Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

Million Dollar Quartet at the Paramount

We’ve had season tickets to the Paramount Theater in Aurora for a few years now (since the year they had Cats and Les Miserables on the schedule), so I think it’s fairly significant that Cassandra declared Million Dollar Quartet as her favorite so far. It even beat Aladdin, which we saw in Chicago last December.

The Million Dollar Quartet was made up of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, and is set entirely in and around the Sun Records recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, on the one day that the four performers happened to be there. Jerry Lee Lewis was the new face in the studio, the hotshot kid who was (in the musical, at least) impressed by the indoor toilet at his hotel and the famous musicians he was meeting. At the same time, he was eager to declare that his would be the next gold record on the wall. Elvis Presley was searching for happiness at a studio that didn’t understand him, and the other two were hoping for their next big hits.

Imagine, if you can, the amount of talent that was gathered at Sun Studio on December 4, 1956. Then imagine what kind of talent you need to reproduce that sixty years later, including capturing the era in the set design.

The Paramount nailed it.

This show is definitely worth seeing. It’s probably worth seeing again, though I suspect my opportunities to do that – at least during this run – will conflict with my karate schedule.

Time for the Brookfield ZooRunRun!

Or as I prefer to call it, the ZooWalkWalk. That’s what I usually do at Brookfield Zoo’s annual 5k, though this year included a little sprinting as well. Several years ago, we happened to arrive at the zoo as their ZooRunRun was finishing, which is how it came to my attention. By the time it rolled around again, we were already learning karate and hustling up the Hancock once a year; walking a few miles on a fall morning seemed like a nice addition. Consistently scheduled for early September, the zoo has a knack for perfect weather for the event.

The runners start first, split into groups by their expected mile time (self-assessed), followed by the walkers. Everybody is timed automatically based on the bibs, and you can scan the QR code on your bib to retrieve your time. Alternately, you can queue up for the lone laptop (there used to be more) and enter your bib number. In addition to the traditional water and banana handouts, there were two different samples this year to help with recovery – BarkThins and Kind bars.

As a walker, I slowed down occasionally to watch animals that usually rest in the heat of day – both the warthogs and wallabies were unusually active this time. After the race, the wallabies had already settled into their normal lounging by the time we walked by again. In fact, one of the biggest benefits I see to the ZooRunRun – other than supporting their conservation efforts – is the opportunity to wander the zoo before it officially opens. The faster you move during your walk or run, the more time you have at the zoo with reduced crowds.

Hardware is a strange name for a restaurant

That was my first thought when a friend asked if I had tried the place I’d been driving past at least once a week for the last year. “It’s a farm-to-table restaurant.” Wait, what? Really? I just thought it was a brewpub, which I don’t go out of my way for since I don’t drink beer. (Yes, I realize brewpubs have other good features.) So I Googled the restaurant and spent a while ogling their menu.

Last week, I had a chance to go with a friend. We opted for a high-top table, right next to their greenhouse. (They grow their own salad greens in the greenhouse, along with hops for their beers, and fruits and nuts in their micro orchard.) Then the waiter introduced himself and said these magic words: “We have 411 whiskies.” I could go every day for a year, have a different whiskey each time, and not make it through the entire list! I won’t go that often, of course, but I did set up a spreadsheet to track which whiskies I’ve tried there. The Templeton Rye from their Happy Hour menu narrowly beat some of their whiskey flight options for the evening.

Greenhouse, whiskey, wood grilled bread, meat & cheese plate at Hardware — The Greenhouse, Templeton Rye, Wood Grilled Bread, and a selection of meats and cheeses at Hardware in North Aurora

Their food was equally impressive, particularly knowing the greens are grown in sight of our table, and some of the meats are cured or prepared there. After our Wood Grilled Bread with hummus, olives, cucumber, feta cheese, and arugula, the waiter brought fresh baked rolls and honey butter to the table. I had almost finished my roll when dinner arrived – homemade ravioli for my companion, and a mixed platter of meat and cheese for me. The roll came in handy between bites of habanero tequila cheese, and my favorite of the meats was the duck bacon.

I did bring half of my platter home, so we didn’t look at the dessert menu while there. I did, however, look it up afterwards, and suspect that I’ll be ordering just an appetizer and dessert next time. And a whiskey, of course. Only 410 left to try.

The Five Doctors, with running commentary

I’m not a bit fan of talking during movies, especially at theaters where it might disturb other people. When you’re already paying someone else to provide a running commentary, it suddenly becomes appropriate.

I somehow missed the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) Kickstarter back in 2015, which brought the show back with 14 new episodes. Having grown up^* on Doctor Who, I was excited to learn about a RiffTrax Live event for “The Five Doctors,” a 1983 special that brought together the first five regenerations and some of his companions. Without commentary, “The Five Doctors” is the epitome of classic Doctor Who – campy effects, BBC set budget, interesting costume choices (“Snuffleupagus pelt”), and some fairly obvious plot twists.

With commentary, you can still enjoy all those things – though some of the original dialogue becomes lost – and appreciate mocking yet another timeless classic. (It also allows you to appreciate just how far Doctor Who – and the BBC’s budget – has come.). But first, we were subjected to a British safety video from the era, with commentary, of course. Rest assured that nobody who watched it will play anywhere near power lines, power stations, or a poorly animated owl who lectures an equally animated bird about the danger without making any effort to stop the children who are about to be injured or killed (poor Jimmy!).

Actually, that was second. The usual pre-movie ads and trivia were replaced with comical ones – obvious anagrams that were translated into entirely different, but related, terms (instead of Cars 3, it read Buy More Toys), fake trivia, and other entertainment. Arriving early was a fortunate choice.

The extended episode itself was a barrel of laughs with the MST3K crew clearly enjoying themselves with a live audience. There were a plethora of comments on the fashion choices, particularly on the Gallifreyans’ parts. The rile of Sarah Jane Smith was reprised by Elisabeth Sladen, with a brief appearance by K-9, perplexing viewers by her ability to fall down a minuscule slope and needing a rescue from it. Sarah Jane is far better written in future appearances. Eventually, the Doctors pulled together and saved the day… not exactly a spoiler three decades and several regenerations later.

The real advantage to a live MST3K performance was the timeliness of the jokes, such as comparing the Tower of Rassilon to the current Dark Tower movie. I’m hoping for a DVD or download release, so my daughter will forgive me for seeing it without her.

* It’s a relative term.

Kitchen Tip: Preparing Artichokes

Sometimes I learn a kitchen trick and wonder why I ever did it differently. That’s certainly the case with freezing sliced bagels and toasting them straight from the freezer, and freezing overripe bananas for future baking. I recently learned a different way of preparing artichokes, and can’t imagine I’ll go back to the old way.

Growing up, we ate artichokes occasionally as a special treat, always prepared the same way: top of leaves and stem chopped off, spiky bits of remaining leaves trimmed, then boiled for 25-30 minutes. I had already modified that to steaming in recent years, I rarely boil vegetables anymore – and the stems are left longer to get to the bit of heart in them. (Sometimes I save the stems after cooking to make a single serving of artichoke dip.)

Artichoke preparations — Upper left: unprepared artichoke, steamer, and dish with lemon juice. Upper right: artichoke cut down the center. Bottom left: split artichoke with fuzz removed. Bottom right: cooked artichokes.

When I started grilling this season, I went looking for a grilled artichoke recipe. What I found quickly became my favorite way of preparing them; it eliminates stopping halfway through eating to clean out the fuzzy bits on the heart. After the prep that I’ve always done, I slice each artichoke in half, top to stem, dip each side in lemon juice to reduce browning, then loosen the artichoke fuzz with a knife before scooping it out. It gets another dip in lemon juice, then set in the steamer basket while I prepare the rest.

The artichokes can be eaten steamed, with a dipping sauce – mayonnaise or garlic butter are traditional options – but we’ve settled on grilling them while it’s warm out. I pour a marinade of olive oil, minced garlic, salt, and pepper over the artichokes before placing them sliced side down on the grill for 10 minutes or so. (This will vary based on the type of grill; as mentioned before, the cooking time on a Big Green Egg is shorter.) My grill can easily hold four artichokes. Inconveniently, my steamer only fits two, and that barely if they’re massive ones from Costco, so I steam two batches before grilling.

Taking a trip back in time

“It’s hot, over-priced, and historically inaccurate.”
“But it’s fun.”

I went to my first Renaissance Faire in Ft. Lauderdale during college. We borrowed my Dad’s minivan for the hour drive from Miami, spent a good part of the February day at Faire, then went home and had a pool party. Because you can do that in Miami in February.

When I moved to Chicagoland and discovered there was a nearby Renaissance Faire that lasts two whole months, I was delighted! So delighted, in fact, that I’ve only missed it one year since I moved here; my daughter was born mid-season.

Dirk & Guido, the Swordsmen — Dirk & Guido, Bold & Stupid Men

Cirque du Sewer, during a rat’s performance

Bristol Renaissance Faire has so many choices, you can’t possibly cover it all in one day. I think the perfect day at Bristol includes seeing a classic performance and trying something new. Examples of Bristol classics would be The Mud Show (dirty, yet kid-appropriate), Dirk & Guido, the Swordsmen (Bold & Stupid Men! I have the button that says so), Adam Crack’s Fire Whip show, or even the Joust. (By no means is this a complete list.)

Which shows we see varies on each visit, partially dependent on who we’re wandering the Faire with. Last year, the new act (for us) was The Dread Crew of Oddwood, and oddly entertaining music group that describes itself as “Heavy Mahogany debauchery from Southern California.” This year, as we wandered between lunch and shopping, we encountered a lady with a rat, hawking her Cirque du Sewer show. It was delightfully amusing to see how well the cat and rats have their human trained.

Bast's Garden — Bast’s Garden, a menagerie of winged plush

Twisted Spiders — Beautiful spiders dangling from the ceiling.

And then there’s the shopping. The shopping opportunities are extraordinary, from apparel, jewelry, decorations, books, games, and more! We always visit our friends at Bast’s Garden, which usually results in yet another winged plush coming home with us, and I like stopping at the game store (just in case I need more dice). This year’s new find was Twisted Spiders, a booth dedicated solely to beautiful spider jewelry and adornments.

It’s never a dull day, and if you’re lucky, you get perfect weather too.

Exploring new possibilities

I usually peer in the window, then wander off. It’s safer that way. But I was spotted and invited in, so I took a chance.

It feels like speed dating – is that still a thing? – where you rush in and meet everybody with at most a couple minutes to grasp each personality before moving onto the next. It’s not as structured, it just seems pointless to backtrack if your first impression is that you won’t click. Or that the rest of the household won’t click.

June and Diane — We’re either sleeping or in motion; we will not look at the camera for you.

My girls have fairly aggressive personalities. They’re not outright hostile, simply a handful, and I won’t subject a timid personality to that. I’m also not sure how they’d react if I brought someone new home. We walked out of PetSmart without adopting another cat.

It’s been over two years since we lost our third cat, Mungojerrie, at the ripe old age of 19. Well, our first cat really, since he was the oldest. I adopted him at 10 weeks old, along with his brother, Rumpelteazer. (Yes, they lived up to their names.) We had lost Rumpel to cancer eight years before. At the time, we had a third cat, Missy, who almost became friends with Mungo before she passed away. When we lost her, he was lonely, howling for attention in the middle of the night until we (quickly) conceded and adopted Diane, our beautiful black and white cat.

A few months later, we had a brief, and tragic, interlude with Marianna, a cat who gave the most wonderful hugs, but didn’t absorb salt properly into her system. This caused her to pursue odd food sources, including climbing into a garbage can for some French fries that had been thrown out. She was a strange one.

After losing her, we adopted June, our polydactyl tortoise shell (she’s a Hemingway cat… an extra toe on each front paw). She was a young mother, being adopted out at the same time as her “kittens” (they were as large as her already, and she’s not particularly small), and she rounded out the family perfectly.

This was the first time since we Mungo passed away that I’ve stepped into the room to meet the adoptable cats. I’m not sure we need a third cat, or that we’re ready for one, but there was a cute Siamese I wanted to meet. As it turns out, he was sweet, but too shy for this house. Maybe next time.

Birthday Party Planning

There isn’t one right way to plan a kid’s birthday party; every child is different, so every party should be too. Every party planner is different too. I like having a theme to plan towards, and luckily, my daughter is willing to work with that. Some years, deciding on the theme is a chore in itself, though her eleventh birthday was super easy to pick – that had to be Harry Potter themed. (I suspect her 111th birthday will have a Lord of the Rings theme, though I also suspect I won’t be available to celebrate it.)

The hardest part about making these dragon handouts was finding the large eggs.

Some themes only affect the party favors, such as the year we handed out crocheted dragons. The rabbit theme impacted the food too, I served carrot cake, along with the traditional banana bread mini-donuts that I’m required to make for every birthday party. Carrot cake happens to be my favorite cake, so I had actually suggested it for a couple years before the theme finally

This dementor made the mistake of showing up at a wizard party with a Hawaiian theme.

Harry Potter had the most elaborate planning, with a home-made dementor piñata, a castle cake pan, and a lathe where kids could customize their own wooden wands during the party. There was even a golden snitch being hidden repeatedly; each time it was found, the house was awarded points, and it was hidden again. The planning started more than a year in advance, with bits and pieces coming together as we added the Hawaiian aspect (for a summer birthday) and came up with the different activities.

I don’t think you need many organized activities at a party – once they have an idea or two, kids will generally keep themselves entertained. And the adults can relax while they do that (except, of course, if you’re the adult supervising the lathe).

This year’s theme took a while to pick, we finally settled on a party at Brookfield Zoo, which is one of the two large zoos in the Chicagoland area. There are playgrounds for the younger kids, educational information for the bigger ones, and an awesome selection of animals for everybody to see.

I made good use of our zoo membership, visiting multiple times earlier in the summer so I could gather clues for a scavenger hunt. I took tons of photos of educations signs that I normally wouldn’t have, just so I could review the information at home while planning the hunt. Cassandra suggested having a word scramble from the answers, so I went with that idea. I briefly considered giving more clues than letters needed for the word scramble, then decided not to be that mean… this time.

As a bonus, I printed up Brookfield Zoo Bingo cards, so the teams worked together on the scavenger hunt and separately on their Bingo cards. The one downside we hit was the time limit – I told people to be back at our picnic area in an hour. Some of the Bingo cards were fairly thoroughly marked off, but in that time, only one person finished more than half the hunt; I included clues from opposite sides of the zoo. This one really takes two hours… try it, if you’d like. Brookfield Zoo Scavenger Hunt (Answers available on request.)

It’s grilling season!

Many years ago, on this day, my father was born. It seems appropriate to celebrate with this topic, since he taught me how to cook on a grill. I can’t make it to his birthday party, hopefully someone at the house is lighting up the grill to make something delicious for him.

My Big Green Egg (with a side of weeds) and other people’s backyards.

I’m always excited when grilling season arrives, though I don’t grill nearly as much as I think I should. Growing up in Miami, grilling season was year round, and I continued that tradition at my old house, where my grill was on a covered patio. Calling it a “grill” is almost insulting, my outdoor cooking is done in a Big Green Egg, which is a ceramic smoke oven. In addition to having a fun name, it cooks faster than a regular grill and retains more moisture in the food. It’s similar to cooking in an oven, with the added flavors that come from cooking over charcoal.

Delicious grilled salmon — Grilled salmon. Yes, it was as good as it looks.

I finally fired up the grill for the first time this season because of a grilled salmon recipe I found in a magazine. I don’t eat fish often, much less when it’s cooked; I prefer it in sushi. But the recipe sounded good, calling for garlic and fresh herbs. I’m a sucker for garlic, and was able to harvest fresh chives and cilantro to add it. When it’s warm, I’d rather not overheat the house by baking, so I took my cooking outside.

Once I’ve started grilling for the season and have a taste for it, I’m more likely to fire it up any given weekend. I realize it’s more work than a gas grill, but I think it’s worth the extra effort. This weekend’s grilling plan is a lime cilantro flank steak (pre-seasoned, not using my cilantro this time), garlic artichokes, and a jalapeño with peanut butter (to see how it compares to the baked version). Just thinking about it is making my mouth water. (If I touch my eyes after cutting the jalapeño, they’ll be watering too. I’ll try to avoid that.)

Happy grilling, and happy birthday, Dad!

And rain will make the flowers grow.

I took photos of the garden last week, thinking I’d be writing about it after Razor Girl, and it wouldn’t hurt to get ahead. We then had a warm, wet week… everything with full sun grew at least at least six inches in that time… including the weeds. (OK, I may be exaggerating… but not by much.)

Star bed, early July 2017, growing mint, sunflowers, chives, cilantro, basil, and hopefully dill — Growing mint, sunflowers, chives, cilantro, basil, and hopefully dill

Star bed, late July 2017, showing mint, catnip, sunflowers, and chives — 12 days later, from the other side… chives, mint, catnip, and the open sunflowers.

When we moved in last year, before moving any furniture in, we set up raised garden beds in the back for some vegetables. About a month later, we added a bed to the front, specifically selected a decorative pattern (a star) rather than a plain rectangle… curb appeal and all that. The star (and grass around it) was overrun last year by two tromboncino squash plants, with chives and mint somehow peeking through. (Most herbs are actually weeds, so this isn’t hard to believe.) This year, the star is a full-fledged flower and herb garden, with a different herb planted in each of the five points, and sunflowers sprouting tall above the other plants in the center.

Keyhole bed, early July 2017, growing cauliflower, eggplant, tomatoes and peas — Growing cauliflower, eggplant, tomatoes and peas

The back garden did nicely last year, particularly my okra plants, but I felt I needed more planting space. And less grass to mow. I assembled a keyhole raised bed from Costco in the back, significantly closer to the house. This set is a first for me on several counts: assembled on my own, tall (almost two feet), and with a built-in composter. I’m enjoying the ease of reaching my plants, though it’s disconcerting to have to weed the open composter as well as the growing area. I planned my layout with the taller vegetables – corn and okra – in the low beds, saving this bed for somewhat shorter plants. At the rate they’re growing, I may end up with tomatoes towering over me!

Low beds, early July 2017, growing corn, pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, honeydew, peas, and salad greens — Growing corn, pumpkins, beans, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, honeydew, peas, and salad greens

The low beds are growing slower, being partially shaded by the back neighbor’s white mulberry tree. It still has berries on it, so I can’t trim any branches yet. I can assist with the harvesting though.

Like the keyhole bed, the star has no shade at all, which is perfect for growing sunflowers. Most other flowers in there are random seeds, hoping to attract more pollinators, with a few bulbs like hyacinths for the spring. I expect to add some tulip and daffodil bulbs in the fall. Beyond that, I’m not likely to do much, as my focus is more on the plants I can eat.

I have a long term goal of reducing the amount of grass in the yard. There will always be some – I like walking barefoot in it – but it shouldn’t be the main feature of my yard. I’m three garden beds into that goal already.