On the Move . . . Almost

With each day the Wombats become more mobile. The countdown to the end of our relative freedom as parents is quickly coming to a close. Soon there will be no end to the horrors these little guys will put us through. For months we've been saying that we should clear out the bottom shelves of the cabinets beneath our television.


Tuesday morning the guys decided to show us the true cost of our procrastination by scattering Wii games all across the living room.


Our last day in France, during our honeymoon, we had dinner with Jen's old host family in which Jen's host mother made a fantastic dinner. I, getting over a mild bout of food poisoning, sadly could not enjoy how amazing it was.

I do remember there was some delicious duck with wonderful, crispy fried potatoes. I unintentionally did a really poor recreation of that on Tuesday night with some waffle fries and a salad made out of the leftover corn with feta cheese.


For beer we had this 2011 bottle of Robert Johnson's Hellhound on my Ale from Dogfish Head. It's yet another absurdly malty music collaboration from the experimental Delaware brewery. It claims to be 100 IBUs. I couldn't really taste it. I think that's mostly due to the extreme hopping that seems to go in just about every limited release these days.


Yesterday I arrived to an empty day care only to find out that the Wombats were at the park. I went over to meet them and was greeted with the opposite of what I normally find: a sleeping Martin and a wide awake Elliott.


At home Martin woke up and reminded me, again, how dangerously close they are to being able to get into just about anything they want. Fortunately I had spent the afternoon doing some minor baby-proofing which meant that at least our Wii games and DVDs were safe. This was convenient seeing that our Wii is broken and nobody watches DVDs anymore.


The Wombats like to pretend that they aren't hungry. Their favorite thing is to swat away my spoon as I try to feed them. Last night, after many attempts to feed them, I just cut up some cheese and put it in front of them. I turned my back and then, after a minute, I turned back to see that Elliott had eaten all of his cheese and was making moves to steal some of Martin's.


After wrestling these clown to bed again I made this beet salad with feta and cherry tomatoes.


I also made the dinner I was going to make last Friday but ended up putting into the freezer after discovering my cousin was stuck in Stamford after the train ahead of him derailed. I grilled up some sirloin and lobster tails and sauteed some beet greens, serving it all with a baked potato.


For beer I had this Imperial Stout from Brasseurs Illimités, another from our trip to Montreal.


Tonight I tried a new tactic and only fed them pieces of food they could feed themselves. It's started already that these ungrateful little buttheads don't want to have anything to do with me feeding them. Instead they want to feed themselves because they're so good at it. Just look at how little mess they make! They're pros. Pros, I tell you!


After feeding them I tried a new technique where I gave them their baths then fed them their bottles after they bathed. This calmed them down a bit from their normal post-bath frenzy and it was relatively easy to get them to bed afterward.

I celebrated by opening this Tokyo by St. Bernardus, a beer brewed only once for the opening of St. Bernardus pub in Japan.

It was light and refreshing, the perfect way to celebrate a successful new technique used to get the babies to bed. Once again I think I've figured everything out and found a foolproof technique for putting them to sleep.

It's going to be a great three or four days until this doesn't work anymore.

Passover Chain Fight!

Tonight was the Wombats' first Passover. Sadly I couldn't figure out a way to make them a particularly Passover-y mashed dinner. I briefly considered crumbling up matzoh to mix in but I figured having sharp cracker shards in their meal may not be a great parenting move. Instead I opted for chicken, kale, and acorn squash with rice cereal. No sharp objects or choking hazards.


For salad I started us off with chopped apples, mixed greens, pistachios, lemon, and balsamic glaze with olive oil, salt, and pepper.


I also roasted a chicken which I seasoned with a BBQ rub then drizzled with lemon and honey.


As an accompaniment I made these olive oil mashed potatoes with fresh spinach, salt, and pepper.


Also, I roasted some great California asparagus with lemon zest and chopped macadamia nuts.


To pair with tonight's dinner I tried looking for a He'Brew beer I haven't had before at the local beer store. Sadly there was nothing there that I haven't had. Instead I went to the beer cellar and came out with this He'Brew Jewbelation Fifteen from Shmaltz Brewing Company. I picked this one up some time in 2011 and it had been aging for probably about eighteen months. Each year they brew an anniversary ale using the number of the anniversary for the number of malts, hops, and ABV. This version was brewed with fifteen malts, fifteen hops, and weighs in at a heavy fifteen percent alcohol.

The resulting beer was pretty amazing. It was extremely complex but far smoother than I would have thought for fifteen percent alcohol. I thought I wouldn't be able to finish the whole glass but after sipping it I actually felt far less affected by it than I would have imagined. I felt like I could have easily had a second beer, just not a Jewbelation 15. Maybe something in the 5-6.5% range.


While we struggled to get through our dinner before the babies lost their minds they enjoyed a time-honored Passover tradition: Baby Chain Fight!


For dessert I made matzo crunch, one of my favorite dessert items. To make it a little different this year I combined it with vanilla custard to make a version of Jen's "Napoleons" by layering it with the cracked matzo crunch and topping it with whipped cream. Kosher? No. Delicious? Yes.

Mazel Tov!

Guests From Rhode Island, Cheese from Vermont, Beer from Canada, and Babies from New York

Last night we had a very special visitor, Aunt Liza! The Wombats are always excited when we have guests. We are also excited because any tiny bit of additional help makes it feel like we're on vacation for the night.


While they still reeled from the time change we let them convert half of our table into a play area and watched as they rubbed their eyes and tried to fool themselves into thinking that they weren't actually ready for bed.


What better match for playing with babies than a Vermont cheese plate? From left to right: Weybridge from Scholten Family Farm, Pawlet from Consider Bardwell Farm, and Bonne Bouche from Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery.


To celebrate the arrival of our out of town guest we cracked open this bottle of Prosecco. Jen celebrates any time anyone comes over by drinking sparkling wines since she loves them so dearly and, sadly, I am not always eager to share them. It' snot that I dislike sparkling wines it's just that I'd rather be drinking beer.


Like this tasty La British from La microbrasserie À la Fût. This was another very tasty British-style brown ale from our recent trip to Quebec. It's surprising because I would have thought that Quebec would have done a better job with their Belgian-style ales given their attachment to that beer culture. I'm finding that their British entries tend to be a bit nicer so far. It is early still in the selection. I'll be able to form a better opinion in another twenty or thirty beers.


For dinner I made them chicken with kale, multigrain cereal, and milk. Elliott liked it okay.


Martin, on the other hand, seemed to hate it. He does this from time to time so I'm hesitant to trust any of his initial reactions to foods. Sometimes he gets a little over dramatic and acts as though we are poisoning him. He likes chicken. He likes kale. He likes multigrain cereal. He certainly likes milk.


Come to think of it, Elliott may not have been in love with his dinner either. I think he's just too polite to make his feelings known. Martin is a little more direct.

After Jen made some sweet potato and apple and Martin suddenly regained his appetite.


After getting the guys to sleep I put out this salad with avocado, radish, red onion, grape tomato, Lisbon lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.


I also made toscani with fresh peas, roasted red and yellow tomatoes, chopped parsley, and a little Parmigiano-Reggiano.


For the ladies I poured this 2011 Bishop's Peak Chardonnay from Talley Vineyards in Arroyo Grande, California. Again, I like wine but it tends to take valuable drinking attention away from beer.

Also, I find Chardonnay to be not that great. Sorry, Chardonnay lovers. It's just who I am.


For the main course I got a beautiful piece of cod which I roasted in the pan with crushed plum tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, capers, and kalamata olives.


I served it with broccoli rabe, olive oil, and garlic.


For my "Chardonnay" I had this La Vache Folle RyePA from Microbrasserie Charlevoix, another Quebec treasure. This was a really nice beer with a nice grapefruit hoppiness and great maltiness. The downside of having a really good beer like this is knowing that I probably won't get another one for a good long while.

That is part of the perils of spending way too much money on beer from a faraway land.

I like peril.


After many unsuccessful attempts Martin refused to believe that he was actually tired and finally joined us at the table for some adult conversation. He just cannot stand it when there are things going on and he has to go to bed. The little guy doesn't want to miss anything. Besides, he had some fascinating insight on our political discussion.

Who knew the little guy was so well read?

Cider House Fools

I hate the mail. Every time I check the mail (which is about five or six times a year) I am disgusted and infuriated by the garbage that comes in. Jen has put the only key to the mailbox on her key ring and it hasn't bothered me at all. The less time I spend sifting through all the time-wasting annoyances that come in the mail the better. Every so often, however, something truly great comes in the mail. Recently I got a package from Frank, a friend of Jen's and reader of the blog, who sent us this nice bottle of home made cider which he describes as New England Farmhouse style.


I was really excited to try this and finally had an opportunity tonight to open it. It ended up being crisp and acidic and it reminded me of Granny Smith apples the most with a distinct taste of the apple skin. Very nicely done.

The last time I had cider was when we were last in France. We went out to eat and were deeply disappointed with our crepes. Jen ordered some sort of pork crepe that ended up having boar taint, a flavor that comes from pigs that have not been castrated. This is palatable to some in Europe but found basically foul and disgusting by North American palates. It was such a disappointing experience that I needed to take a nap and we later regrouped to go out for redemption crepes that were not disgusting while Jen washed them down with a Tequila flavored beer and I had green tea.

It's comforting to know that we were super lame even before we had kids.


Tonight we made crepes to accompany our cider with leftover Christmas ham from the freezer and shredded Gruyere.


The babies joined us at the dinner table and had their first taste of edamame.



It had a mixed review.


Jen also made a delicious salad with mozzarella, grapefruit, onion, hearts of palm, and avocado with vinaigrette.

It went well with an unconventional bedtime routine, doing dishes, making the babies' food for the following day, and cleaning up soggy bits of Baby Mum-Mums off the floor.

More cider may have made that last task a little more enjoyable.

Or apple vodka.

The Blizzard of '13

Today marked the seven month birthday of the Wombats. It also marked a huge blizzard coming into town with a silly name. Winter storms get names now so that the older generation can wrinkle their nose at our silly storm named Nemo. In their day they just named the blizzard after the year. Nemo could never outdo The Blizzard of '78 even if technically we get more snow.


On Wednesday I returned home with this pizza from Roberta's in Brooklyn. Elliott was having a fit and we didn't really get a chance to eat it until last night when I returned home and Martin was having a fit. It took about three hours to calm him down after which we settled down and at the pizza as if we'd just been through the traumas of war.


I cracked open this Naughty Nurse from City Steam Brewery in hopes that she had some sort of pediatric experience. It turns out she didn't and about half way through enjoying this beer Martin woke up in a fit. He had a temperature and I ended up taking him to the doctor where he was diagnosed with RSV, a made up malady which apparently means he has a really bad cold.



After finally getting the sick guys to sleep they woke up this morning for about an hour and then took a three-and-a-half hour nap.


This unexpected event allowed me to do no fewer than fifteen loads of laundry as the snow started to pile up outside.


Before dinner I gave the guys a bath to allow them to steam a little. They had a grand old time in the bath and we even had a FaceTime with Nana and Grandpa where I was able to avoid them grabbing my phone and tossing it into the bath. I lucked out . . . this time.


Today was a roller coaster of shrieking and giggling. Apparently yesterday at day care they ladies there said that Martin wouldn't eat because every time they tried to feed him he started cracking up. They tried getting another woman to feed him but they ended up with the same results. Today was similar with both of them being pretty giggly then losing their minds as they realized snot was pouring uncontrollably out of their noses.


Tonight, in honor of seven months, I made mango for the babies. Like the peaches they were frozen and a bit acidic but the guys still seemed to like them quite a bit. Unfortunately they were so worked up they didn't really allow themselves to enjoy them as much as they could. We had to perform the rare dual-parent feeding where we both picked a baby and shoveled food into his face as fast as we possibly can. Even with this attention they still spent the fractions of seconds between spoonfuls screaming and spitting mango all over our glasses.

The Wombats' Favorite Foods (in descending order from favorite to least favorite)

1. Pears
   
2. Sweet Potato
   
3. Avocado
   
4. Mango^*
   
5. Peaches^*
   
6. Butternut Squash
   
7. Bananas
   
8. Carrot
   
9. Peas
   

^*Frozen and out of season. Will need to be ranked again when in season. After propping the guys in front of the news to watch the coverage of Winter Storm Nemo we had our dinner as the Wombats raced around the apartment in their walkers. I made this salad with radish, tomato, avocado, green onion, olive oil, salt, pepper, and lime juice. For dinner I made this chili with garlic, onion, pepper, ground beef, tomato, cumin, paprika, chili powder, hot sauce, and a touch of chocolate and peanut butter. I served it over white rice with shredded cheddar, green onion, radish, sour cream, and tomato. For beer I picked a beer that wasn't the most standard match for chili, this Canaster Winterscotch-Style Ale from KleinBrouwerij De Glazen Toren. This was a nice dark, Belgian ale with a very dry finish. I enjoyed it immensely in the thistle glass which Jen thinks is ridiculous.
For dessert we put out a loaf pan to collect snow from the blizzard then Jen made this Tier d'Erable. We boiled some maple syrup until soft ball stage then drizzled it over the packed snow in the pan. The result was a chewy maple sugar candy that was an amazing accompaniment to the remainder of the Canaster.

After hours Martin is still resisting sleep but it's been much easier than previous nights. That's an encouraging sign that the Wombats are beginning to feel better. I greatly look forward to returning to our pre-sickness routine and getting the guys to sleep before midnight. That should do great things for our quality of life.

But mostly for our quality of sleep.