Kids opening up their gifts

We had our Christmas party with friends on a busy Saturday evening. Luckily this time around, I wouldn’t have to cook anything like last time. I was DJ’ing, so I only had to collect some song requests, download them, and throw them on my iPod Touch. Of course, I had to help pick up gifts for Secret Santa, but my lovely wife took care of most of that. Hey, I gotta enjoy the perks of marrying a capable and thoughtful woman.

As I mentioned, we had much going on that day. Besides all the gift-wrapping, we had a morning service at the church celebrating the new ministry of our new Rector. After lunch, we rushed home to get ready. We got up to our friends Plexy & Sheba’s house, and we were thankfully neither the first nor the last guests to arrive.

Just to summarize the evening,

• Lots of appetizers, entrees, and desserts.
• Lots of drinks.
• Lots of presents to be opened for the adults and kids (Secret Santa.)
• A wild game of Pictionary.
• Mercifully, the karaoke machine wasn’t working.

Nicole & Nums

On Sunday night, We hosted dinner for Namita’s coworkers and their significant others. Nums was making a big South Indian spread of entrees, with some basic appetizers and desserts. As ususal, there was much preparation beforehand with an inadequate amount of time to prep the house, buy groceries, etc, but somehow we did it. We went shopping the night before to buy groceries, buy new plates, etc.

Um, not much to write about, because it was a dinner party. My wife made lemon rice, a coconut chicken curry, and a few other dishes that I can’t remember, but it was a 3-course meal. All in all, it went extremely well, and we kept the drinks flowing too.

Dinner party at our house

First off, I gotta talk about the great turkey-napping of 2011. We do almost all of our grocery shopping at our local ShopRite, especially after our local SuperFresh closed down. We found out on Sunday that we had acquired enough PricePlus points to qualify for a free turkey. Sweet! I went back on Tuesday to pick it up, and while checking out, the cashier informs me that I’ve already redeemed my free turkey. When? 4:30pm today, while I was at the office. Apparently, according to the cashier, there have been people using other customer numbers and redeeming/stealing the free turkeys. Unbelievable. I don’t know if this is a situation where people are trying various home phone numbers, or it’s an inside job by fraudulent ShopRite employees. More than likely, I’m thinking it’s an inside job. Sad.

In the end, since we were buying a turkey now with our own cold hard cash, I put back the ShopRite brand turkey and went for a Butterball. I didn’t know if it was truly better, but it costs more, and another customer endorsed it. Why be cheap?

Our guests were bringing appetizers and liquor, so we were responsible for the turkey, the sides, and dessert. Nums started cooking up the sides on Friday, and we started the brining process. Now I’ll admit that roasting our first turkey for a large party of our friends intimidated me. I’ve read the horror stories of undercooked or dry turkeys, and I’m not much of a roasting meats kind of guy. Still, my wife’s confidence in turn gave me confidence.

We kept it defrosted in the refrigerator until Friday, then we started the brining process of letting it soak overnight. First, I had to do all the prep work of opening it up, taking out the insides, etc. It went into the covered tub we borrowed from my sister on Thursday with all the brining juices and spices. Then I covered the bin, and put it outside in our backyard to stay cold overnight for 12-16 hours. The bin would obviously not fit in our refrigerator, and the outside overnight temperature would be in the mid-30′s, much like our refrigerator. Saturday afternoon we walked through the rest of turkey prep by watching some step-by-step Food Network video.

Our slowly arrived around 6pm. Unfortunately, we had some last minute cancellations from guests, so we had more food leftover than expected, but the dinner went very well. We actually fit just about everyone around the dining room table, and the turkey and sides were delicious. As a matter of fact, all the appetizers were delicious too.

So all in all, it was a good experience. While it was originally daunting, roasting a turkey wasn’t all that bad.

I, of course, being some sort of ABCD, do not celebrate the wonders of Onam, nor do I eat off of banana leaves with my hands. Call me a heathen, but we’re way past my comfort zone. Still, I’m generally up for almost anything. It was a good time, but I was the lone exception when it came to dining. I dressed up, but I was happy to sit on a chair, eat my dinner on a plate, with a fork. I was also happy to change into my regular street clothes after all the requisite group pictures were done!

Sample picture below, but I’ll work on getting others in my hands and posted for your Onam-viewing pleasure.

I'm all dressed up in a mundo

Lily had dance class. They both has soccer games at 1pm. We had a wedding with a break of a few hours in the middle before the reception in Pennsylvania. The kids were sleeping over at my in-laws’ place. Everyone needed to take a shower.

After taking Lily to dance class, Namita went to the wedding. I took the kids to their respective soccer games, walking back and forth between both fields. After hosing off the kids, getting them packed, and dropping them off, I got ready, and my wife was back home. We hightailed it to Bensalem, PA, for the wedding reception. Very nice program, but too bad our camera batteries weren’t charged. I’m trying to get some pics from another friend. I think we got home after midnight.

Nicole & Jon cutting da cake

10/5/2011 Update:

See, we DID attend the wedding. I posted two additional photos (besides the one below) to the 2011 September Photos gallery. Thanks to Shannon for sending these over.

That be us, purplying it up

View from the ferris wheel - 2009 NJ Farm & Horse Show

Now, I haven’t been to a fair in a while, not since July ’09 and the ill-fated 2009 Quick Chek NJ Festival of Ballooning. That festival/fair scarred me for life, I tell you. The heat, the rain, the costs, the threat of a tornado and everyone told to evacuate to their vehicles. Running through the mud. I can feel the PTSD coming back already. The weather for this year’s NJ State Fair was originally forecasted for rain, but the weather cleared up into a beautiful day…. for a while. We got to the fair around 3pm, bought admission tickets and the first set of 20+ ride tickets. The fair was lot bigger than I remembered. This year, there was a ferris wheel, mini roller coasters, bumper cars, and much more. When did all this happen?

We walked around, ate, did our thing, saw the sights, and alternated with taking the kids on rides. The weather was pretty good, until dark rain clouds began to appear on the horizon. By 6 or 7pm, it began to lightly drizzle, and yes, my PTSD came back, but it wasn’t so bad. The food was pretty good at the fair, and the rides weren’t expensive — between 3-5 tickets for admission. I initially attempted track my calories, but I eventually gave up. One day of fair food wasn’t going to kill me, and sometimes you just need chicken-on-a-stick.

We called it a day around 8pm as we ate a late dinner under a tent while the rain fell. We parted ways with Doug & Kathy, who I believe actually had a good time bonding with the kids. We drove home in the rain, and got home around a bit after 10pm. The kids were exhausted, but they had a great time.

Last year, we ordered all the food from a local Indian restaurant, but this year, my wife and I decided to go with a Middle-Eastern theme on the food. She made these two great red bean and baba ganoush dips, as well as meatballs, a shrimp dish, salad, and a this semolina-based cake. We supplemented the dinner with Afghan narange rice, and two different types of chicken kebabs. It was all very delicious.

There was a lot of conversation, drinks, food, and a few rousing games of Jenga. Good times, photos to post later.