Foodie

Apparently my nearly vegetarian picky pants son ADORES thai chicken coconut curry "stix" (eggroll thingys) from Trader Joes.

That's my son!

Here we are with loads of lovely snow (15 inches!), oodles of adorable pictures of Saben in the snow, tons of free time trapped indoors cause its like 12 degrees outside and I can't find the cord to download the pics so I can show off and dazzle you with a brilliant blog entry.

Oh well.

Abstract

Maybe all kids do this at this age, but lately Saben has been really into seeing things in his food. He'll grab a little chunk of bread and turn it around and suddenly decide it looks like a boat. "boat?" "boat?" "boat?" .... He repeats it until you agree and confirm that it does indeed look just like a boat. But then he'll concentrate some more and suddenly its a car...a bus....
Granted, most of those things have a somewhat similar shape, so who am I to quibble with him?

The best was when he stuck half an english muffin on his head and called it a hat.

I realized this blog has been a little lacking in cuteness lately, so here is a little dose from back in October.

Puget Sound Weather Outlook

"Thanksgiving Day is looking cool and mostly cloudy with more in the way of periods of light rain than short showers." (courtesy of http://www.komotv.com/weather/ as of 2:15 today)

Good news Seattle/Western Washingtonians, we can look forward to periods of light rain on Thanksgiving instead of short showers ! Hurray for us! Or was it the other way around? I am so confused.

This weekend, we had a wonderful weekend away in Vancouver while Saben stayed with my parents. It was much needed and not doing home improvement work was bliss. The weather managed to clear up enough for some long walks through town, our hotel was perfect (The Metropolitan) and we even managed to go to a movie in a theater for the second time since Saben's been born. (We're not really big theater goers anyways, but its fun occaisionally.)

All the romance was great and all, but one of the best parts of the weekend was meeting our friends, Jon and Vicky for dinner Friday at Wild Rice. Vicky was pregnant, due Dec 6th, but was a good sport about trooping all over downtown with us. They headed home late Friday with plenty of jokes about Vicky being sure to have the baby before we went home. In fact, we had made so many jokes about it, that when we got a text message on our phones Sunday morning saying the baby had been born, we didn't believe it. When they finally told us it was a girl named Lila (or Lyla?) we believed them. We got to go visit the newborn & exhausted mommy that afternoon. Ah.... I love newborns. So fun.

It was crazy up in Vancouver, all the rain had caused mudslides that ran into the drinking water resevoirs. They had gotten so muddy that the plants weren't able to purify the water and it was coming out of the tap brown colored and undrinkable. The whole city has to boil its water, for at least a week, maybe two. Crazy! Just makes you realize how much you take water for granted.

Well we're home now, and I am excited for the holidays. Nothing beats coming home from a vacation and only having a three day week ahead of you. Too bad we're headed back out to work on the backyard all T-giving weekend, one last time (?) and most likely in the pouring rain.

Thursday - Nerd Day!

What is the nerdiest thing you do? Time to confess nerds....I know who you are and that you are reading this and you better comment. What is the thing you do that you absolutely love but also know is pretty nerdy by most peoples standards? Feel free to be anonymous if you are truly that embarassed. Or write about it in your own blog, let me know & I'll link to it.

I am a plant nerd. I generally even annoy people who actually like plants. My favorite website is www.plantdelights.com now that Heronswood has become corporate and moved to the east coast. Each year I spend hours reading about the plants they offer. They collect crazy plants from all over the world and I get really excited by it all, honest. It helps that the owner throws in witty comments to his plant descriptions and the covers of the print catalog are hilarious.

The last few days I've been reading through their entire online catalog, page by page. Here is one of my favorite pages, you can see the menu bar on the left that has all the plants alphabetically on about oh... a hundred pages?

I am a huge sucker for large perrenials and colocasias are awesome. How can you not love a plant that grows several 5'x4' long leaves in one season? I have been dreaming of Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum 'Illustris' or a Thailand Giant in my yard for quite some time now. The Lillium page is another favorite in case you are not already bored out of your mind. A seven foot tall fragrant Lily? AWESOME!!!! (Lilium formosanum - see below)

Carrot Soup part II

I forgot to mention the story behind the carrot soup....sort of dumb to do it now, but oh well....I've updated it here.

One last plug

This I loved. I heard the whole Ted Haggerd thing this weekend and I think my response was along the lines of "Oh great, there goes another one. How embarassing". Not that I put a lot of thought into it, just what sort of flashed through.

I was also involved in a long, heated conversation this weekend about what the bible says is right and wrong & what our response (as christians) should be when we see things that we believe are wrong happening in other christians, non-christians, politics, etc. I left feeling confused, upset, frustrated....

Then I read this. These two lines breathed so much clarity into the mixed up jumble in my head, but the whole article is outstanding:

"What if we didn't just bring meals when someone has a baby, but also when they make headlines? "

"...I kept thinking all day about what church would look like if we all stood with those who blew it and said, "Me, too."

- Misha Thompson

Now this is all great when someone admits they screwed up, I suppose the harder part is when someone isn't willing or doesn't believe they have screwed up. When do you have the right/responsibility to confront someone about sin you see in their lives? Yikes.

Faith and Politics

Thanks to this new blog, a recent copy of "Relevant" magazine given to us and some the discussion I mentioned above, faith and politics have been on my mind a lot the last few days. I thought this particular article, a debate between Jim Wallace and Greg Boyd was fascinating. This quote was my favorite:

"Jim's bull's-eye is to motivate Christians to participate in politics. Jesus never said a word about political issues. Jesus took care to separate his kingdom from this world, and we should, too. We are to serve, bleed and sacrifice like Jesus did. If a fraction of the church acted like he did, it would be the most beautiful and powerful force on Earth. I worry about calling some stands 'God's politics.' It invites polarizing politics into the church. Republican Christians care as much about the poor as Democratic Christians do; they just have different ways of approaching it. Good Christians can agree or disagree on war, abortion, taxes and immigrants. Hey, I have my own political views, and they're all brilliant! But in order to underline my point, I'll keep my trap shut about what they are."

- Greg Boyd

Yummy Donuts

Also on my mind....
Last week I read this post and then this one. It just thought it was interesting to think about them at the same time, because both are so true.

Then the pastor we heard speak on Sunday drew an analogy about spritual food and junk food. Something along these lines....

God gives us a lot of donuts in our life. They are delicious and are meant to be enjoyed. But if we only eat donuts, we will get sick & die. When you get hungry, you need to eat nourishing food, not just rely on donuts for a quick sugar high and relief from your hunger. So our spirit gets hungry and many of us turn to movies, food, walks in the park, whatever to satisfy our hunger. These things are great in themselves and will satisfy us momentarily, but only God nourishes our soul and keeps it healthy.

It's nothing so profound, just what I needed to hear right now so I thought I'd share.

Carrot Soup

Whenever I make this, people always ask for the recipe. It is really yummy, cheap to make, easy to double (or triple), freezes well and is good for you! What more could you ever ask for? I am putting it here so that next time someone asks, they can just come here to get it.

This soup is also in memory of my Aunt Deanna. If it weren't for her, I would never ever have tried it since carrots aren't really my favorite thing. But she gave me the cookbook for Christmas one year and also told me I had to try making the carrot soup because it looked so good to her and she loved carrot soup in general. Every time I make it, I think of her.

Carrot Soup

from the "Pike Place Market Cookbook" by Braiden Rex-Johnson

Makes 6 cups - 8 servings

1/2 cup butter

5 or 6 medium carrots, diced

1 cup chopped celery

1 large onion, chopped

3 medium, very ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks

4 peppercorns

3 or 4 sprigs parsley

1 slice finely ground toast (I usually skip this, just adds texture?)

1 cup boiling water

1 3/4 cups chicken broth

1 cup tomato juice

Salt to taste

Sour cream and chives or parsley for garnish (Sour cream is a must, the others I skip)

Melt the butter in a large Dutch oven (or stockpot) over low heat, and add carrots, celery, onion and tomatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables begin to brown. (mine never brown and I do it over medium heat)

Add peppercorns, parsley, toast crumbs and boiling water, cover Dutch oven, and simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 30 minutes. Remove cover and quickly reduce the remaining liquid, while stirring until it is almost absorbed.

Remove parsley sprigs and puree mixture in a blender, food mill or food processor, hand blender, etc. Return vegetable puree to Dutch oven and add chicken broth and tomato juice. Taste for seasoning and add salt if needed.

Heat soup slowly until mixture is nice and creamy, about 10 or 15 minutes. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkling of chives or parsley.

Still Celebrating....

I know, Halloween's way over by now, but just in case you missed last year, I had to post this one last picture. I was pretty pretty stressed this year, figuring out how to live up to last year...