My Sardine Stew Prep Crew

We were a little nervous introducing Sardines to the kids, but they were really curious and interested in the prep, cleaning, and cooking.
Here are a few shots that I took of the process. I tried really hard not to get my hands dirty.  ;o)

Norah talks to the fish.

My Sardine Tutorial

I didn't know what to expect when we got the email on Fish Tuesday.
Sardines?? What on earth do we do with sardines??


If you're not familiar with the Monterey area you might not know that this area was once filled with sardine canneries. Now there's nothing to see of the former canning economy except for "Cannery Row," an area which we have yet to visit.

They were big and not at all like the kind you imagine coming from a tin. The problem for us was that they came whole. So we had to do the prepping in order to eat them (and apparently you need to eat them right away as they don't freeze well). A lot of people (including a lady picking up her fish at the same time we were) swear that grilled sardines taste awesome. We, however, do not own a grill. That left us with a few alternatives. The chef decided to try a sardine stew (the pictures online instilled little confidence, but the basics of the recipes we found were good).

I'm trying a new method of video sharing here, so bear with me. I took several videos of the kids prepping the sardines with us. (And when I say us, I mean the chef, as I did not touch the things.) I have uploaded 3 videos to youtube (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.) of Toby taking us through the steps of cleaning and prepping the sardines. I hope they come through if I embed them here. **

** There may be some people out there that can't follow the videos here and will need to view the videos from the links above. Just keep in mind that I have no idea how to monitor the OTHER videos that show up on the youtube page alongside mine and what pops up after my video is shown. Please don't click on anything that looks sketchy, and don't tell me what other videos are linked to mine. I don't really want to know. I've set the privacy level on my youtube videos to "private" so only the people with these links can see them. Hopefully that keeps things under control. But if I get a lot of spam or random views from sketchy strangers I'm going to take them down. Here's to taking the "next step" on the Internet highway.

My Son's A Future "Jobber"

Toby and I had a conversation yesterday about jobs. He felt that if you needed/wanted a job you could just walk into any business and have any job you want. In his words, you could be a "gas station jobber" or a "wine store jobber" (the two businesses we happened to be driving by). This observation stemmed from an earlier conversation about a certain homeless person that we had noticed sitting at an intersection with a sign saying "Hungry Please Help." The man was on the same street corner the previous week. Toby seemed to think that he wouldn't be there much longer because he was going to get a job at one of the businesses on the street corner. Little conversations like this (and the fact that he says "jobber" instead of "worker") are what make this stage so interesting. He's grappling with a lot of new facets of the world around him, yet trying to understand them with a child's perspective leaves him with a semi-complete picture. But it's complete and concrete to him and thus, in his mind, perfectly plain and simple.

I noticed that we will often ask Toby "Would you like to do that job someday?" Whether it's when we're stopping for coffee, checking out at a grocery store, talking with fire fighters, or walking around the NPS campus we point out someone doing a certain job and pose the question to Toby (I don't think we've started doing this with Norah). He will often say something noncommittal, like "Maybe." I am not sure what goes through his mind when his parents ask him what kind of job he might want. Obviously (upon refection) we both are of the opinion that our kids will hold jobs some day. How early they'll be allowed to work, and how often, are still up for debate around here. But I think that we both had positive work experiences as teenagers and believe that it's an important part of growing up. We also point out that there are lots of people getting paid to do work so we don't have to it (like collecting the trash or busing a table at a restaurant). Conversations like this help us to gauge Toby's observations on the world around him.

My Castles in the Sand



Norah looking west, with the sand castles behind her.

We stuck close to home this weekend in order to participate in the annual Carmel Beach Sand Castle Building Contest. Up for grabs was the coveted golden shovel. The Dads' Group at Toby's school put together a pretty impressive turn out and Norah and I arrived on scene with just enough time to see the awards handed out.
While Toby and the other students and their dads didn't win the golden shovel (rumor had it other castle-builders were bribing the judges with wine and cheese--but I'm not entirely sure about that), they did win a plaque for "Judges Favorite." They made an otter (the school mascot), a VW LuvBug (according to this year's theme), and a few random castles. Toby helped dig the moat around the drip-tree castle.
Enjoy the pictures. We enjoyed the (windy) sunny day very much.

This is how many of the pro sculptors start out. Then they carve out their creations from the big pile of wet sand.

I think this was an octopus eating a book, but it might have been something totally different from the opposite side.

A partitioned-off area for "River Dads" group to work (the otter is on the right).

The sand castle Toby and BJ worked on.

My Broncos Fans

And this picture was taken BEFORE the Broncos started winning...