One year for April Fools Day, my older siblings came up with a brilliant trick to play on my father, the best April Fools Day trick to date from the Smith household.
We had (and still have) a marble bust of a young girl, that looks exactly like my sister Jean when she was little, and is there for called The Jean Statue in my family. My dad of course loved the Jean Statue, (and still does). The plan was to make it look like my brother Teddy had knocked the statue down and broke it. Concocting a home-made plaster of paris, mixing water and flour, they had a white clay like substance that they could manipulate. Now the next few steps were set up to take place right around the time my dad would come home from work. They very very carefully placed the statue on the floor, with Jean's face down. They then put the flour pieces around in a couple broken chunks. The next step, was to all wait in place. When my dad came home, after a strategically planned amount of time, they somehow made a big crash in the other room while Teddy stood close to the face down bust. There were gasps and whispers, trying to act as if they were just as surprised as my dad was about to be, when he came sprinting to the noise. Now, this next part happened very quickly: It seemed like it was one fluid motion of my dad entering the room and seeing the scene to when he had Teddy across his knee bum up, with his hand above his head moving in a downward motion towards Teddy - when everyone called out and grabbed his hand, trying to prevent innocent Teddy from actually getting spanked! They successfully stopped my dad, and it took some time to show and explain that the statue was fine, it was a joke, April Fools! And Teddy didn't even flinch through the whole performance. He was ready to take that spank for the sake of the trick. My dad was quickly relieved.
If I was alive I was not old enough to be involved or even remember, but this story has been told many times since. My dad tells it with pride at the cleverness of his children.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
What animal would it be?
A month ago, my brother and his wife went out to dinner for his birthday, and I watched the baby. Because they are so sweet and thoughtful, they said that I got to go out to dinner with one of them while the other watched baby Dallas. I chose (they always make me make decisions and I hate it) John since it was for his birthday after all.
Last night we finally had our dinner date. We went to the same restaurant they went to, called Animal. (Side-note - they are supplied by Schaner Farm!) Our reservation wasn't until 10:15, so Lily was almost ready for bed by the time we left. When we got there, J asked if we could actually just sit at the bar, but it was too full. That is what they did last time, and said it was much more quiet and the bar tender was super nice. So we were seated at our table, and it was really loud. The restaurant was more like a tapas place, J explained, and that we could decide on a bunch of plates and share. We chose five things, and I will tell them to you in order of least favorite to best:
5. Quail fry with grits, bacon, and honey jus. Least favorite because it was so nothing special, and a little disappointing. It was like a boring fried chicken. Fine, but the only thing we didn't eat all of.
4. Local Burrata with homily, tomatillo salsa and red onions. It was good, but not as good as everything else. I really liked the crunch of hominy with the really soft cheese, and then the warm onions.
3. Bone Marrow with toast. So so good, I've never met a marrow I didn't like. It was cooked with garlic and had a little bit of parsley on top, mm mm.
2. Chicken liver pate. I really loved this, it was warm and so smooth spread on top of the toast, which was crunchy but not too crunchy. And the best part was that it had a strip of blackberry jam on top, which I would never think would taste good on pate, but it was right up my alley.
1. Flat Iron, potatoes and artichoke, with fondue. The cheese was melted aright over the meat, which was nice and pink, it was the best part of the meal. But it was also the last thing to come so I was almost too full to even try it.
Oh yeah, and then the part that was really the best, but is judged on a different level than the dinner, is dessert! We had a bacon crunch bar with salt and pepper ice cream. There is nothing bad about that, there can be nothing bad about that!
Afterwards, Lily asked me what animal it would be? A Honey badger? Yes, definitely a honey badger: ultimate badass of the animal kingdom.
Last night we finally had our dinner date. We went to the same restaurant they went to, called Animal. (Side-note - they are supplied by Schaner Farm!) Our reservation wasn't until 10:15, so Lily was almost ready for bed by the time we left. When we got there, J asked if we could actually just sit at the bar, but it was too full. That is what they did last time, and said it was much more quiet and the bar tender was super nice. So we were seated at our table, and it was really loud. The restaurant was more like a tapas place, J explained, and that we could decide on a bunch of plates and share. We chose five things, and I will tell them to you in order of least favorite to best:
5. Quail fry with grits, bacon, and honey jus. Least favorite because it was so nothing special, and a little disappointing. It was like a boring fried chicken. Fine, but the only thing we didn't eat all of.
4. Local Burrata with homily, tomatillo salsa and red onions. It was good, but not as good as everything else. I really liked the crunch of hominy with the really soft cheese, and then the warm onions.
3. Bone Marrow with toast. So so good, I've never met a marrow I didn't like. It was cooked with garlic and had a little bit of parsley on top, mm mm.
2. Chicken liver pate. I really loved this, it was warm and so smooth spread on top of the toast, which was crunchy but not too crunchy. And the best part was that it had a strip of blackberry jam on top, which I would never think would taste good on pate, but it was right up my alley.
1. Flat Iron, potatoes and artichoke, with fondue. The cheese was melted aright over the meat, which was nice and pink, it was the best part of the meal. But it was also the last thing to come so I was almost too full to even try it.
Oh yeah, and then the part that was really the best, but is judged on a different level than the dinner, is dessert! We had a bacon crunch bar with salt and pepper ice cream. There is nothing bad about that, there can be nothing bad about that!
Afterwards, Lily asked me what animal it would be? A Honey badger? Yes, definitely a honey badger: ultimate badass of the animal kingdom.
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