Author: Shane

Alex’s First Camping Trip

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We are generally a camping family, though we haven’t been camping since Alex was born. It’s hard enough to get a camping trip together without all of the accoutrements necessary to bring a baby (and hard enough to fit 5 people in our car without all the camping gear).

However, this first camping trip was about as perfect as could be. The weather more or less cooperated (our tent didn’t leak, and while it was pretty cold in the mornings, the flipside is that it wasn’t too hot in the afternoon), and we got in tons of fun activities! Paddleboats, kayaks, hiking…you name it.

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(I love how Ollie is kind of photo-bombing us in this pic)

Alex literally could not have had a better time. When we were putting him to bed on Saturday night he said between sobs, “More walking!” That dude was just go-go-go the entire weekend.

You might say he got a little tired out…

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Goodness Gracious

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I was getting off the train today, and the pants of the woman in front of me caught on a nail in the platform, stopping her short. In the split second it took me to realize what happened, I almost pancaked her. With cat like agility I jumped to the side and loudly exclaimed what was apparently the first curse that came to my mind: “Goodness gracious!!”

Goodness gracious? What am I, a 90 year old nun? Who even says that?

I know it’s kind of silly, but I was pretty embarrassed thinking about all the people who heard me shout goodness gracious. I mean, you’d think it’d be better than f-bombs or taking the lord’s name in vain or something, but I don’t know. I just wanted to quickly say, “No, no, it’s cool everybody, I totally swear all the time!”

If you asked me to make a list of all the things I might yell in times of crisis, I never in a million years would have put goodness gracious on there. I don’t know if I’ve even *thought* “goodness gracious” in my head.

They say when you’re under pressure your true self shines through. All I can say to that is, “Goodness gracious.”

Grilled Lemon-Thyme Chicken

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The first Friday of the month is reserved for recipes. You can see additional First Friday Food posts here.

The Reason:

I can’t believe that we’re already into August. Summer just started, and yet here we are, in the dog days. How can this have happened??

I have a nice fall recipe all lined up for next month, but I refuse to let summer go without a fight, so here is the most summer-iest, summer recipe I have.

The Journey:

The original recipe called for oregano, and I don’t really remember how we ended up using thyme instead, but it is absolutely the way to go. I will grant you that it is a real pain in the rear to try to get all those tiny leaves off the stems and chopped up, but it is absolutely worth it.

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The way these things smell on the grill… It is summer personified. It smells like one of those late-summer, outdoor festivals, where you’ve been baking in the sun, surrounded by family, and there’s some kind of food tent where they’ve got one of those enormous, six foot long grills sizzling away. And you’re just kind of standing around with a cold drink in your hand, maybe listening to a band play or playing bags.

This is the smell that that grill is making, and thyme is the secret ingredient.

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The Verdict:

This is one of those recipes that we have been making since forever, and I always go, “How has that never been on the blog before?” Seems inconceivable.

Make this one before the summer is over, and thank me later.

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The Recipe:

Recipe slightly modified from Bon Appetit.

  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh thyme (or oregano, as per the original recipe)
  • 2 garlic cloves, pressed
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
  • ~8 pieces of chicken
  1. Whisk first 6 ingredients in small bowl. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper.
  2. Marinate at room temperature 30 minutes or in refrigerator up to 2 days, turning occasionally.
  3. Prepare barbecue (medium-high heat). Place chicken, with some marinade still clinging, on grill rack; grill chicken until cooked through and golden brown on all sides, turning frequently, about 30 minutes.
  4. Transfer to plates and serve.

Quote Monday eats too much

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Sara: “I’m going to write a grocery list.”
Alex: “Me help! Me help!”
Sara: “Okay…what should we put on our list?”
Alex: “Kwkwkwkw”
Sara: “Okay, chicken. What else?”
Alex: “Strawberries!”
Sara: “Okay. How about cheese?”
Alex: “Yes.”
Sara: “How about coffee?”
Alex: “Yes.”
Sara: “Anything else?”
::Alex thinking::
Alex: “Fruit flies.”

I was trying to get Alex to eat breakfast, because I knew when he saw that Ollie was eating scones, he wouldn’t want to eat anything else. Eventually Ollie got his scones and came over. Alex pointed at the scones and said, “Eat!” I pretended like I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Eat what?” Alex pointed at the scones AND HONEST TO GOD WINKED AT ME.

Alex: “Mrpghr”
Sara: “What?”
Alex: Mrpghr”
Sara: “How many pieces of meat are in your mouth?”
Alex, enunciating carefully: “Too. Much.”

MST3k Live

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[TURN DOWN LIGHTS WHERE APPLICABLE]

Last weekend I had the honor of attending the Mystery Science Theater 3000 live show, and can I just say it was one of the best shows I have seen in my entire life.

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For nearly the entire time I have been watching MST3k, it has been a pretty solitary activity. These days it’s mostly me watching on the iPad while I’m doing dishes (and of course once upon a time it was me sitting in my apartment in Philly, and before that it was me staying up reaaaaaaly late at my dad’s house). So needless to say, watching it among hundreds of people brought a different…energy to the equation.

Now, look, I’ve been to some *pretty geeky shows* in my day. Niche shows with an extremely dedicated audience, where 75% of of the attendees come in costume. And none of those shows even came CLOSE to the energy of this crowd. And they maintained that energy for the entire show (keep in mind this was the second show in a row for many of those people!) People were laughing so hard that it was hard to hear all of the lines, people were falling out of their seats, and I had tears streaming down my face. It was simply amazing.

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It was great to see everybody in person, but I was kind of surprised at how visceral my reaction was to seeing Joel Hodgson live and in the flesh. This man was a hero of my childhood, and there he was, standing on stage right in front of me.

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In fact, I came very, very close to meeting him in person! Turns out Tim Ryder, the guy doing the voice of Tom Servo on the tour, is a friend of a friend. Our mutual friend sent him my blog post about them replacing my stolen membership card and he contacted me through the blog. He tried to get us the secret backstage access, but there was a bit of a communications snafu and I couldn’t convince the security guys to let us in.

Next time!

Anyway, the show was fantastic, the crowd was as into it as a crowd could be, and I laughed as hard as I have ever laughed in my life. Even without the secret backstage access it was a night that I will remember for a long, long time.