hillvalley

I babysat a lot in high school and I used to read the people's cookbooks. If they had a good selection I was free more on the weekend.

If I had to grab one cookbook when escaping a fire it would be my grandmother's copy of her Synagogue cookbook. She has a recipe or two in it. It has to be at least 50 years old. I absolutely love it. The irony is that my grandmother did not like Synagogue and not my grandmother who cooked.

So is there a "Life After Your Blog" club? Is there life after your blog? Oh yeah, all the threads I neglected all week long! A few more pics The berries and polenta Don't worry, I added more berries after I took the pics! I have leftover berry sauce that I am going to eat with some organic whipped cream. I had had the meatballs for two dinners and one lunch, with more leftovers for tomorrows lunch. Now I don't have to make meatballs for a long time. The meatballs themselves were great, as I said before, just a few too many onions. The basil was absolutely sad and flavorless. I am so disapointed. Guess I will have to wait for summer. Sorry the focus isn't great on these. I am still learning how to photograph non moving subjects Yep, but only when your meatball with onions tastes like an onionball with meat. Thanks, me too. Now that I no longer have a place to post my photos I started my bio page. Ask away! Before I go I wanted to use this at least once in my blog. Eric often makes this face and says hmmmmm. When I first found egullet I was so excited with this face that I printed it out for the classroom bulletin board. He loves it! Thanks for reading, I had fun.

Thanks, it was a little quiet out there so I wasn't sure how I was doing to what people though. I appreciate all of your kind words.

Growing up in the late eighties we used to get Astronaut Ice Cream as a special treat from the Air & Space Museum. Have they improved it at all?

I know less than you do, but would like to learn, so you are already a step ahead! Keep asking questions, there is always someone who is glad you did for them.

I have the opportunity to go to MiniBar next month (the reservation will be made tomorrow). After reading the thread I was curious to find out what they are doing in the winter. Has anyone been lately? I am considering postponing until this summer because tomatos seem like such an important part of the experience and it is hard to find good tomatos in the middle of February.

You just described my friend to a T. Sounds like a good place to meet her "friends".

Edited because I just drew this great picture of drool coming out of my mouth because your pics are amazing, but when I posted it looked wrong. Oh my goodness that looks good! happy birthday

The chicken soup in the beginning and 7 hours later

I found a way to show you pics. of my kids. This afternoon we gave the kids lollipops. Here is what happens when you eat a blue Dumdum. (It's Eric's tongue)

Wow, what an offer!!! Do you like your crabs with or without Old Bay? What about sushi?

It's my last "sneak posting" from the lounge. Ronnie, wish you were here to liven things up! Snack was really bad sugar cookies a volunteer brought in. LUnch was the leftover meatballs and polenta, which I will talk about when I get home. Just found out we will be eating Israeli foods this week in class. We usually don't do two food feasts two weeks in a row, but we are a little behind from when I was sick. I have had a great time sharing my expoereinces with you and would love to continue if people are interested. (I may just do it anyway, there is a book somewhere in this!) By the way, it's up to 46 degrees. I am bringing out the shorts and tank tops!

I have passed on the blog to JennyUptown. She will start tomorrow. It will be an interesting contrast to mine since we are about the same age (I think) and live in the same part of DC. If people are interested I will post my photos from today in the next few days. Let me know. I've got more to say before I go, but my head is pounding and it will have to wait for tomorrow. The last Godiva truffle is a cinamon one.

I have a belly ache from all the food I ate today. The meatballs turned out great. Before they went into the sauce they were too salty, but three hours of simmering later they were great. A little too much onion. The chicken soup was a success as well. Except when I was taking the chicken out it fell apart and now there are pieces of chicken floating in the soup. I am hoping to get another stock pot for my birthday so I will be able to strain the soup when it's finished. This was a very unusual amount of cooking for me. Infact, I do not know when I cooked so many dishes in one day. I am usually pretty sedentary on Sunday's but not today. This blog is definately partly to blame!

While the meatballs and soup were simmering I tried a recipe from this month's Cooking Light. Polenta with Warm Berry Sauce. It was rediculously simple. Cook some polenta. (I could only find ground corn at WF yesterday so it took 40 minutes!) In another pot melt some butter, add honey and a bag of frozen berries and bring to a boil. Cook until warm. It did not taste nearly as good as it looked, but it has potential. The berries were not sweet enough, and I made the polenta with water instead of milk which made it less creamy. For the middle of winter, it will eventually be a great dish.

Meatball in tomato sauce over polenta Homemade chicken soup

As close as it is to us, we'll definitely be there opening day. If I don't have any work due I'm in!

I love it!!!!!

I wish I could show you the pics. from out Japanese feast! It was great. While the kids were in library I got a huge piece of red paper, about six feet long. I put it on the floor and set it with plates, chopsticks and a soy sauce holder. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture! (I remembered the camera half way through.) The chopsticks and soy sauce set are part of a set I got at Zabars. THey are plastic and bright red, yellow, black or blue. When imagegullet is back up I'll post pics of them. I have very long hair so I pulled it back in a bun and took off my shoes. I had a Kimono on, but took it off when we sat down. When the kids came in they found a place at the table. I explained that in Japan you bow instead of shaking hands, so we all bowed to each other. Two kids had to sit in chairs because of thier physical condition, but the others all sat like a pretzel on the floor with me. (Sitting like a pretzel is what most of know as Indian style. You can't say that anymore.) I showed them everything we were going to eat and then started with the pickles. The pickles were all cucmber, but one was yellow, one was purple and the last one looked like cucmbers. No one thought very highly of the pickles. The kids all eat American pickles so I tried to convince them that this was the same thing, but they weren't buying it. As I often say, they may be special ed. but they aren't stupid. Next were the seaweed wrapped crackers. I wanted to give them something bland to get rid of the pickle taste. Plus, they all wanted to eat more seaweed and kept asking when they would get some more. This would appease them for a while. Eric took the seaweed off the cracker, but everyone else ate it. Most kids asked for more, but for one boy it was pure torture. Let's call him Donnel. He is very sensitive is cruncy foods which he hates! Donnell started yelling after the second bite, but at least he took a second bite! Our last course was tofu. I opened the package and slid it out, made it jiggle, showed how it crumbles, smushed it a little. Everyone got two pieces. I poured soy sauce into their dishes and brought out the furikake (rice topping). Everyone tried using the chopsticks to pick up the tofu. I will never forget the look on Eric's face when he tried it. It was exactly the face you would expect on a 10 year old kids who grew up eating Mc D's and lunchables. He hated it. He spit out his tounge and wiped his mouth. Then he apologized very sheepishly for spitting it out, but you could tell he really wasn't. When I stopped laughing I reassured him that it was okay and that I was proud of him for just trying. Which I really was. Next the kids who were willing dipped the tofu into the soy sauce and furikake. This was a big hit. Salty is familiar and salty is good for these kids. I let them use their fingers and they had a grand old time. I also brought out some ginger and nori, which they gobbled up. Most of the kids had tried ginger before when the teachers brought in sushi so they were excited to have some again. One kid made a tofu ginger sandwich. Miraculously the soy suace did not end up on the carpet. When I was growing up Dave Barry wrote an article where he called tofu whale snot. My father thought this was brilliant. From there on in he called tofu whale snot whenever we ate it, which was about once a week. Eventually we all started calling it whale snot. For the last decade or so, when ever anyone in my family eats tofu we reffer to it as whale snot. Sentances like "I had the best whale snot at Sushi-Ko last night" were not uncommon in my house. The whole time my kids were eating whale snot all I wanted to tell them what I call it. My coteacher would have freaked though. Sometimes being the grownup isn't fun. We ended with the candy sticks. We tried grapefruit, grape, soda and caripori cola. They were all a hit. I think the candy might be called Kabaya, but I am not sure. Maybe torakris could take a look and tell us more when I post the pic? The kids all did a great job. They want to know what we are eating next. Donnell came up to me and said "Bad Ms. Hillvalley, Bad! Go away." He was mad at me all day and the next. I let him play with my clock that has fish floating in it Friday afternoon and we made up. Eric thinks I am crazy. But this is not the first time he thought that, and I am sure it won't be the last! There is just too much out there to show him.

Ahhhhhhh, I forgot to add the basil to the meatballs. Oh well. My apartment smells amazing! It started with the chicken soup. Then it was the meatballs frying. Now it is the meatballs cooking in the tomato sauce.

I feel so cheated! We are definately making snow cream at school the next time is snows. Do you have to refreeze it? How do you keep it from melting?

Me too!

I've asked someone to take over tomorrow, but is there anyone who wants to blog if she doesn't?

Ahhh the temperatures we brave in the name of egullet! I love the sound effects.