Twofoos » Family

Thunderweave at LRC 2010

Kevin — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:43:08 +0000

Just a quick post to show off Jen fronting the band Thunderweave at the May 2010 Ladies Rock camp in Portland. There’s a ton of pictures floating around and more than one video, so I’m going to drop this here and gather up the rest later.

I thought the show was great, all the ladies did an excellent job, my only complaint was that the show was so short.

Dad at the drag races

Kevin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:38:27 +0000

My pops went to the track recently with his Mustang. Mostly stock except for a cold air intake and twin turbos. The big secret is that it’s running a custom tune (software) that he and his new business partner crafted.

They won every race that day.

Secret Santa Name Picker

Secret Santa Name Picker

Kevin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:59:21 +0000

Our family decided a few years ago to only do single gifts for the adults members of the family. We usually selected names whenever the largest group of us got together and, if someone was not present, would select for them and pass along their selection later.

This generally worked, but when we added the conditions that you wouldn’t select your spouse or significant other (what a dumb term) or that you wouldn’t have the same name two years running, things got a bit complicated.

I think I was the person most guilty of screwing this up.

This year there haven’t been any opportunities to get together and get this sorted out so I decided to come up with a solution. I wanted to write a small program to do the selection, exclusion, and emailing but I really don’t have the time right now. I stumbled on web-based solution that is free, no need to register, and has all the functionality we require.

I’m certain that use of the service entails some advertising related emails to follow, but that was a necessary evil at this point. If you find yourself in need of a Secret Santa Name Chooser give it a try.

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Fundraiser!

Kevin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:08:26 +0000

It’s time for fundraising at school again. This year Brady is also tasked with selling to earn his share of the funds for 6th Grade Camp. He has a long time to do it, but he has to sell 200+ candy bars or pay the difference in cash to be able to attend.

If you would like to support the Camp fundraiser, let me know the number of bars you would like to purchase. They are $1 each with 50% going towards funding his stay at camp. Apparently, we’re automatically on the hook for at least $100 so our focus is there for now.

That being said, there is also a fundraiser for the school PTA. This difference here is that it funds general purchases at the school that all the kids can participate in. This may be a better alternative for those of you who wish to help out but to whom shipping a candy bar would be counter-productive.

When you visit the Fundraising Website you are able to select and purchase items that will be shipped directly to your door and Brady still gets credit for the sales.

Either way, if you want to help, we appreciate it. Hope everyone is having a good week.

Kids are surprisingly funny sometimes

Kevin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:52:52 +0000

Last night I was hanging out on the couch watching a show while Jen snoozed on the other end. Brady wanders by, grabs my toes and says,

“Dad, I really like your egg sandwiches.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

“And my teacher didn’t ask me to say that, either,” Brady said.

“Are you saying that she didn’t approach you and say ‘Go tell your father thank you for making a good egg sandwich.’ I don’t see see why she wouldn’t have.” (he’s pretty good with sarcasm)

“Well I thought maybe you would think she told us to say something nice, but she didn’t. I just really like how you do it so the cheese is melty and the egg is kind of salty,” he explained.

“I am glad you like it, thank you,” I said.

“Sure,” he finished. Then, “tickle, tickle” as he grabbed my foot again and trotted out of the room.

Totally priceless and great, but at the same time, it leaves me scratching my head. What the hell was that all about?

Spring Break ’09

Time for Blackberries

Kevin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:53:20 +0000

I was getting a bit stir crazy yesterday and was looking for some sort of outlet so that I wouldn’t have a full-blown freak out. I called a friend at my old work and had her go check the blackberries outside the gate and see if they were ready.

This was probably the first week they were ready to pick around here. At least at this particular spot.

Like the picture shows, about a third of each cluster is ripe for picking. I’m not sure the truth of it, but I believe that picking some allows the others to ripen faster. We only picked for half an hour or so, I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to make something with them tonight they were so good.

Brady was out there helping as well. He has a slightly different philosophy about picking berries than I do. He seems to operate on a “pick three, eat one” mentality. I can definitely relate. They were delicious.

I ended up leaving a small amount for Traci, a girl I used to work with, but we still managed a pretty decent haul for just 30 minutes.

I am not much of a baker. Cookies and such are no problem, but things like pies and pastries are far outside of my experience. I dug out a recipe for a Blackberry Cobbler (any berry would be fine I’m sure), that seemed pretty wacky but sounded amazing so I went for it.

I cleaned and dried the blackberries in the same way I described in the Blueberries post from last week.

Here is the recipe I used:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter or margarine, divided

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour*

1/3 cup milk, room temperature

2 cups fresh or frozen blackberries

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

In a 10-in. round or oval baking dish, melt 1/2 cup butter; set aside.

In a saucepan, heat sugar and water until sugar melts; set aside.

Place flour in a mixing bowl; cut in remaining butter until fine crumbs form. Add milk, stirring with a fork until dough leaves sides of bowl.

Roll out to an 11-in. x 9-in. rectangle 1/4 in. thick. Spread berries over dough; sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll up, jelly-roll style. Cut into 1/4-in. thick slices.

Carefully lay slices in baking dish over butter. Pour sugar syrup around slices (syrup will be absorbed).

Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Sprinkle sugar over top and bake 15 minutes more. Serve warm or cold.

*If self-rising flour is not available, use 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus 1/4 teaspoon salt and 2-1/4 teaspoons baking powder.

I didn’t make very many changes, but there were some.

I didn’t use the 1/2 cup of butter for the bottom of the pan. I used about 5T and it seemed like plenty to me.
My dough rolling skills were total crap and it wound up shaped more like Utah than Colorado.
I only used 1T of sugar for the top
I baked it on a convection cycle at 325 instead of conventional at 350. Same timeframe.

This is what it looked like before baking:

I was quite nervous at this point. This looked nothing like I had seen anyone bake before. The resulting cobbler was stunning, see for yourself:

I cannot say enough about how fantastic it tasted. I think it was, by far, the best thing I have ever baked. The bonus was that it cost probably less than $2 to make. I love that I took it from cane to plate in about four hours and that it was delicious to boot.

Speaking of taking it to the plate:

I froze the rest of the berries for use later. I will definitely be going for more here soon. I made freezer jam last year and it did not last anywhere near long enough. I think we munched it all before December was even over.

Blueberries

Blueberries

Kevin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:02:06 +0000

We still have about a week or so of blueberry season around here. They apparently were a very good crop this year, something to do with a hot spring and a wetter than normal summer.

Brady and I went out and picked 4.5 pounds yesterday afternoon. Not as much as we had last year but we were a bit late in getting out to the patch we go to. It’s a nice drive, about 30ish miles from the house.

It’s a great place to pick. You can hear cows lowing in the background and when you pick your head up from the bushes you get a nice view of the lake. There are about 14 rows of blueberry canes, with about 40 or so canes to a row.

There is a second set of canes roughly the same size that are a few years old but not ready to pick from just yet. Here’s an overhead view where you can clearly see the canes and the proximity to the lake.

View Silver Lake Blueberry Patch in a larger map

I would sure love to be out in the sticks like these guys some day.

I’m not sure exactly what the approved way is on how to clean blueberries, but the method I use has always worked well.

Sift through the berries removing obvious stems and flower remnants.
Set a large colander inside a large mixing bowl and place in the sink
Fill with cool water and place about 2 quarts of berries inside the colander
Agitate the berries to remove any leftover goobers
Berries that float may have imperfections or mushy sections, check these
Remove colander to drain berries, place on dark towel (to avoid staining) to dry

Repeat the cleaning process about 2 quarts at a time. To store blueberries I always freeze them individually, actually, I do this for all the berries I freeze.

Place dry (very important!) blueberries a single layer deep on a cookie sheet
Place cookie sheet in freezer for a few hours (I usually just do it overnight).
Using a kitchen scale, portion out 1 pound of frozen berries into a zip-top baggie or other container
Seal multiple bags into a gallon bag
Return to freezer

The great thing is, when they are prepped and frozen like this they can be used in the exact quantity required. So long as they were completely dry when initially frozen they will stay that way. It is pretty much just a bag of blue marbles at this point.

It is very easy to reach in and get a handful at a time like this. I portion them into pound bags just because when we bake with them that about the quantity we use. It also conveniently turns out that a pound of blueberries is roughly equal to a quart in volume.

Prices were extremely reasonable, I paid $5.75 for 5 pounds. It turned out there was a bit of rounding going on since, during my portioning, I found that we actually only had 4.5 pounds. I gave the fella out there $6 and still consider it a bargain.

Last price I saw at the grocery store was $3 for a pint which makes the retail value of my berries about $27. It only took about an hour, although they were harder to get than least year since we spent the same amount of time and pulled 8 pounds last year.

It was a fun afternoon to boot, thanks for the invite Shawna, it’s a date for next year for sure!

A shout out to Mom

Kevin — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:30:10 +0000

I wanted to congratulate my mother today for having the courage, conviction, and dedication to reshape her life in such a dramatic fashion. I can recall, somewhat fuzzily, that this has been something she’s worked towards in one way or another for at least 20 years.

Back then it was Early Childhood Ed. at night and one of the shittiest retail jobs I can imagine. Some years later, working as a para-educator and still working through classes. Then, moving to Arizona and dealing with the setbacks of expired classes or non-transferable credits. But she did that too and kept going.

She received her Associate’s Degree right about the same time I did, and without hesitation dove right back in. It seemed, at least to me, that progress was coming much faster now. The Bachelor’s Degree certainly was faster in coming than the Associate’s.

She has since acquired her teaching certificate and completed student teaching last Spring. She is not yet at the ultimate goal of being a Special Education teacher, but that’s coming too. In the meantime, my mother is an English teacher. At a high school.

Today was the first day of classes for her. I hope she slept well and without worry. I am having a hard time picturing her in the front of the classroom, instructing the students, with so many faces looking to her for guidance. Not because she isn’t capable, but because for so many years she only did that for me and my sibs.

In essence, I expect her to be as much of a concerned mother to these kids as their teacher. At this stage of the game I’m willing to share. I can only hope that when I am at a similarly advanced (yet undisclosed!) age, I will be as willing to put so such much on the line in pursuit of my dreams. I am very proud of her.

I love you, Mom.

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