Saturday Night Tradition, Ravioli Edition

A while back, we started a tradition where I cook dinner on Saturday nights to give Connie a break.  Usually I end up cooking some variation of pasta.  For some reason it the only thing I can think of to make.  And the kids usually like it.  Fortunately there are hundreds of variations of pasta to make, so I haven't run out of ideas yet.

For Christmas, I had bought Connie a Ravioli form for making home made Ravioli.  When Sam heard about this, he was so excited.  He loves Ravioli and was ecstatic about the idea that we could make our very own.  So this Sunday, ("Wait!" you may be saying to yourself, "didn't you say that cooked on Saturday nights?"  Well sometimes it works out that it ends up being Sunday nights, but it would have made a really long title to call it the Saturday Night but Sometimes Sunday Night Tradition, Ravioli Edition).  Anyway, so this Sunday, Sam and I decided to make Ravioli completely from scratch.

First, we used the power of the interwebs to find this recipe: http://food.meltingonline.com/sausage-ravioli-with-sage-brown-butter .  Then we set to work.  The first thing up was to make the filling.  Sam had never cooked meat before, so I showed him how to break up sausage at it cooked so that the filling wouldn't have to big of chunks.


Then the recipe called for a shallot.  I didn't know what a shallot was.  So I yelled up to Connie who was upstairs: "What's a shawl-ought?"
"A What?"
"A shawl-ought or maybe it is french a shawl-a? The recipe calls for it"
"I don't know what you are talking about, I'll come look"
Connie came down and looked at the recipe and then laughed.  "It's called a shall-it" she said kindly.  Then she pulled one out from the fridge.  Sam looked at it and declared "We are not putting that in the ravioli, I hate onions."
"It's not an onion, it's a shawl-ought," I said matter of factly.
"It kind of looks like an onion," said Sam.
"Don't worry it is not an onion," I said, "if it was an onion the recipe would have said onion.  Don't worry I am sure it will taste great."
Now one thing you need to know about Sam is that he hates onions.  If even thinks there is a possibility that there are onions in something, he won't eat it.  The thing is, I know that most of the time the thought of onions are far worse to him than him actually eating an onion.  I wasn't sure how different a shallot tasted from an onion, but I was pretty sure if he gave it a try without the preconceived notion that it was going to terrible that he would probably like it.  Fortunately, Sam was convinced that it was not actually an onion and I was able to put the shallot into the filling.

After the making the filling, we moved on to the making the dough for the ravioli.  This is the hardest and most time consuming part. We called in an expert for this part.  Connie showed us how to add just a 1/4 of a teaspoon of water at a time to the dough to get exactly the right consistency.  You want the dough to not be too flaky and falling apart, but if you add too much water, it gets too sticky and will stick the pasta press and your hands and everything else. Once we had the dough the right consistency , We sent the dough through the pasta press half a dozen times until it was perfectly smooth.





Next we used the ravioli form to actually make the raviolli

Then I told Sam it was time to make the sauce.  Once again Sam began to protest.  "I hate sauce.  They put sauce on the Ravioli at school and it is so gross"
"Sam," I said, "This isn't a red sauce, I promise you will like it"
"No I hate sauce, I don't care what kind it is"
"Do you hate bacon?" I said
"No, I love bacon," replied Sam.
"Well this sauce has pancetta, which is like extra good italian bacon".
I continued, "Do you hate butter?"
"No I love butter," replied Sam.
"Well this sauce is basically just pancetta, butter, and sage" I said, "Does that sound gross?"
"I didn't know that could be a sauce," said Sam.
"Yup," I said, "It is awesome sauce" (this was a little joke with a double meaning because I often say something is 'awesome sauce' when it is something is cool).
Sam was convinced that we should put the sauce on the ravioli.

When it was all said and done, it took us about two hours to do it all.  But it was well worth the work, both for the bonding time with Sam and because these Ravioli were in fact awesome sauce.  They were extremely delicious and I would recommend this recipe to anyone.  If you don't have time to make the ravioli yourself I would still recommend buying some at the store and making the butter and pancetta sauce.  buon appetito!

The Park City Point 2 Point

The Park City Point 2 Point is a 78 mile mountain bike race with ~14,000 vertical climbing and 90% single track.  My race didn't turn out as I would have liked, but I figure at least I can get a story out of it.  I want to experiment with different types of writing, so I decided to present this story in the style of a list of facebook updates/tweets/text messages.

• It is 6 in the morning and it raining with tons of lightening and thunder and race is supposed to start in an hour.
• We're at the race start.  There is going to be a meeting around 7 to decide what to do.
• The rain is slowing down, maybe the race will still happen.
• They had a vote and it was voted we would start the race around 8 instead of postponing until another day.  They are going to skip the first 12 mile loop because it is a clay mud bog.
• It is 8:15 and they are starting the race
• After a mile on the road, 350 of us are trying to get onto some single track at the same time. Major traffic jam. 
• Finally onto the single track.  Everyone is riding wheel to wheel.  If someone slips in the mud, you have to react really fast and go around or else a big pile up happens.
• One hour down, only 8-9 to go. Things are going pretty well, I am covered in mud, but the temperature is nice and cool and it is a fun trail.
• Hmmm, my rear shifter is giving me fits.  It is jammed with mud. I can shift into easier gears, but when I try to shift into harder gears, it takes it a minute or two to down shift.
• #@!$%$, cannot shift into harder gears at all now.  I am stuck in the granny gear.  At least I can shift into a harder gear in the front.
• I wish I had a cadence sensor so I could see how fast I am spinning on the flats and downhills. 
• I have been with the same group of people for a while now.  We are at a nice steady pace and it is much less stressful than a short 1-2 hour XC race.
• Dang, just crashed when the guy in front of me stalled on a rock and I tried to go around.  Fortunately, no bike or body injuries.
• Wow, it is sure beautiful out here.  There is a lake in the distance and a mist hanging over all the mountains.
• Man this spinning is killing me, I cannot get any frickin' speed.  It is like those dreams when you are trying to run fast and you don't go anywhere.
• I reached the first pit stop.  I am eating a lot of food.  I tried to get the dirt out of my rear deraiuller so I can shift.  I have 4 hours and 45 minutes to get to the next pit stop.  Hopefully I will be able shift better now.
• Heading up the team big bear climb, sometimes I can shift if I click the shifter and then do a hard pedal kick.  Sometimes not.
• #@$@#%@#$%$@%#$#@%, I was trying to get my chain to shift and my front wheel got on the wrong side of a log and I crashed.  My derailleur is stuck in the spokes.
• Finally go my derauller out, but now my chain keeps falling between the spokes and the rear gears.  I don't know if I bent my rear derailleur or what.
• OK, I figured out if I shift my shifter so it is one below where I really want it will more or less stay on the right gear.
• I am looking at the time and how far I have left and it is going to be a close one.  Time to rip my guts out and go as fast as I can. I am pretty hashed, but if I can just make the cut off to the second pit stop, I can do a death march to the end.
• Man this climb is taking forever, hopefully I can make up time on the downhill.
• Holy $@$%#@$#, this downhill is rocky twisty and slippery, the clock is ticking too fast.
• Finally a bit of faster trail, I think I can still make it. I am burying myself trying to keep a decent pace.
• Hmmm, I turned onto a dirt road, and now I a haven't seen a course marker for a while.  The course has been pretty well marked, so I am probably just being paranoid.
• #%$#@%@#$%^@%, I am in some neighborhood.  This cannot be right.  It has started to hail.
• I'm trying to figure out where I am with the GPS on my phone, but the screen is wet on my hands are muddy and the touch screen is not working.
• #@$!@#$!#@$,!#@$!@#$!#@$!@#$,!#@$^%$&&*#%^%$^#%$^#$%... $%@$#%#$^%#@$%$@#...
• $@#%@#$%@#$%@#$%#@$%...
• @#$%$%....
• @#^%#^%#$%#$^#$%^%$...
• $#@%$. Finally got the GPS working.  I am way off course. #@$!#@. I only have an hour and a half to make  the cut off.  It is going to take me a half hour with a big climb to get back to the course.  And then if I go all out about two hours to ride the next pit stop.  There is no way in @#$% I can make the cut off.
• #!@$@#$. There is no way for me to finish the race. I have decided to ride to the next pit via the road which is only a few miles.  I am so cold and hungry.  This bites.
• I found Connie at the pit stop.  She has brought me lots of food and water and a jacket.  I am done.
• I am consulting with Connie about maybe riding the last 21 mile section of the course.  I wouldn't feel good crossing the finish line knowing I had skipped about 15 miles of the course. But on the other hand maybe I could skip the finish line but at least be able to say I finished a greater percentage of the ride.
• I finally decided I will do the last section even though it will count as a DNF.  I will just go around the finishing line at the end.
• I'm going up a big climb. My legs feel okay.  Not great, but not horrible.  The food and water and rest has revived them a little.
• I have made it about half way up the first climb of the last section.  The rain is starting to pour down.  There is lightening too.
• I just counted the time between the lightening and the thunder.  !#@$, it is only a mile away.  Should I keep going?
• I am sitting here trying to decide what to do.  Even if it wasn't pouring rain, this was going to be a death march.  Now it is going to be a hypothermic death march and a very real physical danger from lightening.  Is it worth it for a DNF?
• I am sliding back down the trail now.  I decided a DNF is not worth it.  I am physically and emotionally exhausted.  I will have to try again some other time.

Mitt Romney Drops Out, Endorses President Obama

In a surprise move,  Today Mitt Romney announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race and would be endorsing Barrack Obama's bid for reelection.
"After a lot of thought, I decided 'You know Obamacare is a lot like Romneycare' and I like a lot of things Obama has done, so why waste any more money on this election and besides being president sounds pretty stressful"

The Hunger Games Movie Review

So, the Hunger Games movie finally came out.  I was a little nervous about going to go see it because I thought they might do a bad job of it as so many movie adaptions of books do.  I tried to set my exceptions really low.

My first worry was that it would focus mainly on the love triangle and that it would just be a variation of the insipid Twilight movies.  As it was, I think they did the love triangle really well.  They showed it, but did not put it center stage.  In fact I really liked how subtly they did it.  They never really show Gale and Katniss as a couple, but more as good friends, but the jealously was clear in the brief moment we see Gale watching the Hunger Games and sees Katniss and Peeta together.  I also liked how they subtly showed that Katniss's affection for Peeta was part real and part show.  I though the brief note from Haymitch "You call that a kiss?" made it clear she needed and was putting on somewhat of an act, but her risking her life for Peeta showed she also cared enough to try to save him.

I was also worried that they might just make it into an action movie, where Katniss was just a totally trashing kicking super hero.  If they had done that, I think it would have been completely contrary to one of the messages of the book, which was a critic on society's glorification of violence and the entertainment value we get from it.  I liked how the movie made the violence disorienting and fast without being overly gory or bloody.  I heard some people complain that it should have been more graphic to truly portray how horrific it was.  I even read one review that said it lacked "moral courage" because it didn't make the violence more explicit.  But I think that if even the very idea of these kids killing each other isn't horrific enough for you, then maybe you have become too desensitized to violence.   I thought Katniss's actions in response to Rue's death were more than adequate to portray the horror of the violence.

Another thing that I thought was interesting regarding the violence of the movie is reading reviews and comments saying the whole premise of the hunger games was unbelievable.  How could any society not only sanction kids killing kids, but also find it entertaining?  Unfortunately, I find it very believable.  I look at how much entertainment people (including myself sometimes) get from watching violent action movies.  Or how many reality tv shows there are that are based on people taking advantage of each other and fighting and backbiting.  I hear about places in Africa where children are being forced to serve as soldiers and were soldiers are told to rape woman and children of other tribes.  I see how as a society we often see people from other countries as the "bad guys" and care a lot more about the death of people from our own country than the death of civilians in other countries.  All these things make me think that a society that sponsored something like the hunger games is totally believable.

Another aspect I liked about the movie was how it told some back stories without taking up much time but with enough detail to help us understand what was going on.  For example, the story of what happened to Katniss's father and what happened in the aftermath of his death was told in a comment made by Katniss to her mom as she was being taken away and then by a short flashback when Katniss was hallucinating.  Also the story of Katniss and Peeta's encounter at the baker was told with few words and a few short scenes.

One final aspect I liked were the supporting actors. I thought Woody Harrelson did an excellent job portraying Haymitch as a man who tried to feign indifference and drank to forget about the horrors of winning the Hunger games, but who ultimately cared about the tributes and wanted to do what he could for them.  I also though Stanley Tucci was great as Caesar Flickerman.  He was the right amount of cheesy showman mixed with the right amount of awkward when troubling subjects came up.  I also liked how the used him to do the play by play to explain things that would have been otherwise hard to explain outside of a book (for example, the description of the tracker jackets).  I also like how they didn't do a lot of exposition about how Katniss's and Peeta attempting to eat the berries was spitting in the face of the Capital and telling it that they could not be forced to lose their humanity and kill each other.

And last and probably least, there were a few things I didn't like.  I thought they did a good job of showing how poor district 12 was, but thought it strange that in the first scenes Katniss has such a nice leather jacket in such pristine condition.  And the first 10 minutes was all shaky-cam and was kind of making me sick.  I didn't mind it later in the action scenes, but the first part seemed like the camera man was just drunk and didn't add anything to the scenes.

So, just in case you can't tell, I thought the Hunger Games movie was very well done.  I think even if I had set my expectations high, I would not have been disappointed.  So go and see it.  Unless you under 17-18.  Then only go see it if you have read the books and have your parents permission and are smart enough to realize that is not cool when kids get slaughtered (some reviews I read reported being in audiences of teens where people were cheering when other tributes died)

We will once again be garnishing one little girls wages

Some of you my recall this story: http://kecoproductions.blogspot.com/2008/09/we-will-be-garnishing-one-little-girls.html.
Well here is kind of a sequel.
So the other day, Connie needs to go somewhere in the van and she goes to look for her keys and can't find them anywhere.  We'd lost our spare key some time ago, so those keys were the only ones we had for the van.  For days we searched and prayed to be able to find those keys.  Gracie would pray especially hard every night that we could find the missing keys.  It was so cute.   Finally we resigned ourselves to getting new keys.  We called the dealer and they wanted some ridiculous amount of money for a new key.  Something like $50 to tow the van to the dealership and $160 for a new key (the keys are expensive because they have some kind of chip thing in them that the car recognizes).  Well we thought this was way too expensive.  So we decided to try a local locksmith who would come to our house and get us a new key for $150.  This key worked out fine and we thought all was well.

So 4-5 days after this, Gracie came upstairs from the basement all excited.  She had found the old keys.  For some reason they were under the slide in our basement.  We figured Jonah must have somehow gotten a hold of them and dropped them there or something like that.  We were a little pertubed, but figured oh well, these things happen.

But then the story continues.  Connie tries to use the old key and the van won't start.  Then she tries to use the new key, and the car won't start.  And we are thinking we are just having bad luck with cars.  So we call our mechanic and have him tow the van to his shop, because we think the electrical system is shorted out or something.  He spends a lot of time try to track it down until finally he figures out the car won't start because somehow when we got the new key the van was reprogrammed to recognize the chip in it, but then when we started using the old key the computer got all confused and ended up not working for either key.  So then we had to ended up having to take the van to the Honda dealer to get the computer reset and get some more new keys and our grand total cost for losing the keys  ends up being $400 (including the $150 from the first new key).  So we grit our teeth and say, GRRR, I guess these things just happen.

But that is not the end of the story.

A day or two later, Gracie confesses to Connie why she was so excited to find the keys, "Mommy, I really wanted to find those keys because the other day when Montie (her cousin) was here, you said he had to go home and I didn't want him to go, so I hid your keys so you couldn't leave.  But then I couldn't remember were I put them".

The funny thing is, I just can't get that mad at her.  She knew she did something wrong and she did her best to fix the situation.  And she was so happy that she was able to right her wrong that it seems like it would send her the wrong message to give her a harsh punishment when she had already done all she could do to fix it.  So I guess in the end, instead of thinking of it as $400 wasted, we can think of it as $400 invested in learning about repentance and making things right.  And we got a fun story out of it too.

Trying to lose my clydesdale status

I have never had some one come up to me and say, "You are big fatty!" or even gently said, "You know, you would probably feel better if you lost a few pounds".  In fact, most of my life, if I had said to someone that I was overweight, they probably would have accused me of having some sort of eating disorder or weight loss fetish.  Even now when I tell people I am over 200 lbs some of them look at me and are like "what?!? no way".  But it is true, I currently weigh about 207 lbs.  According to BMI tables (which really are not that useful) I am overweight.  According to my questionably reliable body fat measuring scale, I have 20% body fat, which puts me on the high end of what is considered healthy.  Now most people, if they were to see me would say, "You are not overweight, you don't even have a gut", but there has been more than one person who hadn't seen me for years who said, "Wow, I didn't recognize you, you are so big".  Now, I like to think these people didn't mean that as an insult, I think they meant it more as "you are not a scrawny little stick anymore".  But even if they did mean it as an insult, and even if the BMI says I am fat, and my scale says my body fat percentage is a little high, I still think I am pretty healthy and don't have any weird weight self esteem issues.

Me as a stick. I have no plans to return to that state

Except for one.

I hate getting my $@%#$ kicked when I ride uphills on a bike.  It drives me crazy.  People who having only biked for a short time will leave me in the dust on a hill.  I remember once when I thought I was in good shape, I was puffing up a long hill and this old white haired man in his street clothes on a granny bike passed me and I was like "What the #%@&#^$?!?!?!?".

So this year I have done something to force myself to change that.  I have signed up for the Park City Point to Point mountain bike race (http://thepcpp.com/).  78 miles of single track with 14,000 feet of vertical gain.  That is freaking 2.5 miles of vertical gain.  If it was on the road it would kill me.  Being on single track, it will completely and utterly obliterate me.  And I don't want to be obliterated.  So since climbing is all about your power-to-weight ratio, I am fixing to lose me a little weight.  Not a lot.  But enough to no longer be in the Clydesdale category (In most races, the Clydesdale category is anyone 200+ lbs).

So here is my crazy weight loss plan:  Quit eating so much.

I still have to work out some of the details.  Like overcoming the fact that I really like eating food and I eat  even when I am not hungry but I just want to taste something good.  And the fact that I don't really know how much food I eat now, because it too much trouble to keep track of it, so I don't really have any way knowing if I am eating less.
So I think how I am going to overcome these obstacles is weigh myself everyday and that that constant reminder will help me have second thoughts about eating when I am not really hungry.  I know that this "plan" probably won't work for most people, but I know myself I and I know if I have a constant reminder of what I want to do, and where I am relative to that goal, I can self flagellate  myself to get it done.
So my weight today is 207.  Tune in soon to see if my willy nilly weight loss plan has been effective.

A Christmas Poem For Our Neighbors

Every Christmas season, as is the custom in our land, we try to give a little gift to all our neighbors.  Most people give cookies or treats of some kind, but we have tried to avoid that because you can only eat some many treats before you get sick of them and have to start throwing them away and then you feel bad you are throwing away your neighbors treats. So we have tried to do different ideas.

One year we we worked with a neighbor and made like 200 decorative white paper bags with sand and little candles and gave 4 to each neighbor, with a note about putting them out on Christmas Eve so we could make our whole neighborhood look really cool.  It was a great idea, and would have been really cool if there hadn't been a huge snow storm that dumped two feet of snow on Christmas Eve.

Another year we bought tons of Martinelli's sparkling cider (you know that stuff comes in champagne type bottles).  That actually worked out pretty well, but after seeing the final cost, we decided in the future, we don't love our neighbors that much.

This year, Connie came up a great idea.  I have had somewhat of a sour throat and cough, and so she has been making me hot lemonade with honey.   Then she thought, "why don't we give lemons and honey to the neighbors, because everyone gets colds this time of year".  Then she wrote a great poem to go with it.  We wanted to publish this poem here, so that in a few years from now, when lots of people have copied Connie's awesome poem and spread it all over the country, we can prove that, yup, it all started here.

With out further ado, here is the poem:

T’was the start of the Christmas Season  and all through the town,
Every throat  was a’scratchin, every sick face a frown.
For cold weather was bringing more than just holiday spirit,
It was bringing flu bugs, sick germs, and other nasty things with it.

Dear Santa is no help with this holiday plight.
His sleigh full of presents is not what we need on this night.
Dear Grandma is one who can come save the day,
With wisdom, not magic, tucked snug in her sleigh.
For what more could save our noses from being so runny,
But a home remedy of hot lemon with honey.

Juice a half lemon , then add a tablespoon of honey.
Mix in a mug of hot water, and here is a remedy, quite yummy.
For extra nutrition and more flavor I think,
Shave a little of the lemon zest  and add to the drink.
Now sit back and relax, drink the hot brew quite slow,
Feel all the holiday stress and sickness just go.

Have a Merry Christmas and we hope it will be,
Full of laughter and fun and 100%  sick free!