Tarps, Wine & Flip Flops – Our Camping Adventures

Most summers since I was an infant, I have spent at least 1 week camping with my family. We’ve camped in different states and in all sorts of summer weather conditions. Blazing hot and sunny? Check. Mini tornado? Check. Sweatshirt by the campfire kind of cosy? Check.

Sometimes there have been over a dozen of us together, sometimes there have been as few as 4. The common threads have been my parents and a genuine love of camping.

The word “camping” itself can conjure up all sorts of images to various people, depending on their own experiences (or lack of experiences). For me, it makes me think of one thing: Family.

This year’s camping trip had it all, it seemed. Good weather, crazy weather, laughs, campfires, delicious food, plenty of fresh air, and the-thing-we-forgot-to-pack. This year’s “thing?” The canopies that go over the metal pop up frames that ultimately cover our picnic tables. There was a modicum of grumbling and cursing, then Mike and N went to the nearest Lowe’s to find a tarp, while I helped my parents set up their tent.

Mike returned with a huge tarp, 20 X 40 feet! That more than covered the two pop up canopy frames, butted up against each other. So that took care of that problem, plus we had the added bonus of providing us and our camping neighbors with some humor. When the wind picked up during the week, the tarp would billow up like a balloon so that the whole canopy set up looked like a giant blue mushroom.

We’ve been camping in the Finger Lakes region of New York since 1975, with a few years break for college. It’s a beautiful part of the state, with wide scenic views, dark nights filled with stars (unhindered by bright city lights), and rolling hills. And on many of those hills are wineries. So we partake of those, too. On our 3rd day of camping, relatives visited us for the day, and the females of the group went to three local wineries: Hazlett, Penguin Bay, and Caywood. Our favorite is Hazlett, with their popcorn and funny names (Red Cat, White Stag).

We went to Wagner winery the next day, for lunch, a beer tasting (Mike and Dad), and stocking up on some of our favorite wines of the area. It was the first time we’d eaten lunch at the restaurant there, and I think it became a new tradition.

We camp in tents. When I was a kid, my family had a pop up tent trailer – the kind that had beds and not much else. My father had rigged up storage bins in it, for holding our clothes and towels. And when we were really little, it also had a very basic potty. I kind of cringe at that thought while also appreciating my father’s ingenuity – there were 3 young kids to accommodate after all and that means 3 young bladders.

Our current tent is impressive in many ways – its very large to handle 6’5″ Mike and our air mattresses – but it does not, alas, have a potty. It is a trek to the bathroom. The campground bathrooms are pretty nice. They are also quite public, so there is no question about wearing footwear in the shower. Did we worry about that when I was a kid? No, not at all. We also didn’t have bike helmets, sunscreen or aloe lotion.

I am not a flip flop person. I was when I was a kid but at some point in my life, I grew to intensely dislike sandals that required a thong between my big and second toe. My camping conundrum, therefore, is that I must wear flip flops to and in the shower while hating having to wear them.

And this simply highlights how much I love camping, as anyone who knows me well knows how much I hate feet, especially my own… in flip flops.

In the midst of this year’s camping trip, we also biked, ate ice cream daily at the camp store, gazed intently at stars (saw Andromeda!), tried and enjoyed 3 new campfire recipes, and went to a dinosaur museum. It was a week full of familiar and new, spent with family, outdoors and together.

Just the way I remember.

How We Rolled… for Easter

Our Easter was going to be a very quiet one, we’d known that for a while.  We had plans to go on a mini-vacation the day after Easter so hosting a bigger family holiday dinner or going elsewhere for it wasn’t going to work out this year.  So we kept it simple and small.

The day before Easter was the day of trying a new recipe and decorating eggs.  So we rolled up our sleeves (pun intended) and got to work on Resurrection Rolls (details in Food, courtesy of my time-absorbing hobby of scouring Pinterest for “cool stuff.”

Basically, it’s refrigerated crescent rolls, marshmallows, butter, cinnamon, sugar, and parchment paper.  The most important part of the recipe is the parchment paper.  Sure, the rest are crucial but I hate cleaning up icky pans so the parchment paper was vital.  Cleaning up sticky, gooey and greasy rolls was a matter of rolling up and tossing out a big piece of paper.  I LOVE PARCHMENT PAPER.

Making these was pretty fun – and fast.  So fast that we ended up making a double batch, because N wanted to make more!  That doesn’t happen often so I was glad to have the supplies on hand.

Making Resurrection Rolls

They came out delicious – sweet, gooey and living up to the reputation of a surprise inside.  We can add this to our Easter traditions, I think.

After cleaning up, it was time to boil a dozen eggs to start the egg decorating process.  There are a ton of ways to decorate eggs, and we picked 2 methods ahead of time: crayons and tie-dye.  We’d done tie-dye ones before and liked it.  We also did that technique at the recent Lenten Fair at church, where it was the most popular way to decorate eggs.

Half a dozen eggs were taken from the hot water once they were completely cooked through but NOT cooled.  We needed them nice and hot.  We assembled our materials: paper towels, unwrapped crayons and a clean egg carton.

The method is very simple – hold a hot, cooked egg in one hand while gently pressing a crayon on the shell, drawing with a little pressure.  The heat from the egg melts the crayon wax instantly, creating vivid colors and an almost paint-like material to draw with.

Using crayons to decorate hot, hard boiled eggs

We also experimented with a couple by putting some unwrapped broken crayons in a small plastic bag and hammering them into very small bits.  The broken bits were then put on a square of foil.  The egg is placed on the crayon bits and the foil wrapped completely around the egg.  A little massaging of the foil-wrapped egg (and patience) resulted in a beautiful, watercolor effect on the eggshell.

Crayon bits - hammered then pressed onto an egg

N experimented further by scraping the wax off with his fingernail.  The result was a thin sliver of wax that melted far easier than the bits.

N's technique of shaving crayon wax to melt onto an egg

The next technique we tried was tie-dye.  For this, we used a metal colander, liquid food coloring, white distilled vinegar and cold water.  We also used a clean roasting pan to be under the colander.  We put an egg, one at a time, into the colander, splashed it with a bit of vinegar, and rolled the egg to cover it with the vinegar.  Then we let 1 drop of food coloring land on the egg and swished it around in the colander to coat the shell with the dye.  We let it rest for 30 seconds and then added 1 drop of another color, swished and rested the egg.  After 30 more seconds of resting, I poured some cold water over the egg to rinse it.  Using plastic sandwich baggies as gloves, we moved the dyed eggs to an egg carton to dry.  The results were beautiful and unique (even Mike colored a couple of eggs this way).

When I can convince Mike to try a craft project, it’s a good time.

Here are the final results:

Tie-dyed Easter eggs

Easter morning was a bright, sunny one.  We dressed in our finest (ties for the boys, so handsome) and went to the early service at church.  It was a beautiful service.  We enjoyed breakfast at the youth group brunch after ward then headed home.  Our quiet Easter continued with a prime rib roast and roasted vegetables for dinner, with roasted corn and pepper soup to start it off.  Dessert was homemade Cadbury egg treats and chocolate dipped Peeps.

Cadbury egg treats, chocolate dipped Peeps & Jelly Belly Beans

We squeezed in an Easter Egg Hunt with A’s help and topped the day off with some packing for our impending trip.

For a simple Easter celebration, there was still a bit of work to celebrate the day the way I wanted.    Some day, “simple” may involve going to a restaurant and not turning the oven on at all.  I much prefer it this way for now.

For Mike, the Jets Fan – When Beer & Chocolate Can Make Things Better

When I tried out a new recipe yesterday, a carryover from St. Patrick’s Day, I had no way of knowing that it could be medicinal for my poor husband.  Mike, lifelong and diehard Jets fan, enjoyed one piece last night and may very well feel like demolishing the rest of it tonight.

The recipe is for Chocolate Guinness Cake (see my Food post from today, NYINNJ – Food ).  The original occasion was St. Patrick’s Day but we went out to eat that night instead, so our leftover St. Patrick’s Day dinner was last night.   I don’t make corned beef or cabbage myself, ever, but it’s the traditional dinner and we’re traditional people.  Thank goodness, the Market Place has the delicious and easy-to-pick-up complete dinner for take out, so problem solved!

Today, though, is cause for the cake to not be celebratory.  This cake is now medicinal.   In the midst of a circus-like off season for Mike’s Jets, rumors and accusations have been consistent and frustrating.  If that wasn’t enough, Peyton Manning went to the Broncos and now Tim Tebow has landed with the Jets.  The circus atmosphere is now approaching Ringling Brothers proportions. 

The thing is, Mike is a pretty even tempered fan.  He’s been a Jets/Mets/Rangers fan for his entire life, so this latest drama isn’t new to him nor is it likely to turn him off from rooting for his team.  If this was happening to the Giants, I’d be having an anxiety attack, no kidding.  He’s realistic enough to not expect much good to come of the Sanchez-Tebow QB situation but he’s also laid back enough to not let it faze him much. 

We’ll call him the Chocolate portion of the sports-aspect of our relationship.  Steady, reliable, sometimes WOW! and sometimes Meh…   It’s rare to have bad chocolate, right?  The kind you spit out?  Doesn’t happen much.

Then there’s me.  Most of my family and friends know how I’m a bit… shall we say… obsessed?  passionate?  frantically loyal?  nuts?  about my sports teams.  Mike is definitely as loyal about his teams as I am about mine but he shows his enthusiasm differently.  He, for example, doesn’t need to do deep breathing exercises when watching the 4th quarter or 9th inning.  He gives me his hand to squeeze for that last second field goal attempt, not vice versa.  I’m not sure I’d have fingers left if he ever tried that on me…

So, in the Chocolate Guinness Cake analogy, I’m the beer portion – I don’t think I need to explain why…

Anyway, the cake is delicious – and it may prove to be our ‘go to’ comfort food depending on how things go for our resident Jets fan.

Bad News Travels Faster Than Good News… Why?

When something bad or sad happens, word spreads like wildfire.  Technology has only made that wildfire spread even faster.  With email, Facebook, smartphones, you name it… if a celebrity dies, does something criminal or a favorite sports player has retired or been traded (to the rival team!), it can be a matter of minutes before anyone who wants to know… well, knows.

And when a story of child being approached and picked up by a stranger in your favorite playground comes to you in an email, you do not hesitate to react.  After all, with 100+ email addresses at my fingertips, it would be easy and yes, even my duty, to warn as many of my neighbors and local friends as quickly as possible.

Except if the story doesn’t sound right the minute I’m done reading it.

When other copies of the story get emailed to me in a matter of an hour, I’m rattled.  My brain is telling me that something isn’t right about the story yet so many people are clearly concerned about it, worried enough to sound the alarm to everyone they know, so why am I holding back?

Because there’s enough in the story to make me pause and try to confirm or debunk the story before I send it to anyone else.  So I start calling and emailing (separately) people that I know who could shed light on what happened.

After some phone calls, a few separate emails and some monitoring of the police department’s Facebook page, it turns out that the story is not true.  No one knows why the story was created in the first place but it’s no surprise that it spread around as quickly as it did.  It’s our nature, whether human or social, to warn our community of any danger.  We use the tools we have handy, and we do it quickly, urgently, and with good intentions.

Better safe than sorry, we say.  And, while this is true, it is also discouraging that the truth doesn’t often get as much, or any, attention at all.  In the case of an attempted abduction at a local playground, none of the papers have cleared it up nor has the police department issued an updated statement.

No one’s reputation is directly hurt by the false story but some damage has been done nonetheless.  Some people who think the story is true may likely stay clear of the park and playground.  That’s a shame and an unnecessary result of a story that should never have been spread.

One silver lining to be found in this particular phenomenon is that that, if such an incident had truly taken place, we know now that the town can respond quickly.  “Word of Mouth” is no longer limited to a face to face discussion or a phone call.  Technology has expanded ‘Mouth’ to be so much more.

Yet even that good news isn’t in the local paper or clogging my email’s inbox.  That’s a shame, too.

40 Days – my Lenten Promise

Lent has generally meant giving up something that I love from Ash Wednesday until Easter.  In the past, especially during my teens and 20s, I gave up chocolate, ice cream, or, in the few years that I felt particularly masochistic, BOTH.

Last year, I didn’t “give up” anything as much as I tried to make sure I prayed diligently every day.  My daily prayers had become automatic to the point that I was falling asleep when I said them, since I usually pray as I go to bed.  I would start out with the Lord’s Prayer and then add specific Thanks and petitions.  I did pretty well with this though there were days I slacked off.

This year, though, I wanted to do something that combined both sacrifice and thankfulness.  The sacrifice this year is peanut butter.  The trusty PB has become my (lazy) go-to meal on the run or snack.  Tasty yes, healthy in small doses, yes.  But I’ve been eating too much of it in place of meals and getting into bad habits when it came to snacks and even (GASP!) the occasional hurried breakfast or lunch.  And where there is peanut butter, there is also… chocolate.  My Achilles heal of PB is actually the Dark Chocolate Dreams by the Peanut Butter Company…

This is, truly, a delectable sacrifice that I knew that I had to make.

The thankfulness part was not one that I thought would be a problem.  I try hard to be thankful for my family, friends, home, health and well being.  The past few months have driven those blessings home, so to speak.  I’ve been to 4 funerals and 5 wakes in the past 2 or so months.  Two of the funerals were for beloved fathers of good friends.  One was for an elderly grandmother of my sister-in-law.  She and both men passed away in the presence of their families.   As their children and grandchildren continue life without them, they are reminders of what is inevitable as one grows older.  Those left behind are thankful for all that they did as well as the time they’ve had together.

The 4th funeral was for one of my best and sweetest friends.  She, like the others, died with her family by her side.  Everyone who knew her is thankful for the experience of being her friend.  And she is sorely missed.

There have been moments, recently, where I have not been feeling thankful at all – I’ve been sad and angry.   So I wasn’t sure I was fully in the mindset of “Thankfulness” when Ash Wednesday rolled around.  As I sat in church, listening to the sermon and then the prayers, it hit me as to what to do for Lent.

So, that night, I decided that I would spend the next 40 days following up on whims of thankfulness.  The kind of whim when you think of someone and say to yourself “Oh, that reminds me, I should call/email so&so.”   But then you don’t call or email or anything.  Things come up, life happens and the whim is just a memory.  For Lent, then, I would follow up on the whims, one per day.

Day 1  – a thank you to a friend who has helped babysit my son for 3 of the funerals

Day 2 – an email to my former housemate who had very briefly dated my late friend; we’d been out of touch other than Christmas cards

Day 3 – a thank you to another friend who has helped with babysitting recently

Day 4 – a thank you for a neighbor who started a walking group and is a gung-ho exercise cheerleader

Day 5 – a belated birthday card to my uncle

I haven’t had a whim for Day 6 yet but I expect to pull out a Thank You or blank note card when it hits.

A New Tradition aka The Unmaking of a Picky, Sexist Eater

It all started about 6 weeks ago, after 3 days of hearing my son complain about “what’s for dinner?”   Enough!

My first reaction?  Anger.  I’m the primary cook in our household.  Occasionally, my husband grills.  We eat out a couple times a month.  Most days, however, it’s just me.  I rarely have any help from shopping, prep work, cooking and clean up.  We have a small family (3 to feed, sometimes 4), a large kitchen, and the financial means to eat well.  Plus, I like to cook and have a good track record for making  food that tastes good, as opposed to meals that ‘don’t suck.’

So yes, I was angry.  I was even a little resentful.  Heck, I was very resentful.  Doesn’t my son know that I shop for and cook meals we will like?  Most meals are even, egads! pretty healthy, too!

The answer to my unsaid question is, No, he doesn’t actually know.  I mean, he knows that I do the grocery shopping, sure.  He’s with me enough times to know how that goes and what we buy (and don’t buy).  And yes, he sees me cooking and baking most days.

But he doesn’t truly know what “cooking” means.  We’ve done the fun stuff together – cookies & cupcakes.  But a full blown meal?  No, he hasn’t done that.

Add to that lack of hands-on experience his preference for microwavable mac & cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches (made by his big sister, who is the pro at that particular dish), and chicken nuggets.  Normal favorite food stuffs for a kid his age.   After all, he’s 9, he’s a boy and he’s never shown much interest beyond playing with flour and decorating gingerbread cookies.

The boy thing… Mike has consistently joked around the kids that cooking is “woman’s work.”  And there’s not much going on in our kitchen to prove him wrong.  He can make himself toast, heat up soup in the microwave, and even zap himself an omelette.  His preference for cooking can be summed up in 3 words: Cooking With Danger.  That is, the microwave or grill. For roasts, homemade soups, casseroles, sautes, pies, cookies, and any chocolate dessert that didn’t come in a plastic wrapper, I’m the go-to person in our house.

Yet somewhere along the way, our son has decided that the jokes were fact.  Just because that’s all he’s seen doesn’t mean that’s all he SHOULD see, especially now that he’s getting older and more aware of the world beyond our house, street and town.  And it is among my jobs as his mother to tweak his understanding of the world when I think he’s humming along the wrong, or slightly skewed, path.

Back to where I began… after 3 days of his complaining about what I was making for dinner, he was on the receiving end of my anger and resentment.  He sulked, I seethed, and dinner – I can’t even remember what it was – was not a happy time for any of us.

The next day, an idea popped into my head with the ease of a yawn.  So simple!  How could I not have figured this out sooner?

I primed Mike first; he seemed to think it worth trying.  His support was all that was required of him at this point.  He’s a willing guinea pig for most things I cook, too.  So far, this was off to a good start.

I talked with my son that evening, explaining to him that I had An Idea that involved him.  I also explained WHY – and that the goal was to help him learn what was involved with cooking  a meal.  Therefore, he was going to be my assistant for every dinner that upcoming week.

Naturally, he groaned.  He complained.  He muttered.  Mike backed me up immediately and put the kabosh on the moaning and groaning.  I continued to explain The Idea.  Not only was he going to be my assistant (with the fancy French name of “sous chef”), he would help me plan the meals.

And, finally, the biggest gem of The Idea: we would pick a meal that would go with a movie we’d watch as a family.  Ta Da!

His initial reaction was… willingness!  Enthusiasm even!  There was almost singing going on in my head!

I was not unprepared, then, for his first question: what movie?  I’d done research on this before the pitch, so I told him that we’d watch “Ratatouille” while making Ratatouille.  He was still enthused, even though he frowned a tad because of the movie choice.  It turns out that he couldn’t remember seeing the movie before.  No problem, I assured him.   He had liked it before, and I felt confident this would be a good meal and movie combination.

I had made traditional ratatouille a few weeks before, and everyone had liked it.  That was another part of introducing The Idea – making sure the meal would be one he’d like enough to try/eat since he had liked it recently.

We figured out the meals for the week, including something simple like pigs and blankets.  We also planned his favorite non-mac&cheese-chicken-nugget-grilled-cheese meal: pierogies and kielbasa.  With 3 meals out of 6 planned, we were starting on a positive note.

I did the shopping for our meals by myself that week, while he was in school.  I thought I would be pushing it if I had him come with me for that part.  I also figured out out which parts of each meal he’d be able to help me with and which parts he could wander off to play or do homework.  When I explained that he would have ‘breaks,’ he was relieved and much more willing to help with each meal.

The Ratatouille recipe we used was one I’d found online at a great food blog, http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/07/rat-a-too-ee-for-you-ee/  We got all of the ingredients onto the counter then followed that by getting out the necessary equipment.

And this became our “Wow!” moment – his introduction to a mandolin!  Safety was a priority, of course, and his Star Wars apron was also a key element to his positive experience.   We cleaned the veggies, sliced them carefully, and layered them to our hearts’ content.  The result matched the photo on the blog, then we topped it with a piece of cut out parchment paper.  And we were both excited to taste it when it was done, because it looked good and smelled great already.

Meanwhile, the movie was playing in the den while we were cooking in the kitchen.  He got to bounce from counter to beanbag chair often enough to not notice that he was actually helping make a meal.

Clean up was easy, he didn’t complain once.  When the movie was over (thank goodness Disney movies are pretty short), it was time for everyone to sit down and eat.  His curiosity nearly beat out his pride as we pulled the parchment paper top off and oooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it smelled and looked more awesome than we’d expected!

Mike was effusive in his praise to the chefs, which went a long way in helping our son adjust to a tweaked path.  But the kicker was when we all went for second helpings, with nary a chicken nugget or cheesy noodle in sight!  The rest of the week went smoothly but, admittedly, with much less fanfare and ‘oooooooohs’ and ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaahs.’  My one regret in introducing this new tradition was that we started with the big Aha! meal first.

If the tradition hadn’t taken hold, I’d be worried.  However, we are now 6 weeks and 4 “Dinner & a Movie” nights into our new and popular tradition.  Best yet, my son has been slightly transformed into a less picky eater and a more helpful set of hands in the house.

It was highly gratifying to call upon our new tradition this week, when Halloween Trick or Treating was postponed because of the freak winter storm.  Disappointment turned to WooHoo! when we decided to watch our just-delivered copy of “Captain America” while feasting on meatloaf, mashed potatoes and apple pie.  All homemade with some help from my sous chef.

Our Dinner & A Movie pairings to date:

• Ratatouille’s Ratatouille with “Ratatouille”
• Spaghetti & Meatballs with “Tangled”
• Swedish Meatballs & egg noodles with “Thor”
• Mini Meatloaves, Mashed Potatoes and apple pie with “Captain America”

I don’t expect the complaining to complete disappear, of course.  He’s a normal kid, after all.  It’s with tentative hope that I think we’ve got something good to build on here, even if we end up eating it all up until the next meal.

Merry Halloween!

I’d like to think that snow on Halloween, or the days leading up to it, is a rare occurrence.  Sadly, it is not.  At least, it’s not rare anymore.  For 3 of the past 4 years, there has been snow – light or heavy – in the days leading up to Halloween.  “Freak Winter Storm” is the usual name for this.  This year’s, 2011, is different, though.  It is a full blown Nor’easter, complete with extensive power outages from blown transformers and downed lines, massive tree damage, blocked roads, over 6 inches of wet, heavy snow and winds.

I think we need to call Halloween something else, so I’ve coined “Merry Halloween” as the more appropriate salutation.   Trick or treaters will be wearing boots (my son wants to wear his snow shoes) and other winter gear.  Costumes will largely be covered.  Traipsing through snow go get pieces of candy seems like a lot more trouble than it’s worth.   This leads me to wonder:

Do we stay home and feast on the candy we bought with the intention of doling it out?

Do we bundle up like eskimos and assure the folks in the neighborhood that we are wearing costumes underneath it all, really?  But please don’t make us unzip the coats to prove it, we don’t want to get frost bite.   Just toss us a Twix and we’ll be on our way!

For the past 4 years, we’ve hosted a Halloween party for our son’s friends.  A few are in the neighborhood, most are school mates in town, and some are close family friends who travel over half an hour to get here.  It’s always an indoor party, there are crafts and games.  The parties, coincidentally, began with this new autumn climate phenomenon.  It’s definitely a coincidence, but it’s also beginning to feel like a curse.  We can laugh at this, and we do.  If I actually thought I could influence weather patterns in any way, I’d be using my power for good, not evil.

For one thing, I’d rearrange the overwatering of the Northeast that happened this summer and balance it out with some rain in Texas.   If our big lobster/BBQ party in the summer didn’t make that weather blip happen, then clearly my power over weather simply doesn’t exist.

Today is the day before Halloween, there is snow EVERYWHERE I look outside.  The sun is shining and therefore melting the snow.  The snow is now dropping, rather than dripping, constantly and often the chunks are the size of softballs.  Branches are bent in unnatural angles.  I keep expecting them to pop back to their normal position once the snow has slid off but, so far, that hasn’t happened.

The trees that withstood a hurricane are now sadly bowed and bent yet also beautiful – snow does that, hiding the damage it’s created under an innocent white blanket.  The effect is begging for black and white photography to do it justice.

October 2011 Nor'easter - front yard view

We took many photos this morning, the sun pink and yellow.   The colored leaves are pretty much still on the trees, as well as the branches that fell during the storm.  I’m not sure how old the 2 large trees in our front yard are but they look substantial.  I’m sad to think that we may have to take them down at some point.  At the very least, they need a lot of trim work.  I hope they will be stronger, and we’ll be safer, once that’s done.

October 2011 Nor'easter - big front yard tree

Related to all of this was the headline that a well known global warming skeptic has publicly announced his agreement with the broad scientific consensus that Global Warming is a fact, not just a theory.  Looking out the window as I type this and listening to the hum of chain saws, I’m not sure if the irony is funny or frightening.  I err with science on just about everything but I don’t see rain out there, I see snow.  In October.  It would be nice to hear theories as to what is happening…anything to explain this.

As for next year, maybe we’ll have the Halloween party in August, just to play it safe.