use real butter

Trudi came over for the authentic Chinese dinner last night. She’s hilarious. We had not seen her in months. I always feel like I’m rushing to tell her things and hear her stories because we have so much to catch up on. I appreciate how honest she is about herself, and also that she has a great sense of humor. Hope her eyeball surgery went A-OK today. This is what we had for dessert - apple cranberry crisp:

And then I sent Trudi home with most of it. Too many desserts - I don’t want them in my house anymore!! That girl is too thin, anyway. I need to fatten her up with more cooking…

Chinese New Year is in just over a month, and me - dumbass - didn’t know that we would be in Hawaii on CNY. I’m sure we can find a restaurant to eat some traditional foods, but it’s so lame - _I_ usually MAKE the traditional foods at home. *sigh* What a bad and dumb Chinese girl. I’ll have to ask grandma what I’m supposed to do. All of those traditions and luck and food. It’s the year of the rooster. Someone in my family is a rooster, I know it. I think it’s grandma. She’s one of the coolest people I know. Maybe I can celebrate it when we get back. I’ll have to place a setting for Kris too. We stopped having Chinese New Year together when she left for college. Mom and Dad have places for my Dad’s parents who have passed away. We never thought we’d have to set one for Kris. I really miss her. What I wish I could do is goto Steve’s house and make a traditional meal for them so they can experience the culture (and eat all of the lucky foods). Perhaps next year if I plan it right and when Emily is almost 2 years. I know Steve and Ben miss Kris terribly.

Mammoth was nice this weekend. In fact, I’m convinced it was better over Xmas b/c we saw a gazillion people driving up to Mammoth yesterday as we were driving home. What a zoo. Big storm coming, should dump some nice powder. The mountain was hard pack and crusty/icy in places. Saturday was windy and so we actually got a nice inch of powder on some runs. Then Jeremy took a spill and we decided to call it quits (after I did a big mogul field and decided not to push my luck). We put his knee and ankle on ice and I think it helped reduce the swelling, but he’s going to see the trainers today. We also took Kaweah around Rock Creek on Christmas Day:

Boy did she have fun…

We had our dinner at Convict Lake Restaurant, and I was rather underwhelmed. It was all really good last year, but this time… The dough should never be underdone in Beef Wellington, and Apple Strudel should never have a powdery mouthfeel. The soup I got was too salty (tri-tip and mushroom - the only one without cream in it) and had too much meat and not enough vegetables. Okay, I’ll admit it, I am a food snob. But I’ve made this stuff before and I’ve done it well (except that time when Carrie and I did tag team Bernaise sauce which was a disaster - but the beef wellington came out wonderfully). What has happened to our culture that people don’t know how to cook anymore and restaurants can get away with charging a lot of money for mediocrity? And the coffee (according to Jeremy) was “eh” and not even hot. But we did tip generously b/c our server was working on a holiday and it was pretty late.

Yay! I found liquor-filled chocolate bottles at Cost Plus Imports yesterday. I also bought more chocolates and other interesting things for Ben’s crackers (a mini gummy hamburger which is nice and squishy). When I unloaded all of the candies into this large bowl on the table, I told Jeremy we may have more candy than can fit into the crackers. He assured me this was not a problem.

Baked more brownies and this morning I got up super early to bake some cakes, make more crackers and print some little cards for my mom. I’m totally wired but I know I’m going to crash later in the day. We’re having a small potluck today at work. It was originally a “white trash” potluck lunch, but folks got a little bashful about the white trash part. I think true white trash food is kinda scary, but the standard casseroles and dishes that I saw growing up in Virginia - that’s good stuff. It’s bad for you, but it tastes great. I’ve found that white trash is not a Southern thing per se, because you find this stuff anywhere in America where white people can’t really cook (the midwest comes to mind, rural locales, upstate NY…) No, I take that back - there are few really good recipes that come from the midwestern “white trash” category. The best ones really are from the south. I brought potato-cheese casserole. I got the recipe from my ex-boyfriend whose family is from Kansas (there ya go!).

Oh, Kaweah isn’t seven years old, she’s six years old. Carrie pointed out to me that Hailey is only six and a half - and Hailey is older than Kaweah. I hate to say this, but we never remember the year Kaweah was born, only that we got her close to our second anniversary. And we couldn’t remember which year we married… So Kaweah gets a year back!