A Tale of Woe (as told by my sister)

We have a guest writer today, my esteemed younger sister. Had I been available to help her in her food preparation then likely none of this would have happened. I was, alas, in San Diego for the weekend and did not help, therefore it did happen. Abject humiliation for the author but hilarity for the rest of us. Enjoy!

Scene: A "Slider Showdown" cooking contest and fundraiser for the MS Society.

"Sigh. The showdown. So I was all set to use the Animal Style knock-off, mustard mixed into the ground beef and a bacon/onion jam on top. It was going to be awesome. Then Annie, a work and cooking friend, wanted to get in on the action, and suggested these: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/16-minute-meal-3-mini-meatball-sandwiches/
I was just happy to have help since I'd already regretted saying yes, so we planned on those. I asked the head dude if meatball sliders were okay, and he said Diversity is good." Okay! Then layoffs happened, and Annie asked if she could back out, and I said of course. But I wasn't excited about making a hundred meatballs alone, so her officemate suggested this: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/sloppy-bombay-joes-recipe/index.html
I could just make a huge pot and be done with it. Sure! It would be easy and different, and if there was a selection of twenty different sliders, then people would appreciate something unique.

Okay, can you see where this went terribly wrong? Because I didn't.
A) It is NOT that easy to make a giant pot of sloppy Joe. For 100+ servings, it ended up being FOUR GALLONS!! The mess... unbelievable. Why did I think that would be easier than mixing mustard into beef and spooning into lumps? Because I'm an idiot.
B) There were not twentyish other slider chefs. There were THREE. So instead of being a refreshing change of pace, I was the "wow, you clearly didn't get it, did you?" Slider, slider, slider, slop in a hot dog bun. I was SO embarrassed!! Here are some choice comments I got:

Mom: Do you want a burger or do you want... this?
Kid: BAH!
Mom: Okay, let's get you a burger.


Dude 1: So... is this one of the entries?


Dude2: How's your chili coming along?
Me: Fine. [It's not chili!!!]


Dude 3: Ooh, you have chili dogs.
Me: [weeps on the inside]


Dude 4: What is this?
Me: Sloppy Sliders.
Dude 4: [skeptically] Boy, you went really different, didn't you?
Me: [I will eat your goddamn face right off your skull.]


And you know what burns me up? If I had stuck to my original animal style recipe, I would have totally won. Hands down. God damn it. Now all I have is a lesson learned and 3.95 gallons of Sloppy Joe left." :(

The Good and Bad of the Business End

(click on any photo to access the entire album on flickr)

The Bad
I'm one of those people who will pretty much eat anything. Food allergies? Pickiness? Veganism? Hell no. All that changed when our poor monkey started getting (TMI...) dark green, almost sea-weedy stools streaked with blood. We went to the doctor who confirmed what the books say, which is a likely allergy to milk proteins from my diet. This means I have to cut out all dairy: no milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, ice cream etc. Except that the etcetera is what gets you. The less obvious foods like bread, chicken stock, sausages, and flavored chips to name a few. Halloween candy! (*sob*) I've been off dairy for about 3 weeks now and things do seem to be getting better, but they still aren't fixed. The last couple of days of diapers have actually been pretty bad again, coupled with Holly having fits of inconsolable screaming and gas. All of which lead me to believe that maybe milk isn't the only issues we've got going on. Sooooo...time for super fun food elimination week! I'm cutting out dairy, wheat, soy, and nuts for the rest of the week in the hopes that the diapers start looking more normal again and the fussiness abates. Providing that all goes well then I'll start reintroducing those foods back one by one to see if we can't pinpoint the problem. Anyone want to take bets on the allergen? Winner gets a banana!


The Good
Cloth diapers! I heart! I knew that I wanted to use cloth diapers even before the munchkin was born but I didn't want to go hog wild on a particular brand until I had a chance to field test a few different ones (I bought 6 to start). At about 5 weeks old I started putting Holly in the cloth and I haven't looked back since. They are SO easy and SO cute. There are enough rabid die-hard moms on the internet who will tell you every single last reason why cloth diapers are the cure to all the world's ills, so let me avoid that and just share some cute pictures:





(yes, in that last one she has discovered TV and his name is Roger Federer)

Bundt Pans are Satan's Bakeware

Every. Mother. Effing. Time.