Where have we been?

Watching the birds
I love to sit at the breakfast room table and watch the birds (and squirrels) that visit the feeder. Such a calming activity until we start looking up the unknown species in the Peterson Field Guide to Eastern Birds. I take photographs to assist and Rob and I look closely to count the wing bars and look for white tufts on the cheeks but sometimes it's impossible to figure out. Often I will narrow it down to one possibility only to find out the bird is never seen any further south than Nova Scotia. I think it may be time to invest in a new field guide. Many of the territories and winter habits may have changed since 1980.
Planning our wedding receptionRob and I were both in agreement that we wanted to have something simple...if we did anything at all. Elegant and simple...not a beer keg in the back yard party. We decided on the Delavan Art Gallery because of the size, the parking and the art. No need to decorate when the art adorns the walls. I didn't want a sit down dinner affair since I wanted to be able to move around and mingle and talk to people without the constraints of assigned tables.

Silly me...nothing is ever simple. I wanted food (I always want food....) that could be served on trays and different hors d'oeuvres on tables scattered around the gallery and a bar. And, of course, we needed to keep it fairly inexpensive. Hahahahahahahahaha.....nothing is cheap....what was I thinking?

I didn't want chips and dip and I couldn't spend the whole week cooking and we only had about 3 weeks to plan. Enough time to hire a caterer? Who knows! Luckily, Susie Youngs, stepped up and agreed to cater the event. While she has a food service degree and works at Pascale Catering at Hotel Syracuse, she has never catered an event before. Didn't matter...everything was perfect.... beautifully arranged cheeses and fruit on platters, crab artichoke dip, bacon wrapped scallops, tomato& basil& mozzarella on tiny breads, asparagus rolled in cheese and prosciutto, and things I never saw or tasted. I am guessing that Jenn and Kari didn't clean out these plates on their own. Susie has an eye for arranging foods and I am encouraging her to open a catering business. A friend of mine used to cater and we borrowed many of her trays and a portable convection oven. I had nothing but compliments for the food...taste and presentation. Susie even "hired" two of her friends to help with the serving and bar tending while she cooked. I never would have guessed they were not professionals.

I didn't want a cake and Rob and I decided on cookies. Not just any cookies but his mother's cut out sugar cookies. While I have made them before, my cookies never look perfect. The cookies spread too much or get too brown around the edges. Luckily, Rob's brother Jack has perfected his mother's cookie and agreed to make as many as we needed (150? is that too many? how happy are you to welcome me to the family?) Rob and I obsessed about the cut out shapes and finally decided on a cow and a wedding cake. Jack rolled every cookie out using perfectly planed wood along the edges of his rolling pin to insure that each cookie was the exact same height. They were beautiful. Rob and I spent one entire afternoon and evening decorating. His brother Jim and Jim's daughter Patti came over to help about 3/4 of the way through. Because I needed them to look perfect, I just made icing and carried trays of cookies between the breakfast room, kitchen and dining room. When Jack's son, Dan arrived at the party he went to the cookies first and the bar second.
I wanted to keep the bar simple...just beer and wine. Domestic or imported? Red or white? Dry or sweet or blends? And how much should I buy? Some of my friends are pretty good drinkers and how many people will come? Oh my...too many decisions. Decided on Labatts Blue & Light and bought 8 cases at BJ's. My cart was voted "Most Popular" by most of the guys with their families in BJ's. The liquor store was more difficult. I went to Harbor View Liquors for their 20% case discount. The manager was so helpful and even opened up bottles of wine for me to try. I left with almost 4 cases of wine. A Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio for white drinkers and some delightfully inexpensive reds....a Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend from Frontera in Chile and Allure de Robles from Rabbit Ridge in California.The art gallery has dozens of these small white tables we could scatter throughout the setting for food and drinks and a collection of chairs. Of course, I hated the way the tables looked and ended up renting white tablecloths. The tables needed flowers and I went round and round about what flowers to use. My friends solved that dilemma by decorating with tulips at the 'work" reception they had for us the week before. We liked the tulip/Amsterdam connection and decided on tulips. Luckily, Patti works summers at The Backyard Florist in Fayetteville and suggested vase sizes and ordered the tulips. She even came over to the house Saturday afternoon and arranged all the flowers for us. They were simple yet added the perfect touch and I was able to enjoy the flowers for almost the entire week.

Plates, napkins, ice, cups, coolers.....so many last minute descisions and running around but the night was exactly what we wanted. We have few pictures. Moyra sent me some that she took and I am hoping others trickle in. I brought my camers and took 1 picture before guests started arriving and the next thing I knew it was almost 11 and Bill Delavan was encouraging us to leave. Presents, leftover food and drink and people were packed into cars and the party continued at our house until almost 2 am. Nice.
Shoveling Snow
Until yesterday, we never really had a significant accumulation of snow. It seems like every day we would get 1 or 2 inches. No exciting blizzards, just enough to require removal from the sidewalks and driveway. Thursday night we had our first true snow storm...about 18" of the heaviest, wettest snow ever. While Rob and I were outside clearing the snow, we constantly remarked on the blueness. You could actually see the water in the snow. I can't believe the pictures came out so well.

Dealing with health issues
Luckily, Rob had the driveway and sidewalk cleared of snow before we had to leave for his surgery appointment. On Friday, Rob had a tumor removed from his bladder. This is the 2nd time he has dealt with bladder cancer and it returned at an inopportune time. Rob also has prostate cancer and after meeting with surgeons and radiologist, he had decided on the Robotic surgery to remove his prostate. His prostate surgery was scheduled for February 17th but during his routine cystoscopy (he is checked for bladder cancer recurrence every 4 months) the doctor found that the bladder cancer had returned and it looked aggressive and needed to be dealt with first. The prostate surgery has been rescheduled for May 5th (it had to be after Amsterdam....) and the bladder surgery was scheduled for Friday. Dr. Kreitzer removed the tumor and is confident the entire tumor has been removed and he will not have to undergo weeks of BCG treatments. This is the best news we could have received. They sent us home with a picture of the tumor (I don't know why?...maybe so I could blog?)...either that or Rob is housing one of the planets from some other solar system. It sounds like the tumors will just continue to grow and need to be removed. They will check him again when he recovers from the prostate removal. Rob was home the same day with a catheter and a considerable amount of pain. With the help of narcotics, he slept well and is feeling pretty good today. The catheter is out, the bladder is working and he is eating and moving around. We will find out more at his follow up appointment next week.

Farmville
I am addicted to this stupid game on FaceBook. It is the perfect procrastination activity...even better than watching birds. I was overrun with chickens and had to beg my Farmville friends to help me with a barnraising so I could get a bigger chicken coop. Harvesting the eggs from over 100 chickens every night was taking too much time but with my big coop I can harvest 60 chickens at once. I plant according to my schedule so my crops never wither. Ian got me hooked and then promptly stopped playing. I have cows, horses, goats, sheep...even cats and I hate cats. What fun! If you start farming, be sure to be my neighbor. The more neighbors you have, the bigger your farm.

Baking
OK...I hardly ever bake but I thought I should share this now while I am on a roll. Rob and his brothers talk frequently about the cookies and other baked goods his mother made while they were growing up. I think she baked every day...when you have 7 boys you don't buy Oreos I guess. Rob spoke often about his mother's brownies being his all time favorite so I decided to bake them for Valentine's Day. I got the recipe from Jack (he's taken over the tradition of making the sugar cookies and I knew he had made the brownies in the past) with directions based on his past attempts. Apparently, only his mother can make these brownies. Many have tried but all have been unsuccessful.
The recipe:
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. cold butter
Cream together and add 4 eggs
8tsp cocoa
1 t vanilla
1 c. flour
1 c. walnuts
Bake in a 13X9X2 pan at 250 for about 70 minutes. Start with a cold oven.

Jack always attributed his failure to electric (his mom's stove is gas) or a missing ingredient. I baked them and Rob said they tasted like his mom's but were mushy in the middle and real tough to get out of the pan. While at his mom's house for her 90th birthday, Jack and I checked the recipe box and the recipe is correct. Of course, Jack & Rob started reminiscing and I ended up writing down a recipe for Congo bars too. (Have you ever heard of Congo Bars? Kind of like a Blondie with chocolate chips...weird) I drew the line at the 3 layer brownies since each layer is added to the pan and baked separately...one on top of each other. Who has that kind of time?
I checked my tried and true brownie recipes for comparison purposes. Applehood & Motherpie recipe calls for 4-1 oz squares unsweetened chocolate, baking powder and salt. That is quite a lot more chocolate and oil plus baking powder and salt. The Moosewood recipe has 5 - 1 oz squares of chocolate, 5 eggs, 2 sticks of butter and 1/4 c less sugar. (no baking pwder or salt and a lot more cocoa, oil and egg) I am going to try the recipe again tonight with the addition of baking powder and see what happens. Any ideas from the bakers out there?

Really...we have just been busy and my head was never in the right place to sit down and blog.