a mother's cooking

Happy groundhog day everyone! AND Happy Birthday Erica! Hope everyone had a great Superbowl weekend. We're finding it quite ironic that the groundhog saw his shadow (which means there will be six more weeks of winter) given that yesterday we were wearing shorts and flip flops to the Super Bowl party.

Stefan is currently on his first of three flights for the week, where he gets to put his radar skills to use. He recently found out that he is ranked near the top of his class- and I decided to brag for him since I know he wouldn't do that for himself. He studies a lot and creates a lot of charts that one wouldn't understand upon first glance. He works really hard, so I'm glad it's paying off for him.

This weekend we went out to Gruene Hall, the oldest dance hall in Texas. It's fairly famous- Lyle Lovett and George Strait got their start there, and they even filmed a scene from the movie Michael with John Travolta there. It was fun to go out with a bunch of the people from Stefan's flight, as I'm not here a lot to visit with them. Anyways, we saw a band there that was kind of a mix between jazz and bluegrass. They were really good.

On Saturday, we did a little shopping and then grabbed some dinner with friends at a Texas BBQ place nearby. To give a little bit more explanation, you walk in and there is this huge grill and a man standing there serving you the meat that you'd like. He dips in sauce, then they weigh it, you grab any sides you like, and then you pay. At the tables they have loaves of bread, hot sauce, BBQ sauce, baked beans, pickles, onions, etc. You eat off of this shiny paper and get really messy, but it's so good (and every one's messy) so it doesn't matter.

Then we went over to a friend's house to watch a movie, and then back home. The next morning, Stefan had to work for a little bit and when he got back we made homemade potato salad, brownie bites, and veggies and dip to bring to the Superbowl party. This brings me to another subject- to our beautifully talented moms- please start writing down your recipes. My mom is quite possibly one of the best cooks in the whole world, but I'll never be able to replicate her recipes because they are all in her head! I think even if I copied her recipe exactly it still probably wouldn't be as good, but at least it'd be close. I know this because Stefan's mom gave me a gorgeous recipe book for a wedding shower present, but the end product isn't as good as hers. maybe some day...

until then I'll keep cooking, and testing out recipes from our families and friends. Tonight I'm making chicken piccata with angel hair pasta. I'll let you know how it turns out...