Halloween

Meet the Girls

So, I have been growing an herb garden in my apartment. It is going to do wonders for my cooking my basil is enormous. Every once in a while I will walk over and pull off a leaf and snitch dill, oregano, basil, mint or chives. There is nothing like the freshest of the fresh food. This has got me thinking. I have decided to grow heirloom tomatoes, maybe some carrots and peas in the apartment as well. I have made my own butter, ricotta and yogurt. I got a dehydrator and have been using fruit to make granola using maple syrup from the trees in my aunts backyard. Lately have been exploring the possibilities of cooking with fresh buttermilk. This is better than the farmers market, this is instantly fresh food, this is my food. I feel ownership over its creative processes. Lately I have tried to make everything that can be made possible be made from scratch all our bread, noodles to tortillas, yogurt and some simple cheeses. And I often have thoughts like wouldn't it be cool to have grown these black beans which are in my quesadilla? Or how strong would a fresh picked onion taste in this salsa along side home grown cilantro? One question in particular has been nagging me. What would a fresh egg be like. A really, really fresh organic egg? An then it hit me. We NEED chickens. mmmmm.... imagine newly created hours before breakfast. Now that could be one amazing omelet. I researched chickens and have been reading all about them while Patrick was at work. Then last Wednesday I confided in him my secret desire to have chickens. His response... We live in an apartment, where would they go? I had two ideas move... this idea was out of the question, or keep them on the balcony... also out of the question. I was discouraged then Patrick said sarcastically, "All you need to do is convince someone to raise the chickens for us." He thought it was a joke, but I called my sister. At first she was hesitant, but her husband actually seemed to think raising chickens in their backyard wasn't a big deal.

Last Friday I had a cold and was at the pharmacy buying cold remedy stuff when I ran into my dad on the way out. This resulted in eating lunch together. I explained to him my chicken idea, no you don't need a rooster for them to lay, they lay at around 20 weeks old, they can eat your table scraps, and when they quit laying tada! Barbecue chicken for dinner, yada, yada, yada. Then we talked about other things. 3 hours later I got a voice message from my mom. "Patricia, I really need to talk to you dad is buying chickens? we are at the store we need to know which breed is best call me back." Evidently my dad (the man from whom I got my foodie tendencies) thought chickens were an excellent idea and went that day to purchase 6 Rhode Island Reds... that's right 6 chickens!

Several days later Catherine, Mike and I had a chicken meeting where we discussed different breeds of chicken and decided on four breeds. Monday we bought the chicks and brought them home to our apartment where they live in a box... atleast for now until they get too big and then they will move to my sisters backyard.

Meet our girls:

This is Meatball. She is a Buff Orpington, she will most likely be our biggest chicken... right now she is our smallest.



This is Coco. Catherine named her after Coco Chanel. I call her Cuckoo because she is a Cuckoo Maran and will lay dark brown eggs.



This is Cuisine Mary. She is a Black Sexlink- a hybrid most likely between a Rhode Island Red and Barred Rock. She is the oldest... and suprisingly seems to be the last of the pecking order.





Last but at the top of the pecking order- meet Cazuela, named for a Chilean meat stew. She is an Araucana which is a Chilean breed of chicken. I thought we should have named her Psycho or Spaz because she runs around in circles all the time... not the brightest bulb in the box.



And these are my dad's chickens with names like: Constance, Phyllis, Edna, Birdie, and Wanda.

Allentown

I was born in Allentown PA. We drove through there during our trip to the East. Living there was a pretty miserable experience and I have often been told that the only two redeeming things about Allentown were that 1. I was born there and 2. that is where my mom met her friend... Aunt Lonnie. (Lonnie doesn't live there anymore either.) I have to say, now a days it wouldn't be so bad to live there they have both a Sephora and a Friendly's. So on days when you felt down you could always buy make up and eat more ice cream. I think my mom was seriously offended when she realized that Allentown got a Sephora before Salt Lake City did.



This is the house that my parents brought me to when I came home from the hospital 28 years ago. (Almost exactly... my birthday is in a few days!) It was kind of weird to think that my parents were our age (Patrick and me) when they built this house, and it was their second house! I guess it made me realize that my parents were so much more grown up than we are.


Thanks Mom and Dad for giving Allentown a try. I love Lonnie, and it helped you to be sympathetic to me when I lived in another common wealth and had to deal with weird government... Massachusetts.

Eror Family Ski Day

Alex and I on Cecret Lift at Alta

Uncle Steve and Carsen

Carsen

Grandma Judy, Alex and Me

Patrick kept Alex entertained and warm in the lodge... it was a really snowy day.

AHHHH... breakfast at the lodge.

Fondue Emergency

I have a favorite fondue recipe which calls for Gruyere and Vacherin. That being said Vacherin is extremely hard to find. Probably because it is illegal to import into the United States. Low and Behold our local imported food market had the real deal! And for half off. I asked them how they got the cheese in their store and they said, "i don't know..." Plausible deniability and it was half off. Patrick was leaving town and the opportunity to even purchase the cheese would be gone. it was Seven Pm and Patrick said. Lets have it tonight. So we invited my parents over to have Suisse Fondue! Between the four of us we ate two pounds of cheese two apples and a pomegranate between the four of us!

Halloweens

We heard a rumor that the Eror's were setting up their "Halloweens" today. So, we went to check it out.

This is the spectacular Autumn view from my parents' front yard.


Grandpa Steve is a good sport... up on the roof tacking down an enormous blow up spider. It amazing what he will do to get the grandkids excited about Holidays.

New Years Eror Family Ski Day

We had an awesome time at Alta with the Eror Fam this winter even though the day turned out to be frigid. Here is Grandma Judy and Grandpa Steve skiing with Carsen.



Alex thought my goggles were cool. He kept asking to try them on.



Since is was pretty cold we kept Alex in the lodge for most of the day. But that is ok, because he had a baked potato and gummy bears!



I can't believe we have it on video, but here it is. Carsen is skiing from his daddy to his grandpa! Carsen you are awesome!!!!!

Carsen Skiing
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Georgeous Day at Snowbird!

We couldn't believe how beautiful the weather turned out to be... especially after it started out so crummy!



I forgot to put on my knee pads before I put on my snow pants. So this photo looks incriminating because I have my snow pants pulled down around my knees and I am bent over on the side of the road putting them on. In reality I had about six layers covering everything. So. the photo wasn't as bad as it looks.

Snowbird Tunnel
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Dad, Patrick and I decided to take the tunnel from the Peruvian lift to Mineral Basin. We had a little dance party in there.

The Boar's Head Carol

On a Sunday afternoon several weeks before Christmas Patrick and I heard the most inspiring piece of music we had yet to hear in our lifetime, The Boar's Head Carol. believe it or not it is a real christmas carol. Legand has it that a Student at Queen's college at Oxford over 500 years ago was attacked by a boar on Christmas. He choked the boar with a copy of Aristotle, cut of its head and wrote a song about his experience.



The culinary arts are something we take seriously in the Eror house. Every year at Christmas time we attempt new and glorious culinary feats. This year Catherine's white chocolate orange mousse in a cup layered with chocolate mousse was the winner. In years past we have had enjoyed dishes such as roast goose and seared foi gras. (Well most of us love foi gras... in my opinion it best left unseared and eaten strait out of a can!) We like to try the new and fabulous. (Some of us, think that the new stuff is scary and would rather watch from a reasonable distance.) And its ok that Catherine doesn't like seafood and Melissa doesn't like unusual textures and I hate all green salad. We all take part and make due and often we make marvelous discoveries. It was at meals like this that we developed a love of stinky cheeses and perrier. Well, the boars head carol gave us an idea. A real culinary shocker!



Imagine the families' suprise as mom stood and put a green felt hat on her head and with a strait face recited the story of the boars head carol along with a translation of the latin lines in the song. As she finished her lines Patrick and I jump out from the corner with a pigs head roasted and bedecked with bays and rosemary singing the boars head carol. We wore tights and tunics along with the beautiful hats that mom made.



The best part was that no one expected it. Carsen thought that it was awesome until Grandpa told him he had to try it... then he freaked out. This video is awesome. Watch for Carsen standing on his chair at the end of it! This is a video of Mike trying it. And ofcourse most of us took a bite or two... Why? because we are the Eror family... and when it comes to food we are a pretty adventurous group. However I think mom drew the line at narrator and didn't actually try any. Catherine did you try some? I can't remember.

Mike takes a bite
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If you don't have a weak stomach you can watch this weird video of mom and I trying to figure out how to open it's mouth for an apple. I don't know if it was rigor or what but we couldn't get it's mouth open. Patrick attempted prying it open with his bear hands... and keep in mind he had the flu at the time.

opening the pigs mouth
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Here is the first verse of the song... Sorry about my bad latin spelling.

The boars head in hand bear I bedecked with bays and rosemary!
I pray you my maasters be merry
Qui estis in convivio!

Caput Apri Defero
Reddens Laudes Domino

I just want to make a special thank you to my team
to mom our translator, costume designer, and co conspiritor (have no idea how you kept a strait face!)
Patrick for the guts to go through with it
and the Barnes for driving to the middle of nowhere to find a slaughter house and then letting us store the head in your garage for a while. And you didn't even get to try it.

Santa Cookies

Christmas Eve we slept at Grandma Judy and Grandpa Steve's. We got there just in time to decorate some cookies with Carsen and Raegan and to go to bed.



Alex caught on quickly to cookie decorating by following Carsen's example.



Carsen took his cookie decorating very seriously and he was excited to show his sister and cousin how to do it.



It is a good thing that there were pink sparkles for Raegan to put on her cookies... pink is her favorite. if you ask her she'll say pink is her favorite and red is Carsen's.



The two cousins were really sweet to Alex. There were really sad that he had to go to bed. Raegan kept telling me that Alex wasn't tired. (He agreed with her... but he fell asleep quickly.) He was so glad to have little cousins who wanted to play with him.

Grandpa Steve here on Business!

I was absolutly ecstatic when I found out dad had another business trip in Boston. I'll take all the family time that I can get!!!!!! So we picked him up from the airport and took him to one of our favorite local restaurants: The Dolphin.Then Alex helped Grandpa put his luggage in the house!




Even though Alex was sick we still had a good time. Here is Alex showing Grandpa his Tonka Truck. Alex tried really hard to be in a good mood. It was really nice to have Grandpa around this weekend because he was able to tag team holding Alex. There were two days there where it seemed he was either asleep crying or having a "diaper emergency". (If you dont know what that is... don't ask!) So we did lots of loads of laundry and hung out at the house all weekend. We took a small break Saturday to go to the Chili Cook-off on Spangler Lawn, but other than that we laid low. Thanks for coming dad, we really appreciated your help!

Grandma and Grandpa Judy come for Conference

My mom and dad came to visit us over the weekend! I wish we had taken more pictures we had so much fun. Hopefully, I will swap pictures with my mom and get more here on the blog. I think we laughed the whole time. We even had a picnic on our floor while watching General Conference.