Wednesday, September 8, 2004

Oh Nicholas & other updates

At AmeriKids, Nicholas is the only 4 year old boy with three 4 year old girls. One of them has already told him that she loves him and wants to marry him. He has bashfully said that he loves her too.

Now, for our four year old, love is an extension of like, and I think it's adorable that these kids are being so sweet to each other. It's a class of 12 kids and Nicholas is the oldest boy in the class. It's good that he's getting a bit of attention because at home his siblings don't shower him with the attention he craves. He's still a wonderfully sensitive and sweet boy and she's a sweet girl so I'm glad they are friends. In fact, all three little girls are great.
We had the AmeriKids Open House this evening and I had my 5 minutes of talking about sign-up sheets and asking for someone to take over the website. Lucky me, we have a volunteer, so I know that it won't immediately die. I completely forgot to bring my camera to take photos for the website. Oops.
As with any gathering, we all brought food to share after. I'd had high hopes of making a mild guacamole but can you believe there wasn't an avocado to be had? So I went for the next thing I could think of while staring at the shelves in the store. Hummus. Canned chick peas to the rescue.
The only problem was I didn't have a recipe in front of me, nor had I looked at one earlier, so I prayed I had what was needed. Being the fabulous cook that I am, I didn't. Fresh garlic? Nope. Seasme paste? Nope. I'm lousy at substitutions but with 45 minutes to change and make the hummus, there was no choice. Garlic powder to the rescue. And one recipe I found online actually had a recipe for making sesame paste. The funky thing was that I had a bag of sesame seeds. Certainly not something I normally keep, but it would work. All I needed to do was toast up the seeds, grind them up in the food processor and add the rest of the ingredients.
I didn't add enough lemon juice or sesame oil, it needed fresh garlic and would have done well sitting overnight first. Unfortunately, I overtoasted the seeds so there was an overwhelming smell of roasted sesame in the mix. It didn't taste bad, but it wasn't what I planned. I've come up with something new "Smoked Hummus". Next time I know what to do and it'll be delicious. At least the pita triangles were fool proof.
Laura and I are still plugging along on organizing the Seafront library. It's a fun project as we are both bibliophiles. Watching the shelves take shape and planning what to do with various books has really been enjoyable. I'm hoping when we're done it will be functional for the users. It's a tiny room and doesn't need to be designed like a full-fledged library.
Stephanie and I are slowly prepping for Laura's baby shower. I should say that Stephanie is. She's making and distributing the invites. I'm providing the space (our house) and ordering the cake. We'll do the food together. Ryan didn't want a baby shower in the normal sense, so this will be an evening affair for couples to attend. It should be fun.
Friday the new family I've been chatting with over e-mail finally arrives. Ian is their office sponsor, so he'll be seeing them on Monday. I'm hoping to have them over for dinner next weekend.

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