Since the weather the last few weeks here in the Metro area has been fairly blah, we have tried to liven up our own little world in other ways with everything from hula dancing to making disasters in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, Kansas City got hit with another snow storm, dropping about a foot of snow in the area which slowed things to a crawl (good news about this: Jules was able to leave work early. Yay for half snow days! And her commute only took an hour instead of 2. She is also very glad for a car with good defrost; a co-worker could not get her car windows to defrost, so she opted for a motel close to work).
After shoveling our cars and a few others out of the parking lot one evening, Alex talked Jules into watching a documentary on hula dancing. Alex found the DVD at the Johnson County library (you never know what exciting discoveries will be made there) and thought it was actually an instructional video on how to hula dance. It wasn’t. It turned out to be a very dry documentary filmed in the early ‘80s about hula instructors called kuna hulas. Jules was a great sport and indulged Alex in yet another one of her crazy ideas. It also helped that we watched half of it while pressing the fast forward button. Jules made the more sensible choice in finding a DVD of highlights from the 2008 Olympics. Who doesn’t love rewatching some of the best moments ever (although we were wondering if half of the clips including Michael Phelps might be excessive)? Alex was also disappointed in the lacking coverage of one of her favorite sports: badminton (there was only a 3 second clip).
Just last week we were headed out the door to attend a dinner for the young adult group for our church, Julianna commented on how glad she was that it had finally stopped snowing and how tired she was of winter weather. Within seconds, the first few flakes of yet another snow fall floated down into the glow of the headlights—she had spoken just a little too soon. Finally this weekend it warmed up enough so that the grass is finally visible again in the area. The hope of spring is just around the corner....Maybe.
Cooking seems to be a frequent theme of this blog. I’m not sure why this is. There is a plethora of blogs about how to cook great food, and this site is not one of them. This is probably focused more on how not to cook if you want great food. Anyway, a few weeks ago our Bible study had a dinner and we volunteered to bring dessert. Julianna made Cherry Disaster (her family named it this after a Thanksgiving day in which this dessert initiated a series of events in which everything that is sweet and sticky seemed to get dropped on the floor: cherry crisp, punch, fruit salad, etc). And Alexandria concocted some Kansas Dirt. After this cooking spree, our kitchen looked liked a disaster and was pretty dirty. Alex made the Kansas dirt in honor of Kansas Day but found out that Johnson County individuals do not celebrate Kansas Day with quite the same gusto as people throughout the rest of the state. At the dinner, which was served on fine china with very nice crystal, Alex realized that dirt in a flower pot might not have been the appropriate dessert selection to bring to such a classy shindig. However, it contained large amounts of chocolate, so it went over well with the women in the group. Other exciting news as far as cooking goes: Julianna buying a freezer. We have recently found a cookbook entitled Once a Month Cooking. Alex thought this sounded like a great idea since she doesn’t enjoy cooking at all, but she might be able to handle doing it once a month—if she absolutely has to. This involves spending one crazy day cooking and then just freezing everything to use throughout the month. So far it has worked out fairly well and the new freezer really helps with the extra space. Alex commented that she felt a little bit like a squirrel scurrying around gathering food to store in for the winter. The whirring freezer noise reminds us of being in a blizzard, which is not quite the effect we were hoping for.
This past weekend we kind of celebrated Valentines Day. As far as I (Alex) am concerned the best part of any holiday—especially Valentines Day—is the food. One important lesson I have from my mother about cooking is that to make up for your food being poor quality, presentation and atmosphere are key to a great dining experience. (Side note: Don’t get me wrong, my mom is a great cook but she always goes above and beyond in regards to presentation). Therefore, we had a festive dinner despite the fact that the main entrée was pancakes instead of filet mignon. (Actually the only thing I know about filet mignon is that it is usually taken from the quadratus lumborum muscle.) We lit candles, turned on our red Christmas lights, and I pulled out my new red griddle. We turned the pancakes pink with food coloring and made them shaped like hearts. To finish it all off we had ice cream pie. Ice cream pie is possibly one of the best desserts since all it requires of the chef is to melt some ice cream—even I can handle leaving the carton of ice cream out on a counter for a few hours. And of course to top the evening off we watched some chick flicks (the other good thing about Valentines Day besides food).
We were also grateful to Jules' parents who took us out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. After eating appetizers, salads, soups, and bread, none of us could finish our main course. But who doesn't love eating amazing leftovers the next day? Julianna was also delighted to get flowers, and Alex used her artistic abilities in arranging them. They now brighten our dining room. Thank you!
