Spring Shearing!

My friend Karen belongs to a yarn CSA called Hudson Valley Fiber Farm. A few months previously she told me about the upcoming spring shearing. When I noticed that friends and kids would be welcome, I got excited because based on Khalil's reaction to the dog park I thought that he would also enjoy meeting the sheep and goats. Also, it would be a potluck event, and Khalil and I are both foodies. I asked him and his mom about it, and we all agreed that it was a good idea.

Grace and I picked up Khalil and, as we made our way north, we all nibbled on the broken ginger scones in the double batch I'd made that morning. The ninety-minute drive went very quickly for me because Khalil and I were, as usual, talking comic books and movies the whole time. I'm afraid it wasn't quite as enjoyable for Grace, but she did get a kick out of seeing how Khalil and I were apparently separated at birth.

Our timing was spectacular: a minute or two after we arrived, Susan announced that they were about to start the sheep shearing! We made our way over to the other side of the house where they'd set up a tarp in back of the sheep trailer. You can see what we saw next by watching the video on this page of the farm blog. If you watch closely, you'll see Khalil for about two seconds right near the beginning.

If you watched the video you'll know that the shearing was quite an experience. I felt bad for the sheep as it got nicked with the shaver, but it really wasn't much different from the shaving nicks I get from time to time. After the second or third sheep, the group decided that it was time to eat.

Khalil's first order of business was to put two of my ginger scones on his plate. See what a mean about the "separated at birth" thing? Along with everyone else, we loaded our plates with delicious food. The spread was so extensive that we couldn't even come close to trying it all. Susan alone made two ten-pound pans of macaroni and cheese! And that was a tiny portion of the entrees and desserts that were piled on the tables.

Khalil quickly made his way up to the pen with the young goats, and that's where he happily stayed for most of the day. It did my heart good to see how gentle he was with the animals, and how they captivated him. One thing he showed me was really quite fascinating: if you hold the goat's horns while it's chewing a piece of food, you can feel the vibrations traveling up through the jaws and to the horns!

I'm interested in the history of the American Revolution, so I was happy to get a chance to talk a with John, a historical re-enactor who was dressed and equipped as a British soldier from around 1776. He and his wife had set up a tent on the lower lawn, and were telling people about the war and showing them the equipment and the methods of fabric making used at that time.

I had to get Khalil home all too early. Next time I'm going to make a whole day of it, and we won't miss the bonfire like the one that they had later that day!

A walk in the parks

I had asked Khalil if he wanted to take a walk to one or both of the parks in his neighborhood, and he thought that sounded like a good idea. First we visited the one he'd already been to: Elmwood Park. I was happy to find a pullup bar, but the moment I tried doing a full pullup I became very unhappy. I'm out of shape.

We swung on the swings, climbed around on the chains and bars and plates of the little playground area. Then we headed west to Orange Park, which I had only seen on Google Maps and Khalil hadn't seen at all. The playground at this park is much more impressive: there are fossil-themed climbing "rocks" attached to a large castle with lots of places to climb up, over, and through, plus bars to slide down and rotating cylinders that make you feel like a log roller.

I think Khalil most enjoyed the... well, I don't quite know what to call them. Picture a vaguely tire-shaped plastic affair with three chains leading up to a swivel joint. You can swing around and spin wildly on this thing. I gave Khalil a little lesson in conservation of angular momentum by showing him how I could get myself spinning and then make myself spin much faster by drawing myself in to the center of the spin as tightly as possible.

It was starting to get dark, and anyway Khalil's school-night bedtime was on the horizon as always, so we made our way north through the park. It's quite an impressive space: baseball fields, basketball courts, and lots of big trees and wide open lawns. We got to Central Ave. and from there it was a simple matter of hanging a right and walking back to Khalil's neighborhood.

We stopped at Carvel for ice cream on the way, and I have to say I was surprised at how good the ice cream was. I got a waffle cone with cookie dough and... butter pecan or something. Anyway, it was much better than I had expected from Carvel. We were both happy with the ice cream in our tummies and our exploration of the neighborhood.

Rehearsal

Khalil had to practice a monologue that he has to perform as part of an application to a performing arts school. I don’t know the first thing about acting, but I was always good at memorization, so I helped him a lot with basic memorization techniques. And I gave him some common-sense advice about taking that energy that he was using for pacing in a circle, and use it to try different physical ways of emoting without putting his back to the audience. What a gas! I think that mentoring him is as exciting for me as it is for him.

Khalil's First Homemade Apple Pie!

On Sunday night I called Khalil because I'd been thinking about our last trip to a Nets game: it's safe to say we were both bored, because I know I was bored, and Khalil was falling asleep by the time we were getting ready to leave during the third quarter. So I gave him the option of doing something else the next night. He replied that he would like to do something else, and that he was thinking of making an apple pie. Which really disappointed me because you know how much I hate making apple pies - especially with kids.

On Monday night I got home thirty minutes late because of train problems. I grabbed all the ingredients, kitchen utensils and cookware on the list I'd prepared during the day. This list is shockingly long when you're used to just grabbing the stuff off the wall or out of drawers and cabinets, as opposed to loading it all in the car.

I grabbed ten Granny Smith apples at ShopRite and met Khalil at his place. Since making an apple pie takes a while, and since the train had delayed me, I was in a hurry to get the pie made and in the oven so that Khalil wouldn't be up too late past his bedtime. I didn't want Khalil to be rushing with knives, so I peeled the apples while he started measuring out the ingredients for the crust. I called his attention to the apple quarters I was slicing. Slice thickness is important: too thin, and the pie will have the consistency of applesauce; too thick, and the slices won't cook through the middle. We mixed the apple slices and the dry ingredients into the delightfully gooey jumble I know so well, and set it aside.

Khalil cut the shortening into the flour and salt, and we performed the ritual of adding just the right amount of water: add a tablespoon, wait for it to soak in, repeat until you think you're close, and test the consistency by forming the dough into a ball and trying to clean the sides of the pan with it. Then came the fun part: rolling the crust. "Oops! I forgot my rolling pin. Hey, that rod from the paper towel holder will work! Fun!"

We got the bottom crust into the pan, dumped in the filling, put the butter on top, and put the top crust on. Then I realized that I'd forgotten to put in the pie bird. As I pushed aside a bit of crust and made a hole in the filling so that I could put it on the bottom crust, I explained its purpose to Khalil: it's a chimney that allows steam to escape from beneath the filling. This makes the bottom crust nice and flaky, since there's less moisture soaking into it.

We'd started the oven early, but it hadn't heated up properly. By the time we got ready to put the pie in, I knew we couldn't; it never would have cooked. So I covered it with aluminum foil, gave Khalil's mom the recipe with the cooking instructions, and put it in the fridge until such time as she could cook it. Khalil showed me a video game on the Cartoon Network website. Soon I said goodnight so that he could get to sleep.

I spoke to Khalil's mom a few nights later, and she said that Khalil had brought the pie over to her sister's house and cooked it there. Apparently it was a huge hit: it got devoured quickly, and Khalil had been saying how good it was. Yay!

Nets vs. Bucks

Khalil had unfinished homework, and anyway I wanted to get him home at a reasonable hour. As it turned out, this was a good game to leave during the third quarter. Unfortunately that was because our guys didn't stand much of a chance of catching up.

The Milwaukee Bucks had excellent teamwork and impressive moves. I don't think they were significantly superior to how the Nets played last time, but tonight the Nets seemed a bit off their game. The Bucks were making a lot of three-point shots like the one shown below. The Nets were doing this sort of thing a lot last time, but not tonight.





The Bucks made plenty of slam-dunks like this one.


The Nets made a few too...


...but in the end they just couldn't keep up. We left about halfway through the third quarter. At that point it seemed highly unlikely that the Nets could catch up. Sure enough, I just checked, and the final score was 107 to 78.

I find basketball to be fairly boring, but there are some aspects to games at the IZOD that make me enjoy it even less. First of all, the graphics on the big screen are an insult to my intelligence. The first time I saw the computer-generated sound meter that jiggles its way up to "MADNESS" as if the audience was going wild, I believed it for about the first two seconds. After that, it just made me sad.

Two other aspects of the game seem to me worse than silly. When the commentator names the Nets player who just made a basket, he sounds enthusiastic, but when an opposing player does it, his voice is the very definition of phlegmatic. Worst of all is the "MAKE NOISE" graphic that pops up onto the screen when an opposing player is taking a foul shot. Trying to break an opponent's concentration strikes me as very unsportsmanlike.

Khalil was falling asleep by the time we left, so maybe I should check in with him. It might just be that he, like me, is thinking of doing something else rather than going to a third game.

Birthday Scones!

Last time Khalil commented that we should make scones again sometime. He had obviously been pining for them, so I figured that another scone-baking session would be just the thing for his birthday.

I brought all the kitchen utensils and ingredients except for the lemon. Khalil's mom didn't have one, but she did have a lime, so we decided to try a batch with lime zest instead of lemon zest. She heated up the oven and we began the preparation. We measured out the dry ingredients, and I showed him how to use the edge chopper to chop the candied ginger. As we took turns cutting in the butter and mixing in the heavy cream with a fork, I once again told Khalil how important it is not to knead pastry any more than absolutely necessary: the pastry cutter and the fork mix in the wet ingredients with the least amount of kneading, which is what gives us the kind of light, flaky pastry that we want.

We zested the lime - Khalil's getting better at using the Microplane zester - and began adding the cream. Not one to pass up an opportunity for pastry preaching, I again instructed Khalil on the importance of moisture conten: in the summer I often only need eight tablespoons of water for a double pie crust, whereas in the winter I sometimes need twelve because the air is so much drier! Tonight I had to add much more heavy cream than the recipe called for before the dough was wet enough to hold together.

We mixed in the ginger, shaped the rounds, patted on a glaze of heavy cream, sprinkled on a bit of sugar, cut the rounds into wedges, buttered the baking sheet, put the wedges on the sheet, popped it in the oven, and set the timer. While the scones were baking I set up gmail and blogspot accounts for Khalil so that I could add him as a contributor to this blog. Soon I hope to instruct him in the basics of blogging.



Once the scones had reached a delicious-looking golden color, we took them out of the oven. While Khalil and his mother made tea, I made a small scone mountain on a plate and stuck in eleven candles. I lit them, and we sang happy birthday as I brought them over to the table. Khalil blew out the candles, I gave him his birthday card, and everyone enjoyed a scone. The general consensus was that the lime was excellent. Although I think I prefer lemon, I agree that the lime is delicious and perhaps even goes better with the ginger. Next time I want to try zesting two limes instead of just one, to make the flavor more noticeable.

All subtleties aside, Khalil had a great time making and eating his birthday scones.

Dogs and Dogs

See my Picasaweb album for more pictures from this event. Also check out the YouTube video of Khalil playing with some dogs.

On my way to pick up Khalil I drove by Roberto's and found it closed. I was thinking of taking him to the Millburn Diner after our hike, but then it occurred to me that it was a perfect day for a cookout. Khalil liked this idea, so we went to ShopRite for hot dogs and rolls before hiking up into South Mountain Reservation from the Millburn end. Many other people were out on the paved section, enjoying the beautiful day. After hearing Khalil's enthusiastic reaction to a few dogs we passed, I realized that I'd brought him to the perfect place: there's a big dog park right next to the picnic area in the middle of the park.

We entered the fenced-in area for dogs of any size, and Khalil had a blast watching, and then playing with, the dogs. His favorite dogs are golden retrievers and huskies, and there was at least one of each there. The one he really made friends with, though, was a grey "labradoodle", as his owners called him, who spent quite some time catching and retrieving a tennis ball thrown delightfully by Khalil.

Khalil probably would have played with the dogs all day, but I eventually got us moving toward lunch. We walked over to the picnic area and gathered a little wood. I started the fire while warning Khalil that it's almost never so easy; there just happens to be an abundant supply of dry wood there. I roasted the hot dogs and buns, and we enjoyed them, although I suspect that Khalil is more of a burger fan. Maybe I'll try grilling some of those next time.