Ben's baptism

Ben's baptism was held at Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, October 2 in Durham. It was such a special day for everyone! Amanda and Paul got a really neat outfit for Ben to wear during the ceremony - part baptism gown, part romper - and I thought he looked adorable.

Here is a nice shot of father and son before we left for the church.

During the ceremony, the children of the church were invited to come forward to make the sign of the cross on Ben's forehead and welcome him to the church. I have never seen this done before and I thought it was a really nice sentiment, but their church really does need to start providing a chair for the person holding the baby being baptized!! Poor Paul got so tired holding Ben at an angle that was low enough for all of those children! Amanda had originally wanted me to hold Ben during the beginning of the ceremony, but I passed this job over to Paul for fear that my noodle arms would not be strong enough to manage 21-pound Ben for a long period of time. I definitely made the right decision! You can see Amanda, Erik (the godfather), and me laughing as the line of children kept getting longer and longer. (I swear they started bringing random children in from the street to meet Ben, because it didn't seem like there were that many children in attendance when the receiving line for Ben was initiated.) I never would have had the arm strength to make it through the entire line of kids!

Instead, I got the job of holding Ben during the actual baptizing part. When we were getting set up for this part of the ceremony, I thought I could just hold Ben close to my body (easier on the arms) with his head facing into the water.

However, the priest motioned for me to bring Ben over the center of the baptismal font, and when I began to move him, my arms began to droop. I was very relieved that I chose to wear a short-sleeved dress for the ceremony, because if I hadn't, it would have been very obvious to all of the bystanders that I skimmed the surface of the water with Ben while moving him to the center of the baptismal font (dampening his backside and soaking my arm). Ben's near-drowning was only temporary though, and I soon got Ben stabilized where he wasn't partially lying in the water. (But now all readers of this blog are thinking twice before granting me repeat godmother duties...)

My favorite part of the modern Catholic baptism is the end of the baptism, or what I like to call "the Simba moment." This is where the newly baptized baby is held up by the priest for the entire congregation to see (just like the beginning sequence of Disney's The Lion King). Ben nearly missed his - he was being fussy after being doused with water, and so Amanda made a break for the church lobby to calm him down instead of joining our candle-lit procession to the front of the church for the Simba moment! It was one of those spontaneous mishaps that we will all remember and laugh about in the years to come. The priest clearly thought we were total amateurs, but it was not our fault we were unprepared. The Catholic Church has rehearsals for many of the other sacraments (First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Marriage), and baptisms should be no exception. How is anyone supposed to keep everything straight on the fly with a squirming, wet (because they were partially drowned by their godmother) baby on their hands?

Godfather Erik, Godmother Sarah, Paul, Amanda, and little baptized Ben.

I am thrilled and honored that Amanda and Paul asked me to be Ben's godmother! I am looking forward to all of the memories we will continue to share together.

Welcome Great Pumpkin #1!

Of all the things that we grew this year, the pumpkins were what I was most excited about, and so...I am VERY excited to report that Linus the pumpkin was ready to be harvested from the garden on Tuesday. I was very worried that our pumpkins would not survive the extreme flooding in early September, but both Linus and Sally remained unfazed. Above is a photo of Linus with his faithful blue security blanket.

Though great in terms of awesomeness, Linus is not so great in terms of size (these pictures are misleading - he is really the size of a candlestick bowling ball). I am not sure what his purpose will be yet. I think trying to carve into him to make a jack-o'-lantern might be challenging because he is so small...and I am also not sure that I want to carve into our first pumpkin! Perhaps he will be decorative, and when Sally (Great Pumpkin #2) is ready we can use her for a Snoopy-themed jack-o'-lantern.

Another year at the Danger Zone comes to an end...

It has been a very busy and very wet September, which does not bode well for farm updates. Ithaca got hit with a record 4 inches of rain on the Wednesday after Labor Day, closing Cornell and flooding just about everything. (Though we were not here to see it - we were experiencing the flooding from a Pennsylvania perspective while vacationing with the Hokansons in the Poconos.) Luckily, most of the things we still had growing in the Danger Zone (carrots, potatoes, swiss chard, cucumbers green beans, and pumpkins) held on despite all that water. (The tomatoes...not so much.)

Now that October is almost here, our gardening days are almost over. We have potatoes to pick (which we have never grown before, so I am pretty curious about that) and more carrots, as well as our two great pumpkins(!), but that is about it. These pictures were taken right before we left for the Poconos, so they are a bit outdated...

Our green bean production was completely out of hand, and we were often unprepared for the amount of green beans ready to pick. David put as many as he could in his pockets!

We pickled many of the green beans this year and tons of cucumbers. (If anyone would like a jar of pickles for Christmas, please let me know.) These jars are just from one round of pickling!

We also made three jars of homemade tomato sauce from our limited tomato crop. I am really excited to use one of these with some of David's homemade ravioli... (hint hint, dear)

Our lazy broccoli finally made an appearance, though it did not produce very much. This is a picture of a crown just getting started.

Many of the other surrounding gardens grew more reasonably sized sunflowers that obviously had to be intimidated by our tall (and fierce-looking) ones.

In case you were not convinced that our sunflowers were big, here is a photo of me with one of the ones that we picked. Notice how the sunflower is bigger than my entire head (though my afro of curly hair was tamed in a ponytail, so I may have won the size battle had my hair been down).

Our Chinese eggplant finally came in, and they were totally worth the wait. I am glad this one plant survived all of those pesky black beetles.

Linus (Great Pumpkin #1) was starting to turn orange at the start of September (and is now probably close to being ready to pick)...

...while Sally still grew bigger (David's foot is next to the pumpkin as a make-shift scale bar).

I love how colorful all of these vegetables are!! We used most of these in a giant stir fry. You will notice the carrots look strange; this is what happens if you do not thin your carrot plants early on. As they mature, they run out of space to develop and begin growing together. Many of our carrots are really several carrot plants combined.

The beautiful pork stir fry Chef David made with our vegetables! Yummy :)

As always, it is sad to have another year of farming come to a close, and we will likely have only one more farm update. Luckily, there are many exciting things happening this fall and winter to occupy our time, like...

...Ben's baptism this weekend!

...my trip to Seattle to visit Kristen next weekend!

...the impending arrival of Baby Boy Bennett (late October), Baby Girl LaPierre (mid-November), and many other little ones (10 and counting)!

...and of course, the holidays (Butler for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, then onward to South Carolina for Christmas)!

Happy birthday to me!

In August, I turned 28 years old. (One could argue that I am almost 29, in fact...) This birthday was a particularly exciting birthday because I got to celebrate it twice - once in Butler with my extended family, and once at the NYS Fair with David.

My birthday was on a Friday, and we spent six hours of it in a car driving to Butler. David made me this card, which I thought was hilarious. The hunks featured in these photos (Dean Cain, Noah Wyle, Adam Levine, and Conan O'Brien) are all of my celebrity crushes, and David Photoshopped in their Pittsburgh Pirates hats because we had plans to go to the Pirates game with my parents on Sunday. (David would like me to point out that he gave Adam Levine a girl's Pirates hat, because he feels that Adam sings like a girl.) Butler was tons of fun, though I am sad to report that I did not photo-document any of it. We went to Natili's on Friday night with Elliot's parents, Phil Ball, and (briefly) my sister. On Saturday, we hung out with Kristen, and had dinner and strawberry shortcake with my family. And finally on Sunday, we enjoyed a close Pirates game (from amazing seats) at PNC Park, complete with yummy Primanti's sandwiches and Quaker Steak and Lube wings! The Pirates did not win, but it was still a great game and I was glad to get to see them play once this season.

The week after my birthday, David and I went to the NYS Fair. This trip was a double sacrifice for David: 1) David is not so into fairs to begin with and 2) The evening was planned around tickets to a Gavin DeGraw / Train / Maroon 5 concert at the end of our fair visit. I think in the end he still managed to have some fun!

Here is David with his corn dog, his one requirement for attending the fair. We bought that as soon as we arrived. David also had a fish sandwich, and I had fried green tomatoes and a caramel apple.

My favorite fair animals are the "moo cows." These ones were particularly cute.

We played some games during our fair visit, and I insisted that David play a dart game until he won me this Angry Bird. I named it Bomb Squad initially (until David "misheard" me and started calling him Bomb Squat), but now I call him Klabam! Klabam! lives at my lab desk currently.

I took pictures of the concert, but we were so far away that Adam Levine really just looks like an ant under a huge spotlight. All three acts sounded amazing, but this concert was the best Maroon 5 performance I have ever seen. They did some great rearrangements of their hits, and actually played an almost 8 minute medley of songs before even greeting the audience to say hello. It was musically intense and truly fantastic!

I am not sure how I will top two 28th birthday celebrations when I turn 29...but I am sure I will think of something...

Ipita's trip to the farm

Recently, David became obsessed with the idea of bringing Ipita to our garden plot. After giving Ipita doses of flea medication as a preventative measure, we loaded him up in the car along with our garden supplies and took him on a field trip.

Ipita seemed to really enjoy his farm visit. He especially liked...

...exploring the tall weeds that are growing around our garden rows

...running in between plants

...checking up on what David was up to

...staring out at the other garden plots from behind our garden fence, guard-cat style

On the car ride to the garden, Ipita was pretty stressed out (he probably suspected he was on his way to the vet), but on the car ride home, he was content to curl up at David's feet. Based upon the success of this field trip, David has decided he is now going to take Ipita to the garden every time he goes to the garden. (I think this is excessive, but also realize this will happen regardless of my input.) And so...Ipita is now both our house (apartment) cat and our farm cat. Look for him in future farm updates!

Crops, crops everywhere

Many wonderful crops are coming out of the Danger Zone lately. Here is our August Danger Zone update:

All of the tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and are extremely good-tasting. We are finding our larger tomatoes are splitting a bit on top (due to all of the rain lately), but this has not affected their flavor so far.

One of our tomatoes fell off the plant before it was ripened, and so David made fried green tomato slices. This is one of my favorite appetizers, and these did not disappoint. They were delicious! I am not-so-secretly hoping more tomatoes make their way off the plant a little early...

Linus the pumpkin has grown considerably since my last update and looks promising to be ready in time to be our Great Pumpkin on Halloween night this year. Recently another pumpkin has started to grow, and I have (appropriately) named it Sally.

Our Chinese eggplant plant is determined to grow, despite the continuous attacks from the little black beetle bugs. So far we have two little eggplants coming in.

We made pickles two nights ago with our first round of pickling cucumbers, and we will make more tonight. Our regular cucumbers have also been doing well too; I like to eat slices of them with hummus.

We have real ears of corn now, but it is hard for us to tell whether or not they are ready to be picked yet. David read that the corn is ripe two weeks after the silk forms, but our ears just don't look large enough to be ready. I think tonight or next week we will have to pick one and test it out.

Despite their growing leafy tops, our carrots are still not ready yet. We ate this one anyway (since we already picked it), and I can confirm that I still like eating these carrots.

After a slight delay from our first zucchini, we have two more growing in. It is amazing how well these zucchini plants have recovered since their stems were split!

In less interesting news, our sunflowers are growing taller by the second it seems (and some have surpassed me at 5 ft. 8 in.), but still no flowers yet. Also, our pepper plants are doing very well, but have not quite turned from green to red/purple.

It has become very fun to go to our "farm" lately because we get to take yummy vegetables home with us almost every time we visit. Currently, our fridge is packed with swiss chard, lettuce, cucumbers, green beans and tomatoes. (Perhaps it really is time to throw that salad party after all...)

Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts

I recently bought the Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts book, and it is fabulous (though I am slightly biased because I am just a little obsessed with all things Martha). The recipes are genius, though I would honestly buy it just for the beautiful color photos of each recipe. While I do not have the time (or the money) to cook all of the 150 pies and tarts in one year Julia and Julia style, I am really excited to try to make as many new pies and tarts as possible.

Karen (a post-doc with me in the Crane lab) and I made a blueberry and buttermilk tart soon after I bought the book, which went very well despite our unfocused approach to baking it. (I forgot to take photographic proof, so you will have to take our word for it.) However, as anyone that uses Martha's recipes regularly knows, there are usually extreme consequences when Martha's directions are not followed exactly as written. I refer to these consequences as the wrath of Martha. Laziness and shortcuts are not allowed when "cooking with Martha," and she will punish you if you ignore her lengthy (and sometimes annoyingly detailed) advice. (If you would like to cook without fear, I suggest cooking recipes from Rachael Ray or Paula Deen. Their recipes can be doctored like crazy before reaching the point of failure.)

When I was visiting Amanda and Paul a few weeks ago, I offered to bake Paul a pie of his choosing from the book. He chose banana cream pie, and I set about making the pie crust, which I did according to every single detail Martha demanded (even though I have made pie crusts several times without incident just by using my grandmother's approximations). Above is the finished pie crust dough waiting to be pre-baked. When it came time for pre-baking this awesome-looking crust, I did not add pie crust weights to fill the crust as Martha asked me to. My first reason for not listening to Martha was a practical one - Amanda did not have pie crust weights (who does really, unless there are centerpieces around that contain marbles). My second reason was based on my own experience and instincts - I have baked many pie crusts in my short lifetime that have turned out beautifully and have never, ever used pie weights before. And so, for both of these reasons, I decided this detail in the recipe was not so crucial. I figured it was more of a suggestion from Martha than a demand, and I put the pie crust in the oven without the pie weights.

I miscalculated BIG TIME. I should have known better than to trust my own experience over hers (she's Martha freaking Stewart after all!), and she was most definitely not kidding about the pie weights. In fact, Martha got pretty pissed off at me for not using pie weights, as shown in this photo. Epic fail. Without those blasted pie weights, the crust puffed up and shrunk up around the edges! It looked like and had the texture of a giant tortilla shell used in taco salad. The rest of the banana cream pie-making process went downhill from there. Frustrated over this crappy crust, I did not cook the custard long enough and it did not set. (Though that may have been a blessing in disguise, because I doubt the custard would have tasted very good inside this mess of a crust anyway.) When I got back from North Carolina, I compared Martha's pie crust recipe to my grandmother's to see what could have possibly made such a difference, and was not surprised to discover the ingredients and their proportions are essentially the same in both (Martha uses a pinch more sugar in her crust than Grandmom Lola does). There is obviously no reasonable explanation for the failure of this pie crust other than the wrath of Martha.

After a little time off to repent my mistake, I got out the cookbook last night and made this Swiss Chard and Goat Cheese Galette with some swiss chard from our garden. I followed Martha's directions exactly, and it turned out perfectly. (For those of you who do not have the cookbook, you can find the recipe here.) The crust of this galette was particularly interesting because it included oatmeal, which was a unique crust ingredient for me but added a lot of texture to this dish.

Now that our squash plants are beginning to produce, I am considering this as my next Martha-based challenge!