Dave's family serves celery salad on most holidays and special occasions. I was having an intense salty craving the other day and I tried finding the recipe online. Turns out, it doesn't exist anywhere in the form I'm used to.

Sure there's something called Italian Green Olive Salad, but it's a much grander affair, with anchovies and capers. This is a simple thing, with just olives and celery. I'm suspecting ours is the "home" version that evolved in Italian homes on a budget.



It's very simple, diced celery with olives in their brine. You can also dice the olives if you like, but I think gathering a spoonful of celery with a big burst of olive flavor is part of the fun.

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Baby Liloia had his or her first photo taken on December 5th, and we thought that was the last picture until the 20-week ultrasound (typically when they tell you the gender). Here's the little one at nine weeks:



But at the most recent appointment, someone decided not to cooperate with the hearbeat-checking doppler device and insisted that his or her photo was taken again instead. Here's the sneaky babe at 13 weeks:



Head on the left, two legs curled up on the right and arms above and below the tummy. See you in a few weeks for another picture, baby!

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Our next-door neighbor offered us a portrait of the house made from an old photo. We're not really sure when it's from, but it's recent enough that there's an electric meter, but old enough that there was a full barn and silo in a location that now has full-grown evergreen trees.

Here's a photo of the house the weekend we bought it. It looked a little scraggly back then:



Here's the old painting. We took out the front door because there were no steps attached, but clearly they were there at some point. And look at those windows!



There's no longer any trace of that huge barn behind the house, or the silo. Kind of wish we still had them around. Not that I have anything to fill a silo with...

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From this...


To this...


And finally, this...

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We went on a class trip to the Shelburne Museum -- the kids were asked to make prints from styrofoam sheet and printers ink. The trick was that you had to write your letters backwards so they would come out the right way on the paper.

Here is Trevor working diligently on his drawing:



And here is the finished Trevbot 2000. (Someone should let trevor know that the year 2000 has come and gone.)

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The leaves are turning this weekend -- it's a great show if you have a chance to take a drive through the Adirondacks.



The last few trips to NJ, we've been breaking the ride into two days with Albany at the center. It takes longer, but there's less chance of someone falling asleep at the wheel at 1:00am.

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I was cruising through Everyday Food this month when I saw this ad. It really put me off. Word of mouth marketing is an incredible and unpredictable tool, but to suggest that we should put down our friends sarcastically for sharing information is just nasty.

I am a big fan of dry humor, but I would never speak to a friend this way. I might ask her reasoning or give my own opionion, but to cut her down like the example given is simply mean. The corn syrup lobby must be on some kind of sugar high.



Hello,

Your advertisement on page 41 of the October 2008 issue of Everyday Food gave me pause. Suggesting that typical Americans sharing information over daily activities is wrong because we're not experts is condescending and distasteful. I shouldn't have to wait to speak to a doctor before gathering information about a product or ingredient and sharing it with my peers.

Many busy mothers are glad that our friends to pass along important information that we may have missed in the constant flow of news, e.g. product recalls, e coli scares, etc. The example response in your ad -- of a woman using sarcasm to refute her friend, is mean-spirited. This is no way to increase support for your product.

Clearly, there's a reason the phrase is "you catch more flies with honey" and not "you catch more flies with high fructose corn syrup."

Tara Liloia

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