Sunday dinner

[cellio]

Sunday dinner was fun. Ralph and Lori made a wonderful N-bean chili (just about every kind of bean you could imagine, well except I don't think it included garbonzos), and nicely spiced. And vegetarian, which is always useful.

After dinner we carved pumpkins. I can't remember if I've ever carved a pumpkin; I certainly haven't done so as an adult. It was fun. There seems to be a whole industry around pumpkin-carving now; I foolishly thought that carving a pumpkin involved a pumpkin, a knife, and something to scoop pumpkin guts out with. I had never seen the tools that apparently can be gotten in grocery stores. The little saber-saw blades with plastic handles worked especially well. The plastic awl was handy for marking where to cut, so you didn't have to worry about residual marker ink.

I finally remembered to take my laser pointer. I've been thinking about that ever since Ralph and Lori got kittens. My cats go nuts chasing it, and I figured kittens would be a hoot. (I did wait for Ralph or Lori to agree to this, though.) It was even more entertaining than I thought it would be. Two of my cats will follow the dot up the wall, but they don't jump for it the way the kittens did. The kitties got a good workout. (I hope that means they slept more soundly than they usually do.)

Comments

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

I used a knife and a spoon. My pumpkin turned out just fine. No wacky non-kosher utensils in use here! 8^)

Only 50% of the cats in this household play with the laser, but it's 90% Pipsqueak and 10% Charlie. Weirdness.

kashrut

[cellio]

Well, there are two issues here. First, kashrut only applies if you're going to eat the stuff the utensil touched, and we weren't keeping the goop. Second, a newly-purchased utensil still in the blister pack hasn't had the opportunity to become tainted. But I'm sure you knew that already. :-)

Re: kashrut

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

yes, once again, I sacrificed accuracy for smart-alec-ness. 8^)

Re: kashrut

[cellio]

Sorry to have interfered with your fun!

Re: kashrut

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

No, no...I'll just suffer in silence. 8^)

Re: kashrut

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

yes, he always has to be a smart alec. Now if I could get him to pay closer attention to kashrut when he puts the dishes away..... just kidding, he's usually pretty good about it... I'm the one that last ruined a sautee pan...argh

Re: kashrut

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

there was also, by the way, no heat involved, which adds to the fact that there's not a whole lotta issue with kashrut involved here... But anyway, his pumpkin is lovely, we didn't keep the pumpkin "guts" and the other pumpkin we've got will be turned into a pie, not a jack-o-lantern, so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
:)

Re: heat

[cellio]

Oops -- yeah, that would help too. :-)

Re: kashrut

[cellio]

When Dani and I moved in together, I went through everything that could be ambiguous and marked it. That way even if he puts something away in the wrong place, I get an extra chance to notice. (He doesn't keep kosher, aside from the effect of sharing a kitchen with me, so I don't expect him to be attuned to things. I also do almost all of the cooking.)

Still, he's managed to screw up a few things, and I have had to relax my standards of dishwashing quite a bit (to the point of discomfort, actually). It's an awkward truce.

Re: kashrut

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, Seth and I do both keep kosher. We both started keeping kosher at the same time, which was convenient. We'd both been keeping different levels of kosher up until that point... I was only buying food with a hechsher and we weren't mixing meat and dairy in our cooking, but it wasn't until Pesach this year that we got all new dishes, utensils, etc and started all over. So it's been a learning experience. The only real point of frustration is that we can't kasher our dishwasher... so that means a lot of dishwashing especially when there's company over. But these are small things to deal with in the whole scheme of things.
Anyway, enough of my babbling...

Re: kashrut

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

What you fail to mention is that you ruined it by bashing me in the head with it! 8^) Just kidding!

Re: kashrut

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

you are being so unfair. I ruined it by cooking with a dairy spatula (it was a meat pan). And by the way, you forgot to bring it to Hillel and Jeanne last night.

Re: kashrut

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

I am evil. Eeeeevil!

Re: kashrut

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

:P

Re: kashrut

[cellio]

...and sit there in the dark. :-)

Re: kashrut

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

Aah, the punchline to "How many Jewish Mothers does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"Eh, it's okay, I'll just sit here in the dark and suffer..."

Re: kashrut

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

oy

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

I think we really need to get y'all together in person one of these days... :-)

[cellio]

Sounds like a fine idea. Besides, Seth wants my 17" monitor, so if either of them is going to be up here with a vehicle anytime soon, it'd save a bunch of shipping charges. :-)

father time

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

We could probably arrange that at some point... if we could get father time to stop ticking...I'm so busy lately I don't know which way is up. Plus with the sun setting so early on Fridays, ergh. But we'll find some time, definitely soon. I can't wait to meet you!