Dinner With Daddy

I don't know if you are aware but Sunday April 3, 2011 was the 119 th anniversary of the ice cream sundae . While some in other towns may dispute the date and birthplace of the very first sundae, I am of the firm belief that it was indeed first made in Ithaca, NY 119 years ago. I believe this partly because my research indicates that Ithaca has the soundest story (in my opinion), and partly because I'm a New Yorker. As I have mentioned before My Beautiful Wife has a NEED to celebrate whatever is celebrate-able, and the ice cream sundae birthday is no different. While it would have been nice to have an extra $6000 lying around to get each of us a Golden Opulence Sundae from Serendipity 3 in NYC, we opted for the more traditional Belgian Waffle Ice Cream Sundae from the local diner. The kids enjoyed it and the wife and I didn't have to worry about eating the retirement money to celebrate ice cream. The kids had no idea when we left the house that it was the ice cream sund...

The local supermarket had one of those 10 for $10 sales this week. I decided to take advantage of this so I went and got 10 of every item I NEEDED. I say needed like that because I'm not one of these folks that gets 10 of everything on sale just because it's on sale. If I don't need it or I'm not going to use it in a relatively short period of time, I don't buy it. One of the items I picked up that night was cheese. Blocks of New York extra sharp cheddar, sharp cheddar and mild cheddar; ten of them. There was so much cheese I feared a rodent uprising. Ok, I'm exaggerating a little, but there was a lot of cheese. Let it be known that there is no shortage of cheese hounds, as my Pop-Pop (Grandpa) used to say, in this house. As a matter of fact the cold cut of choice among my brood is cheese; cheese sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese panini's, cheese wraps…..you get the idea. The night of the great cheese flood, if you will, happened to be the first ...

Last night My Beautiful Wife was bringing Cheddar Buns home from her Girl Scout ice skating gig. She decided to stop at the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. When she called to inquire as to what I would like, we chose fish. Fish is a good choice because none of the kids except Cheddar Buns would be eating dinner with us, and none of them like fish. It actually doesn't matter that they don't like fish because when I cook fish I also cook chicken for the kids. What they don't know is fish tastes just like chicken. Ok, I'm joking; I wanted to see if you were paying attention. Fish tastes nothing like chicken. I have, in the past, almost always gotten my fish from one of those big wholesale clubs because it was prepackaged in servings and you could just take out what you need. The problem was it was frozen. Frozen fish is a pain to cook; you have to take it out of the package, defrost it on paper towel or some sort of rack to keep it out of the moisture, pat i...

I hate to harp on something or beat a dead horse or whatever you want to call it but todays post is yet again about my little guys, Mini Buns and Sticky Buns, and their medical affliction. It has been 5 full days since the tonsils came out, and while my wife and I are enjoying the eerie quiet around the house the suffering the little guys are enduring is painful to watch. The Doc warned us that as the healing began the pain would be worse for them, probably around days 4 through 7. Boy did he call that one. It has been a long time since the Mrs. and I had to get up in the wee hours for sobbing children. The limit on the pain medication is 4 doses in 24 hours so the nights are basically med free. The last 2 nights have been basically sleep free as well. The poor little guys tag team waking up and sleeping like a pair of pro wrestlers. That unfortunately leaves my wife and I feeling like we just got hit with a metal chair. The days do, however, provide a little levity though. Smal...

I may have or may not have mentioned before that most of my favorite kitchen utensils are knives. Not just any knives mind you, but specifically Henckel's knives. I actually prefer to cut, chop and dice everything by hand. My favorite knife is my 10" Henckel's Twin Select chef's knife. I've had this knife for a little over two years and it's probably the best kept tool in my arsenal. I find that the trick to keeping a knife at it's peak performance is care and sharpening, lots of sharpening. My usual modus operandi is to sharpen it with a hand sharpener when I put it away, and hone it on the sharpening steel when I take it out. Like the samurai I only take out my knife when I plan to use it, so there isn't any unnecessary sharpening going on. It is a proven fact that more people are injured using a dull knife than a sharp one because you have to work harder with a dull knife. The same can not be said for the cheese grater, my nemesis in the kitche...

I am down two kids at the dinner table since Monday, the day of the double tonsillectomy, so I have to discuss things other than dinner for a few days. I do, however, have a dinner (or food) related story to share with you today. As you may have read in my last post two of my four children had tonsillectomies the other day. That's half of my kids folks. To top it off, the two older ones have been tag teaming the sore throats and fevers. I'm beginning to think we took the wrong ones. So as it goes my Mother in Law, whom is here to help out, my wife and I and MAYBE one other kid at the dinner table do not make super interesting dinner stories. Just not enough action for this house, if you know what I mean. I did make a DE-licious Beef Barley Soup , which I'll leave the recipe for in the recipe section. No, this blog is about yet another of my favorite new gadgets. My wife says I'm addicted to kitchen gadgets but I say no, I'm addicted to GOOD kitchen gadgets. This gad...

As a parent there are few things that can compare to the feeling of helplessness and sorrow that is accompanied with your children and medical procedures. Yesterday morning my wife and I had the daunting task of taking our two younger boys ages 7 and 9 for tonsillectomies. Now I know that this is one of those so called "routine" procedures, but when someone is about to remove a part of your child there is nothing "routine" about it. We started easing the boys into it: "You'll get to stay home from school for a whole week." we told them. "You can have all of the ice cream and jello that you want!" we said. Come to think of it what kind of idiot tries to entice someone with jello?? Oh well, let's move on. We arrived at the hospital for the ambulatory, routine procedure where a person is going to go into the deepest regions of my children and start taking out pieces. As soon as I entered the hospital my heart started palpitating and th...