On Friday we were going to have a picnic. I wanted to try one of Mark Bittman’s 101 simple picnic recipes, but just looking at the list made me nervous. Where to start? The husband thoguht that maybe it was better to buy something from the high class salad bar. On an empty stomach, I was easily convinced.
As we were driving to central market, I was reminiscing about the camambert baguette I ate when I visited Paris with my mom. At the store, I found brie and a mini-baguette. Then I got a small box of taboule and shrimp salad from the salad bar.
Back home, there was a peach on our counter, and I wondered if a peach would be okay with brie. I searched the food network and found Giada’s Taleggio and Pear Panini--a recipe I had wanted to try for about a year and a half. I used all of the alternative ingredients and broiled the baguette for a couple minutes since I didn’t have a panini maker.
The husband and I were amused that I wound up cooking anyway.
We packed our picnic backpack and drove over to Carkeek park. Lots of people had the same idea. But since we knew this would be the case, we were better prepared. We found a bench to sit on where we could peoplewatch without being bothered, and watched the beautiful body of water in front of us–whichever one it is.
The sandwhich was better than I imagined. In my Sigg bottle is lemonade–with a kick.
Afterwards, we walked around. Eric started skipping stones. Then a bunch of kids decided to copy him.
After a while he decided to just throw them in the water and take a picture.
On Saturday, our friends came over and brought their smiley 1-year old. We learned how un-childproof our home is. He enjoyed the cat toys and the cats were curious about his toy trucks. Other than that, they pretty much disappeared when he was around. We ate bbq outside. My friend E makes an awesome shrimp salad. Then the guys went downstairs and played Rainbow 6 on Xbox (main reason our friends came over–their Xbox was busted. Hey we try to help when we can), while the ladies went upstairs and shot crazy bunnies with plungers on the Wii.
Then E and I went for a walk with the boy in his stroller around the neighborhood. It was a beautiful sunny evening. He swung in the swing, smiled, and tried to eat woodchips. We saw the other side of our house, and I noticed my sky-scraper roses from a great distance.
Tonight we went to the best Seattle dumpling house, where neither of us got dumplings. It is right next to a home brewery store. I got pork sticky buns and spinach eggflower soup while the husband got shrimp rice and fried potstickers. Oh, and both come with this amazing tangy garlic sauce. What a great way to start the week.
