I'm As Curly As A Pig's Tail

I wonder how many people will be able to recognise me from the back now.

Relief Society Pumpkin Patch

We made the cutest stuffed pumpkins for a Relief Society craft activity. I'm so grateful for activities like this because I would never 'get around' to doing any thing of the sort if left to my own devices. I'm also lucky enough to live just down the street from where the activity took place, so that when I realized I forgot my camera I could just call the sweetest hubby ever to come take our picture. For some reason I really get excited about holiday decorating, but only in the last four months of the year.

Jack-O-Lantern

You heard it here first folks, for the first time in recorded history the Fabers have carved a jack-o-lantern out of (drumroll, please...) a pumpkin homegrown in their very own garden!! I got to help. In fact it was Dad, Nikenzie and I that decided to carve the funny face. I think it's beautiful.

Kenzie became our eye expert.

The finished product...

... Looks better all lit up.

The proud carvers.

Anyone know a cranberry therapist?

I really like Kirkland Signature cranberry juice from Costco. I drink it all the time. I'd say I could quit if I wanted, but I really don't think I can. Today, as I was tilting the glass of cranberry juice to my mouth, I found that I actually started swallowing before the liquid hit my lips. Yeah. I think I need help.

Happy Birthday to Me

Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone! I had an awesome birthday. Since my wonderful husband cannot keep a secret, he gave me a birthday present, a game called "25 words or less", a couple of days before my birthday. We played it with my parents and all my younger siblings on Sunday. Then on the 8th, the actual day, we went out to eat with my sister, Megan and her hubby Todd. Then they took me home and gave me lemony birthday cake while watching Gilmore Girls. My mom is still planning a birthday celebration in Salt Lake City so that my older sister Jessica and her husband Matt can be a part of it, along with their sweetheart daughter, Ellie. Meanwhile, My sister Jasmine in Oklahoma sent me a cute card signed not only by her, but with the signature of her little son, Brayden, whom I'm assuming was also the one who wrote the name of his even littler sister, Kylee. They also sent some stick-on tattoos, which Will and I had some fun with.


Hey folks, I don't really feel any older, but I don't know how anyone can ask for a better family any day of the year. Can't help but want to share the love!

Birthday Body Art

Sketching

I'm working to develop a couple of talents. I'm trying to write more. I do the exercise where I have to type an entire page without stopping. I'm trying to be more musical. I'm practicing voice and looking for xylophone music. I'm trying to develop my drawing skills. This is one of the first quick sketches I have done since high school, along with the inspiration. What do you think?

Sweetbread?

Yesterday was the Utah Food Service Expo in Salt Lake. As part of the expo, the Utah chapter of the American Culinary Federation held a mystery box competition for Junior and professional members. I joined a former classmate, Dareq, to compete. Our charge was to produce a three course meal for four in two hours using ingredients that were not known to us until our two-hour time limit began (and the use of common table items, which are basic produce, spices, and other staple ingredients.) Our mystery box contained: Fennel, edimame, a spaghetti squash, a whole duck, an entire striped bass, orzo, the subprime veal loin cut and... wait, what's this? a bunch of duck fat? No, it looks like a translucent chicken breast. It's some kind of organ. I suggest that maybe it's a sweetbread. Dareq says that there's no way it's a bread. No, not bread, I say, a sweetbread. He thinks it's a liver. I have never in actuality seen a sweetbread in my life, so I suppose he must be right.
Turns out he wasn't, as one of the judges pointed out. And a sweetbread is the thyroid gland of a calf; that much I know. What I don't remember from my studies is how to cook it. I worry so much about it as I am cutting out duck breast, fabricating fish fillets and butchering the veal, that I decide I need to stop thinking about it for a moment- and then I never think about it again. Oops.
Turns out we did pretty well with our meal anyway, despite the loss of points due to the lack of sweetbread on our menu. We compete against a standard, not each other, so there were a couple certificates of participation and even fewer bronze metals awarded. No gold or silver to the student teams. We somehow squeaked out a bronze, which I am actually pretty proud of considering our dishes didn't turn out the way we had planned.
At the end of the the awards ceremony Chef Wendy, the head of the competition, was thanking the vendors who donated or lent stoves, equipment and products to the event. She ended by announcing "A special thanks to Nicholas foods. They put together the mystery boxes, so you can blame them."
The line got some laughs, but all I have to say is: Touche, Wendy. Touche.

From top clockwise:

Fish course: Poached striped sea bass on a bed of spaghetti squash with an Italian tomato sauce,

Salad course: fennel and orange duck salad with edimame beans,

Entree course: pan-fried cuts of veal with vegetable orzo pasta.

Sweetbread, anyone?

No Use Cryin'...

In the school cafeteria, students come to lunch by grade, every ten minutes. In the few moments in between serving each class, I try to help the lunch monitor clean the tables and floor. (I have found that little kids have a habit of leaving garbage under the tables, whereas older children leave garbage on the tables, not even attempting to clean up after themselves.)
Today, when I was out among the tables, I noticed some strawberry milk spilt all over the floor. As you may have guessed, we have spills such as this virtually every day. No Problem. I just grabbed the mop and put up a "caution, wet floor" sign. But as I was finishing up, a little brown-haired girl with bright eyes said to me in her first-grader voice, "Thank you, Lunch Lady!" I couldn't help but get a funny grin on my face when I told her "You're welcome."
I don't know if the milk was even hers, but I appreciate that she appreciates. It also makes me happy to report that now I have kids of my own to blog about- more than three hundred fifty of them. Like the little boy that was amazed at a tiny banana that he picked as his fruit today. he put it up to his cheek like a telephone and said, "this is the littlest banana phone I have ever talked in to." I quickly grabbed another banana and put it up to my cheek. "What will you have for lunch today?" I asked him. He was bewildered for only a moment by the grown-up playing games with him, but quickly recovered and announced, "I'm having chili!"
"Good," I smiled, and hung up.
I also tried to convince an eighth-grader that we were installing hidden cameras in the cafeteria, and she had better tell her friends that we are going to catch those students that leave their trash on the tables. I hope that it starts rumors that go around the whole school and we'll end up with a spic-and-span lunchroom everyday.

Well, here's to dreaming. Goodnight kids.

-Anna