Off to camp!

The big kids are off to camp, and we had the usual routine:

Loads of packing to get us through the month.



Travel adventure stories made more memorable with the arrival of this guy.



Reaching home base at Grandmas and waking up to this.



Loads of food.











Family Game night. 


And finally, drop off.

To make it easier, we split up this year.  Jeff took Mina. 



And I took Jordan.



Saying goodbye was not easy.



And I am already weepy thinking about it.  They've only been gone three days.  I really don't know what I am going to do when they go off to college.  I told Jeff maybe I would feel differently by then since they will be teenagers, and I'll be sick of them. 

But I doubt it.

The Spring Holidays 2015

The kids are back in school after a two week Spring break, and here's our recap of the holidays.  We got in a good dose of Bermudian traditions as well as a few of our own for the perfect masala.



Good Friday here in BDA is known for kite-flying.  The beach is the best spot as winds are up and power lines are nowhere to be seen.  This is the first year we did Kitefest at Horseshoe Beach.  Getting there early, we claimed our spot along the perfectly manicured sand.



Armed with codfish cakes, hot-cross buns (two other quintessential Bermuda Easter items) and reject macaroons (more on that later,) we settled in to watch the kites soar in the blue sky.  Theo was suitably impressed.




Of course, us being us, celebrating one holiday is never enough.  We were lucky to be invited to our friend's annual Passover Seder.  Desert is my thing, so I was happy to bring along a couple. 

Experimenting on my good friends is what I do, so when I saw this recipe for Tira-Matzah, I had to do it.  It's layers of matzo crackers soaked in espresso, coffee and rum, along with sweetened marscapone cheese and cocoa.  I adapted my version from the recipe at evilmadscientist!  It's good - not as soft as a traditional tiramisu (ladyfingers, zabaglione, etc.) but yummy and different.



I also made coconut macaroons.  It took three attempts before I finally got this batch that had minimal puddling along the base.  I started with a recipe given to me by Jeff's cousin.  I recalled hers from many a Passover dinner in the US.  Hers come out perfectly!

Mine were a disaster.  This is one of those recipes that is deceptively simple - just a few ingredients, but be warned.  After consulting various sources, I finally got the proportions of coconut right and achieved some semblance of stick to it by using meringue powder.  All the rejects tasted good, but they didn't look right.  Which is fine.. my kids devoured them the beach.



Dipped and drizzled with some chocolate ganache, and we were set to go.

Easter lillies from Amaral farms... such a great fragrance! Bought a bunch from the roadside stand en route to picking kids up.  The next day, the car stilled smelled like them.  (Big improvement.)



By Sunday morning, you would think we would be taking a detox.  Oh no. 

Sunday was Easter morning, and my kids were ready for the hunt.  While they ran around the back yard with our neighbors' kids, the moms (and Jeff) sat down for a semi-civilized brunch on the back porch.  Some strata, chocolate croissants, hot cross buns, and mimosas on the rainy morning were a nice start to the day.  I think my kids ate chocolate Easter candy.  I don't know.



That evening we had a quiet little family dinner at home - Suvir Saran marinated lamb, roasted new potatoes with rosemary and olive oil, and Pioneer Woman pistachio cake.  Shout out to Supermart on Front Street for the best butchers in town.  When I asked them to give me 2 pounds of rib chops, they delivered in style.  Great cut of meat, nice and thick and they handled the heavy Indian seasonings perfectly!



Theo wanted some, but I told him to get back to me when he has some teeth.

Radishes and butter - a random recipe.

I try to limit the kids extra curricular activities these days to one sport, an instrument and a language.  It's not a perfect system, but I think we're in a good place this year.  The kids are busy, hopefully becoming "well rounded;" and we still have days off plus regular family dinner time.

Except, there are days when we don't.  Hello, gymnastics!

Gymnastics takes up 5 hours of practice a week.  On Thursdays, Jordan has two hours of gymnastics for the Jr. Boys team. Unfortunately, the hours are 5:30 to 7:30. It also takes a half hour or more to get out there, and that's on days when I'm not driving the car pool to pick up two team mates. Somewhere in this time frame I also have to make sure he does his homework.  By the time he gets home, it's close to 8:15, and he's exhausted.  He takes his transplant meds, showers, and crashes.

The kid is a twig. He needs to eat something substantial before he goes off to burn 10,000 calories in a sweltering, non-AC gym.

He begs for pizza on gymnastics days. So I give in. Most times, we pick some up en route to the gym, but sometimes, we do it at home too.

While the pizza heats up, I try to tempt him with other things.

He's been a radish kick lately. Don't ask me why. When you have a picky kid, you learn to celebrate every new advancement in their taste buds.

Doesn't matter.

I found this ooh-la-la chic French snack on the pages of Saveur magazine, and went with it.

The radish and butter sandwich.

Leave the salted butter out for awhile to soften up. I went with a brand called "Presidente," which claimed to be French, but sounds Spanish to me.  I think I prefer the Irish salted butter I normally use when I bake homemade bread - Kerrygold.



He devoured three huge pieces.

But it may just have been the salted butter .. or the bread. Like me, the kid loves his carbs and his sodium.

Not sure what happened to the love of radishes though. They became more garnish like with each piece he ate. After three servings, he flat out just asked for a hunk of bread with "just butter."

And then he ate two slices of pizza, grapes, and some corn on the cob.

He said he'd wait for after practice for his dessert.



If only I could bottle this metabolism.

Thanksgiving in Bermuda, 2011

This year, we stayed on the island for Thanksgiving. Luckily, several of our friends did too; so we celebrated the holiday together. What's better than a bunch of ex-pats getting together to stuff ourselves and give thanks for the good life?

We decided to host. Thirteen total - six adults, seven kids. Kid's table was fun to put together.

Look how nicely they were behaving.

The girls that help keep me sane.

Josh and Jeff - ladling out the first course.

The grown up table - pretty simple.

And there's Oscar under the table .. always hoping... always waiting...

The happy plate: turkey, mashed potatoes, cauliflower puree, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, creamed spinach, stuffing.

For dessert, there was both apple and pumpkin pie..

The kids dessert - turkey cupcakes

An honorary member of the clean-plate club.

The end of the evening said it all. Man and man's best friend. Of course I can't blame Thanksgiving for this pose. The two of them look like this every night.

Treats..

red velvet cupcakes for Jeff.. (Happy Anniversary!)

Black and white cookies for the kids...





Definitely NOT on the same day..

Not even a week of school...

and one of them is already sick.

Which means, of course, I'm now waiting for the other shoe to drop.



For the epicureans among you, that is an ice cream sandwich sundae, with real whipped cream topping and sprinkles. I'm trying to remember why I decided to make this for him.

Of course, I often ask myself that same question about other things I make.



Buffalo chicken bites. Recipe courtesy of Joelen at "What's Cookin' Chicago?" Click here for the recipe.

They were really, really good.



Thank goodness I had a party to bring them to. I like to spread my gluttony among my friends.

The calories balance themselves out that way.

Vacation Part II. NY & NJ.

There are many wonderful things about living in Bermuda. You want nice beaches. We got 'em. You want sunshine? Yep, can do. You want decent pizza? Bwah ha ha!!!

How 'bout a slice of chewy, half-baked dough, shaped in a wedge and covered in sugared tomato sauce? There may be some shredded cheese substitute if you're really lucky.

It's pathetic, but all I wanted when we hit stateside was pizza. (and Target ... and world peace). After five days with Grandma, we packed our bags and headed to New Jersey. There, we camped out for two nights to take Jordan to his biopsy at Columbia, visit friends, meet with our realtor to discuss our house, do errands, etc.

And eat pizza.

Our favorite Leonian and fellow mother -in- arms, "Miss Nataliya" graciously welcomed us into her home and ordered from the kid's favorite - Donna's Pizza. I ate three slices. Without breathing. My kids may or may not have eaten. I don't recall. I was too busy swooning. Five months without a decent slice will do that to ya. Of course, the irony is that when we lived in NJ, I wasn't the biggest pizza eater. I could take it or leave it. My vices were more chocolate related. But now that the possibility of decent pizza no longer exists for me; I crave it constantly. There's something to be said about this as far as dieting mentality goes, methinks.



The second food item I was dying for was decent sushi. It's not that Bermuda doesn't have it - there are sushi places. I've heard there are some good ones, actually. But factoring in the cost of paying for a babysitter so I can go out and eat Bermuda sushi, and the actual cost of each particular piece of sushi, and the amount of sushi I like to consume... well, it's cheaper to do it in Manhattan. Which we did.

Lucky the Brooklyn gang was willing to come out and humor me. Big thanks to Gina for setting this up. Big thanks to the staff at the restaurant for not throwing us out after Jeff's behavior. I swear, I thought I left the kids with the babysitter. Apparently not.

Jordan's biopsy was Friday morning. - really early Friday morning. Once again, Miss Nataliya stepped in to babysit Mina so we could take Jordan to the hospital and focus on his care that day. Needless to say, Mina was thrilled to spend the day with her friends, visit her old school, and go arts-and-crafts crazy!

The biopsy went well. Luckily, Jordan was the first patient of the day. He had a little bit of trouble with the anesthesia mask, again. Putting it on and staying calm long enough to go under continues to be a challenge. But, I was really comforted by the head anesthesiologist who laid out a very sensible course to follow during the entire biopsy. Last time, Jordan had some "issues" while under that resulted in him being intubated. Some mucus or secretions built up while he was under and he went into "respiratory distress." This time, they had to decide whether to intubate him from the outset or proceed normally with just the mask. That's the less intrusive procedure. She went with that option. And her reasoning, as she explained it, struck me as remarkably calm and focused. I liked her.

Jordan came out of the biopsy quickly and went into recovery. Because it was only a single ventricle biopsy, he only had to lay in recovery for two extra hours, instead of four. He woke up after a bit; and unlike previous biopsies - he was not nauseous. His first words were a request for juice.

He stayed calm, did not bleed through the bandages, and we were out of there in record time! The results came in and he had zero rejection. That's the best news of all.



We celebrated that evening at an old favorite - Dante's.



We ate. Interesting things...



Oh boy, did we ever.

Can we just pause a minute and contrast the eating styles of my two children? By the forkful = Mina. One flipping strand at a time = Jordan.

After a soul-satisfying Italian meal, don't you want to run screaming for the nearest ice cream store? My kids do. Pasta, bread, butter, and ice cream. I haven't uttered those words in the same sentence in at least 15 years. But my kids can get away with it. For now.

That night, Jeff watched the kids while I enjoyed a night in with the girls. Yay, wine night! Or.. tea night... is how I started actually. The whole crew came out to Nataliya's and it felt like we picked up right where we left off. A good night of gossip, current events (kind of), school politics, book discussions, some wine, some cheese, some chocolate. Wow, I missed those.

By the way, one of the topics centered on the book, "The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom," which I immediately went out and downloaded for my Kindle. Read it in two days. Like her or not, it was a fast-paced romp through her crazy, parenting years raising her Chinese-American-Jewish daughters in the traditional "Chinese way" I highly recommend it to all neurotic moms out there who either 1) want to feel better about themselves; or b) need a hefty inspiration for how to make their children do better in life. Or not. I'm not condoning how she raised her kids. I also think she expressed some half-hearted regrets herself if you read the latter half of the book carefully. But, I do think there might be some truth to some of the remarks she makes in her book.

Saturday morning arrived and we had a date with Continental. The kids are pros at going through security, putting their shoes, cuddlies and coats on the x-ray conveyor belt, and walking through the metal detectors. While we waited at our gate, we watched the two of them climb up the windows and watch the planes on the runway below. Suddenly, an announcement made us pause.

We had noticed the area was really crowded. Spring break had arrived and people were heading off to parts unknown. Way too many people, as it turned out. Continental had overbooked our flight and now it was time to pay. The nice lady at the counter started to play, "Let's Make a Deal." And we took it. We gave up our four seats and agreed to stay one more night so we could take the Sunday flight instead.

They provided us with two hotel rooms, a shuttle, dinner and breakfast vouchers, tickets for the next day plus four tickets for ANOTHER vacation to be used at our pleasure during the rest of the year. SCORE!!!!

I love a good deal.

We spent the afternoon in Manhattan watching a movie in Times Square and eating Mexican food at Chevy's with Grandma H and Michael.

I think the movie was good, but I passed out for the first half hour and slept blissfully.

I wasn't too worried because Jordan had a jumbo sized bag of popcorn; and I assumed Jeff was keeping an eye on them. We compared notes later, and he told me he was asleep for the first half too. Great minds think alike.

It was a pretty awesome vacation! We loved just about every minute of it. Hanging out with friends, great eating, great catching up, a successful biopsy and four airline tickets for the future (Tahoe family reunion in August!! Yes!!!) Ahhh... America...