Professor Plum and Mrs. White

Happy Halloween!

Mmm… Wassailberry

Some new flavor combinations are born out of necessity, others out of creativity or experimentation. Some combinations should never have been born at all (haggis, anyone?) and others make you wonder how something so perfect had eluded mankind for so long. Tomato and basil, banana and oatmeal, black beans and brown rice… the list is star-studded and long.

This, is a story of how my dear husband birthed a genius and delicious flavor combination out of sheer coincidence.

The Backstory

Beans love apple cider. The kind that is actually just real apple juice squeezed out of fresh apples… not the kind that comes granulated and in little packets that you add to hot water to make some sort of an apple-esque abomination beverage.

We aren’t big juice drinkers, because we tend to just throw whole fruits in the vitamix with veggies and some frozen berries to make smoothies instead. However, in the fall you will seldom find our fridge without a gallon of apple cider gracing its shelves.

A Twist

Yesterday, I went to an “enrichment” meeting for my church. These are fantastic because they are excuses for women to get together to chat under the guise of doing crafts.

Many women would also say they like these meetings because of the munchies. Not I, because I seldom find something that interests me. The spreads usually consist of bagels and cream cheese, cookies and punch. Well, yesterday I was thrilled to see a bowl of fresh fruit and piping hot wassail. <– This is apple cider + oj + spices like cinnamon and cloves. I drank a few glasses with gusto.

After a lovely morning of chatting crafting, I stayed to help clean up. Fortunately for me, there was extra wassail and a kind soul (who undoubtedly noticed me going down on it earlier) poured some into an empty gallon cider jug. I toted it home and stashed it in the fridge.

A Star is Born

As I was getting ready for church this morning, I heard the familiar “zzzzzt” of the Vitamix going downstairs. It was followed closely by an exclamation “What the…” .

Apparently Scott hadn’t noticed the second jug of “cider” in the fridge and had inadvertently used spicy wassail as the base for his bananaberry smoothie.

One taste and I was hooked.

It might not be the next peanut butter and jelly, but I highly recommend adding a little wassail to your berry!

A tradition is born

As you may recall, last year Scott and I went to a local pumpkin patch/farm and had a blast.

Well, we went again this year and let me tell you… things had changed. First of all, we went with our church friends so we got a group deal that included:
1) apple cider
2) a homemade donut
3) a pumpkin
4) a hay ride

Whoo! A few problems:

1) So, last year, they had fresh apple cider. This year? One of those 4oz plastic cups with a tinfoil lid. It was full of apple JUICE, which, we-who-have-made-apple-cider-from-real-apples-with-an-apple-press know, is not the same thing.

2) The donut last year was to die for. This year? Meh. I gave most of mine to Scott.

3) Last year, we slogged through mud and cornfields, braved spiders, and spent a very long time selecting and cutting the perfect pumpkins from their vines. This year? The pumpkins were trucked in from Michigan and piled up for you to choose from. No mud or spiders.

4) I’ll come back to the hay ride.

So why the title of my post? Scott and I plan to come back next year. We had a great time and got all excited thinking about bringing Baby Bean along in ‘08. The only explanation I can find is, it’s now a family tradition. Otherwise why would we bother driving 30 minutes each way for plasticy apple non-cider, a mediocre donut, and piled up pumpkins?

All kidding aside… let’s get to the serious business of The Rules. We learned last year that there were no hard drugs allowed on the hayride, and that throwing corn was strictly prohibited. However, this year they really buckled down on the hooligans that obviously frequent the farm:

Also on the rule list was “Each damaged bale of straw- $4.00 fine”. Oh, and of course the classic “No adults in the kiddie maze”. What kind of a no-good roustabout would duck under the “you must be this short to enter sign” and terrorize the poor kiddies?

Of course, I couldn’t say… but this knee high maze sure has Scott stumped.

If he blogged *ahem* he would pipe in here that he was not the only one who couldn’t resist breaking a few rules:

Other highlights of the evening included getting my shoes untied by chickens (apparently NOBODY on the farm had any manners):

… getting lost in a really real corn maze…

… taking in the sights of farm life…

… and of course the obligatory dance with the scarecrow…

Here’s a blurry photo of Scott and I showing off our pumpkin selections:

And here’s a blurry photo of me trying to show off the pumpkin while simultaneoulsy hiding the belly.

The evening ended with a romantic jostling hayride in which I almost died of happiness gave birth going over one of the bumps… while sitting on a bale of straw and doing my best not to damage it. After all, I hear they fine you $4 for that!

Pregnancy update

There’s a bit of a belly pic in my post about the pumpkin patch, so I thought it was high-time for an update.

First of all, the baby appears to be healthy and BIG as well as big headed. The u/s showed her as being 3 lb 3 oz at my 28w5d check-up. Woah, so um, a couple weeks ahead size-wise. By the time you factor in that her head is a couple weeks ahead of the rest of her… she’s practically full-term! Hehehe.

WARNING: The rest of this post may contain words like “placenta” and “uterus”. There’s really no nickname for those organs, so let’s just press on, shall we?

The u/s (both kinds) also showed no placenta previa. They showed that my placenta was on the front wall and the back wall of the uterus, which is very confusing. After several scans and much debate between the u/s tech and my doctor, they don’t know where exactly my placenta is. However, the important thing (apparently) is that at one point my baby’s head was right over the cervix. So by process of elimination, the placenta is not over the cervix. Whoop! That big head is already coming in handy.

I am not iron-deficient. Apparently the veggies and legumes are doing their thang.

Migraines are much less frequent now, though unfortunately I woke up with one this morning and have had lingering headache/nausea all day.

New aches and pains: A completely numb-to-the-touch-but-surprisingly-painful swath of skin on top of my belly has made an appearance. It feels like burning. All the time. No stretch marks there yet, but it’s like I can feel the impending doom. And it hurts.

Also, between the sides of my rib cage I’ve had this awful ripping pain underneath the surface of my skin. The doctor says it’s my abdominal muscles separating. Um, hmm ok. I guess it could be worse?

The baby is moving and kicking pretty much all day and night and Scott loves to feel her. Even when she’s still, you can tell where she is because my belly is lopsided and you can feel certain parts of it are nobbier than others (ooh! Is that her knee?).

I love hearing her heart beating at each appointment, and it more than compensates for the whole peeing-in-a-cup thing.

Recently, several of my friends have announced they are newly pregnant. It reminds me of when I was engaged to Scott and so darned happy I wanted everyone I knew to get engaged so they could be so happy, too. I see my friends glowing with anticipation and it’s so fun to welcome them into the pregnant club. (Nevermind that several of them have a couple of kids already… this time I’ve been in the club longer. )

Finally, in just four short days, I will have a new niece! My third sister-in-law this year will be welcoming the third granddaughter this year into the family on Tuesday. Woo! I’ll be the last hold-out among the pregnant ladies in the family and then the count-down really begins.

Oh, almost forgot. I’m 31 1/2 weeks pregnant now.