Category: Holidays

Aloha Friday: Apples and Honey

Aloha Friday, Food, Holidays, Judaism

Today, marks the new year on the Jewish Calendar.  On Rosh Hashaha, we celebrate having a sweet year by eating apples and honey.  This year, we’ll be eating plenty of that since B and JSL picked 19.5 pounds of apples!

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What is your favorite recipe to make with apples?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #107

My Walmart Father’s Day Wishlist

Fatherhood, Geeky Pursuits, Holidays, Roku, Shopping, Technology

In case you haven’t heard, Father’s Day is coming.  Growing up, this meant buying my father a tie or similar piece of clothing.  (Techy gifts while I was growing up, either were beyond my monetary means or weren’t the kind of gift he was interested in.)  And while I appreciate a nice tie, my gift preferences usually skew towards the geeky side.  Sadly, though, we aren’t super wealthy.  I can’t afford to go out and buy every single piece of geeky

tech that makes me drool.  I need to prioritize and bargain shop and Walmart is always on my bargain shopping list.  Here, in no particular order, are some tech items that I’d love to get for Father’s Day.  All of these items were spotted during a recent stroll through our local Walmart.  They are also all available from Walmart’s Father’s Day electronics page or Walmart.com.

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Video Games:

Playing video games is fun.  Playing video games with my boys is extremely fun.  NHL, while not a master, has learned how to operate the controls nicely.  JSL wants to work it right, but just can’t figure it out yet.  I think he just needs more practice.  Which means I need to play more video games with him.  Oh the never-ending chores us dads must undertake!

P1030313Roku

Yes, we already have two Roku players.  One in our living room and one in our bedroom.  Why do we need a third, you ask?  Well, our upstairs room (used by the boys as a play room) doesn’t have one.  In fact, since it only has basic cable TV (and a DVD player but the DVDs are kept downstairs), that TV would benefit greatly from a Roku player.  Plus, the boys could rock out with Pandora in the larger play room space.

Apple iPad 2 with Wi-Fi iPad 2

Don’t ask me how we didn’t get a photo of this.  I drool over the thought of having an iPad to use.  Oh the web browsing I’d do.  The apps I’d download.  The Angry Birds I’d fling at green pigs.  Excuse me while I get my drool mop.

P1030319LCD Monitor

I recently inherited a desktop computer that my parents didn’t need anymore.  I want to set this up to be a print/file server, but I need a monitor.  I have two CRT monitors I could use but they are big, hulking affairs.  They work fine, but they take up so much desk space.  How much nicer would it be to have this slim number on the desk instead of the giant dinosaur?

Disclosure: I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour by Dad Central Consulting on behalf of Walmart and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

Aloha Friday: Food Deprivation

Aloha Friday, Food, Holidays, Judaism

Last week (and the beginning of this week), I celebrated Passover.  During this holiday, I give up a lot of foods like bread, rice, corn, beans, and soy products.  This can be a tricky time as we are confined to matzo as most of our source of carbs.  It also means that favorite year round foods, such as macaroni and cheese or soy-based veggie burgers, aren’t allowed.

Of course, in many ways I’m used to restricting my diet.  While growing up, I learned about the Kosher dietary rules during Hebrew school.  One by one I decided to follow them.  First, I stopped eating milk and meat together.  This meant turning my usual bacon cheeseburger into a bacon burger.

Next, I gave up all meats that couldn’t be kosher* while eating out.  This wasn’t too hard.  Except for bacon and the occasional Chinese food spare rib, I was never a big fan of shrimp, clams, ham and the like.  Spare ribs were occasional enough that I gave them up easily.  Bacon, however, I dreaded giving up.  I expected it to be a difficult affair packed with cravings and backsliding.  Instead, I turned my bacon burger into a plain burger and never looked back.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What foods would you find difficult (if not impossible) to give up for a week?  What foods would you find difficult or impossible to give up for the rest of your life?

* To clarify, by “meats that couldn’t be kosher”, I mean meats that intrinsically couldn’t be kosher due to the animal they come from** such as ham (from pigs) and shrimp.

** For the curious, the rule for land animals is cloven hooves and chews its cud. Pigs have the hooves but don’t chew their cud; cows do both.  Therefore cows are kosher while pigs aren’t.  Water animals, meanwhile, need to have fins and scales.  Tilapia, for example, have both and are thus kosher while shrimp have neither.  Of course, while eating out, I tend to just say I am “vegetarian” since this is quicker and something most waiters will understand instead of “I have a complex set of religious rules that I follow and here they are…”

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #85

The Beginning and Ending of Passover

Dessert, Family, Food, Holidays, JSL, Judaism, NHL, Photos

 0418110823 0418110823a Today is the last day of Passover.  During the day, we’ll eat up some of the remaining matzoh and dream of the bread-filled meals coming the next day.  Technically, we can break Passover tonight, but, practically, eating dinner after 8:30pm isn’t worth it, even if it will be our first non-Passover meal in 8 days.

I was going to end with a Cooking With TechyDad post on how to make matzoh brie, but I realized that I did that last year.  So instead, I’ll give you a quick photo tour of our Passover experience.

The day before Passover, we mostly spent cleaning and shopping.  However, we did have one unexpected treat.  As we pulled into a local Target’s parking lot, we saw a familiar pink truck.  It was the Fluffalicious cupcake truck!

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We decided to get the boys one cupcake each and split a giant cupcake between the two of us.  NHL got a S’mores cupcake.  JSL chose a chocolate banana cupcake.  B and I split a giant cookie dough cupcake.  (Let me tell you: It’s torture to go through these photos during Passover!)

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The morning before Passover, I went to temple very early.  You see, because one of the plagues was death of the first born, first born Jewish males have to fast the day before Passover.  However, there’s a way out of this obligation.  If you attend a special learning session, you have to celebrate afterwards by participating in a celebratory meal.  And once you eat, you’re let out of the fast for the rest of the day.

After temple, we went out to Friendly’s for breakfast.  B had eggs and french toast (which I don’t have a photo of), I had eggs and pancakes and the boys had M&M pancakes.

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Sadly, while delicious, this was our last non-Passover food for the next 8 days.

That night, we went to B’s aunt’s house for the Passover seder.  We had a great time with family and had fabulous food.

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The next night we had the second seder.  In many ways, it was a repeat of the first.  Lots of good times and good food with family.

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During the rest of Passover, we dealt with a finicky child’s hunger strike (luckily, it turns out he really likes matzoh pizza), a lot of exhaustion and a lot of matzoh.  Tonight, we’ll pack up our Passover pans, cooking utensils and the like and put them away for another year.  I can’t say we’ll be very sorry to see it go.  Passover is fun, but by now we are all dreaming of our favorite non-Kosher-for-Passover foods!

20 Pounds In 20 Weeks: Week 14: First Passover Weigh-In

20lbs in 20 weeks, Fitness, Holidays, Judaism, Weight Loss
Starting Weight 205
Current Weight 186
Goal Weight 185
Lost 19
Left Until Goal 1

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been going on and on about Passover looming on the horizon.  I’ve been more and more fearful of the weight that would pack on when matzoh permeated my diet.  So when I stepped on the scale, I was shocked to see no weight gain.  Even more surprising, I lost 3 pounds!

I have no real explanation for this.  I haven’t been watching calories or points at all.  I was even snacking too much on Passover junk food while at work for two days.  Going to work during Passover means I need to pack all the food I’ll need during the day.  This means I need to estimate my day’s food needs.  It tends to seem to be a better idea to bring too much food than to not bring enough.  Sadly, this can result in over eating.

Still, despite this, I lost weight.  It should be interesting to see what the rest of Passover (and the days that follow it’s ending) brings.

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