Dario in Panzano, Chianti Italy.  This famous butcher/chef would be proud to have my dad in what he calls "Dario Pants"( because Dario rocks those red pants), with his Dario Salt, cooking meat like Dario.

After much preparation by my parents, and much Sim playing by me, we were ready for our guests.  The first to arrive was my other brother Chris, we enjoyed the house music mash up CD I made him for Christmas.  The other guests started to roll in, and we all made our way to the den for H'orderves.  There were two types of eggnog.  The plaque for one said, "Without" and then a Christmas tree, so I guess it meant "Without Christmas Tree" and the other meant "With Christmas Tree".  I tried the "Without Christmas tree" one and I'm pretty sure that it was the right move because I didn't immediately stagger back in alcoholic overdose.

After the eggnog drinking and H'orderve eating, it was time for the main attraction. We all sat down at the very festive holiday dining table and awaited our salads.  The lettuce was very thick and multicolored, mainly green and pink, and there was melted cheese on the top.  I had chosen not to have hazelnuts sprinkled on my salad, but that is only my preference.  The salad tasted very citrus like with the dressing.

After the salad I was called to the kitchen to help serve the plates of prime rib.  I placed plates down for everyone, serving on the left and clearing on the right.  After I had finished with serving, I sat down at my own seat with my own plate.  The piece of prime rib looked juicy and rare.  It tasted perfectly tender and it went really well with the other items on the plate.  My mom just made a lovely jello mold, it had raspberry on the top and sweet cream on the bottom.  It was very good, sweet, refreshing, and I wanted to stick my hand in it because it was so wobbly.  There were also mashed potatoes that stuck together and were very sticky, creamed corn that was sweet and warm, and pop overs that could break a window.

That was my Christmas, and I wouldn't change anything about it for the world.            

Wedding Soup

On Tuesday it was cold, and my dad decided that it would be a perfect time to try out a new soup recipe.  We all agreed that soup was a great choice for a day like this.  After school I went to tennis and got home about 7:30 PM.  It was very cold outside, the air smelled wet, like mist, and I thought that it might rain yet again, so I rushed inside our warm house. I slammed the door shut keeping the cold where it belonged.  I was immediately bombarded by the smell of chicken broth in the kitchen.  Rubbing my hands together in delight,  I followed my nose. There was a pot of broth, simmering on the stove and spitting with delight, the soup that was going to serve as our dinner.  I quickly rushed upstairs and changed into something cozy.  Just as I had plopped onto my bed to read Animal Farm in my fuzzy pink polka dot pajamas, my grandmother's voice came over the loud speaker.  She requested our presence, putting an emphasis on, "Come to dinner NOW!"  She only said, "Come down to the table Arthur (my grandfathers name)!" I sighed, how easily I was forgotten!  Even though I wasn't called downstairs, I hustled to the table and gave Grandpa his pills.  My parents were already downstairs with Brenda, marveling over the Italian Wedding Soup.  The soup had steaming broth with pieces of spinach and egg floating in it, and each person got some tasty meatballs.  In the meatballs there was, ground beef and pork with a pinch of salt, a sprinkling of pepper, a handful of mushrooms and a substantial amount of garlic.  We all sat down and sprinkled some parmesan cheese on the soup and dug in.  At the beginning it was very hot and I very nearly burnt my tongue, but it soon cooled down.  The meatballs had a light flavor and added a nice touch to the soup.  They were very mild, but were still hearty and satisfying.  The egg tasted just like the scrambled eggs I have in the mornings, and I liked them best.  There were also pieces of spinach that were soggy and chewy.  The broth itself was very flavorful and made from chicken stock, which was very noticeable.  I was told that there was also fennel, but I couldn't taste it!

That's all for tonight!
Watermelon Radish  

Sweet Chop

Today my friend HK came over to talk about the Science Fair. We came up with some really interesting topic ideas, we just have to get our teacher to approve them. When we were done with Science we tried to figure out what next to do. We wanted to go on the computer, but we did that a lot the day before, so we were stumped! We thought for what seemed like forever, and then it came to us! We would open up a fake smoothie shop in the kitchen called The Sweet Chop, because the smoothies will be sweet and we chop stuff up to put in them. Down the stairs we ran, my mom agreed to let us do it, IF only we didn't waste food! We decided to make a brochure/recipe book for our future smoothie shop. The first and foremost thing we had to do was take out the blender and plug. It would be really sad if we got everything ready and forgot to plug it in. Our first smoothie would be called, 'The Desert Smoothie". We both knew that raspberries went really well with chocolate so we based this recipe off of that fact. First we placed 9 frozen strawberries into the blender, followed by a few chunks of frozen raspberries. We also added 3 spoon fulls of marshmallow sauce, for flavor, and I can't say we didn't taste some (just to make sure it was OK). Then we searched high and low for the chocolate sauce, but it was nowhere and we were kind of impatient, so we settled for the next best thing. A packet of cocoa powder that my grandmother uses to make hot chocolate. We put this all in the blender and started it but it wasn't blending, and we searched for the solution. Then we realized that we needed some sort of liquid to break it down, so we added 1/4 of the gallon of milk. Or something like that. Then we blended it and it turned a muted pink color with white swirling around at the bottom. We were eager to try it so we left some small pieces of frozen raspberries in the blender. To make it look good we put a swirl of whipped cream on the top, with a real raspberries for a garnish, not to mention the caramel sauce. It tasted like a raspberries with a tiny tinge of chocolate that you would get once in a while. It was super sweet, and it was hard to drink all of, but we managed. Then we decided to make another one, I mean whats a smoothie shop without more than one smoothie? NOTHING!

This one was called "Healthier Than The Last One Smoothie". But I'm not sure the title was accurate. This one was a mixture of mango and bananas, witha little whipped cream. And a little too much orange juice! I Didn't exactly like it, but my mom did , and that's all that mattered.

The next one was our best by far, and if you can then make it yourself! We called it, "The Blizzard". The exact recipe was:

2 milk chocolate oreos, 1/8 gallon of milk ( We think), 5 peppermint chocolates, and as much marshamllow sauce as you want! It was the best, all I can say is, "It tastes like the holidays!"

Makign smoothies is a reall blast, try it sometime

The Watermelon Radish

Boba Before Tennis

After volley ball practice on Tuesday last week, my friend Maya and I made plans to go to the Tea Forest for drinks.  The Tea Forest now has a new name and a big Gelato counter, but it will always be the Tea Forest to me.  When I arrived Maya and her mom were already in line, ordering Boba.  Some of you may think that I'm crazy, but I've never tried Boba before in my entire existence on this planet.  I decided to try it, if so many people liked it then could it be too bad?  Maya and I sat down at one of the small wooden tables, the ones who make a lot of noise on the hard concrete floor, with our Jasmine Milk Tea Boba's.  Maya started drinking without hesitation, and after slurping on the straw for a couple of seconds the small black tapioca balls started to emerge.

Without any further adieu I tried the fragrant jasmine tea.  It was eye crossing sweet and while you were drinking it you could smell it in your nostrils.  It wasn't long before I saw one of the tapioca balls, it was stuck on the top of my straw.

                                               

I soon found out that the Boba tasted exactly like the mochi that you get at a frozen yogurt shop.  The tea was way to sweet for me, and I could only drink a little bit.  The boba were chewy and you had to  chew them about twenty times to be able to swallow! OK, not twenty, but a lot.  That was my eventful Tea Forest escapade before tennis, but I do have one more small piece of information to share.  

We are hatching sea monkey eggs in science. In our control beaker we put 1000 ML of water and 5 ML of salt.  In our "Whatever we want" beaker we put 1000 ML of water and 38.5 ML of salt. We're talking Dead Sea salt here! In each beaker we put one scoop of sea monkey eggs, and ours did the strangest thing.  In the super salty container all of the eggs clumped together and rose up towards the surface.  Our teacher said that my group put more salt in our experiment than any group before us!  Because we are just cool like that.  We named the super salty ones, which we are pretty sure will shrivel up and die by Monday, Fred.  We named the somewhat normal eggs Mason, and we are pretty sure Mason will hatch,  because Mason is behaving and staying on the bottom like he is supposed to.  More from my Sea Monkey experiment in the next post!

That's all folks!

-Watermelon Radish

I scream, You scream, We all scream for HOMEADE ice cream

When my parents took their long trip to Spain I was left in the hands of my grandparents, Brenda, my good friends Nikki and Jennifer, and my friends families.  When Nikki was there to greet me after a long and grueling three days at "WOLF Camp"  I was so happy I could have died(which I was on the verge of doing anyway).  To make up for all the hiking and mosquito's we had two days of laying around and having fun.  Nikki brought her Vita Mix juicer so that we could have homemade smoothies and her low fat ice cream.  I think we only left the house one time, and that was to eat at CPK and then get dinner for everyone.  Some nights we made ice cream with little else than frozen walnuts, frozen bananas and whatever frozen fruit we wanted.  It doesn't look like the sugary stuff that the tycoons advertise on TV, but it sure is good.  It's very creamy and fruity, you can't taste the walnuts at all!  I recommend strawberry and pineapple.  While eating the ice cream we watched 'Tangled' the super funny Rapunzel story, 'The Princess and the Frog' a new take on the Frog Prince, and the Turtle-Man.  Please comment if you have seen the Turtle-Man, he is the whackiest guy on Animal Planet, he has a strange team, no teeth and he dives for turtles.  I think he is hilarious.  The fun weekend with Nikki had to end on Monday, my first day of school, as I was taken against my will, to school.  After school I was on the road again, moving in with another family.  While at my friends houses I had some  great home cooking.

When at the Gubernick's house, whom I have mentioned before, I had a number of terrific meals.  My favorite was a tofu stir fry with sticky rice, the tofu was soft and marinated in a sweet sauce, and the rice was nice and....sticky.  There were some vegetables like asparagus, that added a nice crunch to the meal.

At the Vizard's house, who I'm sure I've also mentioned, I had a light salad with Dijon mustard vinaigrette and pizza.  The vinaigrette was pungent, and tasted like a combination of mustard and lemons, a perfect idea!  The pizza was exactly what I was craving that day, and I talked animatedly over dinner.

After my first week at school I came home to my grandparents, Brenda, Stella (my dog), Cruella (my rabbit) and Jennifer.  I was overjoyed to see Jennifer.  That night we went out to Asahi Ramen on Sawtelle.  As we scored a table and sat down we were giggling like we hadn't seen each other in a long time.  But truthfully, I see her a lot while she is reading to my grandpa.  The first items to arrive were our pickles, now you must understand that these are no ordinary pickles, they are soaked in sesame sauce and a pinch of hot sauce.  So after we tried, unsuccessfully, to eat them slowly, we ordered another plate for each of us.  Then, using my sweet voice, I ordered a platter of noodles with pork and bean sprouts.  Jennifer specified a half order of fried rice and tofu.  The noodles were decadent and the bean sprouts were crunchy.  There was some sort of spice on the top, like curry or cumin.  The only problem was that after a while the pork and pork sauce on top was very rich.  The "Half Order" of rice didn't seem like a half order to me, or to Jennifer.  But combined efforts conquered the rice.  It tasted like any other fried rice.  Jennifer also had some of my noodles, but not the pieces with pork.  The tofu from the rice dish was soon soaking in soy sauce in its bowl while we half laughed half ate.  I made sure that Jennifer had chewed and swallowed whatever she had been eating before I told her a funny joke.  After our dinner we made a quick cupcake stop to Magnolia Bakery to have a late night birthday celebration for Brenda.  We had planned on beating Brenda and the grandparents home but we were a little bit later than we thought.  We arrived at the house and set out our homemade card and one chocolate cupcake with a sign and candle (not lit) in it.  As Jennifer turned off the lights I ran upstairs to get Brenda.  And once we had sung "Happy Birthday" we each had a very yummy butter cream cupcake.

         After drinking three glasses of milk to help with the rich and silky frosting, I went to bed.

The next morning, it was time to make HOMEMADE ICE CREAM!  One of the bonuses, even though making ice cream is the big bonus, was that it was going to be strawberry flavored.  So at about 8:00 in the morning Jennifer and I followed Brenda into the kitchen to get her ice cream maker.  Once she left us with little else than the ingredient book and some yummy items, Jennifer and I started to add them to a big metal bowl.

First we added some half and half cream, almost the whole carton, and then mixed it with vanilla.  I am, "BLUSHES" very good at whisking, so the mix was fluffy and blended nicely after only a few minutes.

While the ice cream sat in the freezer,  Jennifer and I went off to play tennis.  Jennifer and I almost died from the heat while playing, but we rewarded ourselves with a nice 'frosty' shaved ice.
While we were gone Brenda added the strawberries to our ice cream and then all we had to do was blend them together and put the bowl back in the freezer.  We were looking forward to a great dessert after dinner!

 Dinner was a long time away, and that didn't help.  But once dinner arrived we ate politely, but what we ate isn't important, this post IS about HOME MADE ICE CREAM (just read the title).  Once dinner was over we tried the pretty pink frozen cream.  It WAS good!!  The frozen berries were very sour, but the sweet creamy ice cream balanced the two flavors.  The ice cream was so yummy that I just had to have two scoops, which I did.

Finally, we sat down to watch The Incredibles and Lemony Snicket's: A Series Of Unfortunate Events.  The Incredibles was way better.

-Watermelon Radish

                           

Over the Summer

Hello friends, followers, and readers!

I know that most of you were sad, like me, to say goodbye to summer and hello to a long year of work, school, etc.  This particular summer is one of the best summers I've ever had!  One thing I've noticed over the past few months is that I have grown a lot!  It must be because of all the good food I've been eating.  During the summer a lot of my meals were spent eating outside, and with summery foods like chilled soup and light salads.  I spent many a day with friends on the beach, swimming in pools and oceans, and sleeping late.  I ate at many a good restaurant like Monsieur Marcell, Shu, Asahi Ramen, and Mulberry Pizza.  A note on Mulberry: try the white with spinach, it is delectable!  The spinach compliments the creamy cheese, and it is a pizza that can be eaten cold or hot.  I hope that everyone enjoyed their summers, and this post is a formal, "I'm back and ready to blog!"

Plan Checked!

Last night I had a sleepover with my good friend Eliza after tennis camp.  Once she arrived we hung out until my dad got home and we could go to dinner.  We ate at a restaurant on Sawtelle called Plan Check.  Eliza's parents told us about Plan Check and we decided to try it.  It was super crowded, but we managed to score a table outside next to the door.  The only downside to this table is that the door next to it was opened constantly when people came outside.  Our party decided to look at this positively, and gazed down at our menus.  The menus were slipped onto clip boards, and did not have too many choices.  Soon our waiter Adrian G. came outside, opening the annoying door, and helped us through our confusion about the menu.  We learned that 'ketchup leather' was ketchup that was hardened into a fruit roll up and placed on the bun.  Once the ketchup leather was exposed to the heat of the patty it would slowly melt.  I knew immediately that I wanted to try that!  Then Adrian told us about the two types of bacon and cheese, the pig candy and the specials on the menu.  Eliza and I knew what we wanted, so we moved on to the back and looked at the non-alcoholic beverages.  There was homemade soda, but since Eliza didn't like soda I didn't want to get it.  She soon convinced me, and I said I would get a glass IF she promised to try it.  There were many different house made sodas, cream soda, tangerine, lemonade and yuzu.  This last one surprised me, I love yuzu sauce on my sushi, but in a soda?  I decided to be adventurous so I went for the yuzu soda.  My parents ordered a couple of appetizers.  My soda came first, it looked just like the sparkling Lemonada that I drank on the Italian Riviera.  As promised, Eliza took a sip and loved it.  I don't know how to describe the soda, if anyone has ever had yuzu sauce on their sushi they will know the taste.  A yuzu is a Japanese lemon that grows on trees, it tastes almost exactly like a lemon except it has a sour and a saucier taste.  If you ever want to know what it tastes like, then go to Plan Check or a sushi bar!  Soon Eliza ordered her own soda just as the appetizers came.

There were cucumbers, dill pickles, a spicy cucumber, bread and butter pickles, pickled egg, jalapeno escabeche, and chorizo.  My parents tried some of each, Eliza had bread and butter pickles, dill, and a pickled egg.  I tried everything except for the jalapeno escabeche.  The dill pickles were what you might expect from a deli, dill pickles are only dill pickles.  The spicy cucumbers were definitely not spicy, or at least not to me.  There was a tiny kick, a measly bite, but the full extent of the flavor I picked up was that of sesame oil.  I was hoping that the bread and butter pickles would be more like Vlasic bread and butter pickles, I can eat those right out of the jar.  These pickles weren't as heavy on sauce, and weren't as soft, but they had a nice crunch and they were a light start to the evening.  Finally I tried the chorizo sausage.  Whenever I hear the word chorizo I think of my mom, she never likes them.  But these were different because the meaty sausage part was chewy and just a little hot.  I liked these sausages immediately until I bit into a rather crunchy bit in the middle, and I couldn't figure out if it was fat or garlic.  During this sensation of appetizer tastes we ordered our main courses.

My mom and dad have not eaten any red meat for over three months, so this was their big treat as they ordered a blue cheese burger and a chefs special.  They turned their noses up at Eliza and I, Eliza ordering a Plan Check Burger with just cheese and ketchup leather.  I stuck with a Plan Check burger and their "special" cheese which is a combination of cheddar, garlic, fish sauce and parmesan.  Just as we finished enjoying the appetizers my father decided to order some beer nuts.  The moment he ordered these nuts out burgers came in pretty black skillets.  With our order of sweet potato waffle fries there was some peach ketchup and with our regular fries there was ketchup that tasted like liquid gazpacho.

I tried every burger except for Eliza's.  My burger looked great, and I tried a piece of the ketchup leather alone.  As Alice said, "Curiouser and Curiouser!"  It tasted just like ketchup but looked like a fruit by the foot roll-up!  After sampling the outlandish leather I picked up my medium rare burger, which was cooked to perfection.  I was about to take a large bite when I picked up the scent of truffles.  My mind kept hopping around saying, Truffles?  Truffles!  The menu never said ANYTHING about truffles!  I could have been allergic to truffles and then die because I didn't know that they were in the burger.  I quickly brought this to the attention of my parents and Eliza, but my dad insisted that there weren't any truffles in the burger.  Though my truffle radar kept beeping I took a bite of the luscious burger.  The truffle taste was gone, and the juicy meat and rich cheese filled my mouth.

While I was mixed up in my flavor mix, Eliza had some of her, "Medium rare, but on the rarer side" burger.  She said that it was great, and continued to munch happily.

My mom's Chefs Special burger reminded me of a breakfast muffin and it tasted like a gourmet one too.  It had an over easy egg and bacon.

My dad's, the Blue Burger was loaded down with bacon and........you got it!  Blue Cheese.  It had an overwhelming aroma, and a taste that was even more so.  When you bit into it you thought, "WOW!  Blue cheese!  But whats that crunchy stuff, maybe bacon but I don't know."  Maybe my dad didn't think that, but I sure did.

After the meal was through and we were all stuffed it was time for dessert.  For months Eliza and I have had our eyes set on a small place near Plan Check called Brian Shave Ice.  We wanted to go there, and we wouldn't take no for an answer.  My mom was craving something chocolate, so she ordered the rocky road ice cream bar.  She seemed to like it except for the toasted almonds coating the outside.  When I had a small bite I decided that there was too much chocolate and not enough marshmallow.  We all agreed.

After we payed we walked along the streets heading for Brian Shave Ice.  There were so many flavors, fillers, toppings and more!  Eliza knew exactly what she wanted, mango, strawberry, blue raspberry, filled with vanilla ice cream, and condensed milk on top.  I didn't try hers, but she gets it every time she goes there so it must be good!

I tried green apple, strawberry, watermelon, filled with vanilla ice cream, and then condensed milk on top.  The watermelon part was light and refreshing, the green apple was sour and sweet, the strawberry was very yummy and sugary.  The 'snow cap' (condensed milk) wasn't very good at all, it tasted sour (not in a good way) and way to sweet!

After that we drove home, and Eliza and I went upstairs to watch an instant movie on Netflix.  We knew we could watch The Addams Family movie, my favorite movie.  And I almost screamed when I saw that Netflix had taken it off the instant list.  The sheer nerve of those people, I mean how could they take away MY favorite movie?  I mean really!!!!!!!!!!
After watching some Americas Funniest Home Videos episodes we went to sleep.

The Watermelon Radish

Dinner with Friends

A few nights ago my family packed our wine and cheese in a bag and drove over to our friends Jeff, Julia, Paige and Sidney's house for dinner.  The adults spent the first part of the evening conversing, while the kids played fun games like laser tag and hide and seek.  A normal game of hide and seek soon turned into tag, unbeknownst to the seeker.  We played that for a while, waiting for dinner to be ready.  My mom and Julia worked in the kitchen, so we had to avoid that room.  The moms made chicken picatta.  They pounded chicken, dredged it in flour then dipped it in egg.  They finished the chicken with panko/bread crumbs. Heating the pan with hot oil came next, then cooking both sides of the chicken while adding more oil.  At the same time Julia cooked some risotto, so both of them were flipping like crazy.  The dads sat in the living room and finished off the cheese that we brought for an aperitif.  They were oblivious to the three girls running through the room being followed by Andy, their small dog with a big bark.  I caught only snatches of their conversation about wine, cheese, vineyards and all the usual dad topics.  Soon, dinner was ready and we all gathered in the kitchen to load our plates.  The chicken was a masterpiece, it was now cooled and sprinkled with a sweet and sour lemon sauce.  You could still taste the clean white meat, and the bread crumbs gave it a nice crunch.  The risotto had miraculously been compacted into risotto cakes!  The were warm and gooey, due to the wonderful cheese that had been placed in the center.  I love green beans so I put some on my plate.  The only time I've seen white green beans is when I went to their house.  The fresh green beans were sugary and split in your mouth. There were also baked cherry and heirloom tomatoes.  They were warm and filled with warm juice.

Then came dessert time, I found out that Paige, a third grader,  had made the entire dessert herself!  She made the  fragrant raspberry sauce, the velvety brownies, but not the ice cold vanilla ice cream.  The brownies were chocolaty and warm, the raspberry sauce made them taste sour and sweet.  The ice cream, which I ate separately because I'm weird that way, was also very good.  It was all amazing.  

And it is always a treat to have
1. Dinner with friends (that have kids, especially if they are my great friends)
2. If the dinner is also super good too!
3.  If I can post it on my blog!

Kudos to the G family!!

Watermelon Radish