Spring Break: Dating, Jumping, Reading

This week is spring break for my kids and I have been dreaaaaading it. After a week or two of lovely spring weather it turned cold again last week and what on earth am I going to do with 3 rowdy little boys for a week when it's cold outside?

I've been pleasantly surprised. We're more than halfway through the week and I've been having fun! It turns out that my kids are pretty nice.

I'm also pretty pleased by how frugal our entertainment has been. To wit:

Monday: 90 minutes of crowded, crazy jumping at Pump It Up (used a Groupon)

Tuesday: Date with Sam. We saw Mars Needs Moms - adorable, exciting, sweet movie; the perfect date movie for a mom and son. Bonus: my college friend Amber is one of the martians. I believe she is the one who shouts "Unauthorized dogpile!" in the early part of the movie. (Coupons from M&Ms.) Dinner afterwards at Rainforest Cafe (coupon + gift card).

Wednesday: Park and library. Sam got a library card today! This seemed like a fun milestone and I was disappointed when the librarian did not share my enthusiasm.

Me: "My son wants to get his first library card!"

Librarian: "Do you have two id's with proof of your address? Can he sign his name?"

Oh, well. Sam and I were excited. He checked out half a dozen books about dinosaurs.

Tomorrow: Ben's day off. There will be a boys-only viewing of Star Wars in the afternoon. The real first Star Wars from the 1970s. I'll be out somewhere reading Anna Karenina. Still. That is one long book.

Watching Hair Grow

Now that I'm done with chemo and certified cancer free, I have three exciting projects in the works:

1. Wait for the nerve damage to heal so my hands and feet aren't numb.
2. Get the medical port (a tube in my vein for drug delivery) removed. Surgery scheduled for mid-April.
3. Watch my hair grow.

I thought you might like to join me for me for #3. It's coming along. I can see a little wave now, so I'm optimistic that full curl will return eventually.

Unrelated: Ben put up a bird feeder and a gourd bird house (thanks, Tom & Diane!) in the front yard this weekend. A sparrow family has already moved in! We can watch them from the living room window. Lots of fun.

Purple Dinner

Sunday night we had purple dinner. Cooking Light had another name for it but how can a Northwestern family pass up this chance?

The idea behind this recipe, which involves primarily red cabbage, beets, and ground sirloin, is to make a full dinner for 4 with one burger's worth of meat. Odd, interesting, with an unfamiliar ingredient (I've never cooked beets) = Definitely try it!

Ben and I were charmed. It's quite good and, as I told my children as they ate everything else on the plate and looked a little frightened, it tasted like hamburger. I've only met red cabbage and beets where modified by "pickled" and I do not like pickled. It turns out they are beautiful to look at and mildly flavored.

I think my actual description was, "It tastes like hamburger with more to chew." I suppose that could also describe a lot of things you wouldn't want to eat. Anyway, I recommend it.

Tonight's menu: GRILLED! portobellos with whiskey-brined pork chops in the background, smoking for tomorrow night. (The recipe I found is for bourbon brine, but we don't have bourbon. We always have some Jack Daniels.)

The Gourmet Cookbook

For some mysterious reason, The Gourmet Cookbook, usually forty bucks, is on sale at Amazon for $16. It seems like a good time to tell you that this is one of my all-time favorite cookbooks.

The book is a collection of recipes from the entire history of Gourmet magazine, which is, I believe, now out of print. Each recipe is accompanied by a paragraph describing the recipe's source, history, or culinary setting. I'm as likely to read this book as I am to cook from it.

One of my favorite things about this book is the diversity of its contents. I've found some fantastic recipes that I use often (smoky black beans, p. 267), some that are interesting but which I will never try (chocolate orange dobostorte, p. 734, a cake that requires 4 hours of work), and others that are strange and consequently irresistible (watermelon, tomato, and feta salad, p. 145. I only made that once).

My parents gave me this for my birthday several years ago. More than once that winter, when Sam was a baby and I had long evenings at home, I answered phone calls from my brother that began, "What are you up to?" I replied, "Oh, reading a cookbook."

No, I am not getting paid for this review. But I probably should be.

Cancer Free

Good news! No cancer!

I'll get checked again every year for a while, but I think the phrases "cancer survivor" and "in remission" apply to me now.

Praise God.

Colon Cancer Awareness Month

March is, according to the CDC, Colon Cancer Awareness Month. I'm celebrating with an appropriate medical screening today. Stay tuned to find out that I'm officially cancer free!

This video is both informative and amusing. He's talking about derriers. I think there is space for a little levity.

Don't be a chump, check your rump!