Oktoberfest

We've been planning this big Oktoberfest party for over a year. Late last summer we had a long meandering conversation about having a big party in our backyard with beer and sausages on the grill and how we could finally use our outdoor firepit and how wonderful it would be to celebrate our favorite month, October. This party has been in the back of my mind since then. It's been really really big, and then a little more manageable, and now it is almost here. I'm very excited.

I'm making obatzda, and soft mini pretzels, and soft pretzel sticks, and we've got sausages out the hoo-ha (from Werner's, of course), plus a bunch of different kinds of mustard. I'm even attempting my Great-Grandmother's German Potato Salad recipe for the first time. I'm hoping to make Lena proud, but am expecting to be a little disappointed. Nobody made it like Lena.

Expect a wrap-up of that next week - with recipes and photos!

Lake Tahoe

I didn't know Lake Tahoe was going to be quite as beautiful as it was.

Our weather was perfection, the scenery was breathtaking, and on our last night, on a sunset sailing cruise on the lake, I had one of those moments where I knew I was going to be seeing that scenery, that sunset in my mind's eye for the rest of my life. Don't you love when that happens?

Also that evening was a great outdoor meal at the Evergreen Cafe in Tahoe City where we had cold beer and delicious food. We tried most of the menu, from the spiced nuts and crispy prosciutto and melon with a balsalmic sauce, to the corn chowder and roasted red pepper and fennel bisque, finally ending the evening with summer squash ravioli and pork chops served with bacon-flavored grits and sweet grilled peaches. It was a feast fit for five people who had just stepped off of a sailboat. It was a delicious ending to a wonderful trip.

West Coast Bound

We're off to watch two lovely people get hitched on top of a mountain in beautiful Lake Tahoe. I can now cross Lake Tahoe off of my "Places To Go Before I Kick The Bucket" list, which is very exciting, and I will also be able to cross leaving the little guy off my "Things That Make Me Terribly Nervous" list. It's a two-fer!

Anyhow, I've heard that they have delicious things to both eat and drink out Tahoe way, and if you have any recommendations I'd be happy to hear them, print them out, and then eat them.

Filling the Well

We haven't been eating out; we haven't been creating blog-worthy meals in. This week the boy had his first tapioca pudding...and that is about as adventurous as we've gotten around here.

It has been almost 15 months since our last vacation. I don't think I need to tell you how badly I need this - my well is empty. I feel a little lost lately - without hunger, without inspiration - but we leave Friday for the beauty that is Eastern Wisconsin. I'm going to have food adventures galore and will share when we return.

Happy summer.

Gooseberries!

I sent someone to buy peas at a stall in the City Market while the boy and I wandered off, and that particular someone came back with...gooseberries. Gooseberries are not peas. I can't say that I have eaten a gooseberry before today, or that I know what in tarnation to do with the things.

To be frank, they look like a lot of work. Are they worth it??

Any tips, hints, help? Anyone?

Recuperating

I have a very large and very awkward splint on my left wrist/arm. So while I let that whole thing rest, I'm going to take a tiny break.
Hunting and pecking is slow business.

Humor

I am a rabid kottke.org reader. I know I'm not alone, but I just felt the need to out myself. If I'm not sure where I've gained a particular piece of interesting & useful information, I just guess that I've gotten to it through kottke.org, and most of the time I'm right. I've finally turned my husband on to it, and now we have entire conversations devoted to what we've seen on there. Jason Kottke is why I love the internet.

All of that just to say that this list of amusing and clever restaurant & coffee shop names made me so giddy. It's a funny list, with its fair share of eye-rolling and groaning thrown in.

My favorites:
A hot dog place called First National Frank.
A bar called Chez When.

Any local spots to add to the list? Leave a note in the comments.

Restaurant Success!

I'm reluctant to try anyplace new for a meal, afraid that this time will be the time that the boy goes to 11 and won't quit with the noise. I don't want to be the diners that everyone else is glaring at and secretly stabbing in their minds. He doesn't go to 11, not yet, but I don't yet have the confidence that he won't.
So we stick with the old takeaway standbys - Cupini's for gnocchi and sandwiches, Red Dragon for moo shu chicken, Oklahoma Joe's for the Z-Man and the smoked chicken breast sandwich, and one of us (I won't say who) finally succumbed to the Wendy's "Baconator" commercials. It's amazing how suggestible to commercials you become when watching the TV in the middle of the night. I think it's rest that leads to common sense and common sense that leads to healthy advertising skepticism.
Today, however, Gus's Nana was up for trying lunch at a real restaurant with us and so the boy and I agreed. Swagat up in Zona Rosa is comfortable and lunch buffet meant we wouldn't be waiting and could drop cash and dash if need be. The pakoras were as delicious as I remembered, the lentils in the Dal Makhni were firm and flavorful, and I smothered too many pieces of their delicious naan in mint chutney. Their servers were charming - they squirreled us away in a quiet corner with lots of room for the stroller, whistled and clicked at the baby, and made us feel welcome as always. It was a confidence boost. We'll be heading out for a meal again really soon.

one month later

tap tap tap

Is this thing on???

Monday the husband goes back to work. I'm being dragged, kicking and screaming, back into the real world of jobs and bills and schedules and, um, real life. The last month has been spectacular. I don't want to leave it.

You have all been patient and lovely.

While we were basking in meals delivered to our door by wonderful friends and family, the world kept turning. We ate salmon (twice!) and spicy pasta salad and pizza and chicken casserole and made beautiful caprese salads with the homegrown tomatoes delivered by our neighbor. We dove into our Costco stash of foods in the deep freeze and ate bowl after bowl after bowl of Cheerios, simply because it was easy. My whole food outlook is a bit different than it was before. We've had carry-out twice. Both times we were so excited it was a little worrisome.

Suddenly, though, I'm starting to think about eating less as a have-to and more as a want-to. I'm starting to get my tastebuds back. When you go from being simply a foodie to becoming someone's primary source of food, everything changes. You examine everything you put in your mouth. Will it make the baby gassy/fussy/upset/rashy? I'm learning now, a month in, to take a deep breath and just see what comes next.

Fresh From The Oven

August Michael has arrived.

I think we'll be doing a little more eating at home for the next few weeks - please excuse my temporary absence from the Interwebs.

The little guy is doing incredibly well - we are ecstatic and sleepy and in a constant state of awe.

Thanks for all of your well wishes and virtual support.

Ice Cream Pie

I'm calling this my Ice Cream Birthday.

Not only did I get a copy of David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop and a set of absolutely beautiful glass ice cream dishes, but I've been blissfully treating myself to slices of this delicious ice cream pie. It's a Chocolate Flake Fromage Pie from Murray's. I am truly loved and spoiled.

Kitchen Re-Do

Being home from vacation means one thing in our house: kitchen renovations. This is the only major renovation we decided to tackle this year, and it's one that really isn't even all that major. When we moved in to our house almost 4 years ago, we decided to make the kitchen palatable by buying a new dishwasher, painting all the cabinets, and making some of the cabinets open. We painted the walls, laid new flooring, and received a beautiful butcher block as a gift. It was good enough for us to make do with our ancient (and tiny) oven, our gas range with only three working burners, our hood that is really nothing more than a giant holder for one tiny light bulb, and our ugly old counter tops that ALMOST hide all the coffee drips my husband is incapable of seeing/leaving on them.
So over the past couple of months, we've purchased a new oven/range, picked out counter tops, bought a new sink and faucet, and dreamed about how awesome everything will be when it's done. We've squirreled all the new stuff away in the basement and visited it periodically, mentally picturing it installed and working. We're talked about the new row of cabinets in the dead space above our pre-existing ones and pictured the ease with which the frosted glass will hide all of the stuff we never had room for before. The dreaming has been awesome.
Today we begin the process. My ridiculously capable brother-in-law will be coming over to start things off. It may be a couple of weeks before it's all done, but I have more patience now than I used to. I feel surprisingly serene and peaceful about the whole thing.

This is my giant head

Hey! My giant bespectacled melon was on the front page of the Star this morning!

Click here or here to read the article about other local bloggers.

Excused Absence

You know what's exciting?
Having a cold that loves me so much it doesn't want to go away.

It makes me want to write posts entitled:
Oh, When Will I Taste My Food Again
Chicken Soup is Boring, I Don't Care How Many Noodles It Has
and
Orange Juice is My New BFF

Call me Mrs. Bento

I like my postal carrier quite a bit. She brings dog treats at the Holidays for our pup and is always very friendly. It isn't her fault that she brings bills and junk mail and that the very best packages are left for our UPS guy. When I see that big brown truck parked in front of my house, I know it's for something good. The UPS man can sometimes make me giddy.
Today he brought me this box:Which, when opened, brought me my newest favorite thing:
A Mr. Bento, the world's most perfect lunchbox. My friend Sara blogged about hers (complete with photos) a couple of weeks ago and I coveted it, dreamt about it, obsessed over it, waited to buy it, watched it go up $4 on Amazon, and then finally bought the damn thing. Let the compartmentalized lunch-making begin. I am so excited.
(So that you can share in the madness, here is the Flickr Group of Mr. Bento photos. Looking at other people's lunches can be very very interesting. And inspiring.)

Lists

Things you eat when you're no longer in to adventurous eating:
Quaker Chewy Granola Bars (Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip variety)
Velveeta Macaroni & Cheese
Cereal (Strawberry Yogurt Cheerios)
Triscuits
Rice
Edy's Peppermint Ice Cream with Hershey's Syrup

Things that suddenly sound good, signaling a change in the weather:
Mexican food
Spicy anything
Falafel
Cucumber roll, dab of wasabi

From the Dead

For those of you who might think that I just up and died, no such luck. I did, however, completely lose my ability to eat the way I like to eat. I lost my taste, I lost my foodieness, I lost my purpose. But only temporarily.
I'm pregnant, you see - ecstatically so, but food & I have been waging a epic battle that I nearly lost. I am, however, able to think about writing for my blog now without also thinking about burying my head in the toilet. It's hard to even photograph food when you can't even look at it straight on.
So this is, in essence, an apology and an excuse all rolled into one. Also a promise: this will not become a mommyblog. Don't worry. I'll keep my private parts private, and keep my foodloving parts public. I'm so happy to be back.

Humble Pie

I always wondered why no one ever commented here in Noodletown. I know you guys are reading...I see you...and I always just figured that maybe it was a personal thing, eating, and you didn't really need to discuss it with me. So when I switched over to the Beta version of Blogger and saw...um...that there were a whole bunch of comments just waiting for my moderation, I was embarrased. To say the least. I don't recall choosing that.
Anyhow. I'm catching up with all of you now. And thanks for reading. I'm a moron.

Northward

Somehow, every year, we manage to be tied up in something the weekend of the Ethnic Enrichment Festival. This irritates me to no end, because it's a festival of food, for crying out loud. What could be more perfect than that?? One year we couldn't attend I managed to catch part of it on local television, which is the absolute worst way to experience a food festival, unless you attend the festival while fasting, which would just be plain stupid.
This year was no exception, with my cousin's wedding last weekend propelling us northward seven hours or so. The wedding itself was beautiful, with an outdoor reception overlooking the meeting of the St Croix and the Mississippi rivers from a hillside in Wisconsin - it was a perfectly clear and cool night with bright stars, an open bar, and a beautiful chocolate cake.
While up North, we got a chance to visit my Aunt's cafe and wine bar in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. Marine is a perfectly charming little town right along the river where we would always stop for ice cream when I was a little girl. My Aunt is a co-owner of the most lovely and relaxed little spot - a spot where locals stop to talk and drink strong coffee and eat freshly baked pastries. We had little individual hash brown quiches with slices of banana bread and fresh fruit with big cups of hot coffee. When we left she fixed us mango guava smoothies to go, which put each and every one of my smoothie attempts to shame. They were amazing.
We bought flowers, kohlrabi, onions, and tomatoes at the local outdoor market, and stopped in at the General Store for their freshly baked bread. The loaf of sauerkraut rye was pungent and perfectly soft. The car still smells like sauerkraut rye, so I guess I had a good food weekend after all.

this will have to stand in as my out-of-the-blogosphere message. the road calls.
will return in less than two weeks.