Sayonara, Futon!

Yesterday, Austin called me at work to get my permission to swap our futon for a pair of Solomon X-Wing Tornado skis. After I got over my amazement at Austin's uncanny ability to acquire great sports equipment without spending any money, and after I got over my relief that we weren't going to have to go through the whole process of listing the futon on craigslist . . . I was a little sad. I'll admit it.

I bought this futon as a bed when I first moved to Philly in 1996. I had just met Austin, and talked him into buying one too, so we could get a two-fer discount. Austin donated his futon to Rob Price's bachelor pad years ago, but we kept mine. We bought it a nice cover from LLBean so we could pretend it was a couch when we were first married and dirt poor. It lived in the storage unit when we went to Germany, then moved with us from house to house in Upper Darby, then up to Vermont. It's been our guest bed for years and lots of people we love have come and slept on it and not complained (very much). I'll miss it a little -- this last vestige of my single, college-student life -- but I'm looking forward to getting something a little more fashionable, and hopefully a lot more comfortable. Since Austin saved so much money on those skis, he can hardly complain when I introduce him to the sleeper-sofa of my dreams . . .

Grandma

I just dropped my Mom off at the airport -- sigh -- she's been here for a week while the kids have been off school and it has been so wonderful. She played with them in the mornings while I taught my classes, which was enormously helpful, then I came home in the afternoon to be with them all, which was enormously fun. It has snowed most of the week and we spent a few of our days socked in by storms (watching the miniseries Flambards on DVD, which Mom thoughtfully brought with her.) But we also got out and had some fun too.

We took Mom to Montreal to put a few more miles on her passport. The highlight was our trip to the Biodome. It has four ecosystems with plants and animals, installed in a domed building that was the old cycling venue from the Montreal Olympics. The kids loved all the fish in the aquatic exhibits. They learned to say "Bonjour, Poisson!"(Gotta start somewhere with the French.)

We also did lots of shopping, of course, in Montreal's underground city . . . and on Church Street in Burlington . . . and in Montpelier and Barre . . . just about anywhere we could find. The kids were very patient. Gavin even got into the fun and tried on some shoes himself.

In fact, the kids tried on all sorts of stuff . . .

But the best part was just having Grandma around to hang out and play games. Thanks for coming, Mom -- we love you!

Mystery Meat

So -- we bought a pig from the farmers and collected it in pieces from the butcher late last month. It currently resides in our chest freezer in the basement, in little paper-wrapped packages. The 20 lbs of bacon and 26 lbs of sausage are easy to identify and we've been gradually working our way through it, with the help of a couple of vintage pork recipe books from my Mom and Austin's. Sausage and Rice . . . Sausage and Sauerkraut Casserole . . .you can tell the age of the books by the fact that they recommend jello salads to go with each recipe.

The remaining several hundred pounds of pork is a little harder to figure out what to do with. It doesn't help that the stamped identification on the outside of every package is usually smudged, but even when it isn't we frequently don't know what it means. So we've been firing up the crock pot and dumping in a package of mystery meat about once a week, and it's always a surprise what we find! Last night it was a smoked pork roast that tasted a little like corned beef -- delicious -- it will make great sandwiches this week. If I did it again I'd make a glaze of brown sugar and pineapple but I'm not convinced I'll be able to identify another of these particular roasts!

If you have a good pork recipe PLEASE share! Especially if it involves sausage or ribs or ham. You are also invited to come eat pork any time -- though beware, we may not know exactly what we're serving. Fortunately we canned a lot of applesauce last fall and that's always good no matter what kind of pork comes out of the crock pot.