Food Snob

Shockingly, I will not be showing you any pictures of food I've made. I know. I know. Shocker.

I decided to turn on the TV today because I was craving some adult interaction and, well, that wasn't happening. It may be a one-way relationship, but it's enjoyable sometimes. The television was turned on the History Channel, which means my husband was the last one to watch TV and was watching either Pawn Stars or American Pickers. I left it on because Modern Marvels was playing and I am always curious about how regular consumer products are made.

The first show was about processed snack foods. They explored the makings of pastries and donuts and all things loaded with saturated fat. The next show was all about meat. They started with pork rinds and continued on to cold cuts. I emailed one of my favorite vegetarian friends, Brooke, because I was so distraught about the discussion of how bologna is made with mechanically separated chicken. The guy being interviewed sticks his gloved hand in a HUGE container of what looked to be liquified chicken. Or, to compare, it looked like vomit. Which then made me want to vomit.

Just before they shoot to commercial, they always show an interesting fact about the number of donuts made in one hour stretching to the heights of the Empire State Building or something. This one was about gelatin being made out of pig skin... and obviously used in things like marshmallows.

I like marshmallows.

This vegetarian knew gelatin was made by a meat product, but that's not what I wanted to hear. When we visited the Netherlands and walked by a cheese shop in Amsterdam, I wouldn't go in. I couldn't. Frankly, I just can't handle seeing cheese in any other state other than on my pizza or in the package I purchase at the grocery store. I'm sort of one of those people that handles such things as what you don't know won't hurt you... but what you do know, will. So that's one of those things. If I know the facts, it will gross me out so much that I won't eat it. And there's already more foods on this planet I won't eat than will and I can't afford to add any more to the list.

So hearing once again that marshmallows are made out of gelatin which contains pig skin was enough to send me into a Pinterest search frenzy for vegan marshmallows. And y'all, I found them. I then emailed Brooke about my find and told her that I really want to find them for less than $12/bag like they're sold for on Amazon (unless you buy in bulk). I complained to her about how the Midwest is just a meat society and vegetarian is practically a bad word here in the 'burbs.

We have Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and my favorite little grocer about 3 miles away that charges way too much but has the best vegan, vegetarian, and organic products. They often sell obscure items like Jeni's ice cream that boasts a flavor called Queen City Cayenne that sounds right up my alley. Sure, a pint is $10, but something intrigues me about a company who handwrites their flavors in Sharpie markers. They also have a delish bistro attached that sells one of my favorite vegetarian burgers made from lentils and other delicious veggies.

But otherwise, there isn't a lot around. So I complained via email to Brooke.

No more than 2 minutes later, I had to retract that complaint, as said marshmallows are sold at that little grocer and all Whole Foods Markets. Touché, touché.

And even better? The company that makes said marshmallows is called Chicago Vegan Foods. 

I've got to tell you, though. Now that B is here and just a couple months from starting on solids, I'm starting to really think about what food he'll be eating. For one, he won't be raised a veggie like me. I want him to be exposed to all healthy and whole foods. For some reason I'm totally okay with myself eating the four boxes of Magnum ice cream bars I just purchased for an amazing deal last week, but I want him to be eating high quality ingredients. I can assure you bologna will not be on that list. We might have to refinance our house just to buy exclusively from Applegate Farms, but dang. Pig skin just gives me the heebie jeebies.

Anyway, this post was maybe my second pathetic attempt to have adult interaction of some kind today. 

 

Birthday Raclette Dinner

For Ray's 30th, I bought him a present. It's kind of wild for me because we rarely buy gifts for one another. Well, he buys more gifts for me (jewelry, etc.), but buying for men is just plain hard. And, I'd prefer we just purchase the items he wants in real time rather than waiting all the way until December to receive something he wants. He works hard and therefore deserves to reap the benefits all year around in my opinion.

All those excuses to say that I can never think of something he'll love and make sure I know the exact item to buy at the exact time birthdays or holidays roll around. That, and gift-giving is not really my love language. That's not helpful when I have an entire family full of them, including my husband! Anyway, I thought I hit this one out of the park. When we visited Switzerland, we were able to have an authentic dinner with some local Swiss called Raclette. Ever since that evening, we talked about buying one of those grills. Except, we rarely just spend $140 on something just because... and this is one of those just because kind of things. This was our occasion and quite a fantastic one, I might add. He was genuinely surprised up until the day before Andrew's birthday when I allowed him to open the gift. We figured that since his birthday is a week after Andrew's, we'd soften the blow a very, teeny tiny bit by having this be something we looked forward to on that day. I intended for him to help me shop and prepare for the dinner party we were throwing, so at some point, he figured it out. Regardless, I purchased this lovely number for him us:

To explain, the raclette grill offers some features: grill meats, seafood and veggies on the top while you place a semi-soft/hard cheese in the bottom trays to melt. Marry the meats, veggies, potatoes (cooked on the side) on a plate and pour the melted cheese on top. There is traditional raclette cheese that can be purchased, but most is very expensive or unpasteurized. This pregnant lady refuses to throw a dinner party for a bunch of people with raw milk cheeses. That, and I hate buying things I normally can and will eat at a premium but won't eat for something as silly as it being unpasteurized. Emmantaler, Edam, and raclette cheese are standard. I purchased some brie (though a traditional soft cheese, but familiar to most people), Jarlsberg, and raclette cheese from Trader Joes. We actually found raclette-labeled cheese at Trader Joe's! Already sliced! It tasted quite authentic to boot! That just means they'll stop selling it soon because it's something we like. Trader Joe's is good at that sort of thing. 

I roasted veggies in the oven so there would be more grill space for meats and shrimp. Our intention was to create a formal party with touches of informal thrown there. Raclette grills are designed for no more than 8 people and we were inviting 18. Considering this, we had the grill on all night and various appetizers and items to graze on throughout the night. Sitting was optional and it was more like a cocktail party with lots of food. All were required to drink from wine glasses. Thank goodness we have 18! We had various bottles of wine, bottled water, and lots of sparkling drinks (grape/apple). We even had wine charms! We're not the wine charm type, but we realized hours before the party that people wouldn't be able to tell their drinks apart and it would be a fiasco with 18ish people in the house. Wine would go wasted and new glasses would be assumed, despite having only 18 to fulfill the 18 people who RSVP'ed. Off to Michael's we went! We purchased some round, silver earring hooks and were planning to purchase some beads. However, the husband decided the wine charms needed to be "manly" and deemed it necessary to purchase more manly charms for the glasses. We settled on decorative buttons with animals and monsters. And don't think we didn't use a 40% off coupon for each of our transactions! :)

My pictures are blurry and just plain suck, but hopefully you get the idea. The four charms in view are two monsters, a donkey, and panda. I do believe the pig was last to be chosen. Wonder why? ;)

I'd love to say I can offer up tons of photos... but as usual, I forgot to take them. The ones I do have completely suck because I'm so stubborn and just won't learn how to use our fancy camera. I put that on the list for a baby distraction project in January. Learn a new trick a week on the camera and give myself a homework assignment. I. need. to. learn. this. Argh.

Our total menu was as follows:
Sliced beef marinated (1: olive oil, garlic, cracked pepper), (2: spiced beef marinade from a bottle. Don't judge).
Prawns
Polish Sausage
Sliced cheeses (Brie, Jarlsberg, Raclette)
Boiled Saltzkartoffel, stored in crock pot after (salted, German potatoes: Peel and boil in cold water until soft, but firm)  
Roasted veggies in lemon olive-oil (carrots, green beans, bell pepper, onion, zucchini)
Cheese fondue (one 12oz beer & tbsp Dijon mustard, 16 oz. shredded cheese tossed in a little cornstarch. Add cheese slowly after boiling beer/mustard on stove) Served with grapes, apples, and cubed sweet bread, crackers, broccoli cutlets
Caesar salad with Trader Joe's dressing-- my fave! Mix of field greens and romaine
Antipasti tray (breadsticks, salami, cornichons, stuffed olives, mixed olives, pepperoncinis)
Tortellini/cucumber/cherry tomatoes on toothpicks & marinated in Italian dressing
Mini sausages in teriyaki sauce (used mini crock pot)
Sauces: sweet onion (bottled), Sriracha, and a homemade (omg. so amazing) chimichurri sauce

A friend from work who honestly directs us to the very best restaurants in town every time gave me this recipe. I was certain to try it and I'm so glad I did. It's incredible. If you like the following ingredients, I highly recommend you make this. I used red wine vinegar and I just about want to put this stuff on my pancakes in the morning. It's that good.

Our friend Alli is pretty crafty and is always pinning a bunch of fun crafty ideas that I could never even consider. I belong in the kitchen... not in front of glue guns and sewing machines. She decided to use the party as a good chance to try out her birthday banner. It was great until it fell down at some point. Again, the flash totally ruins this photo. The goat photo is also courtesy of Mrs. Ferguson. We have a very, very large framed goat in our foyer as I've mentioned before. It's now been set that we'd collect such photographs in frames.

We added Alli's table to our informal living room and she brought in some table accents and balloons as well. This was for the runoff (since we have a 10-seater table and a 4-seater = 14. We had 18 guests and lots of desserts that needed a place to go!).

 Crappy photo # infinity. Our 4-seater cheapie Ikea table, balloons, and snow-covered deck.

 One of the only photos we have of the food setup. Raclette grill is on the far end... but totally hard to see.

 A few photos of friends... no idea who took these photos but I'm happy they did!

 Happy husband and friends.

Oh, Tommy. Let's just say we had a few conversations about being aware that if he spilled red wine on my new boots, we'd have serious words. That, and I may have been afraid of him shattering a wine glass I'd have to clean up. Luckily, he has a very awesome wife who handled the sitch. We love Tommy. He's a wild one.

As the only requirement, I asked that all guests bring a plate of homemade brownies. This was the surprise that I managed to keep until everyone arrived with their brownies! There was an incident where some friends dropped them off the night before very stealthily and another knocked on the back door to hand over theirs, but the secret was kept. I took equally crappy quality photos of all the brownies... hooray! It was truly awesome, though. People were pumped and of course Ray was super excited as brownies are his absolute favorite dessert.

 Hi! I'm thirty! I love brownies! :)

Totally crap quality, but here's the table of almost all the brownies. 

Again, my friend Alli came to the rescue and found a way to score (through a friend) completely free to-go boxes for the brownies! There was no way we'd be able to keep them all in our house! Then our friend Liz was clever (as usual) and thought of a fun little catch-phrase for the box labels. :)

"E" would be Elliot. That's Ray's first name. Ray is his middle name... been calling him Ray on the blog since the beginning since family was the first to read (and the only to read for a long time)... and Ray is what he's known as to family. Just in case that was utterly confusing for all of you, consider me! I switch between family and friends on a regular basis. Elliot? Ray? Back and forth. To me, he's often just "husband". Hah.

Here are some brownie photos...

I can't go into detail about all of the brownies, but there were caramel brownies, walnut brownies, peanut butter brownies, regular brownies, brownies made with zucchini and carrots, peppermint brownies, brownies stuffed with Hershey's Hugs, Oreo and peanut butter stuffed cupcake/brownies, and a chocolate truffle cake.

...and then there's the guy who didn't follow directions:

That would be a Starbucks box. Not homemade by any means. And yes, I did eat all 3 of those brownies even though they were probably intended for the husband. ;) He was super hilarious and commented about how he RSVP'ed and not his wife and therefore felt responsible for the brownies... but that he has no culinary abilities. Totally funny. He definitely gets credit. 

At some point in the night, there was also a toast and birthday song while toasting Bailey's Irish Creme & Godiva White Chocolate Liquors out of chocolate dessert cordial cups. Like these:

All in all, it was a very nice night of grazing, wine drinking, laughing, and socializing while celebrating my favorite person. Happy birthday, my love.

Celebrating Andrew

It's been almost a year. In many ways, I wonder how it's possible that my son died one year ago. One year seems like forever has passed, and in other ways, I'm reminded of all the milestones I missed during this time of mourning and grief. It's safe to say that I'm still shocked about what's taken place in our lives. But I wouldn't take back a second of my everlasting grief if it meant Andrew was never born. He is worthy of all the attention and love his parents can give him-- no matter how long he was with us.

I've never been the best at birthdays and celebrations-- partly because I lack the creativity to fully design something worthy of such great effort. Plus, I don't feel like stress should ever be part of celebrating. Andrew was not given a memorial service because we were in no state of mind to do such planning. That, and I never felt it was my style. He deserves and will always be worthy of praise, love, and celebrating. He is our son and we are not denying that of him. We love him to end of the earth. He's far more important to me than anything we could ever purchase or earn. I can't really see the what ifs in this situation either, because we've always been more private (oh, except sharing my innermost details on this blog. hah.) and wouldn't likely have had a monstrous party for his first birthday anyway. But one thing is certain: there would've definitely been CAKE.

We won't be releasing balloons because it's not our thing. But we will be celebrating. If you're interested in celebrating our son's life, we invite you to celebrate with dessert. Our children will most certainly never be deprived of the sweet things in life-- as we are two adults who fully enjoy the indulgence. The best things in life? We're convinced dessert is among them. That, and our children.

On December 5, we will be enjoying an evening out to dinner in celebration of Andrew's life on what would be his first birthday. This will likely be a tradition. After dinner, we will absolutely be celebrating with dessert! We're not sure what kind just yet, but it will be good. So, if you're in, light a candle for our Andrew and enjoy some dessert in honor of him on his special day.

Also, a fellow BLM blogger friend celebrated her daughter's first year anniversary by encouraging others to engage in random acts of kindness on her daughter's behalf. If you would like to participate in that way, we'd be honored. Helping someone to their car, treating someone to lunch... whatever you want it to be in honor of Andrew's life. I'm not requiring that anyone do both, or either. Just inviting you in the celebration if you're interested.

His official birthday: December 5, 2010 at 9:04 p.m.

In this grief journey, I'm learning that those who have not experienced such great loss simply do not know how to react-- whether in everyday life, just after loss occurs, or one year out. No one has given them the green light that it's okay to remember our children. As Andrew's mom, I feel like it's my duty to keep his memory alive and encourage others to feel comfortable enough to celebrate the life of a child they've never met, seen, or held. Losing our son has made us sad, but having him has made us abundantly grateful. Your celebrations in his honor are always welcome--and while I may cry-- it's mostly because someone cared enough to make an effort to remember him. I don't expect you to always remember his birthday (though I do mention his birthday like every 5 minutes on this blog), but this year I'm inviting you to.

It would be really special to keep all celebrations on that specific day, but the time is less important and much harder to coordinate, I realize! If you shoot a photo of your dessert/candle or your random act of kindness, I'd love to share on the blog... so feel free to email that to me.

It's so completely out of character for me to ask things of people that might require time/money, but this is my son and I'm willing to give it all I've got to make sure his first birthday anniversary is felt in the heavens. We love you, little buddy. To the moon.

I Have a Dream...

Actually, I had one last night. It involved something that looked a bit like this:

 {via}

Cupcake. With. Sprinkles.

Don't you just want to stuff your face into that chocolate heaven? Not all cupcakes are delicious, but the one above, I imagine, is some serious yumness.

Chocolate Cake Nightmares

So you all know that I gave up chocolate (and all sweets) until June 1st. It's been 21 days.

Not for lent. Not really for losing weight. Mostly because I wanted to see if I could do it. I like challenges. I read a blog of a woman who tried this challenge because she felt sugar gave her headaches and wanted to see if omitting sweets from her diet would curb the issue. I thought about how I've never given myself an eating challenge before. I've never really dieted, either. Lucky for me, my parents have some pretty great genes that don't require drastic measures to keep things on the lower end of the scale. It doesn't mean I'm toned, though, so don't go thinking I have some crazy Baywatch body. By a smaller body, I meant just about everything is smaller, even if I wish the ratio wasn't always so even. I also thought this challenge would be good timing because I needed to control something (yes, a flaw), and I didn't want to resort to being an emotional eater. It gave me something to plan, fix, design, control.

Don't get me wrong... I have changed my eating habits in the past, but haven't really forced myself to give anything up before cold turkey (except being pregnant and willfully denying harmful things like Diet Coke-- which was hard, very hard). When I was in college, I remember eating super healthy. I'd workout 1-2 hours a day, eat cottage cheese, a slice of toast, and broccoli for lunch. I had a great body, but my genetics paired with my young age also had a little something to do with things.

But now here we are. Age 28. I'm 21 days in and I am seriously having issues. I don't have issues during the day, but at night, I actually dream have nightmares about chocolate cake and other sweets! Like 3-4 dreams now, no joke. I dream that I broke the challenge and to me, breaking any commitment is a sign of cowardice. I am not a quitter. I'm stubborn as can be (thank goodness, otherwise losing Andrew would have sent me into celibacy) and refuse a life of passiveness and defeat. So this chocolate cake in my subconscious needs to get the heck out!

During the day, however, I'm great. Let me paint the picture of our kitchen pantry for you all (you hoped for a photo? Not. a. chance!):
top rack: oatmeal, dried cherries, cereals, Cheezits (shh), granola bars
2nd rack: boxed meals, pasta, other meal items
3rd rack: canned goods, soups
bottom rack: junk food, sweets, candy, chocolate {basically my husband's nemesis}

I open the pantry for a snack and this is what happens in my brain:
1. Eyes immediately focus on bottom rack. Scans junk food for something enticing.
2. Says, "Crap, I'm doing that stupid challenge."
3. Eyes go back to the top. I find the Cheezits. Grab the Cheezits. Open the Cheezits. Pour some in a bowl (you know, junk food portion control. hahaha).
4. Eat.

The only thing that makes this picture better than say, a year ago, is that I'm not pairing it with a Diet Coke and a piece of chocolate (you know, the salty/sweet combo). And the only thing that makes this picture better than 21 days ago is that I'm not pairing it with that piece of chocolate. Cheezits, solo.

And you know what? Even though I didn't solely take on this challenge to lose baby weight, I did have a few LBs to lose. Particularly in the thigh and buttocks regions. Those babies are slimming down and it's a good thing. Does it make me feel any better about having lost Andrew? Not even a portion of a percent. I thought it would, but it didn't. Does it make me feel pretty dang good about fitting into that pair of holey jeans I promised my husband I'd leave in New Zealand on our honeymoon {but obviously never did} 32 months ago? Abso-freaking-lutely.

Hopefully my subconscious will take on that chocolate cake demon in my dreams. What do you think would be a good weapon? Bikini?

Speaking of bikini... I was flipping channels and saw a quote from Kim Kardashian pop up on one of those Hollywood gossip shows. Aside from my complete confusion as to why these girls are rich from doing nothing, I had to post her pearl of wisdom related to eating right. I can't quote it perfectly, but something like, "Whenever I think about eating bad (using correct grammar would be too much for her IMO), I think, bikini, bikini, bikini!"

What a gem she is. And what priorities she has in life. Makes a momma proud, doesn't it?