40th Anniversary

It was my parent's 40th wedding anniversary in May.  These are pictures from the anniversary dinner at my house.

Flowers from my garden.

The dinner. 

Best Road Trip

A post on Points of Review about a road trip I took with my Mom 5 years ago in November.

It was the best trip ever!

We went to New Zealand, rented a car and drove around the North Island for a couple weeks.

This was the route of our trip.

We started out in Auckland.

My Grandma was born and raised in New Zealand.

And as a little girl my Mom lived in New Zealand for a while.

This is Mom and the car we rented.

She had never driven on the left side of the road, but she did a great job throughout the trip.

There were just a couple times when I thought she was going to run into the side of a mountain!

We loved the little self serve stands they had on the side of the road selling vegetables.



We went at the end of November - Avocado season, I guess.
There were avocados every where!
We even rented a cottage in an avocado orchard.




I shot a gun!
On a boat!
And I didn't hit anything.



This is our automatic clothes dryer.
We stayed over night in a hostel.
It was really nice.
We stayed in a lot of hostels.
Anyway, we washed our clothes, but didn't have time to dry them, so for a day we drove around with a backseat full of wet clothes.
Thankfully, they dried pretty fast!
And you could never do that in Minnesota in November!



The cows didn't seem to mind our car clothes dryer.


We saw dolphins!

And more cows!

This is Mom and Moana.

She is kind of an aunt.

We stayed in a really nice Bed and Breakfast in Auckland.

Breakfast.

Mom and me at another hostel.

Mom cooking at the hostel.

We cooked and ate our way across New Zealand!
The food and spending time with Mom were the best parts of our trip.

We tried to buy local (side of the road) food and try everything that we didn't recognize.

Like canned rice pudding, canned spaghetti, Lamb and Mint flavor chips (crisps), Burger Rings, freeze dried veg. and lots of candy.

Eating dinner al fresco.

In November!

We went to the New Zealand flower show.

Mom with another yummy meal of fresh fish.

Isn't that beautiful?

How I Learned To Cook

I started cooking before I was born. After all, I was a bun in my mother's oven!

Ok, let's rip that psychologically damaging imagery out of our minds.

On with my story....

This is my Mom and me. (I still have those big feet :P )

Looks like I'm eating some soup. Yum.

I still eat soup like that too - feet on the table.

~

Before I was born, my Mom worked in a cafe.

After I was born, she took me to work with her.

She would rise hours before dawn, tuck me into a corduroy kangaroo-pouch-baby-carrier-thingy and jog downtown to the cafe.

Then, she would bake dozens of loaves of bread, sweet rolls, croissants, cakes, pies, soups and the special of the day - pot roast, lasagna, ect.

While she beat eggs and kneaded dough, I was still strapped into my snuggly kangaroo pouch picking up cooking tips (and probably napping).

Before I was one, I learned how to use a spoon..... to mix up homemade bread.

Later I progressed to using a knife.

Check out those peeling skills!

And the half chewed cucumber in the salad.

Baking bread with Mom.




And making pie crust.
I'm about 2 1/2 in this picture.





Frying up breakfast.

And here I am at four years old.

~

This might look like a cardboard kitchen (or just a cardboard box, if you're really bad at imagining), but for me - this was my studio.

I wanted to be The Frugal Gourmet.

You don't know who that is?

What?!?

Ok, he was a TV chef with a cooking show and he had an assistant named John.

It was great!

For years and years Frugal Gourmet was the only game I would play.

My Mom was John, so....she did the dishes.

I had a little crock pot and all day long I would put things into it and stir it and put more "secret" ingredients into it.

Then, when my Dad came home we would have candlelight suppers and they would eat my Crockpot Delight.

It took me a long time to figure out why we ate by candlelight.

They must have loved me a lot.

Bearing in mind, I thought salt was a major ingredient and paprika was a magic flavoring.

I wrote a recipe for bread: Take 1 cup salt, 3 cup floer mix togeter and add hony, egg and milk. Beat and leve for 5 houers to rise. Bake at 560 degres for 3 houers.

~

So, that's how I learned how to cook and love food.

Mostly from my Mom, with a little dash of celebrity inspiration a la Frugal Gourmet as a 'secret' ingredient.

Turkey Leg Trot

Yay!

Go Mom!

Turkey Leg Trot Race.

It was freezing!

But some people were wearing shorts?!?!?!

Crazy.

She did a great job!

Alexa and I cheered for her.

Like our signs?

Alexa and me.

Mom and Dad

Mom won a gold!

Yay!

Go Mom - Wow!

Saturday Afternoon

I went over to my Mom's house on Saturday.

She had invited Alexa over for a baking lesson.

Alexa is my gardening, cooking, craft making buddy

AND best friend!

First, the important tying on of the apron.

My Mom is such a good teacher. Very, very patient and hands off. She lets you figure things out for yourself. I think that's the best way to learn how to cook.

Mom and Alexa measuring out the squash.
Notice: No canned squash/pumpkin here!
This is all home grown.



Alexa adding the squash.

Alexa separating the eggs.

My Mom gave her 3 eggs explained how to separate them and then went to the other side of the kitchen to whip up a different kind of bars.

I have to tell you about Alexa making me scrambled eggs.

It's our funny story.

Granted this happened when she was much younger (like 8).

She told me she was really good at scrambled eggs.

So, she made them and we started to eat them.

Finally, Alexa turns to me, "I think there is something wrong with your chickens. 'Cause these eggs are crunchy."

The chicken's eggs were fine, including the shells that she had dropped into them.

hee hee!

II was the official taste tester.

They tasted delicious!

Best friends forever!