Category: Fun

Sorry I haven’t been around here much this week, but I’ve been busy with the start of school and with stuff around the house (much painting), not to mention preparing for Annette’s book party. Annette’s book, Boys in Children’s Literature and Popular Culture, just came out and Will and I are obviously very proud, along with the great friends and colleagues we had over last night. I forgot to get out a camera to take some pictures, but no one did anything that was too photo-worthy anyway. The cake was very cool though– Rachel made it and it featured a picture of Annette’s book cover that was cool– there was good drinks and conversations, fine cheeses, meatballs, etc.

The biggest hit of the night though were the Stuffed Jalapeños, and I thought I’d share the recipe here. This actually comes from Annette’s mother, which I presume she picked up from her time in the south and not from her German heritage. They are spicy, but not as crazy-spicy as you would think because cooking the Jalapeños very much softens up the heat. Also, I’d recommend using some rubber gloves to prepare these; Annette found out the hard way one time that cutting up a bunch of jalapeños and getting that under nails or in a tiny cut is super-duper unpleasant.

Of course, there is absolutely nothing remotely healthy about these things.

Stuffed Jalapeños

22 to 25 Jalapeños
1 lb breakfast sausage (for example, Jimmy Dean)
1 package cream cheese
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

• Cut the jalapeños in half long-ways. Hallow out the seeds (I just use a spoon to scoop the stuff out) so you have little jalapeño boats. This is where the gloves very much come in handy.
• Cook the sausage, making sure that it is broken up into nice and little pieces. Let it cool a bit.
• Mix up everything else in a bowl. When all of that is well combined, add in the cooked sausage and mix that in well, too.
• Spoon the cheese/sausage mixture into each jalapeño half/boat/shell, about a half teaspoon per shell, depending on the size of your jalapeños.
• Put them in a baking dish or a cookie sheet. You can easily make these a day ahead of time and pull them out of the fridge when you’re ready to cook them.
• Cook them in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for about 12-15 minutes until the cheese on top of them is just starting to turn brown.
• Eat them.

Will’s birthday week concluded yesterday at the Michigan Renaissance Festival, an annual southeast Michigan event of, um, fake historical fun. We’ve been a couple of times before, and both Will and Annette enjoy it quite a bit. Myself, I have kind of a Homer Simpson attitude about the whole thing. As long as I have a chance to drink some beer and eat several different kinds of meat, I too am a happy camper.

I put together this little flip video movie about the whole thing:

A few thoughts not captured in the video:

• As far as I can tell, one of the requirements for working at the RenFest is you have to have some sort of facial piercing. Honest to God, every person I had to deal with at a booth or a food stand or whatever had lip rings or nose rings or lip rings with chains that hooked up to nose rings.
• There are obviously some people who go to this every weekend who spend a bit too much money on their costumes. I won’t pretend to know what the line is between “excited fan” and “nut job,” but I’m pretty sure we saw some people crossing over on Saturday.
• The funniest bit of the whole thing I didn’t film, which was the Washing Well Wenches, who, judging from this web site, appear to be kind of a franchise of Renaissance festivals around the country.
• And now, Will’s birthday week is over. He is officially into double-digits.

I’m not completely sure how I stumbled across this this morning, but it’s one of those funny things that keeps me reading blogs and stuff on the web, and it’s one of those things that brings back memories. The story, from something called Radar Online, is “The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time.” Most of what’s featured here pre-dates me, but who can possibly forget what the article called “the granddaddy” of all most dangerous toys. A quote:

Lawn Darts, or “Jarts,” as they were marketed, would never fly in our current ultra-paranoid, safety-helmeted, Dr. Phil toy culture. Lawn darts were massive weighted spears. You threw them. They stuck where they landed. If they happened to land in your skull, well, then you should have moved. During their brief (and generally awesome) reign in 1980s suburbia, Jarts racked up 6,700 injuries and four deaths.

he best part about Jarts was that they eliminated all speculation from true outdoor fun. (Is this dangerous? Hell yes, now chuck it!) And they were equal opportunity: All it took to play lawn darts was a sweaty grip. For good measure, it was also nice to have a small sibling around to stand on the other side of the house and tell you how your throw looked (and by how much you cleared the chimney).

Ah yes, good times, good times….