Pete's Potato Salad

Three weeks ago, I flew off to Bangalore for work. I flew home a week ago and Pete left for Boston the day after I got back. Needless to say, I am looking forward to talking to Pete when it doesn't involve first figuring out what time it is where the other person is.

In honor of Pete coming home, I'm making one of his favorites. It is actually more of a recent favorite I've put together based on tips for some of my friends in my life.



Pete's Potato Salad

2-3 lbs of white and red new potatoes
1 or 2 celery stalk - diced
1 dill pickles (spicy garlic!) - diced
1/4 cup diced onion
1-2 Tablespoons white vinegar
4 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and diced.
1 or 2 boiled eggs, diced
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
1-2 Tablespoons Mustard
Mayo (~3/4 cup)
paprika

Clean and chop potatoes into large bite-sized pieces. Boil until fork tender. Drain. Add to a large bowl and toss with vinegar, Salt and Pepper. Cover the bowl and chill in your refrigerator for a few hours.

Once potatoes are cooled, add pickles, onion, celery, boiled egg, diced bacon. Hold a little of the bacon off to the side to sprinkle on top. In a separate bowl, mix the mustard, paprika and mayo. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fold into the potato mixture. Sprinkle remaining bacon on top.

Serve chilled.

Kohlra-what? Kohlrabi!

We recently signed up for a 1/2 share of a CSA produce delivery. At our pick-up, the nice lady in the booth at the Farmer's market slowly went over everything in the box, pulling each item out with the love and care she had put into growing it. I took the box home, placed the contents in the refrigerator and immediately forgot what she told me. We were on the way to Big N's concert and I was in more of a hurry than I wanted to admit. Fast forward to this evening and I am now trying to figure out what one item in particular is.



Some internet searches later where I started by looking at what is in season in August and then looking up photos of the names I didn't recognize led me to find out that the odd shaped item was a Kohlrabi. Of course, once I found the name, I remembered the nice lady in the booth itemizing the box and saying Kohlrabi.

My next problem was how to prepare the it. According to simply recipes, kohlrabi is German for cabbage turnip. I immediately chopped it into small pieces and tried a piece. It reminded me of a radish, but it did have a cabbage and broccoli undertone.

I could have eaten the entire kohlrabi raw, but opted to try the pickled kohlrabi recipe from the restaurant widow blog and it was delicious. The kids didn't get to try this one, I hogged it all to myself.


Very delicious!

Kindergarteners get the short end of the stick

My little girl is starting kindergarten, however, once again the school district is giving the kindergartners the short end of the stick. The kids will not even start school until September 14th. I wonder what this actually does to help the students, other than watch their siblings go to school and spend more time in day care.

I wonder if this means that like my son's first year of school, my daughter will not meet the state mandated minimum number of days in school.

Let's also point out that the school district ignores the fact that many families have both parents working. I'll assume that was something they concerned themselves with when they decided not to offer bus service in the middle of the day for the kindergartners.

Thanks a lot Ellensburg school district. Way to go on dropping the ball when it comes to your youngest students, once again.

Seeing Thomas

Today Thomas the Tank engine came to visit Seattle, well, Northbend. The kids were thrilled! The major hit of the day, other than the ride, was the garden railroad display at the railroad museum. Big N would have stood there all day if we had let him.



The second big event was having Thomas run over some pennies. The kids thought that was pretty cool.





We are convinced that this may be the last year that the visit to see Thomas is a magical event. Big N enjoyed the visit, but it wasn't quite like the time we saw it when he was three.

Daisy

I had planed a long detailed blog post of our vacation, but we sadly came home to find one of our cats was no longer here. We're not sure how or when she got outside, but she has now been missing for three weeks.

The house sitter never remembers seeing more than two cats in our home. I remember checking that all three cats were safely sleeping on the bed before we left. At some point between my check and the Tuesday after we left, she was let out of the house.

I'll miss my buddy. She would sit on my lap while I worked. She also would chatter at the birds from a window. Miss Daisy had the loudest purr I have ever heard from a cat, it was more like an old engine rattling at a stop light then a light purr from a cat. We miss you Daisy.




Attacking my hands from below


As a kitten, she would even play with the dogs



Getting into trouble with her sister

Off to the Park

We have taken a two week vacation! I cannot remember ever taking this much time off in my adult life, other than maternity leave.

We started off heading towards Yellowstone National Park. After a few days, we headed to Rocklake North Dakota. After the trip to North Dakota, we headed to South Dakota to visit My Rushmore. It has been a whirlwind trip. Overall this has been a very positive family vacation.

It did start out a little hard for Little N. We drove two days to go to Yellowstone Park. As we're driving through the park to reach our campground passing herds of Bison and beautiful rivers, we hear from the back, "Where is the slide and the swings at this park?"

Little N was heartbroken to find out that a National Park is a different designation of the word park. She started crying, but we were able to make her smile after that.


Swedish Fish made it better

Big N's end of year concert

Big N has been participating in the CWU early strings program. He's really enjoyed it and we've all enjoyed seeing his excitement. Granted, there have been days where the last thing he wants to do is practice, but he is still happy to participate. He received a medal for his 1st year of involvement at the last concert just last week.