Perogie Day

For the past few years we have taken one day to make and eat large numbers of perogies. It's a potato and noodle frenzy. Recall back that the very first picture I ever posted on this blog was of the Sister on perogie day. Looking at that picture now, I see that we had dough that was too sticky and WAY too many potatoes.

I make the dough and the Sister brings the potatoes. Every year we mess up the dough to potato ratio, but this year (after I made a second batch of dough), we came out exactly right. So for next year people, it's 10 cups of flour in the dough to one pound of mashed potatoes. That's what it takes.

Here's the assembly line crew, (except the Boy who must have ducked under the counter), putting it all together. The Brother and the Girl deal with dough and run it through my most specific piece of kitchen equipment, my pasta machine. The Boy and the Mother would then pile in the potatoes, bacon and cheese in just the right amounts.
The Sister has the most important job. She pinches the whole thing together. I can report that this year not one perogie opened up in the boiling water! They were all perfect. These guys here don't seem to have any bacon. Must have been when we ran out. Oh, the tragedy of it all

My job is to scoop the floating perogies out of the water and put them into the frying pan with the butter and the onions. By the time I was done, the whole house was filled with smoke from scorched butter, but we all had happy, happy bellies. We also had plenty of perogies left over to freeze so everyone had some to take home. Perogies are a lot of work, so don't recommend making them unless you have lots of people on hand and several bottles of wine.

The Boy really was there. He created this tiny masterpiece complete with bacon feet, chives for hair and cheese arms! I'm so proud.

Perogie Day this year also celebrated the Mother's birthday for which we made brownie sundaes. Also, since it was the day before Easter, after we cleared away the substantial perogie mess, we colored eggs. The Sister has hardcore egg decorating talent. The one she is holding here is speckled. She also painted the shamrock one.

Finally, it wouldn't be a party unless the Mother brought her paraffin wax heater along. Everyone dipped hands or feet into the warm lavender scented goodness! This is the Girl's sweet little foot going in. She also ended up doing her elbows, which seemed strange but they were very soft afterwards.

Yesterday we took the van in to get it's face put back together the from the accident. The woman at the desk said it would be done on Wednesday or Thursday. On the way out the Man commented that she didn't necessarily say THIS Wednesday or Thursday. Oh, dear. Being without a car is such a drag. The Man's truck is only built for two people, so were a bit stuck. Today we all walked downtown to the super yummy Chinese restaurant for lunch and stopped by the library as well. It was a little windy (Okay, a lot windy), but an enjoyable walk just the same.

Coming home yesterday morning, driving down Broad Street, we saw two men come running out of a storefront door. When I looked back the second man had tackled the first and had him pinned on the sidewalk! The Man raced us back around the block and parked us right where we could see all the action. The second man, a really big guy, was sitting on the first guy's chest, yelling at him. This is like 11 in the morning, not midnight like when you expect things like this to happen. Seems that the second guy caught the first guy going through an office, intent of theft by the sounds of it. There was lots of yelling and bad words, I can tell you that! It was like watching an episode of "Cops" without the bleeping. A girl came out of the bus station to say that the police were on there way. She was even angrier than the big guy; I thought for sure she was going to kick the pinned guy in the head, but she didn't. She stomped down the sidewalk, back to the door where everything started. This incident wasn't in the papers this morning, but I'll keep my eyes on the police blotters for the story. I was a crazy thing to see.

A Traditional Easter

For a second year we bundled off to the IX Indoor Amusement Park for a day of Easter thrills, spills and overpriced snacks. But I think that cat is out of the bag on this one because today was much more crowded than last year. Still nothing like your average Friday or Saturday out there, which I swore I would never do again. I even spit on it.

We rode the famed Crazy Mouse a couple of times. We drank too much pop, ate french fries and funnel cakes. There was a petting zoo, a dog show and many, many spinning and noisy rides to keep us happy and busy for an entire afternoon.

There is this one game there that the Man probably would sit at all day if we let him. It doesn't have a name and I've never seen it anywhere else, so you'll have to bear with this description. It's pretty simple actually: You get a bag of tokens and there's this little arm that you roll the tokens down one at a time. They land in a bin that has a wall that moves back and forth pushing the tokens to the front. Once the pile of token builds up enough, then the ones nearest the front fall off the edge, slide out the chute and that's what you win. Seems like a lot of trouble for little payoff, but there is also riding on top of the tokens little prizes that occasionally fall off the edge as well. That's the fun part. The extra tokens just keep you playing longer; it's the prizes you are after. The best prize that the man won today was a little bowling pin key chain that actually ended up being a pen that that the end lit up when you wrote with it. Doesn't seem possible that some much fun could be shoved in such a small thing!

A new thing at the Park today was an oxygen bar. Just like it sounds, you sit at bar stools with a medical-like tube going up your nose letting you breathe in 95% pure oxygen that you can "flavor" with fruit scents that you can almost taste. I didn't do it, but the Boy and the Man did. Neither of them had a high opinion of the situation, so if you ever see this, just keep going. It's not going to put you in a better mood or make colors seem brighter. Getting to keep the tubing seems like the best part for them.

We went by one vendor who was selling Italian charms. This little jewelry fad is SO over. It made me sad this whole booth with table after table of little pieces of metal that absolutely no one would want to buy.... or would they? Right there, no lie, was a charm that had the Girl's name on it. Well, not exactly her name, but her nickname AND spelled the right way. So we bought it. We'll put it on her bracelet and it will go right back in her jewelry box never to be worn again. But being that this was the first time we've ever seen anything with even close to her name on it, well, we just couldn't pass it up. And it's not like I was buying her five minutes of flavored air to breathe!

Yesterday was perogie day. A full day of making and eating homemade perogies. I have lots of good pictures and stories that I'll post tomorrow.