DECEMBER 27
Chicken at Bamf & Bryn's. There surely was other food there.DECEMBER 24
Christmas at Peter & Carol's. Guest stars were Carol's mom and brother Lee. Bamf & bryn were there and everyone had mesquite smoked turkey (same great recipe as thanksgiving.)DECEMBER 20
Chicken & scallion pizza at Carol & Peter's. Not one, but two deserts: a tasty non alcoholic easy-recipe fruitcake and vanilla pudding with nilla wafers and bananas. Commandos is a great game and promises much addiction in the year to come. Halflife's intro was pretty good. Your generic quake engine though.DECEMBER 13
Dun dun noodles, tasty cooked dinosaur (with sauce), and that really good apple pie recipe at sunspark & merrrr!'s. Dinosaur (and piglets) courtesy of Marina deli... they also do a mean brontasaurus sushi. Bamf and Bryn were singing instead of eating. Peter succumbed to food coma. Carol got stuck Photoshopping long ears onto Jack.DECEMBER 6
Chicken drenched in lots of sweet orange and raisin sauce with rice at Bamf & Bryn's. Yummy apple brown betty for desert. "Betty" translates in this case to "sugar & cinamon bread". Jack said a number of clever and erudite things and then coerced me to forget them all. There was talk of mortgages and other non-food stuff.NOVEMBER 29
Chicken picatta at zanzibar's! Dave said it was a lot of work, particularly because the mushrooms fought for space in the frying pan. Not to mention the beating of sense into the chicken before hand. Brownies for desert. The brownies did not milk the cows nor darn the socks. So hard to find good help these days. Bamf & Bryn stayed home to recuperate from the friendly skies.NOVEMBER 22
Swedish meatballs with yummy stroganof sauce cooked in record time at sunspark & merrrr's. This time sunspark even wrote down the recipe. Tasty herbed veggies.Almond jello and chocolate chip cookies for desert. Almost everyone was tricked into eating too much. Except Bamf & Bryn who were protected by the number of miles between here and Birmingham. NOVEMBER 15
Sphagetti with red sauces at Bamf & Bryn's. Garlic butter bread and non-alchoholic moose pie and chocolate chip cookies too. No garlic in the moose. Jack had a falling out with CalTrans.NOVEMBER 8
Chicken, broccoli, mushrooms, and noodles at Castle Zanzibar. Not one, but two yummy pumpkin pies. One for Peter and one for everyone else :-) Bamf modeled sunglasses in an attempt to find a pair that didn't make him look like a terrorrist. Carol used the spare mushrooms effectively as weapons against the maurauding hordes that did not invade. This is yet more proof that Peter and Carol are cyborg assassin spies with lots of good stuff.NOVEMBER 1
I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of dinner on this day. Jack has no official comments at this time.OCTOBER 25
Yummy honey mustard chicken with seasoned rice at Carol & Peter's. Peter cooked the whole thing by himself! Including the yummy tiramisu. Mmmmm. Jack knows more sign language than mer and Cindy combined, and used it to acquire some tiramisu. He may or may not have used sign language to track down a slug. Sunspark learned to use the special Playstation sign language word for, "Choke hold." He didn't use the word for "please."OCTOBER 18
Chinese style chicken with cashews and/or the secret ingredient served over brand-new rice-cooker rice. At sunspark & merrrrr's. Peking ravs (same Panda brand from Costco as Bamf & Bryn use.) Peter and Carol cruelly forced us to accept really good warm apple pie with two kinds of apples, topped with luscious smooth vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmm. Twist my arm. :-) We test-lifted bicycles. They are definately subject to the laws of gravity.OCTOBER 11
Some sort of raviolis and red sauce at Bamf & Bryn's with fresh baked bread. Bryn knows pretty much the whole Don Gato song. Carol and Peter had a little too much excitement in the hospital but everything's okay now. Jack really really loves those carpetted stairs. Sugar coated, orange drizzled, peanut-chocolate cookie desert.OCTOBER 4
Tasty creamy and garlicky spinach at zanzibar's. He added chicken so that it wouldn't be veggie and that was good choice. The recipe is already on the net because this is the one I put up a long time ago because it looked yummy even though no one had tried it. Lots of warm yummy pumpkin pie for desert. Sadly, the lactose-void whipped cream failed to deliver. Carol and Peter were felled by orienteering (difficult course and after a hiatus.)SEPTEMBER 27
Curry meat pastries at sunspark & merrrr's with puff pastry crust just like at Carol & Peter's except much bigger. Key lime pie from Trader Joe's. Our special guest stars were Susie & Mikee, which accounts for sunspark & mer having preempted zanzibar's spot (and the sending of much email.) Jack didn't really eat, possibly on account of having ingested a million or so grapes before dinner... in one mouthful no less. Carol didn't want any key limes for once - she must've been replaced by an alien. In the anihilation fest, Mikee emerged victorious over Peter and Susie.SEPTEMBER 20
Skipping this one due to forseen circumstances.SEPTEMBER 13
Mediterranean theme at Carol & Peter's. Two kinds of turnovers, spinach and cheese, and curry beef. Two kinds of crust, pizza dough and frozen puff pastry. The curry beef was really tasty. The spinach ones, though decent enough, probably bled too much during their open heart surgery to compete properly with the curry beef. Jack learned that road to apricot walnut cake can be frought with the occasional pitfall and misstep.SEPTEMBER 6
Sort of Thai food by sunspark & mer at bamf & bryn's (for airconditioning purposes). Tasty chicken coconut soup, pork & noodle salad, chocolate moose pie for desert. Bryn's feet were the size of Miami, making it hard to walk. Zanzibar and mer introduced bamf to the joys of Photoshop. Bamf made a panorama of Oahu.AUGUST 30
At zanzibar's, everything except the salad had cheese and that didn't have cheese only because he ran out. Red and white lasagne (white with both shrimp and scallops (zanzibar having secretly reconciled himself to scallops a few months ago)). Yummy cheesecake, both plain and with lingen berry topping. Bamf & Bryn were not seen doing windsurfing loops in Oahu. Jack has mastered the art of hinting via shoe delivery. Zanzibar is starting to follow the merrrr school of food quantity estimation.AUGUST 23
More sweet & sour chicken at Bamf & Bryn's. Pretty good, even minus the flourescent coloring that it usually comes with. Homemade apple pie and chocolate ice cream for desert. Jack was unusually subdued in spite of the Panda peking ravs. He also asked for a change. Could it be that he was replaced by aliens?AUGUST 16
Grilled chicken and corn at Carol & Peter's. The best smashed potatoes ever. Strawberry shortcake for desert. Jack ran. He should run for president since he couldn't possibly be impeached for perjury.AUGUST 9
The main meal, Frito Pie (e.g. of the genre Dorito Pie, Pub Fries Pie, Cheetos Pie), was much tastier than it sounds. This was prefaced by the healthier spinach salad and postfixed by sherbet with berry puree and fresh whipped cream (instead of rote grueze - a delicate tasting dessert despite the spelling). Food perpetrated by sunspark & merrrr! Christoph and Leony were there. Jack made Peteresque faces while contemplating visual similarities between Meilin and Leony.AUGUST 2
Some sort of taragon & tomato cream sauce on fettucine at bamf & bryn's. Yummy. Chocolate mint death brownies for desert. Dinner was late-ish because we had to torture Jack in the pool. Saint Sithny, patron saint of mad dogs (and not young women), did not make an appearance.JULY 26
Dinner at zanzibar's with yummy chili and some chicken and vegetable stew thingy that came in two degrees of spicy. Cornbread using the recipe on the back of the box (as opposed to the recipe on the side panel) was not sweet. Key lime pie for desert was yummy but runny. Carol, Peter, zanzibar and Jack went hiking in the morning, necessitating a fast-paced three-headed approach to dinner cooking.JULY 19
Dinner at Carol & Peter's under the brand new canvas awning in the back. All kinds of stuff: gazpacho (cold of course), cucumber and feta salad, oranges and proscuttio on bread chunks, funny colored chips, herbed roasted potatoes and quick squid-paella. sunspark & mer brought chocolate cake with raspberries. Special guest star was Abe.JULY 12
Tasty oriental chicken salad and fresh pesto raviolies at sunspark & mer's. Fruit smoothies for drink and jello cake for desert. A horde of people too, horde not for consumption. Guest stars were Donna & Francis who stopped by along their cross country march, and mer's mom. Bryn made a good show of being invisible (she went "not here" :-)JULY 6
Yummy grilled-at-the-table bulgogi at Bamf&Bryn's. S'mores for desert. They used sukyaki meat instead of the official bulgogi meat and it tasted fine. Power saw not included. (They traded turns with sunspark & mer for logistical reasons. The trade had nothing to do with hand-held power tools.)JUNE 28
Spaetzle of two flavors at zanzibar's and a really yummy variation on brownies for desert. The secret ingredient was frozen orange-juice concentrate. I think we talked about stuff, but what I remember most was Carol's plea, "Can we talk about life over brownies?"JUNE 21
Carol & Peter mindcontrolled Zanzibar to trade his turn to cook for a day of his house demolition skills. So although we were goingto have dinner at zanzibar's, instead we have barbequed hamburgers at Carol & Peter's. There was bbq corn on the cob and a medley of things for desert, including the last of Jack's extra-rich b-day carrot cake. By now Jack has taken so many steps towards world domination that we've lost count.JUNE 14
10 hour chili and half hour corn bread at Bamf&Bryn's. Yummy 45 minute chocolate fondue for desert, but only after 45 minutes of digesting. 35 seconds to dispatch the terrorists who tried to break into the pool area. 5 minutes to cleanup evidence. Jack deigned to fetch his basket from the kitchen.JUNE 7
Marinated beef with sundried tomatoes and risotto, corn on the cob, and chocolate torte at Carol & Peter's. Jack liked the corn on the cob so much he tried to eat the cob. The beef was yummy and tasted sort of like bulgogi.MAY 31
Thai with more fish sauce than spice at sunspark & merrrrr's. Coconut soup, BBQ spareribs, basil chicken, and sort-of-Thai veggies. Tropical fruit bonanza for desert.MAY 24
Indian orange chicken and lemon bars at zanzi-lemon-bar's. bamf decreed that Dave was the lemon-bar king. Jack took a couple of steps more towards world domination. mer had a good time with the photoshop machine.MAY 17
Lots of chicken fajitas and Mexican rice at Bamf & Bryn's. In bamf's words, it was surprisingly good considering it came from a box. And cherry pie and Girl Scout cookie ice cream for desert. Carol, Peter, & Jack were off defending the world from the Peace and Freedom party which advocates, among other things, "Socialism, not canabalism"... or something like that.MAY 10
Yummy Chinese food at Carol & Peter's. Hm... and yummy sweet potato cubes that taste fine even when sorta burnt on one side. Jack has a really cool modular castle. There was a birthday carrot cake which was really rich and yummy, but so full of butter and sugar that in the interests of national security, the recipe has been declared top secret. We made a time-capsule video as Jack indulged without the benefit of utensils.MAY 3
Spinach pie and sunspark and merrrr's. A mediteranean day, with Greek salad and greek-ish noodles. Peter had to leave early to go storm the castle. Pumpkin pie and an apple thing for desert.APRIL 26
Lasagne, two kinds, at davemodiano's. The spinach one had a strange psychic mind-meld with the pumpkin pie. Jack did not learn to mimic shooting at snipers hidden across the street. The pumpkin pie was so good, we are planning on making pumpkin pie for the appetizer, main course, and dessert next week.APRIL 25
Special guest star, Sat night impromptu dinner, Carol made something with strawberries, strawberry goop, and angel food cake that was really yummy and ought to have its recipe typed in.APRIL 19
Yummy bulgogi, ravs (which Bryn slaved ahem! over a hot stove all day for), and string beans at bamf & bryn's. Special guest Birgit played Peter's Yazirian, Max, and didn't get him killed. Peter pretended to stay home but we all know he was on a secret mission in <censored>.APRIL 12
Steak, yummy yams, and asparagus at Peter and Carol's. Davemodiano's glider almost didn't make it. Jack taught sunspark a lesson on how to work the lever on his new RTI. Ice cream sundays with fresh mint chocolate and lots of fruit for desert.APRIL 5
Potato knishes, way too many meat pasties at sunspark and meilin's. The pastries were pretty good but a lot of work. Special guest stars Sean and Amy Ningen, who drove out from Boston, brought tasty tannies for dessert. Jack went on a seek and destroy mission behind the new futon couch.MARCH 29
Meatloaf and partially kumquat-enhanced carrot cake at Dave's.MARCH 22
Frito pie casserole and excellent spicy noodle dessert at Bamf and Bryn's. Meilin regaled us with tales of the Taiwanese public transit system.MARCH 15
Sausages and, um, other things at Peter and Carol's. Even more tiredness from orienteering, and people ate merrrlike quantities of food.MARCH 8
An experimental corn bread and turkey dish, some rainbow fishies, Greek salad, and gooey extra-sweet lemon bars at sunspark and meilin's newly renovated, non-flooded place. Bamf and Bryn returned triumphant from yet another secret mission, cleverly disguised as a vocal concert. Most everyone else was tired from orienteering.MARCH 1
Chicken picatta and crispy brown lemon bars at Dave's. Jack learned about "Door open, door close." Jack is pretty good at that locomotion thing these days.FEBRUARY 22
FEBRUARY 15
FEBRUARY 8
[dave cooked at Peter and Carol's to enable extended video game playing]
[merrr and sunspark made monkey brains at Bamf and Bryn's]
FEBRUARY 1
[last dinner before the flood]JANUARY 25
Special appearance by Guest Chef Tina as "herself." [or maybe it was the week after]JANUARY 18
Extemporaneous sweet-and-sour chicken at Bamf's (without Bryn and Meilin and Peter and Carol, but with Eric and a lot of rain....) minus the frightening color it usually has at restaurants.JANUARY 11
JANUARY 4