avablog » Food & Drink

Moment of cuteness

map — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:22:13 +0000

G.G. is in town this week to spend some time with Ava, who has a week off camp. Yesterday, the two of them put together a nice picnic lunch and met L and me in the park next to our office, where we dined on sandwiches, chips and fruit under a cloudy sky. It was very nice. Because I can’t just live in the moment without taking a photo to commemorate each second, I snapped a quickie of the girls.

L, of course, thinks she doesn’t look good here. If this is “not looking good,” I don’t think I could deal with good looking. I mean, really. WTF?

Disappointment

map — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:52:35 +0000

Has hotel room service ever lived up to expectations?

Tis the season

map — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:08:59 +0000

Gosh, I bet I’m the first person to ever title a blog post this way. Cool!

Weekend before last we went over to a friend’s house so Ava could make a gingerbread house. We had to amscray early to make it back for a play date (for Ava) so didn’t even get a chance to build or decorate the house. Thankfully, the hostess for the event went to the trouble to deliver the finished house and decorating materials to us yesterday; Ava made quick work of them.

Gutted

map — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:23:14 +0000

I tend not to stand on tradition. No set way of doing anything is so hallowed in my world that I won’t abandon it in a heartbeat if it’ll make my life easier. And I tend to think of myself as unsentimental (ask my wife). Still, I was looking forward to hosting a Thanksgiving meal at our place this weekend for my family, even if most of the food was coming from Hy Vee.

My dad’s mother and father (but mostly his mother) used to work pretty hard every year to put on an elaborate Thanksgiving meal featuring a lot of food. And the whole family would be there, real Norman Rockwell stuff. But I ain’t all about that. You won’t catch me spending hours in the kitchen before and after a meal that lasts 37 minutes. As I walked up to the deli counter at one of the 15 Hy Vee locations in my town today at lunch, I was feeling pretty good about being able to hold on to the tradition of a Thanksgiving meal while dispensing with all that bothersome cooking.

The attendant I spoke with was suitably friendly and accommodating while fielding my questions about amounts of turkey and dressing and mashed-potato-to-gravy ratios, but I was unprepared for the mind scrambler she was about to lay on me. Turns out Hy Vee offers an entire Thanksgiving meal pre-packaged. Nothing less than warm-and-serve portions of dressing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and gravy. As I ran my fingers over the front of a gorgeously-labeled container of corn bread dressing, I could feel the memory of my grandmother at the stove in her apron slipping further from my mind. The label was nowhere near as beautiful as my memory of the tremendous portions of grandma’s dressing I’d heap on my plate to the exclusion of every other dinner item. But I’ll be thinking about grandma when we sit down to eat this Saturday afternoon, as I always do this time of year, and I’ll hope that Richard Dawkins is right about my grandmother not looking down at me from on high with a disapproving frown.

When all else fails

map — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:17:02 +0000

Make popcorn. This is how we always used to make popcorn when I was little, before air poppers and microwaveable bags. Ava and I popped some yesterday and then tucked in to watch Willy Wonka (Wilder Willy Wonka, not Depp Willy Wonka). Actually, Leah and Ava tucked in to watch the movie while I walked Emmett around in the Baby Ba-jorn.