What happens when you turn two kids loose with a MacBook

After having received some crap from various fronts about not updating my blog (with the prevailing affront being "even Tom has updated more often than you have") I won't procrastinate on the Thanksgiving entry any longer.

I decided to drive to Augusta, GA to spend the holiday with my brother Glen and his kids. I even picked up my dad on the way, making the 17 hour drive that much more tolerable.

Anyway, Glen's kids kept making up these games involving me chasing them, throwing stuff at them, and throwing them on the couch. Aside from the occasional "Waaah, you threw that at my eye" and "Waaah, why'd you throw me on my face?" such games were extremely fun, and a great workout for all involved! Here's a shot of them in the Obstacle Course, a game they made and set up around the house that comprised various wobbly, unsturdy objects that they had to jump on and walk across to avoid touching the floor, or touching poison (random blankets, towels, etc, placed on and around the jump targets), or getting poison thrown at them by Evil Judge Uncle Brian.

Other fun activities included Guitar Hero, Wii Bowling, Dance Dance Revolution (yeah, it might not have looked pretty, but I tried it), and of course, eating Turducken.

Oh, and as to the title of this post: What happened innocently enough:

quickly descended into chaos:




And here they are looking relatively normal :)

Big thanks to Glen for hosting a great Thanksgiving!

CIA weekend

Last week, we went to the Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, NY. The CIA is to cooking as MIT is to engineering-- the premier destination for aspiring student chefs willing to undergo a grueling two or four year program for the chance to graduate as one of the best chefs in America. It's also a beautiful campus, but they don't allow any pictures inside any buildings.

We took a tour and got to see the main classrooms, which of course are mostly kitchens. It looks like fun (except for some of the baking classes) but looks like a heck of a lot of work.

We ate at three of the restaurants on campus, which are staffed by students who are close to graduating. So the food and service should be top notch, right? Well, it was good... but inconsistent. The quality showed, but sometimes so did the inexperience. Some dishes were excellent, like the Entrecôte de Boeuf aux Chanterelles, Sauce Merlot at Escoffier, the Lobster and Goat Cheese Flatbread at American Bounty, and the Potato Salad at Apple Pie Bakery Cafe, which was simply the best freaking potato salad I've ever had. Other dishes, like the Poitrine de Carnard au Miel de Lavende, Riz Basmati from Escoffier, were mediocre and rather disappointing.

We went to the FDR Museum the next day. Say what you want about his heroic but arguably socialist methods of recovering from the Great Depression, he's the president who ended Prohibition, so he'd get even my libertarian vote.

Speaking of the Depression, the most memorable aspect of the museum was the "here's what led up to the Great Depression" exhibit, which looked like it was taken straight out of a modern newspaper. About the only economic indicator missing from the late twenties comparing with today is gas prices.

The Hudson River valley is such a beautiful place, especially this time of year. It is not surprising that so many of America's wealthiest settled here. Here are some views of the valley:

This New House

No, not my new house. Tom's blog is finally up!

Eat

So one of the latest silly things going around the internet these days is the top 100 foods you must eat before you die. Bloggers are supposed to post the list and embolden foods they have eaten and cross out foods they won't ever eat. Well, since I haven't had an original thought worth posting in quite some time, here's my list.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar never smoking again
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear - yeah... LOL... ow
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads - mmmmm... glands...
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian - I might try this, but not sure. Andrew Zimmern spat it out, for god's sake.
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu - have had shochu, close enough.
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - does rabbit count? I think so.
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam - ooh yeah!
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor - isn't that where you store cigars?
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Empty Nest

Saturday morning, we were woken up by a loud fluttering from the porch (I had left my door open). We found the fledglings out of the nest, which is about three feet from the floor. I put some birdseed in a dish on the floor, and Papa dove eventually found it. The three pecked at it until one of the little ones decided to sit in the dish.

That night, the fledglings flew up to the porch railing, and from there, flapped their wings like they were practicing a take off.

Sunday morning, they flew off.

Unfortunately, I don't think this story ends happily. We found Mama dove with one of the little ones at my door Sunday afternoon. Later that day, we saw both parents with just one of the little ones across the street on some of the landscaping.

Monday morning, we heard Papa dove's mourning call. It continued for a few hours, by which time we were out of bed and on our way to work.

Baby doves have a very high mortality rate and are easy prey. I think they flew off too early, and were not strong enough to fly back up to the safety of my porch. I hope the parents were able to keep one of them safe but I fear that at least one of them did not make it.

Dove Family Portrait

The Mama and the Papa

The dove parents take turns keeping the kids warm. Up until this weekend, we hadn't seen the two together, but here they are. Don't ask which is which.

Alice took some video of the baby doves feeding. From http://www.passporttotexas.com/birds/aug.html,
Doves feed their young "pigeon's" milk, produced from the lining of the crop. Only doves, pigeons, penguins and flamingos produce crop milk.

The parents don't give them much time alone, but we did get to take this pic today. A week makes quite the difference!

Happy Birthday, dovelings

I decided to check on the state of the nest this afternoon after hearing the mother dove fly off for her break.

Awwwwww (or ewwwwww... depending on which one you look at)

Mama dove is back at the nest now. Apparently, doves sit on their young after they hatch.

Dove update 2

The dove is still there, happier and healthier than the sad tomato plant it has called its home. I don't think the tomato plant gets enough sun where it is. It only gets a few hours of direct sunlight a day, when the sun is sinking in the western sky.

I put out some birdseed last weekend, but it does not appear to have been touched.

Dove update

Doves live in my tomato plant

Found this last night:

Saw this this morning:

Hawaii part 6: Aloha means goodbye, too

It was time for me to return to the mainland, and for Alice to get back to work at Oahu. We spent our last morning on Kaua'i at our hotel pool (and hot tub). I'm not generally one impressed by pools, but this was the view of the pool from our lanai:

and the beach, also from our lanai:

To make up for missing the falls yesterday, we stopped at one on the way to the airport:



And then my Hawaiian trip was over. I left my camera with Alice, and she managed to take a few more pics of Oahu before going back to work:



Aloha! Mahalo for reading!

Hawaii part 5: more Kaua'i

We headed up the road to the North Shore for a beach and snorkel day. Stopped at the Wake Up Cafe for breakfast on the way; here's Alice before coffee:

and here she is after coffee:

We ended up at Haena Beach park, which was supposed to have a great snorkeling site called The Tunnels. We did plenty of snorkeling, and it was ok, but nothing spectacular. Some people said they saw a sea turtle, but I didn't (though since I swam with about six of them last year on the Big Island, I didn't feel too left out!) The reef terrain was pretty cool, with very large coral structures with deep crevasses to explore. Sorry, no underwater pics yet.

After getting lunch in Hanalei, we decided to drive down to the very end of the road and hike the Kalaulau trail along the Na Pali Coast. Ok, well, we weren't going all the way to the end of the trail; it's eleven miles and is supposed to take two days round trip. But there were two interim destinations along the way: the Hanakapi'ai beach and the Hanakapi'ai Valley falls. It was a fairly strenuous hike (especially in Tevas), very rocky with lots of elevation changes. Here are some of the views en route to the beach:





Almost there!

And the beach itself:


We continued the hike through the mango forest to the falls, but about a mile in we decided that we were at risk of running out of daylight if we kept going. So we grudgingly turned around for the three mile hike back to the car.

About an hour before sunset, we saw some kids hiking the rocky hills in bare feet, toting surfboards, presumably on their way to Hanakapi'ai beach. That's HARD CORE.

Here's a pre-sunset pic I took that I thought came out pretty well:

When we got back to the car, we decided to use the remaining daylight on one last snorkel trip. Our expectations were blown away snorkeling at Ke'e beach! Despite the twilight conditions, the water was much clearer, and there were more fish and other interesting reef life than we saw earlier, including spaghetti worms (which I had never seen or heard of prior to my aquarium visit on day 1) and more sea cucumbers than I ever wanted to see.

Had a pretty non-memorable dinner at Duke's at the hotel. Then I was mildly disappointed that we didn't have more champagne and strawberries when we returned to our hotel, but it was a good day nonetheless!

Hawaii part 4: Kaua'i

We flew into Kaua'i around noon. It was too early to check in to our hotel, so we headed out for lunch. One of our travel books recommended a place called Fish Express, but we were unable to find it, even with Alice's GPS (which kept saying "Fish Expressway" for some reason.) We did, however, find the wonderfully named Oki Diner, where we ate traditional Hawaiian lunches while local birds begged and sucked syrup from jars at unoccupied tables.


It was still to early to check in when we went back to the hotel, so we went to the hotel beach for a while. Alice walked around and took some pics, while I checked out the local beach volleyball crowd. Would have been nice to play...


After finally checking in to the hotel, we decided to drive to Waimea Canyon, also known as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. Sadly, we ran into a lot of fog, but we still saw some pretty awe inspiring colors and scenery before it got too dark:




On the way back, we found a Japanese restaurant right before they closed (things shut down early in Kaua'i, it seems) and had some sushi and noodles before heading back to the hotel. And at our hotel room, we were greeted with a pleasant surprise: a bottle of Champagne on ice and a box of chocolate-covered strawberries, accompanied by a card saying "Congratulations Derek and Jenna on your special day!" We enjoyed our unexpected treat on our lanai overlooking the pool (after Alice called the front desk to tell them they screwed up, of course :)