As per usual, Binbin had nothing of that dressing-up-for-Halloween and trick-or-treating stuff. No, he would NOT carry a sword. No, he would NOT wear a fireman's hat. No, he would NOT. Well, it's perfectly possible to have a grand time without the props and the impersonation. How, you ask? Try the following:
1. Invite a friend whom you adore to come over for brunch (Amy will do just fine, thank you!)
2. Run around with said friend, creating cardboard vehicles, building forts, and freeing the world of pesky grown-ups.
3. Go shopping at the newly opened Trader Joe's in Portland (Yes, folks, believe it or not, TJ's has arrived!)
4. Purchase a new add-on for a favorite game (builders and traders for Carcassone...yippee!)
5. Decorate the house (light the jack o'lanterns, make an orange and black sign with the words, "Trick or Treat")
6. Keep a constant lookout for trick or treaters.
7. Alert parent with escalating incitements to "come quickly, come quickly, come quickly" and "hurry-up, they're coming" and "I see more kids, I'm running up the stairs to hide" and "no, YOU give out the candy"
8. Get a surprise visit from friend (Anya in her fabulous pink fairy get-up)
May visions of twizzlers and willy wonker's loffy toffy dance through your head!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
eating autumn
Days are getting shorter, temps are cooler. We are filling up our stores for winter. Early this week, we picked up our pork share (half a piggy, bacon and smoked meat to come later). Our vegetable share is now filled with root vegetables (up to 18 pounds this week of potatoes, onions, daikon radishes, carrots, and beets) and some greens and cabbages. And yesterday, we picked up two turkeys, 17 pounds and 23 pounds, respectively. That makes forty pounds of bird!
Saturday, friends Rusty and Sarah hosted their annual cider pressing party, and we were (typical!) the first to arrive. They were still getting the press put together, but it wasn't long before we were dumping apples into the hopper and churning out apple mush to press into cider. Rusty's truck was loaded up with 20 bushels for the kids to put into buckets to bring into the garage. Binbin had a grand time with new friends, running around the yard and setting up base in the old chicken coop. Freshly made doughnuts kept everyone fueled up for the duration.
We cut out a bit early in order to make one more social stop to Dave and Irene's place where Dave was cooking up his buffalo wings. He even made a few "naked" (without the spicy sauce) for Binbin, who gobbled those up in no time. Delicious home-made deep-fried food times two! Is this what junk foodie heaven is like?
We went home well-fed and proceeded to...brine our 17-pound turkey. Yeah, we probably should have hit the sack, but we decided that we wanted to cook one of birds fresh. So, into the cooler it went...along with two cups of salt and plenty of water. I couldn't make it until midnight, so the bird came out of its salt water bath after only 2.5 hours. I dried it off, put is back into the cooler and set it into the breezeway until morning.
Well, I'm now won over to the brining and drying process because this bird was the most delicious turkey I've ever eaten. The skin (which was buttered and salted before going into the 425 degree convection roasting oven) came out like Peking Duck! Crisp and salty. While the meat was tender and moist. It had flavor without being gamey. Amazingly, since our oven runs like an oven on steroids, the 17 pound bird took a about 2 hours to cook! We invited friends to join us for 1 o'clock supper...well the bird came out of the oven at 11 am, and rested an extra long time. Fortunately, a bird that big stays warm a pretty long lime.
So, Thanksgiving dinner rehearsal was a success, and we learned some lessons along the way, so come late November we should have the timing better. We invited Binbin's friend Anja and her parents, Carl and Lorraine, to help us eat the turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing, corn and peas (from this summer's CSA), cranberry sauce, and rolls. We never managed to get to the salad. Binbin and Anja played in our pile of leaves, before tromping in for baked apples, which Lorraine brought to share. Everything was delicious, and we were so happy to feast with friends.
Saturday, friends Rusty and Sarah hosted their annual cider pressing party, and we were (typical!) the first to arrive. They were still getting the press put together, but it wasn't long before we were dumping apples into the hopper and churning out apple mush to press into cider. Rusty's truck was loaded up with 20 bushels for the kids to put into buckets to bring into the garage. Binbin had a grand time with new friends, running around the yard and setting up base in the old chicken coop. Freshly made doughnuts kept everyone fueled up for the duration.
We cut out a bit early in order to make one more social stop to Dave and Irene's place where Dave was cooking up his buffalo wings. He even made a few "naked" (without the spicy sauce) for Binbin, who gobbled those up in no time. Delicious home-made deep-fried food times two! Is this what junk foodie heaven is like?
We went home well-fed and proceeded to...brine our 17-pound turkey. Yeah, we probably should have hit the sack, but we decided that we wanted to cook one of birds fresh. So, into the cooler it went...along with two cups of salt and plenty of water. I couldn't make it until midnight, so the bird came out of its salt water bath after only 2.5 hours. I dried it off, put is back into the cooler and set it into the breezeway until morning.
Well, I'm now won over to the brining and drying process because this bird was the most delicious turkey I've ever eaten. The skin (which was buttered and salted before going into the 425 degree convection roasting oven) came out like Peking Duck! Crisp and salty. While the meat was tender and moist. It had flavor without being gamey. Amazingly, since our oven runs like an oven on steroids, the 17 pound bird took a about 2 hours to cook! We invited friends to join us for 1 o'clock supper...well the bird came out of the oven at 11 am, and rested an extra long time. Fortunately, a bird that big stays warm a pretty long lime.
So, Thanksgiving dinner rehearsal was a success, and we learned some lessons along the way, so come late November we should have the timing better. We invited Binbin's friend Anja and her parents, Carl and Lorraine, to help us eat the turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing, corn and peas (from this summer's CSA), cranberry sauce, and rolls. We never managed to get to the salad. Binbin and Anja played in our pile of leaves, before tromping in for baked apples, which Lorraine brought to share. Everything was delicious, and we were so happy to feast with friends.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
livin' la vida acadia
This Columbus Day weekend was our third visit to Acadia National Park, off the coast of Maine, and it was a particularly special visit because...guess who came with us? Yeye and Nainai. Moreover, we celebrated Yeye's birthday on 10/10/10. It was auspicious and filled with chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and colorful sprinkles. Here's Binbin doing his best Vanna White imitation
Here's the group effort blowing out the candles.
Our first two days in the park were spent doing hikes. The Acadia Mountain hike on the western side took us up for gorgeous views to the east and southeast. The hike is "moderate" according to our guide, and involved a fair amount of scrambling up boulders and rather steep descents. We had a nice lunch with good views before coming down. On Day Two we drove to the southeast corner to hike up from Sand Beach to Great Head. We were again rewarding with fantastic views for lunch. Our descent took us through rocky, dry terrain spotted with human-sized bonsai-looking pine trees. It felt like walking through the gardens of Kyoto at times. The fall color was at peak, and the hills were ablaze with reds, yellows, and oranges.
Our third day, we split up. Yeye and Nainai walked into Southwest Harbor to fetch lobsters (round two!), while we rented bicycles. Here's Jack and Binbin all set to start on the carriage trails to Aunt Betty's Pond and Eagle Lake.
Our first rest was at Aunt Betty's pond.
Our second, longer break was near the end our ride around Eagle Lake.
Time goes by quickly when you're having fun, and we had a lot of fun. This time, instead of camping out, we rented a cottage (The Veranda) at Anna's Quietside, just a three-minute walk from downtown Southwest Harbor. For Yeye and Nainai, the cottage offered creature comforts: hot water, full kitchen, a separate bathroom, and an outdoor, propane-fired lobster cooker! Binbin found good stuff in the hospitality suite, too: a bingo game (everyone played), various sizes of cars, wooden blocks, and wooden clothespins, which could be transformed with a little imagination into just about anything!
We made it home on Tuesday afternoon. This morning (Thursday), Nainai and Yeye headed home. We miss them already.
Since I haven't downloaded photos from my phone in ages...I found a few surprises with the Acadia snapshots.
Here is one of Binbin with friends Coco and Ellie one foggy morning in Boothbay Harbor. We're on our way to their island to catch crabs. That was in August!
And here's a picture from September: Baba's birthday!
Here's the group effort blowing out the candles.
Our first two days in the park were spent doing hikes. The Acadia Mountain hike on the western side took us up for gorgeous views to the east and southeast. The hike is "moderate" according to our guide, and involved a fair amount of scrambling up boulders and rather steep descents. We had a nice lunch with good views before coming down. On Day Two we drove to the southeast corner to hike up from Sand Beach to Great Head. We were again rewarding with fantastic views for lunch. Our descent took us through rocky, dry terrain spotted with human-sized bonsai-looking pine trees. It felt like walking through the gardens of Kyoto at times. The fall color was at peak, and the hills were ablaze with reds, yellows, and oranges.
Our third day, we split up. Yeye and Nainai walked into Southwest Harbor to fetch lobsters (round two!), while we rented bicycles. Here's Jack and Binbin all set to start on the carriage trails to Aunt Betty's Pond and Eagle Lake.
Our first rest was at Aunt Betty's pond.
Our second, longer break was near the end our ride around Eagle Lake.
Time goes by quickly when you're having fun, and we had a lot of fun. This time, instead of camping out, we rented a cottage (The Veranda) at Anna's Quietside, just a three-minute walk from downtown Southwest Harbor. For Yeye and Nainai, the cottage offered creature comforts: hot water, full kitchen, a separate bathroom, and an outdoor, propane-fired lobster cooker! Binbin found good stuff in the hospitality suite, too: a bingo game (everyone played), various sizes of cars, wooden blocks, and wooden clothespins, which could be transformed with a little imagination into just about anything!
We made it home on Tuesday afternoon. This morning (Thursday), Nainai and Yeye headed home. We miss them already.
Since I haven't downloaded photos from my phone in ages...I found a few surprises with the Acadia snapshots.
Here is one of Binbin with friends Coco and Ellie one foggy morning in Boothbay Harbor. We're on our way to their island to catch crabs. That was in August!
And here's a picture from September: Baba's birthday!
Friday, October 1, 2010
getting well into fall
Has it been over a month since we last posted? Time is zooming by, isn't it?
On the big news front: Binbin is officially in kindergarten. And, even better, he loves it. He is so proud waiting for the bus with his way-too-big adult-size LL Bean back pack. Is it possible that we could feel even prouder of his enthusiasm?
Why the long silence? Chalk it up to enjoying life, immersing ourselves in the wonderfulness of fall.
One of our annual fall highlights is the Common Ground Fair, several days of hippy-dippy tree-hugging fun in the countryside of the aptly named town of Unity. This year, we camped two nights, and Binbin spent a lot of time running around with the neighbor kids, Oliver and his sister. By Saturday evening, he had run me into the ground, and I just crashed and burned, mustering just enough energy to take 2 doses of Children's Benadryl to help with the raging sinus headache and hay fever caused by all the dust! Sunday morning, Jack and I both came down with the cold that Binbin had brought home from school. We have been laying low this whole week, though Binbin was perky and ready to party by Monday noon! What is it about little kids and their ability to heal? I want some of that!
This weekend, Keena is hosting her annual pumpkin-and-harvest-day at the farm on Saturday, and I am hoping to run (and finish!) the half marathon in Portland on Sunday. I'll try to keep you all better posted.
On the big news front: Binbin is officially in kindergarten. And, even better, he loves it. He is so proud waiting for the bus with his way-too-big adult-size LL Bean back pack. Is it possible that we could feel even prouder of his enthusiasm?
Why the long silence? Chalk it up to enjoying life, immersing ourselves in the wonderfulness of fall.
One of our annual fall highlights is the Common Ground Fair, several days of hippy-dippy tree-hugging fun in the countryside of the aptly named town of Unity. This year, we camped two nights, and Binbin spent a lot of time running around with the neighbor kids, Oliver and his sister. By Saturday evening, he had run me into the ground, and I just crashed and burned, mustering just enough energy to take 2 doses of Children's Benadryl to help with the raging sinus headache and hay fever caused by all the dust! Sunday morning, Jack and I both came down with the cold that Binbin had brought home from school. We have been laying low this whole week, though Binbin was perky and ready to party by Monday noon! What is it about little kids and their ability to heal? I want some of that!
This weekend, Keena is hosting her annual pumpkin-and-harvest-day at the farm on Saturday, and I am hoping to run (and finish!) the half marathon in Portland on Sunday. I'll try to keep you all better posted.
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