I spent a small fortune at Barnes and Noble in preparation, mostly with payoff.
But when the event is held at the home of the iPad designer, you're bound to have a few iPads floating around. In this case, three -- enough to keep all 3 kids mesmerized all evening (books notwithstanding). And what luck, the iPad designer himself (one of my oldest and best friends) spent quite some time showing Katrina how to play Angry Birds.
This annual "Orphan's" Thanksgiving is a potluck, so I brought numerous items, including a wonderful "Brown Butter Apple Tart." I took this photo just to show my Mom how much I love my new tart dish! Such a simple item, but something you really miss if you don't have one and are inclined to make tarts.
However, to my surprise, the most popular item I brought was an apparently nondescript Parsnips Puree -- also Mom-inspired. I got far more comments on that than anything else I've ever made, this year and others, including from one our longtime friends who's a professional baker and an extraordinary cook. He's from Brazil and somehow didn't know despite many years in the USA that parsnips exist! Luckily I had a sous-chef for this dish: Julian peeled the parsnips and did such a thorough job I had to look them over to make sure I wasn't looking at unpeeled ones! The Leeks Gratin I brought were also a hit.
The day after Thanksgiving, today, we didn't do much -- I've been feeling super-low-energy these past few days for some reason. The most significant thing we did was pull out our snow clothes and try them all on to see who'd outgrown what. Now I know it's time for a hand-me-down rotation -- Gabriel can live with last year's jacket but ideally he gets a new one, Julian gets Gabriel's last-year's jacket, and even Katrina could do OK with Julian's last-year's jacket. I'm never sure about these things -- it can seem so obviously OK in your living room, then so obviously not-OK the second you get on the ski lift and realize "dang those pants are WAY too short!"
Katrina insisted on spending the rest of the day wearing her snow clothes, including a trip to the supermarket in her snow bibs and boots! She spent all afternoon talking through pretend snowball fights, playing with her goggles and mittens and talking nonstop about snow. Gabriel said he wished we lived in Truckee. I half-agree, though reality is that our jobs and lives are here at sea level. I don't want to move to Truckee (?? boy that was a tough sentence to type!!), but the pull to spend significant time at altitude this winter is strong. We're all VERRRY ready for snow!!
11/25/11
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