Posted by Patrick Corkum on May 26, 2010
Ahh… late spring! That means… STRAWBERRIES! So my daughter (Mia) and I hiked off to the berry picking farm (a.k.a. our backyard) to pick strawberries. We have a relatively small patch out back that is mostly contained which has just massive amounts of strawberries. We were really looking forward to the production this year since last year the patch was tiny and it grew about ten times its size last year after the June harvest. Just today Mia and I picked almost 50 strawberries! They are sooOOOooo good! There is nothing like strawberries fresh from the garden. Never-mind the learning experience that goes with it for the kiddos. One of the best parts was when we washed them off. Mia got to practice her counting. I would wash one off, hand it to her and she would count it. We practiced her “th” sound with thirteen, thirty, etc… We also practiced that after 29, it is not “twenty-ten”, but thirty. See, it’s all about using everyday experiences to teach. That is how they learn best!
Posted by Patrick Corkum on May 12, 2010
I really want to know if I am being ridiculous or not. Yesterday (and many other times), I have peered into the Peanut Butter jar in the hopes of making a delicious peanut butter sandwich. I unscrew the top, look inside and there’s white crusty stuff in the peanut butter jar! See, my darling wife, God bless her, doesn’t want to clean the knife or get a new one when making fluffernutters. She makes them regularly for the kids and always puts the fluff on first. Then, using the same knife, goes for the peanut butter. So, am I nutso for being annoyed? I mean, the incremental cost of washing two knives over 1 is nil since we use a dishwasher. In addition, we have plenty of knives. If we were to run out, I could walk over to the in-laws (10 feet away) and grab one of theirs. But once that fluff gets in the peanut butter jar… it’s all over… start a new jar! So, am I alone in this?
Posted by Patrick Corkum on April 11, 2010
My parents came into town this weekend for the Cherry Blossom Festival down in DC yesterday. Unfortunately, as I am sure you could figure out from my post on Puking, my wife and youngest son (Ty) were unavailable to attend the festival. There were a ton of people down there. It was unfortunate because the festival would have been really cool. That is, if you could see anything. The day was rather interesting and I could’ve chosen about 10 different things to write about from yesterday. I may still do that, but I thought I would post on our dinner because I love the restaurant so much. The restaurant is bd’s Mongolian Barbeque. The place rocks! I have been going there for over 10 years now. Everyone that I bring there loves it!
The restaurant is a really cool idea, and I have been to other Mongolian BBQs before, but this one really Americanizes it (is that really a word?). The premise of this place is that you take a bowl, fill it with raw food (everything from beef, shrimp, pork and chicken to different style noodles to an assortment of vegetables), fill a little cup with a sauce (such as Teriyaki, peanut, Szechuan, etc…), add some spices if you want, and then bring it to someone to cook on a really large grill right before your very eyes! <Here’s where you say “ooooohhhhh”, “ahhhhhh”>. Oh yeah, then you eat it. Now, I am a moron for not taking a picture of the food bar. But, I did take one of the grill:
Unfortunately, the picture I took does not really do a great job of explaining what goes on. Go Patrick! What they do is take a lot of people’s food and cook each person’s food right next to each other and three guys walk around the grill (not sure how they don’t get cooked themselves being over the grill for so long) and use these long knives to cut up and cook your food, moving one to the next. The great part is that when you get your food at the end of it all, you sometimes get a surprize! What is that surprize, you may ask? Well, my daughter figured it out quite quickly, noticing a green pepper on her plate. <She didn’t choose peppers from the food bar>. Now, you are saying, but I am a vegetarian, what if someones meat gets mixed in with mine? I say to you, stop being a vegetarian and eat some meat for crying out loud, it is good for you! They, on the other hand, have some sympathy, if you tell them, and put up barriers between the food to help you out. If you have an allergy, they have a grill in the back that they will cook the food on, just let them know.
I always love the food and there is something for everyone, no matter what mood you’re in. I took a picture of my creation <I love cheese and throw a lot on, I’m weird like that>.
Oh, you get to go back for as many plates as you want and they won’t make you eat one that you made if you don’t like it. Isn’t that nice? Anyway, moving on, my son was not feeling too well, it seemed he was quite tired. His appetite was a bit off, so he just got noodles:
Which, may I add, he ate almost nothing of. To show you how much he ate, I doctored the picture above a little to let you play a game of “Find the Missing Food” to show how much he ate:
Yes, there is food missing. It was his birthday, so they gave him a free sundae, which I took a picture of and which he ate more of than the noodles:
If you can’t tell, my daughter loves being on front of the camera. Fortunately, PJ didn’t eat too much of his dinner, because my wife would’ve had a lot more work to do when we found out in the middle of the night that he too has the bug that she and Ty had/have. See yesterday’s post on Puking. Anyway, all the employee’s wear shirts with sayings on them that really fit my sense of humor. The sayings are also scattered around the restaurant on other things too. For instance, on my soda glass:
Okay, I’m wrapping up the post, I swear! I know it is getting long. I am sorry, please forgive me. The place has one down side, in my opinion (at least the DC location). The food is good, but it is the kind of food that can make you have to use a special room, if you catch my drift. And, as for the men, they have a special room on the main level, which is a one person special room, and another up a short flight of stairs which has two standing spots and one full-service throne. That makes a total of 2 useful places for men for a large number of people. Fortunately, it has not been an issue for me, but, I imagine someday it might be. Anyway, if you have one near you, take your kids there, they will LOVE IT!
