theparkerfamily.org

  • mushroom risotto

    well, i’m cooking again.

    it took a decade for me to finally remember by culinary heritage — my father was a chef for 30-odd years — but i’m starting to have fun in the kitchen again.

    i used to love it.

    my father and i would regularly cook thanksgiving dinner for 400+ and we’d have a ball (a slightly exhausting ball, but a ball none-the-less).

    i have no idea what happened in between, but it’s passed — and the lady sparkler is now too busy with a small child to tell me what i’m doing wrong (bonus!).

    tonight was a risotto with wild mushrooms, a recipe that i picked up from a office-retreat-slash-cooking-class with Chef Susan Holt at CulinAerie (great class, btw — highly recommend it).

    full recipe after the jump.

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  • “a little to the right, daddy…”

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  • guestbook: the talimo’s

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    more pictures (and a short video) on taliandmo.com.
    See All the Photos on Flickr:
    guestbook: the talimo’s

  • what’s next … an earthquake?

    well, after a brief return to normalcy, sparklet’s sleeping habits are back to being a royal pain in the rear. she’s fighting us going down, and isn’t usually staying down for long.at one point this week i stopped asking God for world peace, and started asking him to focus on letting me sleep.

    based on last night’s events, he wasn’t amused:

    • 8:20 pm — after 40 minutes of trying, sparklet is finally asleep … but not until a full hour after her bedtime.
    • 8:35 pm — ha, ha! just kidding, we’re awake.
    • 9:52 pm — seriously, sparklet. go to sleep. i walk in and she is sitting upright, but listing deeply to the side because she can’t keep her eyes open.
    • 10:28 pm — the lady sparkler finishes up pumping, and we bunk down for the night.
    • 1:10 am — it’s morning in babyland! the lady sparkler takes the first shift and stuffs a bottle in her face.
    • 1:25 am — the lady sparkler runs out of steam, and the hollering gets me up and out of bed. i take over.
    • 1:38 am — oops, looks like sparklet’s wet through her diaper! and now, after 25 minutes of feeding, she’s wide away and not the least bit interested in taking a bottle and/or going to bed.
    • 2:10 am — after tipping sparklet over for the umpteenth time (i swear she would try to sleep sitting up if we’d let her) she’s out, and i start for bed.
    • 3:01 am — i’m just about asleep when i get a call from a friend who is due to birth a baby girl in a couple of weeks. my heart leaps like a gizelle. turns out she hit the wrong button on her phone. false alarm.
    • 4:14 am — i’m just about asleep when sparklet’s up again, but (haha!) this time she is sound asleep once again by the time i get to the crib. funny.
    • 5:01 am — i’m rattled awake when an earthquake strikes suburban maryland. I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP.
    • 5:30 am — just about asleep (for the first time since 1:10am) i remember to shut off my alarm so that i can squeeze an extra couple of minutes of sleep in the morning.
    • 6:58 am — the lady sparklet wakes me up to tell me that i don’t need to get up. (still figuring that one out.)
    • 7:20 am — i give up and go to work.

    there you go. independent proof that God doesn’t have a sense of humor. at least, not about sleep vs. world peace.

  • video: first waves

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7hsXI0slHw

    after a week of “is that really a wave” questions, we’re willing to call it … it’s a wave. and once she starts, she just won’t stop.

  • “i hear these come in chocolate, too?”

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  • mighty, mighty boigs

    i really, honestly can take no credit for this one — but that doesn’t mean i’m not going to try.

    good friends of ours bought a domain (mightymightyboigs.com) to migrate their old blogspot blog, and never made it past the content migration. after 10 minutes of setup, 12 minutes of page migration, and one pre-made wordpress theme (yup, it’s too nice to be mine) and we’re good to go.

    Mighty, Mighty Boigs
    http://mightymightyboigs.com/

  • puttanesca

    made one of the lady sparkler’s favorites tonight, pasta with a puttanesca sauce. she thinks it’s all about the olives, but it’s the capers that hold everything together.

    full recipe after the jump — adapted from a Linguine-with-Puttanesca-Sauce recipe on epicurious.

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  • guestbook: sarah

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    See All the Photos on Flickr:
    guestbook: sarah

  • rainstorm

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