Baby's First Bar

We start dodgeball tomorrow night (both of us) and have one of our friends watching Katie in the stands (the organizers have given us the side with bleachers so we can keep Katie out of the fray each week).

In addition, we just learned that Katie will be able to join us at the bar afterwards. Hooray! We are excellent parents.

Game Results

The sibling rivalry game went great. Our team had two plans going into the game:

1. Ken offered: "Free beer for every two times anyone gets Andrew out. I'd say every time, but given he's a rookie and it's a 40 minute match.....that could get pricey."

2. Brian organized: "Also, in the first game we should do our best to make sure he only plays for a few seconds by teaming up with all 3 of our first balls without any regard for our own personal safety. "


Andrew warmed up with his team. He was a nervous cat because he hadn't worn shorts in so long. Teams lined up. 3 shots fired immediately at Andrew. Andrew's out (by Ken) but so are two of our players. Game was good overall. We were tied 2-2 and then we came back to win 6 in a row, making the score 8-2. Andrew did very well, he dodged, had a good arm and even attempted a catch (very hard for rookies to try -- especially their first time out).

After the game, he rode to the bar with his teammates. We met them there and bought them a few pitchers. At one point he had 5 pitchers on the table in front of him. He was happy.

There were 40 teams playing last night. Most have ~10 on the roster. Assume 1/2 go to the bar on any given night, so we're talking 200 people. Plenty of people for him to meet over the next few weeks. So, a great start for him. We're glad he's connected with the sport. He even seemed to enjoy it a bit.

Head to Head

Tomorrow is the first night of league dodgeball since November. My brother has decided to give it a try and was looking for a team. He found a great one when he met a bunch of people at the Holiday Ale Festival. They asked him to join, he said yes. They are a great group of people, so I'm especially excited for him.

So tomorrow kicks off the season. And which team do you think his team plays first? If you said Ken's and mine, then you've guessed correctly.

So mark your watches. 7:55 tomorrow night. 40 minutes of Andrew vs Lisa, dodgeball edition.

Should be fun. Don't worry, mom. We'll take him to the bar afterwards so he can drown his sorrows in cheap beer.

Slappers in the Finals!

We had our dodgeball tournament on Saturday. Our team has been together for 8 seasons but we've never gotten past the 2nd round of the tournament -- even the season when we were undefeated. We've always done team breakfasts before our games, so we decided to do a team dinner instead. Gumbo at our house.

One of our teammates responded to our invite with this:

"Will Lisa's cooking make me a better player? Maybe I'll catch something on Saturday. I'm in."

Well, I am happy to report that we beat the team that has thrice knocked us out in the 2nd round! And our teammate who posted the above made the clutch catch to put us ahead! (We play best of 7 games in the tournament and were down 2-3 before coming back to win 4-3.) It was awesome. We were so excited.

We won our next game after that, which took us to the semifinals against a tough team who was expected to win the whole thing since they won their division during regular season.

Joe, Jesse, Corey and Spud from the other team



We won the first game but were quickly down down 2-3. Sad. Turns out I had the best day of dodgeball of my life and caught the ball from Jesse (above) that tied the game. I was so happy. So now we're tied and they have one guy left who throws the ball to me. I dropped to my knees and caught it. We won the game and were going to the finals. I could hardly believe it. My team picked me up and spun me around. I was very, very excited. We ended up losing in the finals, but our team was on cloud 9. Brian H. was in town this past weekend to share it with us, too. He can attest to how excited I was.

Here are some pictures of our team as we went up to get our trophy. We beat 47 other teams to get there. Looks like team dinner is going to stick.

Us calling for the rest of our team


Some have shown up. We are happy. L-R: Brian, Ken, me, Dennis, Alyson


And we finally get our team picture, but it's blurry. Nate, FanEric and Alyson are just out of the shot. You can definitely see how happy we are though.


Congratulations Slappers!

Toxic People

We had our draft league dodgeball tournament today. We played a person down but still came in 3rd place, taking out three great teams along the way. It felt good. Really good. What felt better was that, even though we lost, our team came out with great morale and a lot of respect for each other. We had a great, fun team and we enjoyed ourselves all season. Better still, we all felt the same way.

After the tournament, we went to a nearby bar to congratulate the winners and chat with the other teams over a beer. There are always going to be the whiners and poor sports, but I hate the people who need to insult and drag you down because of X,Y,Z reason in their own lives. Even worse, I hate that I am sad right now about a bitchy remark thrown my way from someone I don't even care about. She hated her team, has other things going wrong right now and can't let anyone finish a sentence.... but at least she feels better insulting me over happy beers with my teammates.

I have no patience for that. I have been pretty good of cutting out the toxic people from my life. -- even if they were just acquaintances. This is no different. Good riddance*.

* Note: as much as I'd like to hold a grudge (and have been able to in the past), that phase of my life is over and all terms are still negotiable... I am just not going out of my way to speak to her.

Top Chef: Grudge Match

When Beti and I both got nominated for dodgeball queen, we joked that we should cook for it. And so it began. Last week, Beti and I competed in a head-to-head cooking competition. Secret ingredient was picked in advance by our peers and, once revealed, we would have 30 minutes to walk across the street to the grocery store and pick up whatever else we needed. Then we would have an hour to cook. Meanwhile, we picked a secret drink ingredient for the others who would have the 30 minutes (while we were at the store) to make a cocktail and set it on the table for a blind taste test. When we came back from shopping, we sat down our groceries and enjoyed picking our favorite cocktail before starting to cook.

Last week, the secret ingredient was bacon. We had 4 lbs of bacon and an hour to each make three dishes for 8 people. The secret drink ingredient was the beer, PBR. Alyson won the drink competition with a strawberry cocktail version of the PBR. Jafo scored second with an inventive and refreshing anise-flavored cocktail. Third went to Kathy for a different fruity-style cocktail. You would never know any of them had beer in them.

Beti and I had a great time cooking. Beti made a perfectly-cooked asparagus dish with mushrooms and bacon in a lemon garlic sauce, new york steak bites with bacon in lime and a twist on a classic spinach salad featuring orange, raspberries and bacon crumbles. She also made, for fun, a dessert: a sundae of vanilla ice cream with espresso caramel sauce that was topped with bacon bits. INSANELY good. For my three dishes, I made clams casino, a BLT with avocado and bacon-wrapped dates. (Here are the recipes: Steam clams until they open. Break off the top shell and detach the clam. Add a little garlic butter, a slice of cheese -- I used provolone, then top with parcooked bacon. Broil until the bacon gets crisp. Then squeeze a lime over the top. You can make sheets and sheets of them -- especially when you get an assembly line going. The bacon-wrapped dates are also super easy and I hadn't made them before last night. (get dried dates, slice open and put in some goat cheese and, if you're trying to kill brian, some slivered almonds. push the date back together and wrap in bacon (raw or parcooked). Bake until the bacon is crisp. BLT is standard fare. I tried using fancy bread, which backfired since it was too big and crispy. I did get to add avocado though. I love avocado.)

Everybody ranked the dishes from 1 (best) to 6 (least favorite). The clams casino took first, followed by the steak bites, then the asparagus, dates, BLT and salad. I ended up winning by one point: Lisa (10) to Beti's (11). It was fun. I also realized that 4 lbs of bacon plus a couple of drinks left me with a wicked hangover the next morning. I think all the salt in the bacon sucking water out of my cells. Another friend felt the same way.

We decided to try this again and two people volunteered to cook. This time it was at our house. Here's the play-by-play from last night:

Natascha arrived first and started getting set up. Levi arrived a few minutes later. Levi said he was nervous. Natascha let out a big sighand agreed she was, too. Then they hugged and started discussingtheir most-hoped-for ingredients. Among them were: cheese, mushrooms and sausage.As people started arriving, they put their secret ingredientcontributions in a covered container in the dining room. We tappedthe warm keg and people slowly started making themselves drinks. I think most were waiting to see what the secret drink ingredient wasfirst. Brian was the last to arrive due to traffic and the secretingredient was unveiled at 5 past seven. Beti explained how we were going to do mushrooms, but that they guessed it so we were going to do a meat substitute before deciding on cheese. Levi and natascha looked excited that it was cheese and started looking at all the different kinds. There were lots of options.Then they unveiled their secret ingredient: Hornsby's Hard Apple Cider. As a group, we looked confused since nobody really knew what to make. Levi and Natascha wrote their grocery lists and headed to the store. Everyone started making their drinks. I think there were 13 drinks or so when they were all presented. I think the most commonly heard thing as we were making them was "I keep adding things but it keeps tasting worse". Beti made a killer mint julep-type drink, which was amazing but too strong for the tender palates of Levi and Natascha. The top three drinks were Kathy's (used goldschlager and hornsby's to have theapple cinnamon thing going on), Brian's (tasted like fruity bubble gum) and mine (an apple twist on a moscow mule). I ended up winning, which is always sweeter when you beat brian.

People cleaned and moved out of the kitchen so Levi and Natascha could get to work. Since cheese can be a pain, both had help with some of the prep. We tried to stay out of the kitchen.When things were plated an hour later, each produced three dishes. The winning dish was Natascha's grilled peppercorn steak that was sliced thinly and placed on a baguette slice, topped with carmelizedonions, blue cheese and a balsamic glaze. It made me drool when I ate it. Second place dish was Natascha's dessert of marsacapone cheese, cookies and fresh berries. There was a tie for third among three dishes: Levi's olive and cilantro marinated grilled steak topped with blue cheese. It was Brian's favorite. Levi's amazing cantaloupe dish featuring fresh cantaloupe, fresh mozzarella cheese, olives and otherthings that I would have never thought of but blew my mind. It was amazing. Also tied for third was Natascha's grilled quesadilla usingthe pepper jack and cotija cheeses, grilled portabella mushrooms androasted poblano peppers. And in 6th was Levi's pasta: a rigatoni-type noodle with a fresh tomato sauce made in the magic bullet, fresh herbs and slices of parmesan cheese. Everything got ravaged. Ken made a spreadsheet with everyone's names where we got torank our favorites. Ken and Brian then tallied the votes and announced a winner. Natascha 6, Levi 12. Most folks left after the winner was announced. A few stayed to watchTop Chef. Everyone left around 11-11:30. Super fun.

Dodgeball Queen

We had our end-of-season dodgeball tournament this weekend. Our team lost in the second round but we all had fun. We stayed to watch the final match and then met up at the end-of-season party later that night. The league organizes free beer and food for the players; it's a blast.

Here are Ken and I in our uniforms:



and some of our team at the party (L-R: FanEric, Alyson, CanErik, Adam, Brian, Ken, me, Marne)


It turns out I was nominated for and won "Dodgeball Queen" this season. They give you a tiara and sash that you wear around all night. Hilarious. I was quite honored though. Here's a picture of me with Scott the King.






So that concludes spring season. Summer Dodgeball season starts June 8th.

The Gallon Challenge

A group of friends organized a competition yesterday to see who could drink a gallon of milk in an hour. They had to hold it at least 15 minutes after drinking the gallon. Out of 8 people, 4 finished the gallon. Only one could hold it. It was hilarious to watch. Gross, yes. But funny. See a movie of the event here (not for the sqeamish). I'm in the aqua sweater in the background while Wisconsin is puking. Mom, you must be so proud.




*Note: Wisconsin ended up drinking a glass of his own "curds and whey" for $13. Now that was gross.

Update: they've made a movie of the "curds and whey" consumption. View at your own risk.

Reunion Weekend

Thursday
It’s been a fun but exhausting week. Brian and Marsha arrived on Thursday morning. Sara and Drew picked them up and we all met up for sushi on Thursday night, along with Rob, Jana and Jackson. Dinner was a blast and it was awesome to laugh and catch up. Ken and I went to our dodgeball game after dinner. Note: full stomachs + dodgeballs thrown at said full bellies = a bad idea. We came home and went to bed. Everyone was already asleep by the time we got home at 10:15. Well, except Sara who had to pick up her brother from the airport at 12:45 AM. That’s a nice sister. Especially since his flight was delayed until 2 AM.

Friday
I woke up at 3 AM dripping with sweat and achy. Turns out I had picked up Ken’s day-long flu from the week before. I called in sick and slept until 1 while my visiting friends enjoyed one of the prettier days this spring. Sucks. I took a shower and was on the couch by 4 pm and could walk reasonably well by 5, when we were all supposed to meet up with Sara’s family at a local restaurant. We went to a Peruvian restaurant and enjoyed lots of appetizers and tapas. Marsha had the best pina colada of her life. While we were there, Sara’s brother, Adam, riled up the feathers of Ken, Brian and Drew by mentioning playing beer pong afterwards. So we went to the house of one of Adam’s friends who has a beer pong table in the basement. The basement also has a free range pet rabbit. And carpeting. And rabbit poop -- lots of it. Please take the time to imagine beer spilling on the carpet that’s covered in rabbit poop. Now please imagine the balls that fell onto this carpet that were then thrown into beer and consumed. Sara is convinced everyone has hantavirus.

Saturday
Before we knew that Sara/Drew/Brian/Marsha were coming to visit, we signed up for a weekend-long dodgeball tournament. Top prize of $1000. So while our sweet guests slept, we got up on Saturday morning to play dodgeball from 9:30 AM-6:30 PM. Our bodies were toast by the end of the day. We took showers and could barely move. Rob, Jana and Rob’s brother, David, met us at our house for drinks. We were going to go to a low-key bar and just chat, but we were slow to rally. Then Sara’s brother came over with a few friends and we all went to karaoke instead. It was within walking distance. We each had a beer and left. Sara & Drew went home while Brian, Marsha, Ken and I went to the 24h food place a couple doors down to get a bite to eat since none of us had eaten that night. I got sausage and eggs along with….

Sunday
some awesome food poisoning that woke me up at 5 AM. Sweet. My body can barely move but it knows it is super pissed AND that it has to play a couple hours worth of dodgeball that day. Sigh. I packed a bag for that day’s events: dodgeball, Sara’s bridal shower at 3 and an overnight trip to the beach afterwards. Dodgeball was fun; we ended up losing to the team who came in 2nd place. I learned a lot, got a ton of practice and am covered in bruises. I left our games early to go to Sara’s bridal shower, which was super fun. Sara’s family is great. There were 19 of us and the party centered around a “cooking/kitchen” theme. Ken, Drew and Brian picked us up around 5:30 and whisked us off to the beach along with Kinley and the Burke’s dog, Sophie. We drank some beer and played lots of games. It was fun.

Monday
We woke up to the sun shining. It was a gorgeous clear day. We drank our coffee and played dominoes. Walked around a bit and then went clamming at low tide. I had never been before; it was a blast. Your feet easily got stuck in the mud. We had 3 pair of hip waders and a two pair of knee high boots. It was a challenge to figure it out at first. Brian fell in the mud and covered. Then we figured out the good clam spots and the signs to look for. We quickly had our limit. We cooked them a couple different way: cooked under the broiler and eaten plain (amazing), same but with lime, sautéed with bacon/garlic/onion, broiled with smoked cheddar on top and then clams casino. They were killer. Ken and I went back to Portland that night. Ken had softball and we both had to work on Tuesday. The others stayed down in Netarts an extra night.

Tuesday
Work for Ken and I. My bike is in the shop for a tune-up so I used my old one with the busted low seat. I got downtown, only to realize I forgot my wallet and phone, meaning I couldn’t get on the bus to get to work. Or the tram. I rode to Ken’s office to get some money, but he was at a site visit and gone. Nuts. So I rode back home in tears, got my stuff and then made my way back to downtown and up to work. Sara, Drew, Brian and Marsha get back in a few hours. I was supposed to be in a taco eating contest tonight with Brian and Dennis, but I found a sub since it is Sara’s 30th birthday today. We are going to have “Sunday Dinner” at our house for Sara’s birthday. Sara’s folks and some of her family will be coming, too.
Everyone leaves tomorrow. It has been a crazy but super fun week. They have all been easy guests and it has been a blast to catch up. I am still sore from the weekend, tired from the activities and worn out from the remants of being sick. I am looking forward to relaxing in PJs for about a week.

Blazer Game and Trivia

Going to the Blazer game tonight with Ken and the dodgeball "Board". Ken was on the board for the past couple seasons and they always do something to thank the board members for their time commitments. One of the players in the league worked at the Rose Garden and got a great deal on the VIP sky box. I'm excited; I've never been to the sky box before. I like being Ken's "+1".

And in other news, Ken and I played trivia at Bridgeport brewery last night with some friends. Our team of six ended up coming in 2nd place, meaning we won $75 to split amongst ourselves. I was pretty excited and it was super fun and very well organized.

I'm writing my paper and looking forward to the weekend. We're rototilling the front yard on Saturday morning. Can't wait. I guess a couple of St. Patrick's Day beers that night will help dull the aching pain. The duplex next door is going up fast. They're doing the roof now. The whole thing looks much better than I expected. They say it should be finished in August. Crazy.

Dodgeball Superlatives

Many of you know that Ken and I play co-ed adult dodgeball here in Portland. There are 48 teams in the league, each team having ~10-12 people on it. Most of those teams play on Thursday nights, so we're talking ~450 people that play dodgeball and go to the bar afterwards. That makes for quite a social circle and, as a result, we've made most of our friends through this.

Our team just went undefeated this season (our first time doing so) and we won our division (~14 teams in our division). We were excited, especially since that put us in a great spot going in to the tournament tomorrow to decide the league winner. Our team was nominated for spirit award (which we won last season) and several players were individually nominated for awards including MVP (male), MVP(female), King and Queen. Yours truly was nominated for Queen. I was surprised. It is very doubtful that I would win it, but I was excited for the honor nonetheless -- especially since it wasn't my team that nominated me. And, in an odd twist of fate, Ken is still Prince (since the summer season is smaller)... which would mean if I won, he would be my "son". Hilarious.

Anyway, tournament's tomorrow. Should be a blast. Happy weekend.

Slappergories

Sunday night we had a multi-course dinner for two of our teammates (Tobriah and CanErik, who share the same birthday -- Feb 17th). I had everyone pick a course and bring food. We were supposed to do two signature drinks, a KoCanErikee (the baddest pink drink a Canadian can get) and a Tawdry Tobriah (a dirty martini for a dirty girl), but Alyson forgot to make hers so the KoCanErikee ended up being a cosmo. Here's the menu:

Hors d'oeuvres (FanEric) -- Bruschetta
Course 1: Duo of Thai-ppetizers -- Chicken Satay (Brian) and Nim Chow (spring rolls; Dennis)
Course 2: Caprese Salad (CanErik and Erin)
Course 3: Pasta with Tomatoes (Tobriah)
Course 4: Rouladen of Beef (Lisa) -- a german dish that tasted great but looked like poo. seriously.
Course 5: Chocolate layer cake with coffee and vanilla ice cream (Alyson)
Coffee (Marne)

Everything went great despite a few hitches and the highlight of my night was playing Slappergories, a twist on scattergories where we all submitted categories that were relevent to our team. Here are the cards; thought you'd get a kick out of them. (Disclaimer: I didn't do the dirty ones)

Ken, the cook

We had Sunday dinner for the dodgeball team again. People were coming at 6; I got home from the store at 3 and hadn't started anything yet. I knew I was making Chuck's Pad Thai noodles, which are great, so that left an appetizer and a dessert to make. I asked Ken what he wanted -- cake. I flipped through my recipe/idea binder and saw carrot cake with cream cheese frosting that Linda used to make at Janos. I pulled out the recipe and handed it to Ken.

"Want to make this for me?"
"Um...."
"Please?"
"OK" (insert hesitation but commitment)

Ken is a great cook; he just doesn't do it very often. He gets nervous when he hasn't made the thing before, so carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for a dinner party in 3 hours was that scenario. But he did it and it turned out awesome. Very moist, two tiered cake with an awesome icing. Everybody ate all of theirs and raved about it, which made Ken very happy. The recipe's at home, else I'd post it.

The appetizer was a play on crab dip with ritz crackers. I didn't have any crab but had some calamari left from the squid disaster. So I made a calamari dip which got demolished. I thought it tasted very much like a clam dip:

Calamari Dip
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup calamari (cleaned squid, cut into 1/2" pieces)
1 block cream cheese
1/2 T Sriracha or other hot sauce.

Cut up onion and garlic and saute in a bit of fat until almost soft. (Fat can be oil/butter/bacon grease, I used 1/2 T of the latter that I keep in the freezer). Add cleaned and drained squid and cook about 2 min, until squid are cooked but not tough. Transfer onion/squid mixture to a food processor and pulse until squid are in small pieces. Add cream cheese and mix well. Put into an oven proof bowl and bake at 375 for 10 min. Serve hot with crackers.

The pad thai also worked out well, although cooking pad thai for 10+ people was too much. Even with a 6 quart saucepan, it was hard to turn the noodles and get the ingredients well mixed. We had to move it to two pans, which just isn't the same to me. I think I'll just make smaller groups next time.

Also made some irish coffees, like my dad does, for fun. They turned out well, but just not the same as his. He is the master at them.

Before and After

Before:
Ken running up to the line to grab a ball in the dodgeball holiday charity tournament.



After:
And Ken after the tournament at the bar. They have a giant Hamm's costume there, which he decided to put on. Apparently, it's a bar rule that if you put the costume on, you have to go outside and wave at cars. What they didn't think he'd do is take a bunch of empty cans as his ducklings. Or would they be Hammlings?