At Long Last, Our Home Theater

Don't judge me too harshly.  One of our Christmas gifts to ourselves was a Blu-Ray Disc/DVD high-definition home theater system with surround sound speakers . . . that I just today set up.  What?!  We've been busy.  Actually, our multi-state road trip at Christmastime did keep us preoccupied, and then school/work resumed soon after we returned, and I scootched the box out of our way until I had time to get to it.  Well, now that we're on a summer break, I have time.  The girls watched today as I unpacked and sorted all the pieces of equipment, and they helped me hook up wires and troubleshoot until everything was functioning properly.  The sound is great; the picture quality is great; and the Internet connection via our home theater system means that we can view online videos on our big-screen TV, as well as select whatever movies we wish to view and download them in high definition from online movie services.  It even plays the radio and our CDs, making them sound spectacular, too.  Success!

Whole Lotta Churchin' Goin' On, Part IV

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

(First read this, this, and this.)  Happy Easter, everybody!  Today was our fourth consecutive day of attending church services.  Suzanna was assigned to serve during the 9:00 A.M. service, so that's the one we attended.  It included familiar Easter hymns, songs from the choir with trumpets playing along, and extra "stations" for communion to accommodate the bigger-than-normal crowd (due to many congregants' visiting family members and the "C & E Lutherans"--those church members who attend only on Christmas and Easter) (which explains, too, why we had three services this morning instead of the usual two).

Before church the girls searched for their Easter baskets (which the Easter Bunny had hidden around the house but which were full of goodies to enjoy once found).  After church we enjoyed a delicious Easter dinner, courtesy of Susan.  And I have photos to share!  (Remember to click a pic to enlarge it for a better view.)

our three beauties: Hillary, Suzanna, and Abigail

Green Overload

Just like last weekend, our Scandinavian Saturday supper tonight was preceded by a day full of errands and followed by a trip to the university for an arts performance.  Unlike last weekend, however, we managed to make several dishes for the meal.  Suzanna was my helper today, and she ended up making most of the meal!

Looks good, doesn't it?  I know you want to know what it all is, so I'll tell you:

Adjustment to Nightly Supper Themes

Faithful Reader, do you recall that, for almost three years now, our family has been dining each night according to a particular theme?  Bless Susan for her willingness to play along; each week she plans meals to suit these nightly themes (with the occasional exception, such as dining out for a birthday, or needing to eat up some leftovers from the previous night, etc.).  (And I'm in charge of the weekly Scandinavian Saturday supper, of course.)  We have tried a lot of new and fantastic food these past several years as Susan has experimented with new dishes to fit those themes . . . and we rarely repeat a recipe, either--there are just too many out there that we don't want to miss out on!

Well, we also have some favorite cooking shows that we like to watch each week (because Food Network is a family-friendly choice when trying to find something to watch with the kids), and I recently suggested altering our nightly themes somewhat to allow for regular trials of the recipes that we see on our favorite shows.  Here's are the changes:

Arizonan Missionaries and Indian Food

Highlight of the morning: The majority of the church service was led by two guests who are in the area from their homes in AZ, traveling from church to church in our region to make people aware of Shepherd's Canyon Retreat, a ministry for pastors feeling overwhelmed by the pressures of their jobs.  Those two gentlemen led us in singing familiar hymns and Sunday school songs, and they sang some contemporary worship songs to us, too, including an especially touching one that compared living life to running a race, and reaching heaven to crossing the finish line.  When they noted that those who have passed the finish line then turn around to cheer us on as we run the rest of our own race, I couldn't help but think of Mom and other loved ones who have died; and Hillary and Abigail (who were seated on either side of me) and I hugged and cried through the rest of that song.  (The lyrics also point out that the way we "run the race" serves as an example for those running behind us, so we serve as inspiration and example for others as we strive to live Christ-inspired lives.)

Highlight of the evening:

The Rhythm Got Us

Two highlights:

• This month's activity for the seventh-grade Mentor Groups at church (remember?) was to go on a scavenger hunt!  I was surprised at how excited my boys were to do it!  Each group was given a $5 bill and a list of challenges to do and told to report back to the church in a half-hour.  No prize for getting the most things done, no prize for being the first ones back--just go do it.  Well, my group of boys were treating it as though we were on The Amazing Race!  They were yelling and rushing and plotting and scheming to get two or more things done at the same site, determined to get everything done and back to the church on time.  Well, we were the first ones back although we had to leave a couple items undone.  But we got strangers to sing Christmas carols with us in the mall, and we used the $5 to buy food for a local food pantry, and we found a house with a lit wreath on it and sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to the woman who answered the door, etc.  Afterwards groups mingled and shared funny stories from the night and ate cookies and drank hot chocolate.  My boys asked if we could do it again this weekend!  (Answer: No.)
• Tonight was Abigail's music program at school.  Her sixth-grade program was much like Suzanna's was last year (remember?) in that all the students sang a bunch of songs before the kids in band played a bunch of songs; most of the songs were the same as last year; and a Moberg child had a featured solo!  Yes, Abigail did a great job playing saxophone in the band portion and singing along with the others in the first half of the program; but what really made us proud as punch was her solo during "The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You":

Nice Basket

Some highlights from the week:

• Sunday, I served as cantor at church in the morning and got some nice compliments afterward on my singing.
• Tuesday, Susan accompanied me to the annual "President's holiday social" (Christmas party), hosted by the university's president and his wife at the Elks Lodge.  At one of the stations of food, we found the largest shrimp I have ever seen--seriously, about the size of lobster tails!  So delicious.  And it's always fun to socialize with colleagues in an off-campus setting about non-work-related topics.
• Tonight, I accompanied Susan to her faculty Christmas party, arranged by a group of teachers and held at the Eagles Club downtown.  We had cocktails and a delicious meal followed by socializing, games, and prizes.  We didn't participate in the games (modeled after challenges in the game show Minute to Win It), but it was fun to watch others humiliate themselves!  And I won a door prize!  I received a basket labeled "Night on the Town":

two T-shirts from Mavericks Saloon and Casino; a gift certificate for two hours of cosmic bowling "for up to one person" at Paragon Bowl; $40 worth of gift certificates to Pizza Ranch; five free drink tokens redeemable at the Esquire Club; and a bottle of Ruta 22 Malbec 2008, a red wine

Zombies for Dessert

I realize that Halloween isn't a national holiday, but when it falls on a weekend day, shouldn't I have it off from work?  Nope, not today.  I was required to attend a meeting this evening from 6:00 to 7:30 P.M., and I went in ahead of time to do some grading and be "on call" in case I was needed to set up for the student presentations that were a part of the events.  While I was gone, Susan and the girls tended to the essential Halloween festivities.

Wanna know who these be-costumed beauties are?  Read on!

Chef Susan: Mediterranean Monday (on a Tuesday)

(First, refresh your memory.)

According to our supper themes throughout the week, tonight should have been Take-Out Tuesday.  However, we did not do Mediterranean Monday last night because of the leftovers that we had to eat from Ice Cream Sunday.  Therefore, we moved Mediterranean Monday to tonight and will eat our Take-Out Tuesday menu another time so as to get back on track with Watery Wednesday tomorrow.  (Got all that?)

Anyhoo, here's what we ate tonight:

Click the photo for enlarged beauty and temptation.

Chef Susan: Ice Cream Sunday

Faithful Reader, do recall how, a couple months ago, our family used the July/August issue of Food Network Magazine to try new recipes that suited our supper themes for all the nights of the week?  (If not, refresh your memory here and here.)  Well, we're doing it again with the September issue.  Susan worked her magic tonight by making horseradish-crusted beef with carrots, roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, and vanilla poached pears.

Abigail's Two (Out of Three) Birthdays

Abigail, our "middlest" daughter (as she refers to herself), turned 11 years old today, and she couldn't have been more excited for this day to arrive!  And why shouldn't she be excited?  Today was her second birthday celebration, and she still has one more to go!

The Girls' Italian Meal

Last summer Suzanna started making supper for the family every once in a while.  This spring Abigail took a turn doing the same.  Hillary joined her sisters this spring to make a meal for Mother's Day.  And, Faithful Reader, you know that each of them takes a turn being my assistant in the kitchen for our weekly Scandinavian Saturday suppers.  Well, they were all back in the kitchen tonight to make an Italian meal for the family, and the results were just wonderful.

Magazine Menus

Because HGTV and the Food Network are reliable sources of safe-for-children programs, they are two of our first choices when our family sits down to watch television together.  Considering that as well as my own fondness for experimenting with new recipes, you won't be surprised, Faithful Reader, to learn that we enjoy Food Network Magazine.  The July/August issue is chock-full of tasty-looking recipes.  Susan heard me ooh-ing and aah-ing as I paged through it, and she told me to choose some recipes for us to try--so I did!  Go pick up a copy of your own and follow along as I review our week of menus from the magazine.

School Lunches, Part II

It appears that no one read my post on school lunches a week ago--or cared enough about it to share a response. Well, I'm undeterred . . . here's a followup.

• The New York Times reviews the ABC show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution
• A nutrition professor follows up with a review of her own for The Atlantic
• Chef Ann Cooper talks about her efforts to improve school food programs because, without changing the food we're serving, "we're feeding our children to death"

This is a fascinating and somewhat astonishing topic to me--that we have gotten to a point at which people must be convinced that it's important to feed our children good food and teach them about proper nutrition?!

Wow. Just wow.

School Lunches

Strangely enough, in the past few days, I have been thinking a lot about school lunches.

On a social networking site, a friend posted a link to a blog maintained by a teacher who is normally a health-conscious eater, choosing organic fruits and vegetables and avoiding highly processed foods and those high in sugar. She is appalled by what is served to her students by the school lunch program, whose menus nevertheless meet the minimum standards established by U.S.D.A. guidelines. To raise awareness of this issue (i.e., to alert unsuspecting parents and other citizens to what is being served to school children in the name of "healthy school lunches"), she has chosen to eat dinner at her school each day, and she posts photos, descriptions, and reactions daily on her blog. Check it out: Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project. Do the daily meals at her school resemble those served at your local schools?

Compare the pre-packaged offerings shown on the former blog with the homemade, from-local-ingredients offerings shown on this blog: Mr. Ferguson's Classroom. The culture of food is quite different at his school (which, this year, is an early elementary school in Japan), where children assist with serving the food, everybody eats from real plates using real utensils at tables with table cloths and napkins, everybody says a "secular prayer of thanks" to those who cooked the meal before anyone begins to eat, adequate time is allowed for a relaxing pace throughout the meal, and each menu features lots of fruits and vegetables bought from the local market and made with care with a focus on nutrition rather than on herding the maximum number of students through the lunch line in the minimum amount of time for the minimum amount of cost of ingredients and labor. Students eat everything served to them, too, regardless of how little they may prefer a particular food item on the plate.

Have you ever watched any cooking shows featuring British chef Jamie Oliver? He happens to have just won the 2010 TED Prize for his plan to educate students and parents about healthy eating and home cooking and to improve the quality of school lunch programs as an effort to combat obesity and its resulting health problems (by the way, as a result of poor diet and lack of exercise, our nation's children are the first generation not expected to live as long as their parents). You can watch his acceptance speech here. This past Sunday, a new television show premiered on ABC: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. It chronicles Mr. Oliver's efforts in Huntington, WV to transform unhealthy eating habits in the community and its schools.

A few times, I have eaten at our daughters' schools with them, and I rather enjoyed the food, which the girls say that they enjoy, too. I certainly haven't seen the children served trays of food in hermetically sealed carboard containers, as at the school featured in the first blog that I mentioned. There definitely is a rush to school lunch, though, as the adults move the children through the lunch line and then off to recess and then back to the classroom on a pretty tight schedule.

It would take a full-scale rethinking of how school lunch programs operate in order to slow down the pace of the noon meal and to focus on nutrition and social communion over efficiency and economy, and I don't know if this is on that many people's radar as an issue deserving of much attention (in light of other concerns that may seem more pressing) . . . especially for people in communities where a lot of families still sit down together each evening for a home-cooked meal. Would that that were the norm, though, and not the exception.

In the Olympic Spirit

Who else watched tonight's opening ceremony for the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada? Our family made a point of watching the opening ceremony for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (remember?) in Beijing, China in 2008, and it was impressive, awe-inspiring, and educational. Well, Vancouver's opening may not have been done on as grand a scale as Beijing's (or with as huge a budget), but we loved it just the same.

Great to hear K.D. Lang, Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado, Bryan Adams, and Joni Mitchell (and to see Anne Murray, although she should have been asked to sing, too). Great to see the variety of effects achieved through the use of projected visuals combined with physical objects (especially the whales that swam across the floor and used their blowholes). Great, too, to see the prominent role played by representatives of Canada's aboriginal peoples. And we were touched by the respect shown for the Georgian athlete who died today in a training accident and for his grieving teammates.

We'll tune in to watch various events from time to time throughout the coming weeks, but for sure we'll watch the closing ceremony at the end of the month to see what presentation they've been planning.

It Was Greek to Me

I am another year older as of yesterday, and it was a very relaxing birthday. It started with a feast for breakfast: eggs Benedict, sausage links, hashbrowns, a caramel roll, half a grapefruit, orange juice, and coffee. Then the lovely ladies gave me gifts (although I had requested no gifts): a krumkake iron (you might want to refresh your memory) and some scented bath products for my morning routine. Because of my recent interest in Scandinavian cooking, I'm sure I'll be trying out the krumkake iron very soon, but I decided against breaking it in yesterday. Instead we gathered as a family to play Catch Phrase, Snorta (Abigail's choice of animal sound for her duck: "Whack-a-quack!"), and Taboo throughout the day.


Over the weekend Susan had asked me what I wanted for a birthday meal; and after watching Ina Garten make a Greek meal on Barefoot Contessa the other night, I requested Ina's menu:

• spanakopitas -- Susan left out the toasted pine nuts because she couldn't find in local grocery stores any pine nuts to toast
• marinated lamb kebobs -- Susan used whole chicken breasts instead of chunks of lamb . . . and she skipped the red onion . . . and she grilled the breasts as is instead of spearing them with kebabs . . . so, really, she just used the marinade from Ina's recipe, but it worked well with chicken
• Greek salad -- Susan added couscous to it, too
• grilled pita crisps dipped in tzatziki -- Susan used dill from our back yard (where it still grows back summer after summer, a persistent remnant from the days when our predecesors in this house had a backyard garden)

Susan left the girls and me to our games and spent the last part of the afternoon making us a Greek supper. It was absolutely delicious. I had requested another Ina recipe for dessert in lieu of birthday cake (because there'll be plenty of cake in the house tomorrow for Abigail's birthday), but Susan got sneaky and made a cake to go along with the Ina recipe (and it turned out to be a very refreshing combination):

• fruit salad with Limoncello -- Ina's lemon liqueur/lemon curd/yogurt sauce, which Susan served with fresh blueberries and strawberries
• pound cake -- Smitten Kitchen's "lighter, airy" version of a traditional pound cake

Throughout the day and evening, I received a telephone call from one sister and a greeting card and e-mail from the other as well as numerous electronic greetings from friends and relatives (a good part of my day was spent logging on and responding to online birthday wishes). My aunt/godmother Shirley wrote me a particularly wonderful note, reminiscing about having known me my whole life and noting, "Now you are all grown up, a very good-lookin' guy with much charm and intelligence along with a very nice family." The only part of that that I can confirm is the very nice family, but I just love rereading the rest of it. Thank you, Shirley!

I don't feel any older, but the silver in my beard is often cited as evidence that I'm nearing senior citizen status. (And here I was hoping that it came across as "distinguishing.") But maybe I am old considering how quickly I chose--when asked, "What would you like to do for your birthday?"--just to hang around with my family all day. And it was great!

P.S. Eleven-year-old daughter Suzanna wanted to make supper for the family again this past Sunday, so here's what she made for us . . . entirely on our own (while Suzanna cooked, Susan washed dishes and cleaned kitchen counters so that she'd be available if needed, but Suzanna didn't call on her):

Spicy queso con carne with tortilla chips

Baked beef and bean burritos

So, that was Norwegian for supper Saturday, Mexican for supper Sunday, Greek for supper Monday, and Italian for supper tonight (spaghetti). Not bad!

Nice-Weather Stories

This is so unlike southwest ND this time of year: it's the middle of the day in early August, and we've got the air conditioning turned off and the windows open to let in the breeze! Usually it's hot enough outside that we have all the windows closed, the air conditioning on, and the curtains drawn to combat the blazing sun's tireless efforts to heat up the house. Not so last week or this. It's very comfortable in the house right now and so wonderful to have the fresh air blowing in and to hear the sound of the trees' swaying in the wind, the neighbor cat's meowing outside, the chimes' gongs from the veranda, etc. The temperature has been dropping enough at night that it has actually been chilly in the house when we get up in the morning! Good weather seems like such a simple thing, but I'm grateful for it just the same.

Speaking of open windows, Hillary wasn't a fan of them this morning. At the risk of embarrassing her a tiny bit, I just have to share a couple cute things that she said today. I was away at the office, but Susan reported that Hillary had been sent to her room this morning to calm down after an incident, yet Susan could hear that Hillary was only getting angrier. Susan heard, "You're being ludicrous!" and went into Hillary's room to find out at whom Hillary was shouting! Turns out it was her blinds. Hillary wanted some privacy, so she was trying to shut her windows and blinds but couldn't. "They won't shut!" she told Susan, who replied, "Nor should they," thinking the windows should remain open so long as the incoming breeze was still so nice and cool. Hillary threw herself onto her bed, scrunched (Susan's word) herself into a tight ball, and said, "I can't be seen like this!" While I'm sympathetic to Hillary's desire not to have the entire neighborhood hear her crying, I can't help but smile at her dramatic reaction to the situation (and her choice of vocabulary)!

The weather was lovely, too, Sunday evening as we all gathered on the veranda for supper prepared by Suzanna (and me). Lately she has been volunteering to cook for the family (remember?), and she is doing a terrific job, albeit with the assistance of one or the other parent each time. Suzanna consulted a cookbook from one of her aunts (who have given the girls several books with kid-friendly and easy recipes for children-as-chefs) and found a main dish and a dessert that she wanted to make. The main dish was a baked pasta that sounded a whole lot like my mom's standard hot dish recipe (fried hamburger, macaroni, vegetable, soup), only covered in cheese and baked in the oven. Therefore, we decided to ditch the recipe and just make hot dish à la Mom--well, with our own twists.

Mom always started by frying ground beef with onions, salt, and pepper. Then she would add cooked elbow macaroni and whatever else she happened to have in the pantry: often a can of soup and some tomato paste or sauce (unless she was using cream-of-something soup), seasonings to match, and canned or frozen vegetables (corn, peas, or mixed vegetables). Instead of making standard elbow macaroni, Suzanna boiled whole-wheat noodles while I fried hamburger with chopped onions and shallots with ground pepper, Worcestershire sauce, seasoned salt, and garlic powder. To the ground beef, we added canned tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato soup, chili powder, mustard powder, brown sugar, Heinz 57 sauce, Tabasco sauce, chili pepper paste, and perhaps other things as well--I can't remember. Then we added canned corn and the cooked noodles and voilà! It was decidedly more over-the-top than Mom's hot dish, but it was definitely inspired by her--and Suzanna liked getting to decide just what to add. When we dished up the hot dish, we sprinkled each portion with grated Parmesan cheese and served it with garlic toast and dill pickles.

For the dessert, we followed the kids' cookbook's recipe called "Edible Aquarium." We made blue Jell-O and poured it into glasses, dropping Swedish Fish candies into and onto the gelatin. Everybody received his or her own aquarium filled with chewy fish for a fun treat to follow supper! (And because it was Ice Cream Sunday in our house, we had bowls of ice cream as a snack while watching Merlin on TV later on.)

P.S. For Mediterranean Monday last night, Susan made Rachael Ray's turkey spanakopita burgers and served them with garlic and basil whole-wheat couscous. Wow, was that ever delicious. As Rachael would say, "Yum-O!"

MERLIN

Are you watching NBC's new series Merlin? If not, you should be! It's a British import that has already run its first season in the United Kingdom, where it was quite popular. NBC is hoping that American audiences will like it as much, although why they waited until the summertime to run it (when people are more apt to be on vacation or frolicking outdoors than watching TV) is beyond me. I just so happened to read something about it in a magazine a few days ago; otherwise, I wouldn't have known that it premiered last night, and we would have missed it entirely.

I'm glad that we didn't! It's an imaginative retelling of the Arthurian legend starting from when Arthur was a young man, not yet a king--and Merlin was a newcomer to the court, not yet a fully developed magician and not immediately on good terms with Arthur. There is the potential for years of storylines that incorporate characters that audiences will recognize from Arthurian tales but that tell stories no one has ever heard (e.g., "What might have happened before so-and-so grew up and met Arthur?").

The cast is appealing, the special effects are good, and the stories have, so far (in the two episodes shown last night), completely engaged our whole family. The girls jump during tense moments, laugh at humorous ones, and hide their eyes at moments that smack of romance. It reminds me a bit of Crusoe, a show that we watched together this past winter (remember?) and that also featured a good cast, believable special effects, and self-contained episodes that nevertheless carried forward an overarching plot from the beginning to the end of the series.

Reasonably intelligent family-friendly episodic shows are not the norm on TV these days, so we count ourselves lucky when we find one that we like and can watch together as a family. Check it out; maybe you'll like it, too!

Scandinavian Saturday on a Friday

Tonight we were supposed to have homemade pizza, and tomorrow we were supposed to have Scandinavian food (remember?), but there has been a change of plans. Susan's grandma, Laura, will turn 90 years old next week. Her out-of-state daughter is in town this weekend, so the family has planned to gather for pizza for supper tomorrow at the nursing home where Susan's grandparents live. Rather than eat pizza two nights in a row, Susan suggested that we skip Familiar Friday this week and move Scandinavian Saturday to tonight. So here's what I made for tonight's meal:

appetizer

Tom Collins

We have been getting so over-stuffed each Saturday night--what with an appetizer, a full meal, and a dessert--that for this week I planned a lighter meal for a change. In lieu of an appetizer, Susan and I each enjoyed a cocktail featuring gin, a spirit flavored by juniper berries, a very Scandinavian spice. (Well, Susan made hers with vodka, but it's the thought that counts.)

main course

arugula salad

grilled salmon with dilled mustard glaze

I found a recipe for a refreshing salad made with arugula, a salad green that Susan and I have seen used in recipes on the Food Network but that we couldn't remember having had ourselves. I tossed together arugula, spinach, roughly chopped sugar snap peas, and thinly sliced radishes in a homemade dressing of sour cream, buttermilk, sugar, vinegar, chives, flat-leaf parsley, and fresh dill. After plating each person's portion, I ground some black pepper on it, added a few croutons, and used a cheese knife to carve a few curls of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for the top. Arugula has an unusual flavor ("hint of lawn clippings," according to Susan) that went well with the kick of the radishes and the flavors of the dressing and the cheese.

For the fish, I bought two one-pound fillets of sockeye salmon and covered them in a glaze: mayonnaise, whole grain mustard, fresh dill, fresh lime juice, brown sugar, and ground pepper. I toasted whole mustard seeds and sprinkled them on top of the glaze and then grilled the fillets on indirect medium heat for about a half-hour. It went very well with the salad, and it was a huge hit with the ladies. Susan even stated that it was the best salmon she has ever had.

dessert

peaches 'n' cream pie

Although gin and seafood suggest "Scandinavia," I can't say that there's anything particularly Nordic about arugula or peaches. Nevertheless, this peach pie recipe came from a cookbook compiled by the ladies of the church that I attended throughout childhood, and the Scandinavian influences there were undeniable. Therefore, I declare that our dessert tonight qualifies as Scandinavian! In any case, it was pretty tasty. I made a batter of milk, egg, butter, salt, baking powder, flour, and vanilla pudding powder. I spread that in the bottom of a pie pan and then arranged sliced peaches on top of the batter. Over that I poured a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, and peach juice. I sprinkled the whole thing with cinnamon and sugar and baked it. Voilà! It went well with a cup of cappuccino (made from homemade cappuccino powder . . . itself made in an effort to empty our cupboard of several containers and packets of instant coffee, dried coffee creamer, hot chocolate packets, etc.).

P.S. Suzanna went grocery shopping with me this morning, not only to help me buy what I needed for tonight's meal but also to gather what she will need for Sunday night's meal. Yep, a couple days ago, Suzanna asked if she could prepare a meal all by herself for our family! Stay tuned for a report in the coming days on Sunday's supper, courtesy of our 11-year-old daughter!