Lions and tigers and gingerbread bears

My aunt (AL) is a great mom.  She’s a substitute teacher at the girls’ elementary school.  She’s in the process of getting her Master’s Degree so that she can teach full time.  And she bakes.

I should confess, she is the queen of ready made meals, things that don’t fall under “cooking” in my opinion.  But I don’t begrudge her- she does have a husband, a job, two kids, an extremely hyperactive dog and school to worry about.  Despite all that, she is a grade A sous-chef.

Anyway, she came to the rescue of S’s first grade class last night and made gingerbread bears for the kids to decorate.  She e-mailed me about them, complete with pictures.  She said that S’s sister, M decimated two of them this morning for breakfast, while she “only ate the one with spinal cord injuries.”  E-mail and pics below:

belmontmedina-

While I am no Martha Stewart, these kit cookies turned out fairly well.  They aren’t quite as tasty as my recipe from scratch a la the Joy of Cooking, but for 23 First Graders, they’ll fit the bill.  The kids will get to decorate with vanilla icing and then add sprinkles of various types, you know the kind that come in the little jars and are multi colored, white or brown?  Also available will be red and green sugar crystals, as if the little imps need any more revving up just before the Christmas Break.   Never mind I’m well down the path to having to deal with these darlings on a daily basis.  M will wake up in the morning and elaborate on her gingerbread dreams!  I suppose I’ll let her eat a bear or two with breakfast, there is honey in there.  I put it in myself! Oh, and butter too!  Not bad for a kit, eh?  I mean at least it didn’t ask for oil……  Pictures attached.

Love, AL

simple pleasures

I enjoy cooking, as you might have noticed. However, when it’s just me, I tend towards really
simple things. Usually involving pasta.

Like this:
I went to my grandparents this weekend to chauffeur my grandmother on some errands and report some orchids. I skipped breakfast, and around 1 or 2, after my stomach started gurgling, I though perhaps it would be a good time to eat. I’ve been laid low all weekend by some violent allergies, and in addition to Claritin-D, my other secret weapon against this time of year is spicy food. I dump hot sauce and pepper flakes on everything I eat. Sort of like how my mother likes to have Cosmos when she’s got a cold.

I made some spaghetti, mixed in a little sour cream (had I not been in the suburbs, I would have used creme fraiche or some Greek yogurt), a pat of butter, and a few glugs of olive oil. Dump in a bowl, and sprinkle with red pepper flakes and cheese. Done and done.

Speaking of simple pleasures, VT and I went to the Nats game Sunday. It was a little on the cold side, but still pretty fun. It’s my first official game of the season. Teddy didn’t win the race, but there’s always next time. Plus, he’s a better dancer than runner.

I think Lala’s right, I might be more than a casual baseball fan by the time the summer’s over.

Just what I need in my life, another sports obsession.

birth control

This weekend, I ventured to the glorious Tidewater area of Virginia, for my cousin’s 8th birthday party.

Whoa Nellie.

There were 15 (including my two cousins, M&S, who, because of their initials, I will refer to as Marks and Sparks) SCREAMING little girls running around my aunt and uncle’s house. FIFTEEN.

I am not a fan of children. I make an exception for M&S. But that is the ONLY exception (much to my other uncle’s chagrin.) But, duty calls, and I do adore M&S. Their mom was my “other mommy” for much of my formative years, and I think of them as my little sisters or nieces more so than as cousins.

The party began with decorating goodie bags. Which, with 15 little girls, involves a LOT of glitter glue. Glitter glue does not dry within the 2 hours period of the average birthday party, which led to a lot of Gumby-like moves from me to keep from looking like I fell into a bedazzler.
The girls did a bang-up job decorating though, and moved on to freeze dance, which is exactly what it sounds like- freeze tag, but with dancing in lieu of running. They played bingo, sang karaoke (Sparks blew it UP,) and ran around the house screaming. And screaming. And running. And then screaming some more.

Around 3:30, it was time for the pièce de résistance– birthday cake! My aunt, in her glorious, glorious foresight, had arranged for a cupcake cake, eliminating the need for slicing and plates, along with individual Kool-Aid Koolers (or whatever the hell they’re called), and individual strawberry and vanilla or chocolate and vanilla ice cream cups. All of this made for a much, much easier high fructose corn syrup delivery system for the gremlins lovely little girls.

The cake was in the shape of a giant flower, with Tinkerbell perched in the middle.
I believe the frosting to cupcake ratio was about 1:1, which works perfectly for M&S. Marks eats the cupcake, and Sparks only eats the frosting.

All and all, I’d like to thank my aunt for the second most effective advertisement for birth control I’ve ever seen. The first one involved a visit to her doctor towards the end of her pregnancy with Sparks, and is too traumatic of an experience to explain without the aid of alcohol.

Happy Birthday Marks!

Easter

I love Easter. Where I’m from, we pour it on thick- loads of food, dying and hiding several dozen eggs, and the most important Easter event- an elaborate Easter basket hunt, complete with little girls running around on frilly dresses, fighting over who gets to use the dog to find Easter eggs in the back yard. In fact, my favorite picture of me is from an Easter when I was about five years old. I’m in a blue and white dress, complete with patent leather shoes and white hair bows, sitting primly in a lawn chair in the middle of the yard, legs crossed, drinking a can of Coke- I was such an elfin child, I could barely hold it with both hands.

As I’ve gotten older, and Easter has become a bit more hectic, my mother and I focused more on culinary escapades over the chocolate bunny and Cabury egg variety. We enjoy Easter because my grandparents permit a bit more flexibility with the menu than they usually do (although we do keep the mainstays of macaroni and cheese and some sort of greens- collard, turnip, or mustard,) as opposed to Christmas and Thanksgiving, which have unalterable menus.

Last year, Easter dinner was rather labor intensive- pork loin with onion marmalade, butternut squash ravioli with brown butter and sage, Cornish hens, green bean and feta salad, greens, macaroni and cheese. At one point, my friend Adam (one of the 20+ people we fed that day) arrived for dinner, and my mother immediately dispatched him to the ravioli filling station set up in one corner of the kitchen. That was also the year I decided Tab energy and vodka made for a charming aperitif.

This year, my mom had to get my sister from school on Friday, and my grandparents and I arrived on Saturday, leaving little time for elaborate prep. We rolled in around 4, and my now-21-year-old sister (who henceforth was not allowed to TOUCH my mother’s car) and I immediately began fighting over who got to drive the car to the store to get bread. Weird.

My mom likes to keep the house at the temperature and the humidity of the Amazon. As a result, there is a rainforest in our living room. It’s sad when you can 1) barely get in the room and 2) barely see the television for the flora

Saturday’s dinner was my mom’s famous Mediterranean chicken packets, the ultimate lazy meal. Drop some vegetables (spinach, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, whatever) in some aluminum foil, top with a chicken breast, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and feta, close up the packet, and whack it in the oven at high heat for 15 minutes. It’s wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am cooking, with consistently delicious results…
I had dinner with my grandparents, and departed to church. Not to actually attend services, mind you, but to put in an appearance at the champagne reception following the Saturday night service. (I didn’t drink though, sadly). From there, Carolina and I trooped out with our Greensboro posse for a night on the town….or the evening spent drinking wine on the couch at my old youth advisor’s house, catching up. Then Carolina, his old college suitemate and I hit downtown, where I am STILL haunted by some of the terrible, terrible fashion crimes walking the streets (white platforms? and jean shorts? really?!) We ended up at Natty Green’s, drinking beer, playing shuffleboard (them) and fending off advances from fat frat-boy wannabes in plaid shorts and Topsiders (me.) I felt like Reese Witherspoon in Sweet Home Alabama.

The next morning, another fight ensued over a trip out to get a Sunday New York Times (the Greensboro Barnes and Noble no longer sells the Post) and a trip to the store for cheese, sausage, and Cheerwine. Then it was time to get down to the actual business of the day- college basketball.

Oh yeah, we started making Easter dinner too. My mother went low maintenance this year, allowing both of us the chance to sort of hang out and watch basketball. The menu this year featured grilled lamb marinated in yogurt, rosemary (fresh from the GIANT bush in the backyard,) and lemon, a hen roasted in the oven, mac and cheese, cider-chipotle collards, asparagus (ew!), broccoli, and the always classic poundcake and ice cream (my mother makes the poundcake from scratch, and has the recipe memorized.)

(the lamb was a little charred, but trust me, it was DELICIOUS)

Poundcake, and (I think) the wine Adam brought back from Italy for my mom.

In addition to myself, my mom, grandparents and sister, Adam upheld his annual tradition of coming over for dinner/basketball, as well as grandmother’s brother and sister-in-law, AND a whole gaggle of cousins.

(the leaf in the table comes in awfully handy around this time of year)

One of my cousins brought over her puppy, the CUTEST Rottweiler imaginable. She romped around with Audrey (my dog) and escaped some inappropriate advances from Bandit (my grandparent’s dog) before passing out in a tired puppy heap on the dining room floor.
And, just to make you jealous, as someone told me it was sleeting in DC, some gratuitous shots of my wonderfully sunny backyard:

Mum just had the porch redone.

Forsythia and the Red Delicious apple tree

Yellow Delicious apple tree and the Magnolia

Don’t be too thrilled for me. When I got up Monday to walk the dogs, it was snowing. Schizo spring!

dispatches from the field: headed down south to the land of the pine…

It’s noon, we’re searching for a radio station, and we hit my favorite part of the trip- coming around the curve on 95, VCU’s ever expanding campus on one side (screw you, Eric Maynor) and the Richmond train station on the other.

The Wendy’s in South Hill won an award for fastest fast food service. It’s sleeting in DC, and sunny and a little breezy here. We’re far enough South that I can have Cheerwine with my Wendy’s combo.

There’s a pit stop at the ABC store, which combined with a request for a cup of ice from Wendy’s, leads me to believe my grandfather will be snacking on peanuts and drinking something on the rocks while I drive.

Time for the switch at the first rest stop in North Carolina.

I could do this drive in my sleep (but still in my driving shoes.) I can wake up, look out the window, and tell you exactly what highway we’re on (495, 395, 95, 85, 40) and approximately where we are. I’ve been up and down this route more times than I can count- every 2 weeks from the time I was 6 until I was 13, and probably about once a month between then and college.

It’s good to be home.

National (Red) Velvet: a tragedy in five parts

I should have known.

After the trials and tribulations I went through to make that stupid Red Velvet Cake….

I should have known it was a bad omen.

I will never, ever, EVER attempt to bake on the day of the last regular season Duke-Carolina matchup.

I blame myself. Well, and Duke’s crappy (32.9%!!!) shooting. And Carolina’s ever-improving defense (15 blocked shots and 7 steals, compared to 7 and 3 for Duke.) And Duke’s 13 turnovers.

Whatever. I’m getting off topic

So. I finally made the red velvet cake. And I will never, ever, EVER bake at my grandparent’s again. Making Christmas dinner by myself was far easier that making a cake with my grandmother constantly hovering, offering “advice.”

Baking makes me neurotic. Seriously neurotic. I’m not very good at it, so it requires a lot of concentration on my part. When I cook, I wander away from things on the stove, I talk on the phone, I swill wine…none of that happens when I bake. I usually do it by myself, so no one has to deal with my crazy neuroses.

On to the show…

I used this recipe, figuring that since it was from the Magnolia Bakery, it couldn’t be too bad. I also immediately violated rule #1 of belmontmedina baking: FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY. As I mentioned earlier, Whole Foods didn’t have cake flour, so after a phone call to my mother (who is a wonderful baker) I substituted organic pastry flour. This would later come back to haunt me.

The recipe itself is pretty simple, if rather labor intensive. Everything needs to be at room temperature. In one bowl, you’ve got butter and sugar. Eggs in another. Baking soda and vinegar in another. Red food coloring, vanilla, and cocoa in another. Sifted cake flour in another. And buttermilk and salt in another. See what I mean?

First, cream the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs in one at a time.


Then, add the cocoa, vanilla, and food coloring.
I will stop here to detail tragedy number 1. I ran out of food coloring. I mistakenly, stupidly assumed that one of the little bottles of food coloring would suffice (you know, the ones that come in the four pack that you use to dye Easter Eggs) I mean, hell, a drop of it stained the dishtowel. And my hands. And my jeans. And possibly the floor. I didn’t really need that much did I?

Turns out I did. So with my grandmother “suggesting” away,

Grandmother: That’s too much butter!
Me: I’m following the recipe.
Grandmother: That’s TOO much butter. (beat) The vanilla’s over there.
Me: I’m not looking for the vanilla
Grandmother: It’s in the cabinet on the side. Right there on the side. RIGHT THERE. Don’t you see it?
Me: (testily) I’m not looking for the vanilla
Grandmother: What are you looking for?
Me: Food coloring
Grandmother: It’s on the top shelf
Me: No it isn’t. I used it all
Grandmother: Yes it is
Me: No, it isn’t, because I USED IT ALL
Grandmother: Oh. (two minutes pass) That’s too much butter.

I ran out the door and to the store to get more red food coloring. For future reference, Red Velvet Cake requires one and a half LARGE bottles of red food coloring.

After that, alternate adding the flour and buttermilk in three parts.

Then stir in the baking soda and vinegar mixture.

Here comes tragedy number 2. The recipe calls for a three layer cake, or cupcakes. I decided to use a bundt cake pan, reasoning that I might actually lose all my hair and turn into a babbling idiot if I tried to negotiate a layer cake. And my grandfather is not exactly a cupcake kind of man, at least not since I passed age seven. So, I went to grease and flour the pan. Only…there’s no Pam or cooking spray. No lard. No Crisco. Nothing but vegetable oil. **Sigh** I oiled and floured the pan, dumped the batter in, and stuck it in the oven.

Whew! Finished….

Except for the frosting. I had no idea frosting was equally labor intensive. I think I lost a small part of my soul making this cake. For the frosting, you mix milk and flour, and cook it for about 10 minutes over medium heat until it thickens.
Cover it with wax paper, let it cool to room temperature,
and mix it with sugar, a pound of butter (calling Paula Deen) and vanilla.
Then it must be placed in the fridge for EXACTLY 15 minutes (the recipe states, “set a timer”) and then taken out and used IMMEDIATELY.

So, after taking the cake from hell out of the oven,
I let it cool for an hour (my grandmother spent the entire time telling me it was going to fall because I hadn’t cooked it long enough,) while I made the frosting from hell. My timing (I thought) was great- I could unmold the cake while the icing was cooling or setting or whatever the crap it was doing in the fridge (hibernating? I have no idea) and then take it out, and frost immediately.

Only the cake from hell did not want to come out of the pan. Go figure. Time for tragedy number 3! I called my mother(who was at work,) which is what I do when anything goes wrong.

Me: It won’t come out of the pan.
Mum: Run a knife around it.
(10 min later)
Me: It still won’t come out.
Mum: Tap the pan.
(15 min later)
Me: It STILL won’t come out.
Mum: You tapped the pan.
Me: Yes.
Mum: And ran a knife around the sides.
Me: Yes.
Mum: And the inside.
Me: Yes.
Mum: And you greased it and floured it well?
Me: Yes
Mum: I don’t know what to tell you.
Me: (long, shuddering sigh)

After some pleading, cursing, and dumb luck, the cake from hell emerged from its home. About 30 minutes after I pulled the icing out of the fridge. Oh well.
So I frosted it,
and carried it into the den to show my grandparents. Whereupon it slid on the platter into my already-stained-with-red-food-coloring shirt, covering my left boob with frosting.

Great. Fan-fucking-tastic. Good thing I had almost an entire bowl of frosting left after I finished the damn cake.
I fixed it, wiped myself off, and dished out a slice for my grandmother. (My grandfather, asleep on the couch, took a mild interest before he rolled back over.) Enter tragedy number 4. I was betrayed by the flour.
Whatever sort of organic, made-by-virgin-Tibetan nuns-with-the-pure-snow-of-Mt. Everest kind of expensive-ass flour I bought at Whole Foods left my cake slightly dry and chewy. The flour was made with whole wheat I think, and still contained a bit more wheat than I would have preferred. It was only a little dry, but the light, yet chewy texture threw me off completely. Next time (Ha! like there will be a next time) I’m going with the bleached blonde version of cake flour.

At this point, I decided it was time to leave and find a bar and a lot of beer to watch Duke-Carolina.

Stupid cake even ruined my basketball game.

In short, here is what I’ve learned:
1) Never bake at grandparent’s house, or at least, never bake in presence of grandmother. EVER.
2) Whole Foods can suck it when it comes to baking supplies.
3) Follow your own rules- in my case, DO NOT SUBSTITUTE ANYTHING.
4) Buy red velvet cake from a reputable bakery. Screw making it on your own.
5) I miss Shelden Williams.

I know that’s only four parts, but if you can’t guess the fifth, here’s a hint. See the photo at beginning of this post.

Beef Bourbon Y’all

So I’m at my grandparent’s today, hanging out with this guy
and completing the massive to-do list my grandmother has for me every time I come to visit (fixing things, repotting orchids, picking up dry cleaning, etc etc.) I’m okay with it though, because a lot of things on the to-do list can be completed while I sit in front of the monstrous HDTV, drinking beer, and feeling the floor vibrate from my grandfather‘s stereo downstairs- in addition to Amy Winehouse, he’s been into Joss Stone lately, and my sister gave him two CDs- Al Green and Thelonoius Monk for his birthday. All must be played at floor-shaking volume while smoking, drinking Jack Daniels, and watching college basketball. I want HIS life when I retire.

As I sat down, I realized I had lucked into Paula’s Party on the Food Network HD. And Paula was “Paula-fying“things. For instance, Beef Bourguignon, the Julia Child staple (I used to watch her make it on PBS with my grandfather, while I tried to copy the steps at the kitchen table with my Play-Doh. I was an odd child) becomes Beef Bourbon Y’all.

Now, Paula likes her butter (see: Fried Butter Balls) and she likes frying things (see: Deep Fried Lasagna). She likes sweets (Banana Pudding and Key Lime Pie). Being a southerner, I understand and whole-heartedly embrace her predilection for such things.

This episode, however, featured something I had never heard of, and was completely incapable of imagining: Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding.

That’s right. At some point, somewhere in the world, someone ate a Krispy Kreme doughnut, and instead of wondering “Hmmm. I wonder how many of these I can eat before my entire digestive tract jumps out of my body in protest,” thought “Hey! I should make this into bread pudding!”

This recipe was actually from a viewer, Bill Nicholson. His version (which I think is the exact same as the Paula-fied version) can be found here.

Screw mac and cheese, maybe I’ll make mini Krispy Kreme bread puddings for the blogger potluck instead.

happy birthday!

That is the first of the many, many, many times I will be saying that this month. Today is the 4th, and I’m already one birthday and an anniversary in, with six more birthdays to go. Whew

Yesterday was my grandfather‘s birthday. And he asked for lasagna. Apparently the last time I made it, he liked it a lot- he ate two helpings, which is pretty rare for him. Since I had to work yesterday, I enlisted some family back up for the prep. My grandmother made tomato sauce (which in my family, is a 5-hour slow cooking affair, as it should be.) My uncle brought over the tomatoes and ground beef for the sauce in the morning, and we planned on serving a bottle of wine my mother left during her extended stay with my grandparents last month.

I RAN out of my office at 5, and popped into Whole foods for some Parmigano cheese, Blue Ridge Dairy fresh mozz, Vermont smoked mozz (too much fresh mozz makes the lasagna a little too watery for my taste,) along with bread, salad supplies (I love my grandparents, but I will never understand their affinity for iceberg lettuce. Blech), and the ingredients for….RED VELVET CAKE.

Whole Foods, with its we-will-offer-the-ingredients-we-think-you-should-buy-and-not-what-you-need attitude, had neither unsweetened cocoa powder nor red food coloring. Well, they had red food coloring, but it was $5.50. Give me the crappy stuff I used to dye Easter eggs with any day. Also, there was also NO cake flour to be found. Now, I am not a baker by trade, and as such, I am LOATHE to tinker with a cake recipe. But, after calling my mom for some advice, I was satisfied that I could sub pastry flour in for the cake flour. I schlepped everything out my Zipcar and sped off down Florida Avenue, singing along to Amy Winehouse and flirting with guys in traffic.

Sorry, sidetracked…it WAS nice outside yesterday though. At any rate, I got to my grandparent’s, put the lasanga together, and tossed it in the oven while I ran back to the local store for artificial red coloring and cocoa. I pulled my creation out of the oven…
right as my uncle walked in with his very pregnant wife and little girl, carrying a cake.

That’s right. A terrible, artificially flavor enhanced cake, covered in shiny fruit (what IS tht weird glaze they use at Safeway? I could do my hair in the reflection coming off the kiwi. ANd what the hell- Kiwi is not even CLOSE to being in season!) Mind you, I had called my uncle weeks in advance to avoid just such an occasion. Not that he ever returned my call. So, being the good eldest granddaughter that I am, and not wanting to make a big fuss on my grandfather’s birthday, I silently put away my eggs and butter and cocoa and buttermilk and the like, put the STORE-BOUGHT cake out in the garage to stay cool, and began to reset the table for six.

Dinner was a hit. My little cousin described the wolf from “The Three Little Pigs” as ferocious, only with her three-year-old diction, it sounded like “bullshit,” rendering everyone at the table silent for about 5 minutes, while she repeated it over and over until my uncle’s wife realized she said “ferocious.” Okay, maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.

The best part? My grandfather loves Amy Winehouse too, so we got to listen to her while having dinner. His favorite song?

“Rehab,” of course.

ill

So I’ve been sick, I think since I got back from the wedding. But I didn’t start to feel really bad until Friday. I went home, took a nap, then headed over to Ace’s to catch up on some Project Runway and have Thai. (I like to self-medicate with spicy food when I feel a cold or the flu coming on.) There were 2 other places I was supposed to be last night, but I flaked and went home to sleep and prepare for the birthday party from hell.

Anyways, I decided, since I was already here, to stay at my grandparent’s for the night. After all, being sick on a couch in front of a 42″ flat screen beats being sick on a couch with an asshole roommate any day, especially during the playoffs.

Every now and then, I come out here, to my grandparents’, and sort of drop off the face of the earth for the weekend or for a few hours. It’s sort of rejuvenating, but at the same time, I miss out on the general weekend craziness. What makes coming back even better though, is that I inevitable recieve messages from people wondering what’s happened. I got this one from VT, who I flaked on (we were supposed to go to Red Derby) Friday night:

“Figured u were sick. Was gonna invite u over so u could max out on my couch & tv. U gonna make it over 4 the game tomorrow?”

And this one from Carolina, who I haven’t hung out with in quite some time, despite the fact that we live in the same house. (I think he was also excited about the actual Carolina team blowing out NC state earlier today.)

Carolina: where you at?
Carolina: and i’m sorry you’re sick!
Carolina: what’s wrong?
Carolina: come home and we’ll bake for you

Call me shallow, but it makes me feel loved.

family duties

So this Saturday was my cousin’s third birthday party. And her parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided to have it at Chuck E. Cheese.

I hate children. I hate large, blinking anamatronic rodents. I hate shitty pizza. And most of all, I hate being sequestered in confined quarters with hordes of poorly behaved children with NO ALCOHOL IN SIGHT.

Alas, being the dutiful cousin that I am, I hauled myself out of bed at 8:30 this morning and headed out to my grandparents in the wild of suburbia. I’m not feeling so well (more on that later) but I did it anyway. I arrived at my grandparents in enough time for my grandmother to delegate the task of fixing my grandfather’s breakfast (fried egg, grits, and ham) to me, while she fussed at me to eat. Then, I took her underwear shopping (Have you ever tried to explain to your grandmother that 1) nope, she can’t wear the same size underwear as you, she needs a slightly larger size and 2) Victoria’s Secret PINK line was not exactly, uh, made with her in mind. Good times.)

We returned back to the house, my grandparents changed clothes (I’ll be damned if I put on any more than a t-shirt and jeans for Chuck E. Cheese. I doubt my cousin will remember what I was wearing anyways.) and we headed out. After getting some mis-directions from my blackberry, we managed to make it there.

This is where the fun begins. My grandmother is handicapped, and as such walks a little slower than usual. Not that we were in a hurry to get in, but… Anyway, she had a bit of trouble stepping over the curb. My grandfather admonished her to take her time, leading to the following exchange:

Grandfather: “Don’t get so excited! Slow down!”
Grandmother: “I’m not! My foot got caught.”
Grandfather: “What are you, excited to see white people?”
Grandmother: “Oh, you go to shit.”

We walked in, and my grandmother turned to me and goes (in her genteel Southern accent) “oh…my.” There were, as I’m sure you can imagine, kids EVERYWHERE. Poorly behaved, hopped up on high fructose corn syrup, screaming and rocketing around like deranged pinballs with sticky fingers. We made it to the table without me stealing my grandmother’s cane to smack anyone. My uncle walked up and greeted us:

Me: “So this is what hell looks like, huh?”
Uncle: “Yes.”
Grandfather: (surveying the mayhem) “Bring on the drinks.”

My cousin, who had been feeling feverish the night before, was still not doing so well, and as such, had a meltdown. Not that I blame her. I’ve got a solid 2 decades on her, and if I arrived to be surrounded by 7-8 kids much older than me, 20 adults, and a freaky rat in a baseball cap, I believe I’d be in tears too. We did the pizza and cake thing, with the adults clustered at one end of the table, looking like Bosnian refugees (only black.) I’d like to take this chance to comment on the TERRIBLE table manners these children had. It was a DISGRACE. I was lucky enough to have AM kindergarten and a grandmother who made sure that I could set the table for a seven course dinner by the time i was 6 years old, along with a healthy dose of cotillion classes. I know not every child is that lucky. But for the love of god, is it really so hard to impress upon your six year old that I should not have to see the full contents of her mouth every time she chews? Or that your (fat) eight year old should probably try and get more cake in him than around his mouth? Or that unless you are turning three or auditioning for a reality TV show, trying to shove an entire piece of cake in your mouth so you can run back for more is just a tad bit rude? Ugh. THIS is why I hate children.

After about two hours of this nonsense, my grandfather decides it’s time to go.

Grandfather: “Well, it’s four now. By the time we get back, the game will be on.”
Me: “And there will be beer.”
Grandfather: “And a straight shot of Jack Daniel’s for me.”

We gathered our things, said our goodbyes, and while I walked my grandmother to the door, my grandfather went outside to warm the car. As we got outside, he waved, rolled down the window, and said “I was just about to leave.”

Me: “I know you’re family and all, but I don’t think I could forgive you for leaving me at Chuck E. Cheese.
Grandmother: “Oooh, look! Those [insert unintelligible name of plant here] have berries! Mine don’t have berries.”
Grandfather: “Yes they do”
Grandmother: “No they don’t.”
Me: “Can we look at them as we drive away?”

Half an hour later, I was safely ensconced on the couch, watching Green Bay beat the shit out of the Seahawks and listening over my grandparents argue over who was nicer to the dog.