Saturday, May 29, 2010

28 Years? or 20 Years and 11 Months?

Happy Anniversary, Mensa Boy! 28 years ago we got married at 11 o'clock in the morning. It was about this time that one of our groomsmen said that he thought WE were picking up his tux! What a fun day we had.

Every year I ask MB this question "So. It's been 'x' years. How many years does it feel like?" And he always answers the question with a number that is smaller than the actual (some could say he's sucking up!). This morning his answer was "A little less than 21 years."

It seems like that to me, too.

And now we are off for a quick trip to the beach. I can hear him filling the cooler with ice, and he's done most of our packing. Neither of us, when we moved into that roach-infested apartment in Eagan, Minnesota, ever would have dreamed that we would someday be living in sunny South Carolina, heading to the beach for our anniversary.

Love you, Bob.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Supper: Vegetables in Garlic Sauce

From China East, the only Chinese restaurant whose food I will allow the guys to pick up. After Taylor and I spent the afternoon on the football field in the 90 degree heat waiting for the Class of 2010 to GET A CLUE (!) we were not interested in any sort of supper-making.

We are both a little scorched tonight. I have sunburned the tops of my feet. Since Commencement will be outside tomorrow, who knows what we'll eat for supper?

Stay tuned.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Suppertime: Trail Mix


TrailMix
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
oh. I'm sorry. Did yesterday's post lead you think I was actually going to COOK supper and photograph it every night? Ain't gonna happen. Most nights, yes. But on nights when I go to yoga usually I just eat leftovers or a sandwich or, in this case, trail mix.

I make this mixture up with a bag of Harris Teeter unsalted dried fruit and nut mix, some roasted salted almonds, and then whatever other dried fruits I have on hand. I make a quart or so of it and we eat out of that all week. Tonight I'm having about 1/2 cup of it with a nice glass of late harvest Piesporter Riesling.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Suppertime: Penne with Chickpeas, Feta and Tomatoes


PenneTomatoesFeta
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
I made this recipe from the March 2010 issue of Cooking Light. This is my own photo, though.
The recipe took only about 20 minutes to put together. We had a side of fresh green beans with it to round out a pleasant, vegetarian meal.
I have to say, though, that I should have simmered the chickpeas a little before using them. Canned chickpeas always seem a little too al dente and I've never really done anything about that. I don't know why. I think it's a paradigm I need to shift. I've just always used beans as they are out of the can, figuring they are cooked just right. But the other day I made another meal from a recipe on my new favorite food blog, Herbivoracious, and he also commented on chickpeas being too firm. He suggested simmering them a little before using them. I was much happier with the result. Incidentally, I'll do that recipe again and post it. It was delicious!
This post is the beginning of what I plan to be a daily supper photo. We'll see how long I keep that up. My plan is to shoot whatever my evening meal is each night. I'll give the recipe (or in this case link to the one I used), tell how long to make it, and mention anything else I think you might want to know.

Monday, May 24, 2010

ILHS Class of 2010

Here they are. Well, I'm quite sure this isn't all 144 of them. But here is the Indian Land High School Class of 2010. Many thanks to photog Tim Champion for doing the post processing. He took a photo I thought was a lost cause, put a background on it, and recolored a hideous yellow shirt blue.

This class was much less cooperative than '09. It was seriously like herding cats. And because they are such a rowdy bunch, I kept getting administrators in the way because they were standing too close to the group, trying to mitigate any disturbances that might occur.

So this bunch graduates Friday, May 28. That's five days from now. A lot will happen to me between now and then. I'm cleaning out their files so I can give them a lot of papers to keep, working up grades and transcripts for everybody, shuffling and re-shuffling diplomas. Just a lot of stuff.

In other news: Mensa Boy had a good conversation with an organization that fights human trafficking. They are interested in having him serve on their board of directors. He's pretty excited about that. It's a way he can be involved in this issue without changing jobs or having us move anywhere. Nate has been accepted to Winthrop University for the fall. It'll be sad for him to leave Erskine, but Winthrop is a much larger school with more opportunities. It's also a public university, so the cost will be considerably less (along with the fact that he can live at home).

Taylor is winding up his freshman year and did really well with his Algebra EOC. 91! We were very pleased. And Riley called home last weekend and talked for quite some time about his first week at Basic Training. He was mainly bored, but I'm sure by now the Army has solved that problem for him. For several days he was just waiting in lines a lot and not really doing anything else. "Oh, and they are NOT CAREFUL about how they shave your head," he said. "A lot of guys are BLEEDING around here!" Hopefully we'll get his address soon.

We'll make a trip back to Minneapolis at the end of July.