Weekend Adventure: Cutting the Christmas Tree

It's been, oh, about 14 years since we cut our own Christmas tree. The last time we ventured out into the snowy forest for a fresh cut tree, I was eight months pregnant. The big belly worked out well for us, actually. The farmer came out with his giant tractor/flat bed and gave us a ride back with our cut tree. When I said, "Oh, I didn't know you do tractor rides," he replied, "Lady, you're pregnant. What type of guy would I be to let you lug that tree through the woods?" Good point.

I hope Santa was good to the farmer that year!

That tree was the tallest we ever had and we learned a big lesson from it - bigger isn't always better. Moments after putting away the last box of decorations, I was admiring our decorated tree when I noticed it getting closer to me in a hurry. I was subsequently crushed by the tree and a million glass ornament shards flew around the living room. No babies were harmed in the falling of the tree.

This year, suppressing the nightmare of that tall tree long ago, we thought we'd try it again.

We headed up to Verbank on the way to Millbrook to a small tree farm (Rt. 82, to Tompkins to Waterbury Hill Rd). We had a fresh snow the night before which made for great pictures. And we had an extra set of hands to help, always good. After much discussion, and ruling out the biggest tree on the hill, we opted for an 8-footer.

Our tree is a douglas fir...or maybe a frasier fir...or a balsam fir...or a Norway spruce. Well, it's a tree anyway. The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens web site has a great tree identification quiz but I was still baffled. Confirmation came from an unlikely source - a children's Christmas tree activity guide! After completing the special alphabet code puzzle, I found out my tree is a....Douglas Fir!

All I know is I have to keep it in water with high humidity in the room and hopefully we'll get four weeks out of it before the needles shed.

It goes up on Wednesday. With anchors to the wall. Maybe chains. Or screws into the wood floor. Something. That tree isn't going anywhere until January.

Fa la la la la, la la, la, la.

Turkey Talk

Are you hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year? I'm a guest this year, but I'll be helping out in the kitchen (but not too much, I promise!). Thoughts of roasting a turkey can strike fear into many a confident cook, but it really is one of the most simple cooking techniques.

Over the years, I've tried many different techniques for the turkey, including slow cooking & low oven temps, high temps, foil, no foil and flipping. Not me, the bird. Oddly, flipping, combined with a high temp in the beginning and low temp after that results in the best bird, in my opinion.

I season the inside of the bird, stuff it, but not too full, then season the outside with salt, pepper and rub the whole surface with bacon fat (from the bacon in the stuffing). I grease the roasting rack (if you don't have one, you can make a "rack" of celery sticks) and place it breast-side down in a high-sided roasting pan. Roast it in a 400F degree preheated oven for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 325F. Let it roast for 2/3 the whole cooking time breast-side down, then flip over carefully for the last 1/3 cooking time. Baste turkey every 20 minutes with pan drippings.

I think this method cooks the dark meat well, while protecting the white meat from over-cooking. The fat from the upper dark meat also bastes the breast below it. The entire bird also gets an even brown color. I love this method, but be careful when flipping since the juices will be hot.

Cooking times vary depending on turkey size and whether or not its stuffed. See guidelines here.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

How do you roast your turkey? Tips? Have any special Thanksgiving traditions? Share them here!

Stuffing recipe.

Hot Toys!

The View did their Hot Toys-2009 episode today. I have to say that I like the "Meatball Madness" toy from Taratoy. The meatballs float above an air-blowing hand-held spoon and you take the meatball through hoops to get to the plate. My kids might be a little too old for it, but I'd have fun!

Will the Elmo Tickle Hands be a hot item? Probably! Elmo has been popular since my kids were little.

There are Zhu Zhu Pets - toy hamsters that scramble through a tunnel home. And no smell! No wood chips to change! No nocturnal wakings!

I think the big hit in our house (and our wallet) will be the electronic toys. My plan is to wrap them in giant boxes loaded with rocks. I've got to have my fun, too, you know?

Got teens? Here are hot toys for teen boys - I think my son would enjoy the mini-projector but I object to the Psycho shower curtain. Ick.

Tween girls might enjoy these gifts.

My kids love science stuff and might just see a few of these toys from Edmund Scientific.

One of my favorites toys are the 3D puzzles. There's a great selection here but I've seen some of them at Barnes & Noble and other local toy dealers.

Remember those in need and grab an extra toy for the local Toys for Tots program or donate many of the local charities and chamber programs set up to help local families enjoy the holidays.

Happy Shopping!

Happy Birthday, Sesame Street!

If you've been noticing this week's colorful Google art, then you know it's Sesame Street's 40th birthday! I guess I was only three years old when Big Bird hit the airwaves. I remember watching it with my younger sister on PBS, one of our only TV channels (no cable!). I think she loved Grover. Then again, it was almost 40 years ago, so who knows!

My kids always loved Elmo but I was more of a Cookie Monster fan myself, for obvious reasons. "C" is for Cookie (and Carolyn) and that's good enough for me.

Congratulations to Sesame Street and all the wonderful people, and muppets, there for 40 years of bringing free educational programming to children all around the world!

Think you know Sesame Street? Take this challenging trivia quiz! I completely bombed! (There's a 35th anniversary quiz here. Take it just to hear Oscar taunting you!)

This blog post brought to you by the letter "S" and the number "40."

Joys! Joys! The Big Book of Toys!

There was a time, not long ago, just after Halloween, when the most coveted of all catalogs would arrive. No, not the Crate & Barrel holiday issue - that's for me. It's the Toys-R-Us Big Book of Toys. We would place, with great reverence, the most prized book on the breakfast table and unveil it after the Sunday comics were read.

The kids would grab magic markers and spend hours circling the toys they wanted. Then they'd make lists, ranked lists, of all the toys they wanted Santa to bring.

Our 'big book' arrived the other day and as I flipped through the brightly colored pages filled with toys, I realized there was only one page my tween & teen kids would enjoy now - the video games page.

We have almost every board game there is, tons of sports equipment and a basement full of other toys. Now their interest is mostly focused on electronics. They're beyond Transformers and Hot Wheels, Barbies and Bratz (thank goodness for small miracles), and, bless his little red furry heart, Talking Elmo.

The presents under the Christmas tree used to spill out all over the living room. Big toys, little toys, toys stuffed in stockings, books and stuffed rabbits, hockey sticks and red wagons. It was hard to find the kids in all the wrapping paper.

Now they want tiny things. Software. Video games. Things that you have to plug in and recharge. They want i-Pods. I'm not even sure I typed that correctly...I-Pod? iPod? How uncool am I?

They want to go skiing or maybe have a luxurious island holiday vacation (I'm kind of with them on that). And they want to take a friend along, as if our joyous company wasn't enough anymore!

Someone told me once that as kids get bigger, the toys get smaller and way more expensive. I think we're there.

Now, I'll have to find the Big Book of Electronics. It's probably next to the Big Book of Bankruptcy. I could always wrap the i-Pod thingies in a red wagon box...just to mix it up a bit.

More from the Walkway Over the Hudson

Motherhood - The Movie

I just saw the trailer for Uma Thurman's new movie entitled, "Motherhood" opening this weekend in select cities. Can't say I agree with the tagline "there are no time-outs in Motherhood."

Sure there are! When you don't get them, therein lies the problem! Moms should always give themselves time-outs, whether it's a long, hot bath, time for reading, a night out with hubbie or the gals or, and I remember those days, a drive-thru coffee while the kids are asleep in the backseat. Take it when you can get it!

Back to the movie, the early reviews panned it, but I obviously have a connection to the premise - a stay-at-home mom with little children, a blog about the same and a deadline that can give her something she's been missing - a job. Who knew I could've starred in this movie?! Why didn't I attend the casting call? I'm firing my agent forthwith.

Anyway, Uma beat me to the punch and plays my character, Eliza, mother of two, who is spending a harried day planning her daughter's birthday party. OK, she's in the city and I'm in the country, but we have similarities. Who hasn't taken their kid to school still half-dressed in their pajamas? Right? I just did it this morning! Bueller?

By the reviews, it's nothing new in the motherhood movie theme department, but I suspect some moms will connect with her on some level. Harried? Check. Feeling under-appreciated and drifting from your former self? Check. Turned crazy by seemingly menial domestic tasks? Check. Trying to take stock of what you have and not worry about what you don't? OK, yes, fine, check, check.

Still, I might take in the matinee next week. I can't pay full evening ticket prices if they didn't even call me for an audition. Hmph.

Autumn in NY

Here are some photos from around the yard...autumn in the Hudson Valley.

Too Old For Trick or Treating

I don't know why all these childhood milestones surprise me. I know they're coming, I just don't know when exactly. So when they crop up - they still blindside me.

The latest isn't earth-shattering but still, it hits me where I live. My 13-yr old son said he's "too old for trick-or-treating." Too old?!! *I* like trick-or-treating and I am so not 13 years old!

I don't understand this. It's one night where you go out into the cold, dark world, scare little kids if you want, and get...(wait for it)...free CANDY! Candy, I say! What kid rejects free candy?!!

Then again, what mother should push it, right? "Hey, kid, you're not getting your daily requirement of chocolate - eat this Snickers immediately!"

I know kids hit that milestone of "It's just not cool, Mom" during the early teen years. He tells me like I have two heads, "Teenagers just do NOT trick-or-treat, Mom." As if I were unaware of the "cool" requirements of the teenage years. I know them, I just want him to reject them.

I've heard of a few Halloween parties cropping up for the "too cool" teens but I'm still going to miss the family ritual and the excitement building up to Halloween. Like the whole Santa Claus thing...just takes the wind out of your sails.

Halloween is fun! You shouldn't avoid it because of someone else's preconception of what "cool" is. Fun is cool. Free candy is very cool. Walking about in the neighborhood in the dark is probably the ultimate of cool because, as a teenager, I'd give him a little rope out there because I know he wouldn't be vandalizing stuff and making mayhem. Why wouldn't you want to go?

So, to summarize for my very math-oriented son:

fun + candy + freedom = halloween

Halloween just adds up to a good time. I hope he reconsiders.

Meanwhile, my daughter has already said emphatically that she's...not...sharing. (Except with me, I hope. Dibs on the Mary Janes...!)
Halloween Peanut Brittle Recipe

Bake Sale Ban in NYC

NYC schools are taking a stand against sweets. In an effort to combat childhood obesity and diabetes, there will be no more bake sales at school.

Bake sales after 6pm on weekdays and weekends are fine (beware hungry, unsuspecting parents on your way to a PTA meeting), but not during school hours.

I don't see this as a solution to anything, unless NYC schools were having bake sales every day during school hours. The bigger problem is the cafeteria menu which, in our school, includes things like: hamburger/cheeseburger; corn dog on a stick, chili with cheese, chicken nuggets and cheese breadsticks. It offers chips, sweet drinks, fries and brownies every day.

They say the food items aren't fried there, but they were fried somewhere. That's how a corn dog comes into being. You take a hot dog, already loaded with saturated fat, salt and who knows what else, then you dip it in a corn meal batter (which has fat in it), then you fry it. In oil. Yes, the school bakes it to heat it, but the damage has been done. Average corn dogs have 12-18 grams of fat. For a child - that's about a third of their total fat and all of their saturated fat - in one portion of one meal. A full third of this month's meals are coated with a fatty coating.

It's not the bake sales. It's the food. And it's the sedentary lifestyles that we allow our children to have. Yes, they have video games and TV's with 24/7 cartoons that make them happy. Should we let them be plugged in for 5 hours straight? I think we know the answer to that question.

Chef Jamie Oliver is on a mission to save at least one U.S. community from it's unhealthy eating habits. He'll star in a new reality show on ABC to help Huntingon, WV, tagged as the nation's unhealthiest city, to help them eat and cook healthier. To make his point, he showed up at school with more than 5,000 lbs of fat - the equivalent of what the school cafeteria serves every year. Ick!

A few years ago, I did a story on a school that hired a caterer to make, not just healthy meals for school, but a full vegetarian menu. Did the kids temporarily lose their minds? Yes! Did they adjust and actually learn to love butternut squash soup? You betcha.

Is it possible to have healthy meals at school? Absolutely. Is it easy in this era of heat & serve kitchens? Not so much. But not impossible.

Healthiest meals are likely the ones we send in from home. Assuming we don't send a portable bake sale!