Jealous of Ted's camera! (with suppers)

These swingin' action pictures were taken by Ted's slightly-better-than-mine Sony camera. I love Naomi in the action shots!

Sunday - Father's Day:
For some reason, I didn't want to BBQ... I guess the combination of Sara coming and the weather was threatening massive thunderstorms. So here's what I came up with... mm, mm, good...
~ Homemade, handmade, from scratch, FALAFEL!
~ With garden-herb (parsley & mint) Tabouli (orange Ontario tomatoes)
~ Chopped tomatoes and cukes
~ My own special Techina (tehini) blend

Note to self: Mrs ViKi wants the falafel recipe... oy, now I have to make something up! How can I break it to her that it's really just a couple of tins of chickpeas with cumin mixed in???

FWIW, though, here is the recipe I started with...
I'm thoroughly hooked on Recipezaar these days. The site is not fabulous, but the reviews are a tremendous plus - I figure 80 people who have left four-plus stars plus comments can't be utterly and completely off-base. Other recipe sites just leave you guessing and taking the author's word for it that a) there are no typos in the recipe, and b) the recipe will end up tasting great. I really like the idea of a site that lets you post and read reviews, for recipes in particular.

Anyway, to make up for last night's spectacular supper, here's tonight's:

Monday - lazy day!
~Bisquick pancakes with corn & fake crab
~ Solitary Tin of mushroom barley soup
~ Leftover tabouli
~ Leftover chopped tomatoes / cucumbers
~ Umm... that's it...

Oh - except Elisheva made white-chocolate chip cookies with all butter, yum, yum, only then when they baked they all spread together and THEN, when I was trying to slide them off the parchment onto the cooling rack, well the whole sheet of cookie(s) crumpled onto each other so it's basically a pile of cookie shards. At which point she screamed at me about how I was lazy and mean and awful, and I did feel awful for wrecking her cookies, but I sent her outside for her rudeness anyway. I apologized properly when she came inside, not that she noticed.

We went to see Don't Mess with the Zohan. Dumb movie, so it figures zero-IQ me laughed and laughed and laughed the whole way through. Funny, funny, funny. What a lousy premise - Adam Sandler speaks in a bad Israeli accent for two hours while tossing clichés around like smelly boomerangs. Somehow, it aaaaalmost kinda works.

Hey - it turns out that two families we know in the neighbourhood with kids Naomi's age are going camping at Awenda the same weekend Ted's going up with my parents et famille. He said, "guess that means you'll be camping this year, right?" But he knows me better than that... Anyone who knows me well has already heard this a thousand times, but it bears repeating:

A few years ago I came to the startling realization (startling unless you've heard it a thousand times) that I NEVER NEED TO WAKE UP IN A TENT EVER AGAIN. Ever. I am 38 years old and I have been there, done that. I already know what it's like and, for me, at least, it will probably never be the wonderful, exhilerating thing it is for people who like camping. Tents are dank and sticky and sweaty and full of spiders.

My bed at home is warm (or cool, with the a/c running!) and soft and just the way I like it, thank you very much. I will happily hold down the fort here with the baby this year and cherish the walls around me and the roof over my head. Oh, plus there's standing up to cook... and sitting down to use the bathroom. So no Awenda.

But it's cool that they're going, and great that Naomi will have friends she knows there, particularly because Elisheva will not be going this year. I guess our team will have lots of 'splaining to do about our whole Shabbos camping thing... Tomorrow, the Washing Machine Fairy comes to visit. I am so excited. Laundry room's been cleaned out & swept in preparation - looks fabulous.

Ted just asked, "are you writing something about those photos?" No. Duh. Little does he know... why am I so secretive? Why do I feel like minimizing everything the second someone looks over my shoulder? Eek. Guess I'll never know.

<3 J