Weekend

Overarching themes: Mike and Heather's baby is born! Cooking. Relaxing. Consoling Democrats that the world will not fall apart, that they are still thinking in the bubble, and that they shouldn't allow the media or the Republicans to write the lessons of the losses of the last election.

The big news is that Messiahbomb has a new addition to the blogging family. We're happy to see that and pained to see that labor lasted 26 hours.

On Friday I stopped by Trader Joe's and did some shopping. While there, I found a 1 pound can of crab claw meat in the refrigerated section. Having already picked up some artichokes, I thought that this would be a convenient way to make a dip. I also grabbed some green beans, various tofu products, and some staples. That evening, I surprised Shawn with the artichokes (steamed in our pressure cooker) and crab dip. The crab meat was pretty damn good. I found out that Yuki likes it and Baraka and Chaiyo won't go near the stuff. Yuki was a happy kitty with a full belly. The rest of the evening was quiet. I listened to the Redskins album, "Neither Washington Nor Moscow", a classic bit of socialist soul music, and I typed up the bread recipe and mailed it off to Kris.

Saturday, after chatting with John and reading the paper, Shawn and I headed off towards Mill Creek to shop at the new Central Market. We stopped at the Maltby Cafe for breakfast, which was REALLY good this time. The new Central Market looks as if it has a tad more room than the one in Lynwood. I was disappointed to see that they did not have the flour grinding machines in their bulk foods area, but other than that, it was a great experience. We picked up a lot of items, including a fair amount of bulk foods and veggies. The bill surprised both of us, but a large chunk of it was batteries.

On Thursday, a rather annoying thing had happened - our fire alarms began to go off for no apparent reason. We weren't cooking at the time and hadn't been cooking in a long time. It was about 9 PM, when they first went off. The downstairs one was the culprit. Shawn, scared to death of dying in a fire, glared at me with an accusatory stare. My look proclaimed my innocence and wondered what she was up to. Heh, the alarms shut off as quickly as they had started. At 9:30, they went off again. They shut off again. At midnight, they went off for the final time as I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs, and disconnected the alarm from the ceiling. Someone suggested to Shawn on Saturday that perhaps our batteries were getting low. These things are wired into the house, but they also have batteries as a back up. Hm, that didn't seem right, but it wouldn't hurt to replace the batteries. Hence the market purchase and surprisingly, no more fire alarm surprises - yet. "Replace you batteries every Halloween" we were told. If this does the trick, I'm making it part of my regular maintenance.

On the way home from the market, we stopped for our first of the season eggnog latte. Oh, man, I forget every year until November comes around how much I love these treats. They are totally unhealthy, but so damn tasty. After we got home, Shawn set about changing the license plates on her truck. Every 8 years the state makes car owners buy new plates for their cars. Shawn needed to get hers on right away (insert bitching here). I put away the groceries then headed out for my own car maintenance - getting the oil changed. That didn't take too long as I got lucky and made it in between heavy customer periods. Shortly after getting home, I settled down to make dinner. We had a lot of crab left over. I had read the recipe on the can for crab cakes to Shawn and she said that it sounded a lot like the ones she makes, so I tried it out. The recipe called for "seafood seasoning" which I took to mean Old English Bay seasoning, which I didn't have around. Instead, I added a combination of tarragon, summer savory, dill, salt and pepper. I put the crab mixture away in the refrigerator and helped Shawn. She cut some delicatta squash rings, peeled and seeded. She fried them in some oil and then steamed them to finish cooking. At the market earlier she had picked up some pistachios and dates. We used them to sautee up with some onion, garlic, almonds, parsley, mint, and cinnamon. After all was done, we placed the squash rings in a baking dish, topped them with the sautee mixture, and baked in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes. That, along with the crab cakes, and a small side salad made up our dinner. We enjoyed some left over peach crisp for dessert. We watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" (which Shawn had missed at Halloween because she was busy working on her group project for school), and "The Muppet Show" with Vincent Price as guest.

Sunday was a mostly lazy day. We took a walk as it was beautiful outside (63 and sunny!). We did a little yard work. I made pancakes for breakfast. I did the dishes. We talked a lot. Dinner consisted of left overs. I watched some TV and read some and also got the laundry done. Nice day.

We still have some crab dip left over from the artichokes. I think I'll make wraps tonight using some steamed broccoli, carrots, bean sprouts, sunflower seeds, lettuce, and crab dip. Easy and tasty.