Saturday, September 15, 2012

A Walk in the Woods

Last night we had a very special diner guest, my cousin Rebecca.

Martin with Cousin Rebecca

One great thing about the Wombats is that they bring some big names to our apartment. It's pretty nice having someone that you held as a child hold your baby. Unless it's my cousin Randy since I dropped him on his head as a baby so I'd prefer that he stays away until their craniums toughen up a bit.

Cheese Slate with Quadrello di Bufalo, Ginepro Pecorino, and Kinderhook

I put out this cheese plate with Quadrello di Bufalo, Ginepro Pecorino, and Kinderhook from New York State. This was a great excuse to use up some nice cheeses. Perhaps, one day, when the hype surrounding the Wombats dies down we should probably lay off the cheese for a while. Until then we're just living it up with the good stuff.

Pan Seared King Salmon with Mashed Potato, Garlic Spinach, Marinated Beets, and Mustard Cream Sauce

There was a some beautiful king salmon on sale at my local fishmonger's shop. I pan-seared it with a little Old Bay and served it on top of some mashed potato, spinach wilted with garlic, and served it with a mustard cream sauce and marinated beets. For the cream sauce I simply combined sour cream, whole grain mustard, hot sauce, salt, pepper, and fresh dill. For the beets I boiled them, diced them, and served them with some balsamic glaze, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Green Flash Brewing Hop Head Red

For a drink I poured this Hop Head Read from Green Flash Brewing Company. This was not my favorite of their offerings but, since it was from Green Flash, it was still very, very good. It had a slightly oniony aroma and flavor from the hops. This is a newish flavor to me and I'm still getting used to it when I encounter it, usually in the more hoppy IPAs that have come out as of late. Like all of Green Flash's beers it was very enjoyable and worth the slightly elevated price. I'd much rather have three beers form Green Flash than three Miller Lites. Or even one hundred Miller Lites.

Today the Wombats decided that they were going to switch things around a bit. Instead of eating every 3-4 hours they now demanded to feed every 2-3 hours. This doesn't seem like that big a deal until you realize that that changes 3-4 feedings each to 4-6 feedings each daily. This means one hour of resting/fussing, followed by one hour of feeding at the worst. We're hoping it's just a growth spurt and that it will end soon so that we can do other things to further their lives other than simply feeding and burping them. Yes, we're hoping that this growth phase will end soon.

In other words, we're hoping that our children soon suffer from stunted growth. That's because we're amazing parents.

Jen with Elliott on the Nature Preserve

Today we took them on a trip to the nature preserve where we hiked around and chased some deer who lazily tried to avoid us.

Elliott Hates the Harbor

Afterwards we took them down to the harbor where Elliott expressed his love for boats, seagulls, and overly-tanned women on the beach.

Tonight, as we wind down, we spend the moments not comforting the guys to try to look for nannies and/or day care centers to watch them as soon Jen will return to work. This is an extremely taxing process where no matter how good a solution you find you are never completely satisfied. We toured day care facilities the other day but there is just no magical child care solution. If we were filthy rich I'm imagining things would be much easier. If we were like Beyonce and Jay-Z this would be a piece of cake.

I mean more like Beyonce and Jay-Z. We're already a lot like Beyonce and Jay-Z

No comments: