Why I Oughta...

This past summer and fall, I had a bunch of projects that required some power tools to complete.  I built a deck, put up bookshelves, put up a fence, and built a small pergola and gates - all things around the house that needed to get done. I've begun to build up my collection of tools - like hammers, sanders, clamps, and drills, but I didn't yet have a circular saw.  Anyone who's done any sort of carpentry will tell you that one universal tool that you'll use over and over is a 7 1/4" circular saw. Embarking on these projects actually required one.  I need to make a bunch of cuts and I didn't want to hack at them by hand. That's where my family comes in. First, because he was lending a hand on the deck, I borrowed my father-in-law's saw.  He had a real nice saw with a laser so you could see where you were cutting.  Because the saw is fairly indispensable, he needed it back shortly after I got it because he had projects of his own he had to tac

Last Friday, Nat, I, the babe and Nat's parents went to Barnaby's Family Inn in Des Plaines for pizza and beer.  For those of you who've never heard of or been to a Barnaby's, well...this hopefully will convince you to take the time to go. The back story to our history with Barnaby's is that both of Nat's parents are graduates of Notre Dame.  We were headed there for a football game a few falls ago and asked her folks where a good post-game bite to eat could be had.  Both of them volunteered the same thing:  Barnaby's. Turns out, it is an old pizza place a few miles from the stadium.  They told us to try the sausage pizza.  We went in with little expectations aside from satisfying our hunger. Little did we know that we'd start a personal pizza revolution in our own house.  This place was that good. The Barnaby's we went to in Des Plaines is set up exactly like the one in South Bend (and I imagine every other one in the country ).  There'

Over the weekend we had some of Nat's friends over to say hello and see the babe.  Nat said that we couldn't just put out a partially eaten sleeve of saltines and sugared fruit slices; we had to pull something together for a brunch-ish crowd. Now....I'm not normally the baker in our house - that's Nat's domain.  But with her having her hands full (with the child-rearing and all), it was time to play flour scientist and bake up a cake of sorts - a coffee cake. For my birthday a few years ago, my mom started to give us a Cooks Illustrated subscription.  She renews it every April and I've come to enjoy thumbing through it each month.  I've occasionally referred to it when making something (like potatoes in the oven), but I've never baked anything from their pages. Aside from the crazy quantities (you can sense that they really did tinker with them - I mean what's with all the 1/8 of a teaspoons!  We don't even have one of those!), we didn'

Earlier this summer, my sister and her kids came to stay with us.  They weren't here too long, but in that short time we had a ball.  She has two young kids - a girl and a boy.  The boy is 6, the girl is 9. We learned a lot about our house and it's ability to handle kids.  It wasn't bad, but we had some things that we have to come to grips with (like NEVER BUY ANYTHING NICE!) now that we're parents. One day this summer, my sister's son gets in trouble for something usual for boys like running around like a crazy person or eating his beyond messy sandwich on the couch or punching his sister.  As a punishment, his mom puts him in "time out" - which all you parents know about - for 30 minutes.  He couldn't play the Wii or even watch tv.  He had to sit in a chair in his room for the whole time. Being an ingenious boy, he asked his mom if he could borrow the kitchen timer so he could tell how long he'd been in "time out" (I think he thou

We made the decision to pull back on our cleaning lady (is "cleaning lady" pc?  Should I be calling her something else?) right after the holidays.  We had a wonderful woman named Dorothy who was uber-energetic and did a pretty good job when she came over every two weeks.  Turns out, all those checks we were giving her were getting squirreled away somewhere.  By the end of the year, she informed us that she was packing her bags and moving home to Poland because she said, "I have a degree in engineering, I can't clean houses for the rest of my life!"  She subsequently sent us her sister - Agnes.  While Agnes was very good, in an effort to save a few bucks each month, we've cut down her to once a month.  The ramifications of that decision are for another post (most notably I am now on latrine duty). For this particular story, you have to know that my sister also used Dorothy to clean her house.  Having your (now-ex) cleaning lady share the same name as your m

Back in December, Nat 'dragged' me to the Renegade Craft Fair on the north side.  She's been to a few of them (one of them outdoors, I think) and convinced me that it wouldn't be the worse way to spend a Sunday morning.  Secretly (or not so secretly in some circles), I'm a bit crafty.  (Hence why I put 'dragged' in quotes.)  I tend to gravitate towards either food crafts (Vanilla Extract) or holiday-driven (Christmas stuff), but I'd never been to a Renegade fair, so I was in. I had no (read: ZERO) real expectations for the fair so I couldn't leave disappointing.  Us silly suburbanites drove, and alas, there was NO parking (I know..." mass trans, dude .") - in fact, the place was a zoo - much to my surprise. I guess those hipsters really love them some screen printed shirts.  MY GOD WERE THERE SCREEN PRINTED TEES! In fact, that's probably my only gripe:  too many screen printers.  Ironic tees.  Indie band posters.  Lots of things I

It was a Julia Child Christmas for Nat (and secretly for me!).  She was gifted the Julie and Julia DVD set and her mom, after much searching, came across a reasonably priced First Edition of Julia Child's seminal work:   Mastering the Art of French Cooking . The real joy in this gift is seeing that this book has been used and loved by cooks before arriving at our house.  With little notes on some pages and an inscription up front, this book - a First Edition - meant something to someone; and now it means something to us. The beautiful tome took it's proper place on our kitchen bookshelf right next to such literary and culinary masterpieces as Diners, Drive-ins and Dives . I'm so glad it found a nice home in Elmhurst.