Chatty Cha

Last week we ventured out of our comfort zone and went over to the Eastside to visit Joanne & Pete. The live in the Issaquah Highlands, what I like to call The ‘Quah. As we’re driving up the hills to get to their house we pass by tons of cookie cutter homes, townhomes, condos and small shops that make up this development and I’m thinking to myself, yeah, maybe when we have kids and tire of the city and decide to move to the ‘burbs, maybe this could be a place I could live in. At the same time the husband blurts out, “Man, I could NEVER live here.”

Anyway, we had a fun afternoon of doggie play date plus BBQ. I won’t get into the details of the crazy antics Max performed (note to self … do NOT leave dogs out near the barbie, but more importantly do not leave food out in the open near the grill, with the dogs locked outside. Bad idea!).

The kids, Bode and Max, tired from playing, and wanting to come inside for eating, drinking and more playing.

The husband and I brought over his famous Asian Noodle Shrimp Salad (cold noodles, mixed with peanut oil, tomatoes, snow peas and other natural flavors). Small tangent here … I love this dish, a perfect summer dish. It is a recipe his mom handed down to him years and years (and years) ago. This time I made it. Now. I’ve been Asian all my live (oh really, you ask)… Yes. And not once do I recall my Chinese family every making a dish like this. Seriously. Is my memory just that bad? I remember chow mein type dishes in general, and maybe a peanut noodle dish and lots and lots of soy sauce. It is really very yummy and so easy to make, though. But, I digress.

Asian Noodle Shrimp Salad

Joanne outdid herself with very tasty turkey burgers (couldn’t even tell it was turkey, we all said, which, really, for a turkey burger, is the best compliment). Side salads and chips. For dessert Joanne whipped out these cool “dessert pizza pies”: Sugar cookies with a lime-cream cheese frosting, topped with fresh kiwi, strawberries and blueberries. Yum.

Dessert pizza pies

It’s now our time to host J&P for dinner back in the city. We’ve gotta get ourselves a grill first.

I have not been posting for a bit. It’s summertime, and the room in our house with the computer in it gets real hot by the evening, so, no offense, but the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer. Besides, it’s summer. Aren’t I supposed to be playing outside and stuff?

Anyway, earlier in July I took off a few days (see previous posts about the sis’ visit to Seattle), so the husband and I could build a new deck. At last I can show you the final product. Not final-final product. We have to add a cap railing, and we want to do some other cool things, like add solar lights and stuff. Oh yeah. We also need furniture, too.

But, without further ado I present to you the before and after pics. If you want, you can also view the entire deck-building process via a fine Flickr slide show.

Before: Note the crazy wisteria vine/weed growing up one of the posts. We later learned that the beam was cut and half and held together by some screws and such. Shims were in place in the posts to level the thing, which the husband knocked down with a couple of whacks with a hammer. And the cement posts were all a sham. The posts sat on TOP of the cement, and wasn’t stabilized by it all.

After: Treated lumber as the base (posts, beams, joists, etc). Cedar decking on top. We did away with the stairs and added more square footage compared to the old cruddy deck. Still on the to-do list: Add cap railings, staining, throw in some solar lights and furniture and voila.

Many thanks to Joanne and Pete, for their assistance, advice and company in helping to put the beam up. And to all the wonderful people at Dunn Lumber, Olson Lumber, Home Depot and City People’s Mercantile for happily accepting a lot of money for stuff.

My six-day love affair with refined sugars and carbs is over. I felt so ill yesterday I have no doubt it’s due to the loads of carbs I’ve ingested the past few days (especially considering how I had limited my intake for so many weeks previous). So bad that I didn’t work out, which led to a vicious circle of minimal movement due to feeling ill, then eating something to feel better, then feeling bad and wanting to curl up in the fetal position.

So, vacation or not, the carb train has made its last stop and it’s not coming back. Goodbye, angel food cake. Farewell, onion bagel. So long, penne marinara with a slide of sourdough bread on the side. Sweet dreams, sweet coconut bun. Adieu, my delicious, soft, crusty loaf of walnut bread from Essential. Hello, high-fiber cereal, low-fat yogurt, eggs and salsa and salad, salad, salad. Didja miss me?

But before we leave, how about one more flashback (cue sappy music, like that episode of “Family Ties” when Alex fails a final exam because he spends the hour flashing back to all the wonderful times he had with his girlfriend … do you remember the song … What did you think, I would do at this moment, When you’re standing before me, With tears in your eyes? …”)

Anyhow, here’s a wonderful memory of my vacation … Dim Sum at House of Hong in the International District with the sis and family:

Sticky rice filled with pork, chinese sausage and other goodies, steamed in banana leaves. Mmmmm …

Barbecue pork. Served with hot mustard or ketchup, yes, ketchup.

Turnip cake. A favorite dim sum dish for me, though I’m not sure the rest of the table was as enthused about it. The ultimate indulgence. A starchy vegetable, mixed with bits of meat and fried to perfection.

Humbow with the sweet, red barbecue pork filling.

Shrimp dumplings. The kids loved these things.

Shumai.

Another dim sum favorite … little egg custard pies. Yeah, baby!

Goodbye, sweet little egg custard pies …

A flashback to a couple of Saturdays ago. Some friends in town from Olympia, and since little Wyatt had never been to Pike Place Market, we decided to head down there to watch them throw the fish. I forgot to bring my camera, so I had to take some pics on Amanda’s camera, which she just sent along to me. We had a late lunch / early dinner at Sound View Cafe. A nice location, pretty busy, but I don’t think I’ll be returning. We had a chicken sandwich come to us, uncooked. Unappetizing, unfortunately. I had the tuna fish. Cooked.

The pics are nice. A bit dramatic, as Amanda’s camera had some feature turned on that turned all of the photos sort of soft, until we figured out how to get “back to normal”.

MM a few weeks back had a coupon, buy one package of baby back ribs, get one free. We bought ‘em, then stuck ‘em in the freezer for another time. That other time was today, when we decided to pull out the BBRs for visiting family. The BBRs were not that taxing … just heat and serve. And they tasted great! Meat-falling-off-the-bone type of experience. The niece decided that they were too “saucy” and we needed moist paper towels to eat them, but very enjoyable despite the fact that high fructose corn syrup was the third ingredient listed (after pork and water); and that HFCS was listed TWICE in the ingredients. Hey, it was still a great bargain considering we got one package free!

On the side I steamed some green beans with carrot slices and a little garlic; the husband whipped up a big salad, and I also made some mac ‘n’ cheese that unfortunately turned out a bit too milky. A slotted spoon does wonders for milky mac ‘n’cheese.

I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back.

I want my ….