Early December Doings

SPECIAL DELIVERY: We were recently contacted by Birthday Dreams and asked if we could make a cake for an extra special situation. Of course, we said, "Yes!"

The teen is a fan of Roblox (it's an online game), and that was the theme of the cake. I just *love* the character Annabelle Kisky made for the cake topper. It was based on a photo of the birthday boy, but made in the style of a Roblox character.  (The trees and text were game inspired, as well.) CJ helped cook up the chocolate brownie cake with crunchy peanut butter filling. Yum! We hope he likes it. (Name obscured to protect anonymity.)

MOVIE TIMES: One of CJ's classes this quarter is about the history of labor unions in the United States. It has been such an interesting class and has really served to remind us all about just how important unions are. 

We've watched some movies for his class, including "The Killing Floor," "Norma Rae," and a more recent film, "American Factory." 

Rather than me describing it, here's a trailer that can give you the gist of it. 

The documentary was an eye opener, for sure. And it was profoundly depressing, in my opinion.

Speaking of depressing things, for CJ's class about Korean history, we watched a documentary that was filmed in North Korea by a Russian director, Vitaly Mansky. "Under the Sun" documents life in Pyongyang, North Korea, primarily via following a young girl and her parents for one year as she prepares to join the Korean Children's Union on the 'Day Of The Shining Star' (Kim Jong-Il's birthday). 

Here's the trailer for it. ...

I can't say that it's a feel good film, but it does offer a rare glimpse of life in "The Hermit Kingdom." Watching the film I kept saying aloud, "Those poor people ... and it's all because they happened to be born in North Korea." It's just very sad.

GINGERBREAD: Tis the season of gingerbread baking, at least in our house. A friend of mine posted to Facebook about a week ago asking if anyone was going to a Disney park. She was hoping someone could pick up some Mickey Mouse gingerbread men for her. I told her I wasn't going anywhere near Disney, but that I knew a local baker (that's me) who could replicate one. 

So, I studied the photo she posted, and drew an outline of the cookie on paper. I traced around that with various cutting devices into the dough. The Mickeys were carefully baked and then iced. I was pretty happy with how they turned out. :)

Annabelle had her own gingerbread project - a bunch of cookies too take to work with her on Saturday.

She made gingerbread people with STAFF shirts on, and some with a WC logo on the front, which stands for White Center, which is the neighborhood the King County Parks office she works at is located.

Meanwhile, we continue to deck the halls around campus. Yesterday CJ carefully installed his nutcracker collection.

November's End

ASIAN PERSUASION:  Last Saturday night was our monthly Teen Feed gig. For this month's menu, we asked the team to contribute Asian-inspired food and drink items.

We had four different choices for diners' main entrée: There was yummy sesame beef from Kennedy, my friend Thy brought some terrific teriyaki chicken, a mother-son team cooked up tangy Thai sweet chili tofu, and the Birds sponsored spicy BBQ Korean pork, which CJ, Annabelle and I prepped. The filling stir fry came with a mound of aromatic rice. I think I made about 100 cups of cooked basmati. There were also tons of super colorful, nutritious veggies thanks to other sponsors. 

Spring rolls were cooked up as side offerings. Each diner also received a brown lunch sack packed by CJ and Annabelle. 

Those were filled with tasty treats, including packets of savory seaweed, homemade matcha and white chocolate chip cookies or fresh-baked vegan matcha donuts that Annabelle and I baked.

The bags also included soy sauce and chopsticks, a fortune cookie, and bubble tea. 

No less than three Teen Feed workers reported that the bubble tea was a Teen Feed first and a HUGE hit with the guests. In fact, employee Austin reported that one teen called in to see what was for dinner, and when he heard there was bubble tea, he made it a point to be there. It just happened to be that teen's birthday, and he said the bubble tea was the highlight of his day. It just goes to show you, sometimes the smallest thing can mean so much. 

SEATING ARRANGEMENT:  One of our passing away the pandemic time activities is sitting at a picnic table outside a convenience store in West Seattle. Doesn't that sound like fun?

It gets us out of the house, we get some fresh air, visit with other regular customers and get to pet lots of cute dogs. 

Of course, it does get a little bit cold this time of year, so we have lap blankets and a little propane heater.

However, we've recently done that set up one better by creating a pseudo kotatsu. 

According to the website Japanobjects.com, these heated tables are believed to have originated in the 14th-century Muromachi era. "Charcoal was once used to heat a hearth set into the ground known as an irori. Later a seating platform was added which separated the cooking function from the heating and finally, to stop the heat disappearing too quickly, a quilt was placed on top to localize the heat. This early style was called the hori-gotatsu meaning a ditch foot warmer," per the site. 

Today, the tables have evolved into functional, comfortable, efficient living room tables in many Japanese homes and restaurants.

Below is an 'action' photo of CJ and Annabelle filling our little propane tank.

We bought an inexpensive, allegedly king-sized weighted blanket off Amazon to help create our kotatsu. The amount of heat it retains under the table is a dramatically marked improvement over our previous set up!

WAITING ON WEBB: It seems like it has been decades since NASA announced its plans to build the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It feels that way because it has been decades. JWST originated in 1996, initially called the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST). According to Wikipedia, the telescope was renamed in 2002, after NASA's second administrator James E. Webb (1906–1992). JWST is a collaborative project between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

The "origami" telescope, with its unfolding arrays, is finally set to launch on December 22 from Arianespace's ELA-3 launch complex at European Spaceport located near Kourou, French Guiana. During its 1,000,000 or so mile journey, Webb will 'unfold' through a number of deployments to reach its operational configuration.

The public is invited to be NASA's virtual guests for the launch of the launch of the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built. Registering for the event will give people access to launch information, news about about post-launch milestones, and you'll be notified when the first JWST images are available. 

All resources, participation, and registration are free. You can sign up at this link: 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/james-webb-space-telescope-registration-167215593341?aff=invite

More info about JWST is available on NASA's site: https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/index.html

ROCK ON: An email from a homeschool group recently contained, of all things, a link to a rock stacking game. It is alternately relaxing and totally vexing.

https://neal.fun/rocks/

Furry Friends

GONE TO THE DOGS: I have neglected to mention in this space that in recent weeks, we have done some dog sitting. 

Our first furry guest was Biscuit. She's some curly mix. Quiet, tiny thing. Kirby and Laika were a little bit nonplussed at first (especially Kirby), but before long the three had negotiated a detente, and decided they'd rather be together than separated upstairs and down. In fact, Laika and Biscuit became BFFs, much to Kirby's chagrin. (Keep in mind, Kirby is frequently chagrined.)

Just two days after Biscuit's visit, we had Manny, the mixed breed dog of a friend of ours. Manny is a good boy. A big guy, some kind of shepherd mix, he is affable and adorable. Kirby and Laika knew they couldn't do anything about him because of his size, to they quickly got with the Manny program. 

It was really fun having different furry friends around. In fact, our dogs honestly behaved much better with a third wheel in the mix. (But no, that doesn't mean we're getting a third dog!)

TALKING POLITICS: Pretty much anyone who has ever been in the same room with CJ for an hour or less knows that he is always looking to talk politics. That's one reason when I saw a post asking, "Where do you fit in the political typology?" it caught my attention.

A poll by the Pew Research Center, it says, "Take our quiz to find out which one of our nine political typology groups is your best match, compared with a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 U.S. adults."

Before you get started, the survey points out, "You may find some of these questions are difficult to answer. That’s OK. In those cases, pick the answer that comes closest to your view, even if it isn’t exactly right."

 

I thought it was pretty straightforward. It only took about five minutes. I wasn't terribly surprised by my results (which put me in with just 6 percent of the survey respondents, incidentally).

If you're curious where you fit, check this out, you can find the Pew survey here. 

SHADOWY FIGURE: For those of us in North America, a partial lunar eclipse will take place in the early morning on November 19, 2021. Look to the west and you'll find the moon high in North American skies. It's not a total eclipse, but it will be pretty darn close. At its peak, the moon will be 97 percent covered by Earth’s dark umbral shadow. (Bonus night sky spying: Look for the dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster near the eclipsed moon.)

To get specifics on where and when to be on the lookout, check out this link (which is for the Seattle show, but you can type in your city's name in the search field, instead: https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/seattle

Fun with Food

MOUTHS TO FEED: A few days ago, I offered to take dinner to a friend's family. Their young daughter recently underwent her eighth surgery. They have to drive all the way down to Portland from Seattle for her procedures and appointments. I figured they could use a hot, hearty meal waiting for them during their last trip. 

We opted to make beef and bison chili, a favorite of ours. It has tons of roasted carrots, onions and celery, and a nice amount of warmth without being too hot. We filled up two enormous glass jars for them.

We made some cheesy rolls as a side. I remembered that Red Lobster is famous for cheese biscuits, so I found a copycat recipe online. We followed it carefully and they were really good! (Next time I would add sharper cheese and a pinch more salt, however.)

We decided on good ol' snickerdoodles for dessert. They looked and smelled so good!

We've also been planning this month's Teen Feed. We'll be serving on the fourth Saturday of the month, which puts us a couple of days after Thanksgiving. Rest assured, our menu will be 100 percent turkey free. :) I know the teens will be "turkeyed out," for lack of a better term, by Saturday.

Instead, we're going with food of the Asian persuasion. A big, flavorful stir fry will be our main entrée (think lots of protein in a spicy sauce, with mega veggies over aromatic rice).  Sides will be egg rolls and nori (seaweed). Dessert will be matcha and white chocolate cookies or an Asian-inspired custard.   We'll have bubble tea for dessert, and a couple of other treats, too. 

When researching for this month's menu, we went to DK Market, a sprawling Asian grocery store in Renton. They have thousands of interesting things, but this box caught my eye. 

Purple pancakes? Who could pass that up? So, I bought a box for CJ and Annabelle. We gave it a test drive. The pancakes are, indeed purple. 

Their flavor was really good. A little earthy and not as sweet as regular pancakes. We would buy them again.

STOLEN TACOS: Back on November 4, we took advantage of Taco Bell's "Steal a Taco" promotion, whereby anyone who wanted one could get a taco for free, thanks to there being a stolen base during the World Series.  

It's a genius promotion on their part. You might think, "How can they afford to do that?" Well, I'll tell you how. We spent 17 damn dollars for our "free" tacos by the time the kids were done ordering drinks and another meal item apiece. 

Seventeen

 

BIRTHDAY GIRL: Another one from the way back machine ... About three weeks ago, we celebrated Annabelle's 17th birthday - pandemic style, of course. 

She had Japanese class that morning, but afterward, we headed into the big city to visit a couple of old haunts. First stop was the former Card Kingdom store, and its restaurant Cafe Mox. I think both places now are just called Mox Boarding House. It's in Seattle's oldtown Ballard neighborhood.

We rented a private gaming room there. That felt like a safe way to celebrate.

In the Red Room we played one of Annabelle's favorite games, Betrayal at Haunted Hill. 

Here's a description of it from its press release back in the day (2004):

Betrayal at House on the Hill quickly builds suspense and excitement as players explore a haunted mansion of their own design, encountering spirits and frightening omens that foretell their fate. With an estimated one hour playing time, Betrayal at House on the Hill is ideal for parties, family gatherings or casual fun with friends.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a tile game that allows players to build their own haunted house room by room, tile by tile, creating a new thrilling game board every time. The game is designed for three to six people, each of whom plays one of six possible characters.

Secretly, one of the characters betrays the rest of the party, and the innocent members of the party must defeat the traitor in their midst before it’s too late! Betrayal at House on the Hill will appeal to any game player who enjoys a fun, suspenseful, and strategic game.

Fittingly, since it was her birthday, Annabelle wound up being the one trying to kill us all, and she basically wiped up the floor with us. Nothing like going on a murderous rampage to say "Happy Birthday to Me!" 

We had some light appetizers while playing the game. Afterward, we moved on to another favorite old haunt, Hattie's Hat. It was one of the first restaurants we discovered when we moved to Seattle way back when. The restaurant dates back to 1904. When we first started going, they had a huge aquarium in the middle of their tiny dining room. The kids loved that and their kids menu. 

We were happy to see Hattie's had a large outdoor seating area now, and there were little hand-warming fires on each table. 

The menu hasn't changed a bit since we started going to Hattie's. It was a fun way to celebrate Annabelle's day.

History in the Making

 

FOO DEBUT:  On the evening of October 19, we were a part of a little bit of history being made. Through a stroke of good luck and good timing, we rather miraculously were able to score tickets to the first concert-or event, for that matter-ever held at the new Climate Pledge Arena (formerly Key Arena). (I found out about the show via a radio station's Instagram post while in a crappy airport restaurant a few weeks back. The show was a benefit event, with limited access. You couldn't even find it listed on Ticketmaster's main site. However, we found a 'back door' and got in. Hooray!)

On the west edge of Seattle Center Grounds, Climate Pledge Arena was recently built with a 3. billion dollar budget (which I can't quite wrap my head around). I have heard a couple of people say one of the things that made it so expensive was that contractors had to elevate or suspend the entire roof of the old Key Arena, as it was dubbed a historic landmark (dating back to the 1962 World's Fair). In the photo above, you can barely see the roof structure beyond International Fountain.

By the way, you can't be at Seattle Center without an obligatory Space Needle shot.

Since it was the first event ever at the new arena, there was some chaos, as you might expect. Customer service people working the ingress lines didn't really know the rules themselves (such as bag size, vaccine card checking, and more). We ended up going to four different lines before finding one that seemed to have their act together.

Once inside the area, we set about finding our seats. That was no easy task because section signage is subtle to the point of being nonexistent. And there were exactly ZERO ushers, at least where we were, so you were totally on your own. That was unexpected.

We were surprised that the show apparently started at 7, which was the time on the tickets, but usually shows don't start on time, and often that time on the ticket is when doors open. There was nothing  on our tickets or online about when doors actually opened, by the way.)

Anyway, the opening act, Death Cab for Cutie, was already playing when we arrived. That didn't exactly crush us as we're not huge fans, truth be told. Anyway, Death Cab played a full, concert-long set. Then there was a little break before the Foo Fighters came out to play.

Our seats were pretty good, in the lower bowl and pretty near the stage. The seats themselves were comfortable, and bigger than the tiny ones that plagued old Key Arena.

We've seen the Foo before, and they NEVER disappoint. This time was no exception.

A two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, front man Dave Grohl was in fine form. He has a little history in Seattle, having been the drummer in that little band called Nirvana back when grunge music ruled the world. 

Once in awhile, Dave still gets behind the kit. Below was Dave's drum solo during a cover of the Queen hit "Somebody to Love."

Mostly, though, now Dave's the front man and the amazing Taylor Hawkins plays drums for the Foo.

We were happy when the Foo Fighters changed gears and played a mini set as the DeeGees (a riff on the BeeGees' name and Dave Grohls initials). 

Recording some disco tracks was part of how the Foo Fighters have spent the pandemic. 

It was a great evening and I'm so happy we were able to be a part of it. 

You can read The Seattle Times' review of the show here: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/music/photos-foo-fighters-death-cab-christen-climate-pledge-arena-with-first-concert/

Of Sloths and Star Wars

BIRTHDAY DREAMING: Because I'm hopelessly behind on this blog, I have yet to include our last two cake projects. They are quite different from one another!

Regular readers know one of our favorite non profits is Birthday Dreams, an organization that provides birthday parties complete with decorations, gifts and custom cakes for kiddos celebrating their birthday in a homeless shelter. 

We recently saw a post for an 18-year-old asking for a sloth-themed cake. Given that CJ and Annabelle are teens of or about that age, we are partial to fulfilling teenagers' requests, and we also tend to pick cakes we're afraid no one else will take on. So, we signed up for the sloth cake. 

We'd actually done a sloth cake once before, complete free-form on our parts. This time, I did the Google and found a great tutorial for a super cute sloth cake. 

We decided to give it a go!

It was actually a very straightforward process. Bake and stack the cake layers, add a little Rice Krispies treat (arms and legs in this case), craft claws from modeling chocolate, and make the facial features from fondant.

The trickiest part was covering the sloth in 'fur.' We used buttercream and a 'grass' icing tip but ... the icing bag kept exploding as we squeezed it hard to express the frosting fur. So frustrating!

We eventually got it done, however. The sign the sloth is holding was a graham cracker covered in fondant with letters cut from a sugar sheet. We were super happy with how the whole thing turned out.

More recently, we saw an ask from a soon to be 9-year-old boy. He wanted a Mandalorian cake. That's the first time we'd seen that on the Birthday Dreams' board and felt compelled to take that on, being the big Star Wars fans that we are.

We did the Google and saw cool Mandalorian-themed cakes featured on Sunday Sweets on the Cake Wrecks site (one of our favorite pages ever, by the way).

It was pretty straightforward.

THIS IS THE WAY ...

When we saw a request for a Mandalorian cake on the Birthday Dreams site, we just *had* to sign up.

CJ helped with the baking, The bottom tier was a 3-layer vanilla cake and buttercream icing, which Annabelle later airbrushed dark blue.

Annabelle sculpted Grogu ("Baby Yoda") from fondant and candy melt. Here's his head drying on the spaghetti pot.

The top tier of the cake was actually an enormous Rice Krispies treat covered in buttercream that Annabelle airbrushed to look like a sunset on Arvala-7 (the planet where the Mandalorian met 'Baby Yoda'). Here's the top tier pre-painting, and before Annabelle applied the sun and the Mandalorian.

We put the birthday boy's name on the cake board, in a Mandalorian font. It's not shown here for anonymity's sake. 

We were happy we had the perfect candles to top it with in our stockpile of cake decorations. 

We hope the 9 year old liked his custom cake.