I bought a box of Mallomars on Wednesday

I still have some of them left. This is an unprecedented feat of self-control.

Question for the reader: what is your food that, if it's in the house, you will eat it all up?

Bringing lunch

So, the new office building doth not have a cafeteria, neither doth it have any kind of food purveyor within a 10 minute walk. It does have a snack machine in a very creepy machine room near the elevators in the lobby. How creepy? I expect someone to smash through the door with an axe anytime I'm in there. That's how creepy.

So! I've been bringing food. I filled up a jar with snacky items and invited people to share. I've been bringing healthy lunches and leftovers and fruit.

Today it was leftover tempura and sushi from last night's dinner.

Yesterday it was wee baby artichokes and barbeque chicken.

What have you been eating for lunch?

At the library

I don't approve of the text, but I do approve of the activity.

On watching the Big Bang Theory with a ten-year-old

Wow, there's a lot more banging on that show than I expected.

Maisie Dobbs is my new obsession

Just finished book 5 this morning. If you haven't read this series, WHY NOT???

Stuck in my head

A friend of mine on Facebook linked to this picture:

Which reminded me of two posts I wrote a few years ago and got this song stuck in my head:



And now you will also be singing it all day. You're welcome!!

Vacation Review and Wrap-up

I was away on vacation last week (sorry no notice, ever since I stopped blogging anonymously, I've stopped giving advance notice on absences).

We went to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA and to Hershey Park in Hershey, PA.

We went to Great Wolf Lodge on the recommendation of one of my best friends, whose daughter is one of Muffin Man's best friends, and it. was. AWESOME. The water park alone was terrific, but there was also a game that MM could play that was kind of a scavenger hunt throughout the hotel. MM completed the whole thing and now wants to go back to play the next level (I know, I know). His favorite thing at the water park proper was the Howlin' Tornado, which is basically a heart-attack on a raft. Fortunately, he found some kids his age who were happy to go on it again and again and again...

The rooms and food at Great Wolf Lodge were very good. We stayed in a very basic room, but there are rooms with log cabins in them, which I think would be fun if you've got more than one kid with you. The food was way better (and less expensive) than anything at Disney World. They had a buffet that was not just your standard kid fare.

Our original plan had been to stay at GWL one night, and to go camping the next (ready to go to Colonial Williamsburg the day after that), but GWL gave us a half-price coupon if we extended our stay...and so we did. We'll go camping one weekend in July instead, and we'll visit Colonial Williamsburg then as well. Great Wolf Lodge was just so much fun we didn't want to leave.

So after two full days at GWL, we drove up to Hershey Park to stay at the Hershey Lodge. Hershey Park itself was lots of fun, and the Hershey Gardens are beautiful, especially the butterfly house. If you're going to visit Chocolate World, be aware that only the virtual factory tour is free, everything else costs extra. Hershey doesn't let you visit the actual factory anymore, alas. The Hershey museum is lovely, and takes less than an hour to visit. They have chocolate tastings in the cafe there ($10.00 for six glasses of different kinds of chocolate.) MM's favorite things at HP were the Coal Crusher and the Trailblazer. We started out on the SkyRush, and let me tell you that it was really unpleasant. It goes very very very fast and is kind of painful. We did not go on anything that turns you upside down. The smokehouse has very tasty food.

We were all pretty impressed with how nice a guy Mr. Hershey seemed to have been. If you know for a fact that he was a huge anti-semite, or racist, or whatever, please don't tell me. I'd really rather not know.

On the whole, our family agreed that we would have been happier staying at GWL and maybe visiting Busch Gardens and Colonial Williamsburg while we were there. Next time, that's probably how we'll do it. Hershey was fine, but I think it might make a better day trip from Loudoun than an overnight stay (only a two-hour drive each way), just about the same as to King's Dominion.

Also, I read a ridiculous number of mystery books, most of which I've read before, and Muffin Man and I are reading Little House in the Big Woods, because I won a bet. He's enjoying it very much, I'm pleased to say.

This post has not been sponsored in any way. Our family received no compensation from either Great Wolf Lodge or Hershey, and aside from taking GWL up on their special deal to extend our stay, we paid full freight for our whole holiday.

Chocolate Dropkins

Chocolate Dropkins are a tradition in my family. My earliest Christmas memories include making bread dough figures for the tree, and these chocolates for treats.

The chocolates are dead simple to make, you take one box of unsweetened chocolate and melt it in a double-boiler. When it's all melted, you cool it slightly and mix in one can of sweetened condensed milk. Let it cool to rolling temperature (should not be liquidy, should feel like play doh.)

This is almost to the right temperature, but was still a little goopy.

Once the consistency is right, you roll the chocolate into small balls, and coat in colored sugar, nuts, powdered cocoa, or coconut. This year I used white and gold sugar. The gold looked better than the white.

Ooh! Pretty!

What looked best, though, was a mixture of gold and white, which really made the chocolates look Christmas-y. The hardest part of making these chocolates is waiting for the mixture to reach the right temperature.

Wild boar...

Also easy to cook, but the flavor is identical to domesticated pork. I love living close to a Wegmans.

Turns out...

That it's really easy to cook duck. Seared ducks breast with garlic & rosemary roasted potatoes. Yum. And we even have leftovers.

Appalled

My co-workers have never read Caves of Steel.

There's a zombie on my lawn

Muffin Man as a Cone Head Zombie from Plants vs. Zombies

We didn't know when Muffin Man asked to be the Cone Head Zombie from Plants vs. Zombies this year that it would be so topical!

Road Cone ($8.00) from Home Depot. Ripped jeans (skull on back pocket), bought last year at Target, and worn to shreds. Shirt from Target via my closet. Brown blazer from Target via my closet. Tie from J.C. Penney, came free with a suit two years ago.

Make-up from Ulta. I did a base coat of beige foundation cream. Then I applied a thick top-coat of a matte-green eye-shadow all over his face. Then I accented his eyes with a thick coat of black eye-shadow, and brushed a bit more black and grey eye-shadow here and there for effect.

The inspiration. I think we captured the spirit quite well.

I am sporting a GMU sweatshirt turned inside-out, with pictures of the sunflower and pea-shooter taped onto it. Pictures from worthplaying.com.

(This post inspired by real-life friends of my youth, Eclectic Mom and The Unfocused Life)

A Perfect Day for Banana Cake

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, all from scratch.

Mr. Spock turned 53 last week, so this past weekend I made (at his request) a Banana Cake with Cream Cheese frosting. Recipe from the Fanny Farmer Baking Book.

Banana cake, sliced

I had some for breakfast this morning. What? It's fruit!


(Extra credit for the first person to say where the title comes from. Mr. Spock is not eligible for this credit).

Packing, Packing, Packing

I think we may have a little too much stuff

Living Room, three layers deep

My bedroom, as you come in

My bedroom, as you go out

Muffin Man's room

Living Room, different view

And there are more boxes, in the hall, and in MM's play room, and in the kitchen. And we're not done packing (though it's really only the bathroom cabinets that are left. And my desk. And a few things in a closet. And the stuff we're wearing and eating. And three place-settings, two pots, and a pan. And the coffee machine. And this lap-top I'm typing on. Dear God, just how did we accumulate so much stuff?

So I watched an episode of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes

The Absent-Minded Coterie.

And I utterly failed to realize that the actor playing Eugene Valmont (the main character of that story - top left in this picture), was someone I have seen before. Seen, in fact, many times.

Mr. Spock will never let me live it down.

Sending lunch

Everyday, I've sent a snack with MM to school since his class eats lunch late, but he was buying the cafeteria lunch most days.

After following Mrs. Q's blog, I decided that I really didn't want him eating the school lunch anymore. After all, we're trying to eat healthier at home, taking small steps like cutting out HFCS where possible.

So we sent him a satisfying lunch in reusable containers, and it was a good feeling.

Spicy ginger peanut sauce

Oh my goodness, I made my best batch EVER.

1 inch of ginger root, peeled and minced
1 whooping big scoop of creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1 tsp corn syrup
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 or 2 drops of fish sauce (I KNOW! But really! It works!)
1 shallot finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
Peanut oil for the wok
Sesame oil to finish.

Mix ginger, peanut butter, soy sauce, corn syrup, vinegar, and fish sauce until well blended.

In a wok or high-sided frying pan, heat the peanut oil and saute the shallots and garlic. Add the peanut butter mixture and heat briefly. Add sesame oil. Pour over noodles or chicken or veggies. You could garnish with green onions if you'd like.

So very, very, very yummerific.

We're having pizza tonight

Homemade, but not from scratch:

Large King of Pita pitas (6 ingredients, no HFCS)
Canned tomato sauce (because my homemade stuff is a bit too chunky for pizza. 7 ingredients, no HFCS)
Fresh mozzarella (5 ingredients, no HFCS)
Wegmans all-natural uncured dry Italian salami (7 ingredients, no HFCS)
Mushrooms

Yum.

And another one!!!

What's in my head...

Songs not included in this post:

Leave It



and, of course, the obvious one from The Police