I set out to make a whole bunch of baby paraphernalia several months ago, knowing that I wouldn’t find what I wanted for a price I was willing to pay in a store. So, I picked out dollar-a-yard fabric from Walmart, made my list of projects, and got started. As usual with a project, I jumped in full steam ahead only to be sidetracked by one small glitch after another, slowing me down and causing me to lose any motivation I had to just finish and clean everything up. The biggest problem I had was that the sewing machine my mom gave me for my 18th birthday froze and was not worth repairing. The extra machine my grandma gave me a few years ago because she didn’t like it has been broken (totally my fault for trying to fix a small problem myself on that one) and sitting in our basement for over a year, so it wasn’t an option unless I decided to invest more than either machine is really worth in repairs. Anyway, I ended up ordering a new Brother machine from Costco, at the suggestion of one of my coworkers. Aside from being impatient about waiting for it to be delivered, it was a great deal for a machine that has a few more bells and whistles than my previous machine. Since we’re also using cloth diapers, I decided to try my hand at making some reusable wipes as an additional project after I finished everything else, mostly to have a reason to try out some of the stitches the new machine offers. Andy was kind enough (dorky enough, really) to play around with the camera to get some shots of the various stitches and I’m quite happy with the wipes…even though I know they’ll be pretty gross and will be thrown away eventually, I got to play with my new toy!!
“Mom Haircut”
The Plan
1. We’ll leave today for Hannibal and stay for lots of food and probably some shopping until Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Edie has an appointment with Rachel’s dogs’ vet Friday morning to try to get to the bottom of her chewing, but it should be pretty relaxing.
2. We’ll head to Columbia Friday afternoon or Saturday morning to spend some time with Andy’s family and to play at St. Andrew’s with Mike Will from Missouri UMC on Saturday night. Sunday, Andy’s aunts have a baby shower in Lohman planned for us, then we’ll head back home.
3. It will probably take us four days to unload everything that we’ll have accumulated over the weekend, so we’ll see you late next week!!!
Monster??
It seems that Sam, our cat, has made it his personal mission to prepare us for parenthood: yowling incessantly while trying to take a Sunday afternoon nap; constantly needing to be picked up and carried around; inhibiting showers, meals, dishes, sewing, hair curling, and pretty much everything you NEED to get done right now; and the usual eating, shedding, puking, trying to escape, and annoying the dog. Anybody want a cute orange monster in February??
Soup!
Last week, in an attempt to cheer ourselves up amidst 3 days in a row of rain, my coworkers and I went out to lunch at The Piccadilly a few blocks from our office. The food was great, especially the beer cheese soup. So, last night, I tried my best to recreate it and did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. I wasn’t expecting such great results, so didn’t take any pictures, but here’s the recipe anyway:
1. Make a rue in a big pot (my enameled cast iron is great for this). Melt about 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat, then add about 2 heaping tablespoons of flour to the butter, stir, and let cook until it doesn’t smell like raw flour and turns a golden brown color.
2. Add 1 bottle of beer (we had an Oktoberfest in the fridge, but I think a pale would be awesome too) and a cup or so of chicken broth to the flour/butter mixture, keeping the medium heat going. Bring to a boil until it begins to thicken, then add 1/2 cup to a cup of cream, half and half, or milk (depending on how rich you want your soup to be).
3. Lower the heat a bit and add 3 cups of cheese (something with a lot of flavor, especially with a darker beer, like the sharp cheddar I used). Stir together, adding a spice cabinet raid (I used white pepper, mustard powder, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, chili powder, and a tiny sprinkling of nutmeg) of whatever sounds good. Keep stirring until the cheese is incorporated and not stringy.
This recipe made enough for two dinner sized bowlfuls and enough for my lunch today.
What to do, what to do…..
We’ve been trying to see and do the things we haven’t seen and done yet in the St. Louis area in the next couple of months, as you can see from some of the pictures on the sidebar, since we’ll hopefully be leaving next spring. We’ve been to the Botanical Gardens, revisited the zoo, eaten at Broadway Oyster Bar, and plan to go to Cahokia Mounds and a Blues game. What else should we make sure to do, for all you St. Louisans (or those of you who have been here and been touristy!)???
Maid Rites!
Growing up, Mom made “maid rites” pretty often for dinner. They’re loose meat sandwiches made with ground beef and onions and served with pickles, ketchup, and mustard. The Mark Twain Dinette in Hannibal serves them, as well as various Maid Rite franchises around the country, but it seems like very few people know what they are when I mention them. So, for your eating pleasure, here’s the how-to:
Start with a pound or so of ground meat. Traditionally, maid rites are beef, but we had this pork from the Columbia Farmers’ Market in the freezer.
Chop a medium white or yellow onion into smallish chunks.
Add the meat and onions to a skillet on medium heat and season generously with seasoned salt and pepper.
Continue to stir the meat/onion mixture until it is brown and the onions are a little bit brown.
Serve on hamburger buns (the cheaper the better if you ask me….nothing fancy needed for these sandwiches). We had homemade french fries and California blend vegetables, but I like to order onion rings and a rootbeer with them at Mark Twain Dinette!!
Opa!
Every year since we moved to St. Louis, we’ve said we should go to St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in the Central West End for their annual Labor Day Greek Festival. Since this is hopefully the last year we’ll be in the area, we went ahead and made plans to go this weekend. Unfortunately, it rained ALL day Saturday, so we went after church today.
We took a tour of the church and listened to a couple of dudes talk about their faith and the symbols throughout the church. Even though I have been to Greece for the sole purpose of understanding the religions that have been important throughout their history, I really didn’t have a clear understanding of what makes Greek Orthodoxy all that different from Catholicism, except the priests’ pointy beards and funny hats (turns out that the priest at St. Nicholas looked and dressed a lot like Pastor Paul at St. Andrews Lutheran, not the priests I encountered in Greece…). However, there are a lot of differences, most that Andy and I sat there and nodded our heads in agreement to, like not using philosophy to define parts of their faith, just going by the scriptures and acts of Christ, not praying to or through saints (in fact, in every depiction of Mary, Jesus MUST also be present), and not having a hierarchy of leadership (no pope, or one person in charge who has some sort of “divine” connection). Of course, there are lots of parts that I don’t agree with, such as the role (or lack thereof) of women, having 7 sacraments (we only have 2), and the whole saint thing in general.
Anyway, we really went for the food, so after the tour and listening to their choir “chant,” we waited in line for about 35 minutes for some gyros, salad, Greek fries (not as good as the ones in Greece, unfortunately), and baklava. The gyros were great and the salad as good as you’re going to get when they’re serving thousands of people in a tent outside. We were too full for the baklava, so brought it home for later. It looks really good and fresh, though, unlike others I’ve had at local restaurants (my baklava standards are pretty high!).
So, in memory of the soon to be deceased Reading Rainbow, here’s my pitch: If you live in St. Louis and have never been to the Greek Festival, you should definitely go. They’ll be there until 9 tonight and from 11-8 tomorrow!
The Man
I had a few requests for an explanation of “The Man,” so here you go:
I’m not really sure where he came from, but a couple of years ago, The Man appeared at my parents’ house. I’m thinking that he was atop a birthday cake and then was stuck in a drawer somewhere since my mom rarely throws things away that she thinks she or someone she know will have a future use for. Anyway, when he came out of hiding, one of my sisters decided it would be a great idea to attach him to a 4th of July rocket and send him flying. So, we did. Over. And over. And over. It was hilarious and an adventure to track him and the rocket down after each launch. This year when I was there for the driveway fireworks show, The Man got caught up in a pine tree by the road so my dad had to go rescue him the next day. You can read my mom’s comment from a couple of days ago to see what happened after I came back to St. Louis, but there’s the story!
The 11th Street Hill
This hill was to the side of Ma and Papa’s house in Louisiana, Missouri. Well, actually, I’m quite sure it’s still there, but it doesn’t seem as big as it did to us back in 1990 when the picture above was taken, but anyway…. We spent hours on this hill riding (while sitting) skateboards down and avoiding cars. There was also a hill next to Papa’s service station that served the same purpose, but had a nice grassy area at the bottom to stop us. One of my favorite memories of Papa is of him riding down the hill next to the station on his wheely thing for working under cars, then falling off and Ma getting out the Bandaids to patch his skinned knees.
Here are two more from Christmas ’94 when the Baumann girls got skates:
