Wishing peace and health to our veterans

Moon bounce at a Greek Festival in Baltimore

This video is from a few months ago. I took the kids to the Greek festival in Baltimore, and their favorite thing was not learning about their heritage but the fact that the moon bounce was relatively empty. They bounced for at least an hour.

You can take the girl out of the country...

I went to a swank opening for Yinka Shonibare at the Smithsonian's African Art Museum tonight. I looked fabulous, by the way, until I spilled a plate of food on my new and very fashionable boots. Typical.

The exhibit was amazing, but it gave me a parental identity crisis. More on that tomorrow.

Visiting the donkey at Watkins Park

Throwing rocks in the lake

Dinner tonight rocked

My friend Mike and I made this, from a recipe I found in SeriousEats.com:

Acorn Squash Lasagna
with Béchamel Sauce
Serves 8

Ingredients

• 1 medium acorn squash
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 4 Tablespoons butter
• 1 medium onion, diced small
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3 Tablespoons chopped fresh sage (from my garden!)
  
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 4 cups milk
• 1/8 teaspoon grated nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups freshly grated cheese (we used Parmigiano-Reggiano and kasseri cheeses), divided
• 2 eggs
• 15 lasagna noodles

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F. Halve the squash lengthwise, discard the seeds, and roast until tender, about 40 minutes. Let cool slightly, then scoop out flesh into a medium bowl and mash with a fork. Stir in the ricotta cheese. Reduce the oven temperature to 375° F.

2. While the squash is roasting, melt the butter over medium heat in a medium pot. Add the onion, garlic, and sage and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion begins to soften. Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pot to prevent burning, for one minute. Add the milk along with the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Raise the heat to high and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Then reduce the heat to maintain a brisk simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in one cup of the Parmigiano cheese.

3. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Very slowly pour in about one cup of the sauce while whisking the eggs with a fork. (This tempers the eggs so they don't scramble during the next step.) Then pour the tempered egg mixture into the pot with the sauce and stir to combine thoroughly.

4. In a 9x13x2-inch pan, assemble the lasagna. Spread 1/2 cup of the sauce on the bottom of the pan. Lay five lasagna noodles on top, slightly overlapping them and breaking up the fifth noodle as necessary to cover the whole bottom. Top with half the squash mixture and then about 1 1/4 cups sauce. Repeat with a second layer of noodles, squash mixture and sauce. Add a third layer of noodles and top with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup Parmigiano cheese on top. Bake on the center rack until bubbly and slightly browned on top, about 35-40 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Bubble wands at a suburban barbecue

Ahem. No comment.

Heartless Bastards at the 9:30 in DC tonight

They were amazing, even if they didn't play my favorite song. Excellent photo courtesy Todd.

Fall festival at a farm

I'm going through my email and finding all these things I meant to post ages ago. This video clip is from when my friend Michael and I took the kids to a fall festival at a nearby farm.



We were excited because the website said they had hand-dipped ice cream. In fact, it was the main reason we decided to go to this particular pumpkin patch, 40 miles away. To my friend and me, "hand-dipped ice cream" means softserve that is dipped in a vat of chocolate that hardens into a shell. To our disappointment, though, the farmers thought it meant someone scooping ice cream by hand. As opposed to, I guess, by foot? I'm still a little bitter.

At any rate, the kids had a blast.

Halloween wrap-up

Like most girls Thea's age, Thea wanted to be a princess for Halloween. Here she is at a costume party with our dear family friend Rosie, who is also dressed as a princess.



Somewhere along the way, though, she changed her mind and decided to be a vampire. She told me this the day before Halloween, and I was so thrilled I told her I'd do anything I could to make it happen. This was the best I could come up with, a cape made from two pillow cases and her school clothes. She wouldn't wear the teeth, but Liam was game:



Liam has been steadfast in his love of bats and this one costume in particular (see 2008 and 2007).



And here's the pumpkin I carved, inspired by our neighbor's pumpkin last year.