so it goes...

I think it's safe to say we're not bloggers anymore. Chasing Cashew and the Little One is pretty time consuming, and the little time that we have left for ourselves is taken up by house projects, various bits of craftiness, bicycles, and mindless vegging. We're both on Facebook now, and I think all of you who read this are already connected with us there - if not, and if for some strange reason you don't know our real names, comment here and we'll hook you up.

It was fun while it lasted, and maybe one day we'll be back. For now though, we're busy livin'. L-I-V-I-N.

m: I've been swined.

We did indeed eat well. At least, until a round of allergies/cold/random virus came around and mama was not feeling like cooking grand new dishes. We tried carrots with shallots, sage, and thyme; creamed spinach and parsnips; brown sugar baked sweet potatoes and acorn squash; and pear cranberry cake. All were delicious, but the cake was by far my favorite. Moist and yummy without being overly sweet (that's without the glaze - didn't have a chance to make that). That said, none made it to the Thanksgiving table. Even with only 5 adults, tastes were still too picky to make things like creamed spinach or braised carrots. (Don't get me started on my sister's crazy food thing. That's a subject for an entire post. Or maybe even an entire blog.) So we stuck with the standards, and everything was absolutely dee-lish. And then the swine flu hit us.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving and the food and whatnot (mostly the food). I'm tired of our traditional family thanksgiving menu. While the food is always good, there's never any bold flavor, and there's never anything new. However I don't want to shake things up at all and make something entirely different, and I wouldn't want to leave anything out. I'm looking for a good middle ground where everyone's happy and the food is memorable. So in two years (I'm totally not cooking next year - after this year I need to take a year off) I'll be shaking it up, but just a little. My thought is that all the basics should be there, but with a twist. Turkey, potatoes (mashed/smashed somehow), sweet potatoes of some sort, cranberry sauce (some addition here would be nice to make it different - but it still needs to be tart and brightly colored), stuffing (new ground for me, but looking forward to it), a couple veggie things (green beans/brussels sprouts/carrots/peas), and pie(s).

In other news, Cashew has started pulling herself up and scoots along the furniture. At 7 months. It makes me proud, but I am so not ready for her to be walking yet.

i like to eat turkey in a big brown shoe

It's finally been confirmed that I do indeed get to cook Thanksgiving this year. Yay! It won't be in my own kitchen, but I think that's okay since the kitchen I'll be cooking in could fit a small army. In preperation for the big day, I've been pouring through past issues of Gourmet (RIP) to find some new ideas. I've got lots of ideas and will be attempting to try out the recipes on the fam before they make it to the Thanksgiving table. Which means, if all goes according to plan, we will be eating very well for the next few weeks. Yum.

Over the weekend we tried the beet-pickled deviled eggs. Which were really just a sneaky way to make deviled eggs look pretty. But since B and I don't really need too many excuses to make deviled eggs, we were all over it. Dee-lish. Don't think we'll make them for Thanksgiving though - they seemed more suited to the Halloween party table that they were on. I really wish I had remembered to snap a picture. Instead I'll leave you with the picture from the magazine:

B: Three is the new tantrum

I finally did it...I accepted that the era of the blog boom is mostly dead...likely replaced by this facebook thing people keep talking about, so I finally went through and cleaned out my list of favorites. I always find dead blogs kind of sad. I know ours was (or continues to be)!

Anyways, I did it. No more will I carry around a long list of blogs dead for more than a year.

On another front, why do they always talk about the terrible twos? It must be because it sounds good...it sure as hell doesn't get any better after two! One of the things that I wasn't prepared for was the "silliness". It is like she is holding a contest to see how much time she can possibly waste being silly. I know it sounds wrong, but this is actually waaaaay more frustrating than the tantrums. If she hits her sister, she gets a time-out and tantrum or no, the rule is clear. With the silliness, there is no rule that it shouldn't take 25 minutes to pick out a pair of socks, but that is what happens. You don't want to get mad about a little girl being silly, but it can absolutely test every last ounce of patience you have just trying to get a pair of socks on.

hello rutabaga!

There's no doubt now that fall is here. We dropped about 30 degrees in two days, and now it's supposed to rain next week. There's snow in the mountains and the down blanket is on the bed. Hurray for fall! Hurray for the fall food!

B and I have been on a kick for the past couple years of trying to cook seasonally. It seems logical, and really when you think about it, of course you would cook with what's in season, but it's harder than you think. Growing up, meals really didn't change with the seasons - sure, there was less barbecuing in the winter, and maybe a few more soups, but why wouldn't you want to use peaches in January? And really, I totally understand - our parents went from growing up with only seasonally available foods to having a giant bounty of freshness, pretty much whenever they wanted. Of course you would want to take advantage of that. But now we're swinging that pendulum back the other direction and attempting to eat "locally," which also means seasonally. Most of the time it's pretty easy, and we're having fun trying new recipes and ingredients (hello rutabaga!). Now that fall is here we're embracing it completely. Last week we busted out our essential fall salad: mixed greens, thinly sliced onions, pears, goat cheese, and a fresh balsamic vinaigrette. I think tonight we may switch out the pears for pomegranate. Yummmm...

Oddly enough though, we had a really tough time with summer. Maybe it was because we were really busy (newborns will do that to you), or maybe it was because our backyard garden didn't come through as well as we'd hoped, or maybe it's because cooking in the summer when its 90-100 degrees just doesn't sound appetizing. Other than our standby tomato bruschetta (and of course pesto), we didn't do much distinctly summer cooking. Anyone have any great summer dishes to share?

updated

.

I've had a post rolling around in my head for a while now. It was about babies and how wonderful they are and how amazing Cashew is and how different it is this time around and etc etc. And it was all emotional too about postpartum depression and how I had it with the Little One and it totally sucked and having Cashew has really shown me just how joyful new life can be. But it was taking WAY too long to write and I wasn't posting anything else because I wanted to get this post up. And then Dooce went and wrote it for me and I don't need to say anything more. I didn't have quite the experience that she did, but she sums it up pretty good. So there. Mischief managed. Resume blogging.

And did you know that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day? Y'arrrr!

seems logical (if you forget about 6)

So the Little One started asking about some Spanish words the other day. (Yay for Handy Manny!) We were counting to 10 when I realized I couldn't remember what came after cinco, and I paused to think about it... "I don't remember what comes next - do you know?"

The Little One looked up at me and with complete seriousness and said "seven-os"?