HABITAT!

Not realizing that it was the one-year anniversary of my blog, we went to one of my favorite restaurants during the Holidays . . . Habitat at the Fairmont Pittsburgh. When mom made the reservation for our dinner, she requested a table with a view of Habitat's open kitchen and let the restaurant know that I was interested in watching the action of the chefs. While the Maitre d' was not sure that they would actually have a table with a view, it turned out that we ended up with front row seats. Just after we sat down, Sous Chef Agustin Oliva visited our table and said that he heard that I liked food. He asked if we would like a tour of the kitchen and very surprised and excited I said, "Yes!"

While we couldn't go up front where the chefs were working, we were able to all have a tour of the HUGE kitchen behind. We saw big walk-in coolers full of vegetables, an entire cabinet of cooked lobsters, a smoker for salmon, and three HUGE pots for making soup (for like 200 people each)! There was a butchering cooler that freaked me out a little (I wouldn't go in) and a giant kind of chilling machine that could cool an entire pot of soup down REALLY fast. We saw coolers full of dishes prepped for Christmas Eve brunch and dinner and saw how a hotel prepares for room service. It was an amazing beginning to a truly wonderful meal.

A picture of Chef Oliva and me after the tour.

Because our dinner was after an exciting excursion to see Santa, we were hungry and so began with a few appetizers and a salad. Habitat has a tandoor oven where they make their own naan bread that is soooooooo good. My dad told me that they flatten the dough and throw it onto the side wall of the oven to cook and then we saw the chefs do this. The naan was served with house-made apple chutney, raita, and hummus. We saw the beet salad being prepared in the kitchen and ordered that as well - it was amazing! Roasted beets with curly endive and River View Dairy goat cheese and a light drizzle of local wildflower honey with a sprinkling of coriander on top. We liked it so much! We were already planning to have beets with our Christmas dinner and talking about the beets with the chef, he gave mom the recipe and she made her own version. Hers was good but - sorry mom - not as good as Habitat's.

Naan, fresh from . . .


. . . the tandoor (as my dad likes to say).
The walls look kind of like fire bricks for a kiln, or like our cob oven at school.

This is the amazing beet salad before we gobbled it up!

The chef also sent us some ricotta gnocchi with braised oxtail to try. Because the gnocchi was filled with ricotta instead of potatoes, it was so much lighter than usual. Sometimes gnocchi - a kind of pasta filled with potatoes - can load you up fast. The oxtail was really flavorful, though my parents liked it more than I did, it was a little too . . . meaty tasting for me.

Because I knew I would fill up fast (and wanted to save room for dessert), I ordered the chicken noodle soup, which I'd had there before for lunch one time. It was perfect! Warm broth, chunks of chicken, delicious noodles and carrots - warm and comforting for a winter holiday evening, especially with Habitat's delicious hot chocolate, which I love. The chef also sent over the Crab Mac and Cheese in a cool little Le Creuset kind of pot with a lid for me to try. I liked it okay but was getting too full already to taste very much. My dad had it for lunch on Christmas Eve and said it was terrific - he's a big Mac and Cheese fan too.

My parents both ordered fish and loved their dinners. My dad ordered the pan-seared Lake Erie walleye - he always likes to order something that he probably can't make at home (how would he get fish from Lake Erie?). My mom ordered the pan-roasted Laurel Hill golden trout (she'll order anything that has capers and brown butter). She was "over the moon" with her fish and almost wouldn't offer dad a taste. He liked the walleye but thought mom's was more flavorful. Next time, we all want to try the mushroom tart - it looked fabulous!

Next up . . . the desserts:

I ordered the Raspberry Sorbet, which was topped with a fan that was a wafer cookie. It may have seemed like the least fancy of the desserts but it suited me just fine because I love raspberries (we are growing them in our backyard) and Habitat knows how to make even a bowl of ice cream fan-cy.


My mom is a big gingerbread fan and ordered Habiat's Warm Gingerbread for dessert that had a hot brandy sauce, some warm apple chunks, and was served with lemon ice cream. She thought the dessert was perfect and didn't want to spoil hers by trying anyone elses (but she did try). She thought that the lemon ice cream was the perfect balance with the different kinds of sweets and spice of the gingerbread.

Dad ordered a dessert called Apple A Day because A) he loves apple anything, and B) because it was made with apples from Kistaco Farms and we know Tim Kistaco who grows the apples because he sells his apples at our farmer's market! That is another thing about Habitat that is really cool, they try to use as many fresh, local, and organic ingredients that they can manage (even in a Pittsburgh winter when there isn't much growing). It is awesome to go to a restaurant and have a dessert made with apples purchased from an apple grower that you also buy apples from at the farmer's market . . . makes everything seem really friendly, really close. It is cool, and important, to know your farmers and to know where your food comes from too, that is what I love about going to the farmer's market every Saturday morning.

The Apple A Day had Kistaco Farm apples, sour cream pound cake, caramel apples, crisp streusel, Gala apple chips, and Kistaco Farms apple cider sorbet. I think dad ordered it without the streusel. (We drink a 1/2 gallon of Kistaco apple cider every week, anything with that cider in it is good.)


The chef ALSO brought over their Chocolate Oreo Tart for us to try. Oh my gosh, we were about to explode but each managed to have a little bite. The green part was minty and the chocolate was really light. I especially liked all the little nibs on the bottom.

In seeing the restaurant reviews each week in the paper, and knowing how important service is to my mom, since she worked in restaurants for awhile through school, it seems important to talk about other things I like about Habitat too. I was glad to see that Raj was still working there. He was the waiter last year that helped us turn a slow start into a really good dinner experience. Nathaniel was our waiter this time and whenever we had a question, he knew the answer. He seemed really comfortable, even when a really big party of guests came in toward the end of our dinner.

I also like the vibe of Habitat: the dishes (the square plates, cool mugs, and glasses), the sea glass candle on the table (my mom says it is Riverside Design, a local glass company), the lamps in the dining room, and the Andy Warhol prints (yes, I do know who he is, my parents are artists and I live in Pittsburgh after all). I especially like the dining room that has the view of the open kitchen - the two other dining areas are nice but this one has all the action. As we were sitting for awhile after dessert we got to watch the kitchen take on two really big orders (maybe 16-20 plates each) and it was very much like a show, watching the different chefs buzz around, mixing salads, plating dinners, all of the attention to detail that makes this such a special restaurant. From our table it was a real treat to get to see it all.

And . . . everyone is soooooo nice too! From the house manager to the Maitre d', from Nathaniel to Chef Oliva, and it wasn't just because they knew I liked food - it has been that way EVERY time we've been to Habitat. With such nice people and such great food, it kind of feels like home, but mom and dad get a rest, and we get to try great food from one of my favorite restaurants.

Thank you Habitat for a wonderful dinner out during the Holidays!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Chef Oliva plating the Halibut.

Coming soon . . . our lunch at Marian's . . . !

The Muffin Girls (plus)!

I realize I'm about to have my one year anniversary for this blog but haven't posted in 3 1/2 months, so better get busy! There is way too much to ever catch up on since the last post so I thought we'd start with the most recent events . . . THE MUFFIN GIRLS!

Mom and I baked 60 muffins on Thursday night for the 3rd grade muffin sale to raise money for our spring farm trip - each family takes a week to bake muffins. We made 1 dozen gluten and dairy free banana muffins and then 4 dozen regular banana muffins, using our friend Ann's famous banana bread recipe (thanks Ann!).


We weren't sure exactly how many ripe bananas we would need, so after piano lesson we picked up a few more. After making the first 3 batches we started to get nervous if we'd have enough to finish our muffins. One of my main jobs was mashing the bananas. For our first two regular recipe batches, we had to use 6 bananas to get 2 mashed cups. For our second two regular batches we only had 4 bananas left and they were pretty small - this is what made us worried . . . ! After I mashed those 4 smaller bananas I was surprised that we had a little more than 2 mashed cups and I realized it was like . . . THE CHANUKAH MIRACLE!



A few more things from this past fall. My Grandpa Mickey and Ms. Wendy came to our house for Thanksgiving. On Friday after, we went downtown to ice skate . . .



and see some of the Christmas displays. This creche is the only one modeled after the one at the Vatican and is the largest one in the United States.

We had lunch at Habitat, where this blog started, and dinner at DISH, which I've already written about as one of my favorite restaurants in Pittsburgh. At DISH, I had the Gnocchi with Wild Boar for dinner and I've never had anything like that before. I have to say that it was SOOOOO good (and Daddy agreed by eating my leftovers the next day for lunch). We're headed back to Habitat over the holidays and really like sitting where we can see the kitchens best. (And we'll also go back to DISH soon too because our friends just gave us some gift certificates - THANK YOU Marian and Jim!)

Back in October I helped Mom bake her famous carrot birthday cake (her favorite baking ordeal of the year) . . .


and then delivered with birthday song and fork at the ready!


Make a wish Mom!


You can see that there are pieces already taken out of the cake because after two days of working each night to make this cake, Mom decided she wanted to have her cake for her birthday breakfast - let's just EAT IT!

Notes from New Hampshire

I love vacation!

It has been a long time since any posts from me and there is so much to catch up on. First, since it is most recent, I want to talk about New Hampshire. We returned last week from an amazing 10 days on Squam Lake in Holderness, NH. The picture above is from Rattlesnake, a hike we like to do that gives us a great view of Squam Lake and, through the binoculars, Camp Arcadie.

There are three NH food highlights that I want to share and the first is the person who makes the most amazing blueberry waffles on the planet . . . my Gampa! (This picture shows me and Gampa having a great conversation out on the dock before dinner. If you can find the rocks on the mountain right above my head . . . that is Rattlesnake, where I was standing in the first picture!)


Gampa's waffles are perfectly crisped on the outside and still soft inside. They aren't too sweet, and they have just the right balance of blueberries to enjoy the fruit flavor without being soggy and overdone, or purple. The recipe he has tested for years is made even better, once cooked, with a bit of butter on top (some people like more than I do) and the best maple syrup, made almost next door in NH at Burleigh Farms - this is REAL maple syrup from maple trees, not maple-flavored high-fructose corn syrup made from an ear of sweet corn from Iowa.

Gampa's tools are also part of the secret to his blue ribbon waffles and these tools are his waffle iron and timer. While most waffles have large-holes, called Belgian waffles, Gampa's waffle iron has small holes, which helps keep the waffles crisp because they are not as fat as the Belgian ones - this also helps with holding the butter and syrup in just the right amount when they're done too. The waffle iron's timer - beep beep beep beep beep - let's Gampa know when the iron is hot enough to pour on another batch; his own kitchen timer (I think it is set for four minutes) let's him know when the waffles are actually ready (he doesn't trust the waffle iron timer for this).

Everyone in the family tries to match his recipe and timing, even searching out the proper waffle iron, which is hard to find and extra expensive because it isn't as popular as the Belgian waffle irons - no one's waffles so far, that I've tried, even come close. Daddy has promised to give it another go over Labor Day weekend. Even if they aren't as good as Gampa's, it is worth the try, and I'm sure they'll still be "Dee-lish!"

On a day trip to Portsmouth to visit this cool town, have a day at the beach, and a lobster dinner (for my parents), I began my NH clam chowder tour. I'll rank them first:

1. Old Ferry Landing in Portsmouth, NH has the best
2. Squam Lake Inn in Holderness, NH was second best
   
3. Ray's Seafood Restaurant in Rye, NH was third
   

We started with lunch at the Old Ferry Landing in Portsmouth overlooking the harbor. This is our second year to eat lunch there, sitting out on the deck and watching the boat traffic, the drawbridge that goes up to let the big boats through, and to see Maine on the other side. This year Auntie Holly and my cousin Karla came with us. This chowder that I liked the best was the most thin without being runny, had paprika sprinkles on top that turned it kind of pink-ish, and because the flavor was the most like ocean - like when you first arrive at the coast and the smell is so strong you can taste it too - salty-ish, fishy-ish, yummy . . . Dee-lish.

View from our patio table at the Old Ferry Landing - the drawbridge is in the up position and the red boat with big antennas is about to go under.

We were down at the beach in Rye, NH at the end of our beach day and had dinner at Ray's, where we've been many times before. Mom and Dad like to get lobsters there for dinner and I really don't like breaking them apart and seeing their little eyes - it freaks me out. So I ordered clam chowder once again and it was good, but not as good, really it was only so-so in my book, though Auntie Holly liked it better. What I didn't like as much was that it was too thick for my taste and was just too creamy tasting - where's the ocean? Even though I could see the ocean there was no ocean flavor.

Back at the lake a few days later, we all had lunch at the Squam Lake Inn in Holderness. Last year, my Auntie and Uncle had a really nice anniversary party at the Inn and it is really a great place (they have great homemade cookies and homemade ice cream sandwiches with those cookies too). For lunch that day I had a half turkey sandwich and bowl of clam chowder. It was a bit thicker and creamier than Old Ferry Landing with nice big chunks of potatoes and clams. The only thing that puts it second on the list is that it didn't remind me so much of the ocean. More ocean taste than Ray's but not enough to match the deliciousness of my favorite at the Old Ferry Landing.



These are my two cousins who live in California. The top picture is Purna - she was my roommate last year - and the bottom is with Emerson, we are sharing the wind board that we turned into a stand up paddle board. It was great to see them! If we weren't swimming, paddling, hiking, or singing, we might have been dreaming about Campground Ice Cream. Although that isn't really the name, just the name we all call it, they have the very best Peppermint Stick ice cream, in fact the only Peppermint Stick ice cream, that I've ever had! It is a really pretty pink color and this year, cousin Karla had the great idea to put hot fudge on top!

My FAVORITE ice cream of the whole NH trip this year though was at Annabelle's Ice Cream in Portsmouth. After our lunch at the Old Ferry Landing, we walked on this really cool street and in Annabelle's I had the very best chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream - EVER. Really! The chunks of dough seemed like they were about to make real cookies, the dough was so fresh and soft (in a good way). They had nice BIG chunks too, which was my favorite part.

This is a picture of our fire pit on the end of the dock watching the full moon rise over Squam Lake - picture perfect vacation!

Mom here posting for Lila. I'm in Wyoming and she's in Pittsburgh and we've been chatting about "the next post" since before I left. Last post, Lila mentioned wanting to write about all of the wonderful things that happened the last week of school . . . here are the highlights:

• A Tuesday tie dye extravaganza where each child in the grades tie dyed their own Waldorf School shirt.
• An end of the year Fiesta on Wednesday with their Spanish teacher where they broke open the pinata they made and had chips, salsa, and guacamole! Ole!
  
• Thursday was a field trip and picnic - all the children wore their tie dye t-shirts. Then Lila's class went on a hike into the woods with their teacher and were surprised to find that the Gnomes they had spent so much time knitting throughout the spring, had made it to the forest to surprise them! Lila's had climbed a small tree and she had to ask for help to get her down. The children had a kind of watermelon treat tea-party with their Gnomes, children and Gnomes together (can't wait to see and post the photo of this, the knitted gnomes are amazing!).
  
• On Friday they cleaned their classroom and desks and then moved all of their gear to the third grade classroom - Pebbles their turtle will spend the summer with their teacher.

What a wonderful 2nd Grade year!

Lila's last day of school was a half day, followed by an all-school picnic. After the picnic we came home and began working on our first batch of homemade ice cream for the summer, beginning our ice cream experiments with mint chocolate chip in icy blue . . . . It took awhile of churning and the ice cream still needed to freeze up some in the freezer but it was pretty tasty! (We've since made pumpkin ice cream trying to replicate that of Campground Ice Cream in Holderness, NH . . . ours was rich, but still not quite as good, we're sad to report . . . .)


The next week was "Mom Camp" and while we both had so much fun and did so many cool things, turns out we can hardly remember them all . . . . On Wednesday we went to the Mattress Factory to volunteer and help the museum get ready for a big party they had coming up that weekend. We worked together in a team (Andy says, "You can't have (fill in the blank) without T-E-A-M!") to put tags on 300 pair of sunglasses - whew! We celebrated with some lunch at their delicious cafe that has food by M Catering (our neighbor). And get this . . . for dessert, we had gingersnaps with Nutella - WHOA! Try it!

After the Mattress Factory we went to the bike trail on the South Side (our bikes were handy in the truck) and rode the trail from REI to almost where Andy parks downtown. Lila put her brakes on every other mulberry tree and proceeded to gather a good amount of mulberries in her basket. Then she ate them, and then later . . . she didn't feel so well because of eating so many (but the Nutella might have played a roll in this too, I see now).

Lila also worked on some very important clay sculptures, one a replica of Princess Kate and Prince Williams' wedding cake. While we don't, unfortunately, have images of that cake before packaging it up to send to them, I did scan the front and back of the envelope that contained Lila's letter to the Princess, now Duchess . . . (decided to only show back, the front was gorgeous but has just too much personal information to share here).


Since Mom camp, Lila has enjoyed the Science of Sports at the Science Center and last week she had Comics and Cartoons at the Art Museum with the good fortune of having one of her former Waldorf teachers lead the class. They even had an art opening in the museum on Friday! (She's made the museum before me - bah!) Dream House, an architecture camp, is this week after the holiday festivities, and she will end her week with fanfare by celebrating her 9th birthday! Next week she and her dad join me in Wyoming - can't wait!

We always attempt to ease the sadness at parting, when one of us will be gone for a period of time, by taking Polaroid photos - one for each person - so we can have them at home and during travels. Lila mentioned how much she likes this ritual - as I became more and more behind schedule in my leave taking - and you know what . . . I like it too.

Perhaps some Wyoming adventures next? Or some birthday pictures? Stay tuned . . . !

What a day!

There is so much exciting news to catch up on from the last week but I have to start with last Friday, June 3rd. A couple of really exciting things happened that day.

First: it was my mom and dad's 16th anniversary - HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to them!

Second: it was my birthday celebration at school - kids with summer birthdays are invited to celebrate with the class before the school year ends! Mom made a pumpkin molasses cake with cream cheese frosting and baked it in a bundt pan so it was like a giant doughnut that I could share with my friends and my teacher. Mom and dad brought the cake at the end of the school day and we sliced it up - the cake was amazing from my perspective!

Third: when school ended, my mom and dad took me out to the car and handed me tickets for Cirque du Soleil's TOTEM and told me we were all going to see the show right then and there. This was really such a surprise! So many of my friends from school had seen the show and I knew my parents wanted to see it too but mom kept telling me that it was just too expensive and that maybe we could see them next time they were in town. I changed into my dress in the car and we headed for the huge blue and yellow tents down in the Strip district! What a fun way to celebrate an anniversary and a birthday at the same time!

None of us had ever seen Cirque du Soleil before and we LOVED it! The show was STUPENDOUS, FABULOUS, AMAZING, AWESOME, and GREAT! My favorite acts were the Amerindian Hoop Dancer and the Rings (blue, orange, and pink - the girl is especially awesome)! My mom's favorites were the Hoop Dancer and the Russian Bars. My dad's favorites were the Perches and the Russian Bars - and he also liked the variety of "clowns" in the show, especially the Italian one.

Fourth: I knew that mom had made reservations for one of our favorite restaurants that very same night, I just didn't know we'd be seeing Cirque before going. Remember my friend Nico? (I traded him a squishy for the Buddha eraser for my mom for Mother's Day, remember?) Nico's family owns and operates an awesome restaurant on the South Side called DISH OSTERIA. Nico's dad and uncle were there and my parents began the evening with cocktails - dad had a Gin Rickey and mom had a Lavender Lemondrop, funny names for drinks huh? I had pineapple juice. Nico's dad started us off with a crostini with smoked mozzarella, prosciutto, and funghi, which is a Italian word for fungi, which really means mushrooms in this case. The crostini was kind of like a pizza and it was amazingly good - I could have ordered another helping of that for dinner. But . . . I had already ordered some other things.

I began with a really good soup that had cheese tortellini in a house made organic chicken broth with spinach, carrot, celery, and onion. I really liked the soup, it could have used a little more salt for my taste buds and the tortellini was just too filling for me - but that's just me, my parents thought it was the bomb! My parents started with grilled calamari that I almost forgot about because I think they just gobbled it up - all I remember are little white balls.

For dinner, I had marlin carpaccio with rainbow microgreens and HUGE capers. The microgreens were pretty but I wasn't into them (my dad gobbled them up however) and I refused to share my capers! The marlin was unbelievable - I'm a sushi nut, so "unbelievable" is a pretty serious rating.

Mom had swordfish and spinach - she ate the leftovers for lunch the next day and would only give me a small bite. Dad ordered the softshell crab and polenta that was highly recommended by Nico's dad, but he almost ended up with the copper river salmon with asparagus and mashed potatoes. The server - who was fabulous and who my parents have had before - thought dad had ordered the salmon and brought it out for him with our meals. Dad almost grabbed it out of her hands because it looked sooooooo good, but she put in a new order for the soft shell crab before he could grab it. The good thing about all of this is that we got to linger at DISH because our time there just always seems to go way too fast.

And now, for dessert, the highlight of any meal (drum roll please), dad had the famous chocolate bread pudding and I was lucky enough to have the very last slice of mango cake. We knew that Nico's grandma made the chocolate bread pudding that my parents love and say is absolutely amazing - it is served warm with a dollop of whipped cream on the side and a sprig of mint (I didn't taste it)! What we didn't know until later is that she makes ALL of the desserts. I just have to say that the mangoes in the mango cake were unbelievably fresh and you could taste them more than the cake itself. I loved the coconut on the outside of the cake too and my mom and I were like sword fighters with our forks dueling for the next bite. Here's a message for Nico's grandma: YOU TAKE THE CAKE! And to Nico and his family: we LOVE DISH! Thank you for a wonderful meal.

By the way, DISH was once again voted one of Pittsburgh's Top 25 Restaurants in the recent issue of Pittsburgh Magazine - congratulations to a terrific restaurant and family. If you haven't been there, go - but I'll arm wrestle you for the last slice of mango cake!

What a fabulous day I had, I am such a lucky girl!

(PS - I want everyone to know that anything that is written here is absolutely true, from my perspective. For example, I didn't try the chocolate bread pudding - I was too into my mango cake - so it was my parent's opinion that I shared instead of my own.)

I'm out of school now, more to come soon, gotta catch up . . . !

North Carolina Weekend + Some West Virginia Food

We headed down to North Carolina for the L O N G Memorial Day weekend. Mom and Dad picked me up from school on Thursday and we headed to Fayetteville, WV, one of “the coolest small towns in America.” Fayetteville is almost the half way point between Pittsburgh and Cary, NC where my Tita (my name for Auntie) and cousins live, and we stopped there for the night and to have dinner at our favorite Pies and Pints. It is our favorite stopping point because the pizza is soooooo good, Mom and Dad like the beer selection, and the service is always great. I had a small pepperoni pizza and Mom and Dad had the Thai Pie. We sat on the patio for the first time and then almost as soon as we got there, we had to close the plastic curtains on the patio because a thunderstorm came up; the storm left a DOUBLE rainbow!

We headed to Cary the next morning and arrived in a thunderstorm - we didn’t bring it with us, I swear! I got to meet my new cousin Amelia - she is soooooo CUTE! - and I spent the weekend playing with my cousin Pilar, who is 5 ½ years old. We had yummy extra chocolate cake and lasagna at grandma’s on Friday night (she lives in Cary too).

Amelia, my youngest cousin

On Saturday, Mom made her famous coffee cake for breakfast and then we helped open the neighborhood pool for the summer season by swimming and eating their free hot dogs in the sunshine. That night, Grandma babysat while the adults went out to explore Raleigh's brewpubs. On Sunday we headed to Chapel Hill for a picnic at GranTita and John’s house where I got to see my Greatgrandma Nonny. I played an awesome game of badminton and played with Pilar in GranTita’s beautiful garden. I especially liked the shredded BBQ chicken and the homemade vanilla ice cream with brownies. GranTita and I played the piano for everyone.

Pilar and me at the pool

Back at Tita’s house, the girl’s looked through Papa’s treasure box for the first time - it is a cigar box that he had high up on a shelf in his garage that is filled with arrowheads, handmade buttons, old pennies, and little pieces of paper (a receipt, a ticket stub to the Texas Theatre, a tag that says “made in Japan,” and another that says “Don’t Open Till Xmas”).

We left this morning to head back to Pittsburgh and stopped in Fayetteville again, this time to eat at Diogi’s Mexican Grill and Cantina, a dog loving and delicious Mexican restaurant with a Salvadoran flair. I had the chicken enchilada and it was DEEE-LISH, as Daddy would say, and it was the first time I had an enchilada! Oh yeah, the queso was really yummy too!

Now . . . I’ve been promising the triple roasted marshmallow technique and we’ve been waiting out the rain for the opportunity to make them again but since so much time has been passing, I want to be sure you have the recipe for your summer roasting pleasure. (Mom broke her camera lens this weekend, so no pictures until it is fixed.)

Here’s the technique:

• First, it is important to SLOWLY roast the marshmallow. Once it has browned nicely, carefully peel off the browned skin goodness of your marshmallow and eat the browned part - YUM.
• Second, slowly roast what remains on your stick some more until you get the roasted brown skin goodness again . . . carefully peel that off, eat it - YUM once again.
• Third, slowly roast what little remains of the marshmallow, and once it is roasted to perfection, eat the entire thing! YUM for the Third Time! Woohoo! Triple roasted marshmallow perfection, with a dose of patience.

Bon appetit!

Happy Mother's Day!

Daddy and I tricked out Mommy's bike for her for Mother's Day (no pictures yet because it is still in the shop), and I also traded my friend Nico a see-through moose squishie for this Buddha pencil eraser (not quite a squishie). For those of you who don't know, squishies are this year's silly bands. Nico was trading squishies and I happened to see the Buddha on his desk. Remembering that Sunday was Mother's Day, I tried to think of something good to trade knowing that I wanted the Buddha for my mom. So . . . I asked if he would trade my see-through moose for the Buddha and he said, "Okay." SCORE! And Mom LOVED IT!

I know I promised the triple roasted marshmallow recipe (and we may do it still tonight) but it has been raining like crazy in Pittsburgh (the past TWO months) and we haven't had a chance to try since our treehouse camping weekend. Here are my latest clay creations though, I've been really into making clay miniatures for my dolls. These I just wanted to make anyway but also because Mr. Hare is reading Alice in Wonderland to us in class and I've been thinking of the little cakes that Alice eats to get big and also to get small. So here's my version of her cakes - I just gave the carrot cake to our neighbor Benita because she liked it.

This is Daddy's set up for Mother's Day dinner - one of Momma's favorite treats, Sake Steak that they first read about in Saveur Magazine many years ago (before I was born). Daddy's trying it a bit differently today by briefly smoking the filet mingnon steaks with sage and hay from our garden. Next he dredges the steaks in kosher salt, cooks them on the grill for two minutes each side. He washes the salt off by bathing the steaks in sake, cooks them for two minutes each side again. Then he bathes them in a soy sauce bath and cooks them three minutes more on each side. The steaks caramelize on the outside because of the sugar in the sake and the soy sauce, and inside they are de-lec-ta-ble!

Happy Mother's Day Mom! And all other Moms out there. Triple roasted marshmallows to come - pinky swear!