Pre-Halloween celebrations

Welcome to the end of October, when we typically have horrible weather in NYC (2011: Snowtober; 2012: Sandy), but when we also have many things to celebrate, including E's fifth birthday and the preparations for everyone's favorite non-holiday: Halloween. 

E's birthday was rainbow-dacious, with colorful streamers, balloons, and a colorful cast of characters that came over to celebrate the event with her. According to one count, we had 32 people in our small apartment at one point. Good thing we had enough homemade rootbeer for the group (for the record, unless you like the way old books smell and would like a glass of that smell, I do not recommend getting homemade rootbeer from Dutch Haven in Intercourse, PA.).

This weekend we finally got around to carving our pumpkins. For the record, we made:

H: A big H
E: A beautiful princess

J: A person walking a dachshund

K: A mouse 

Because E got a camera for her birthday, H has developed a fascination for cameras. Here are two of his best shots. 

We also met up with visiting friends this weekend at the Transit Museum (which the kids enjoyed), where we had the fanciest-pants doughnuts imaginable (which I enjoyed thoroughly).

Lancaster County on Columbus Day weekend

"I heart Intercourse ... Pennsylvania" shirts were proudly displayed at even the most upstanding stores in Intercourse, PA. But we happily accepted the tongue-in-cheek humor right along with the shoo-fly pie, the homemade root beer, and the hearty German fare that welcomed us to Lancaster County, PA this past weekend.

We stayed at a wonderful Amish-owned and I suspected Amish-built log cabin just outside Intercourse and were happy that Edward and Stephanie were able to join us for a night.

Our weekend included:

Playing with lots of animals (as you'll see throughout all our pictures)

Visiting a farm with a corn maize and a pumpkin patch

We built this log cabin all by ourselves ... like men (without instructions)

Playing in our backyard 

E is gathering leaves to put down H's pants

H took this photo

We had to perform a leaf-ectomy on H

Going for a ride on a real steam engine

H took this photo too 

Eating outside

And visiting an old Amish farmstead

October Cookie of the Month: Ginger snaps

This month the kids baked for the grandpas the favorite cookie of Randy "Uncle Ran Ran" Ward: Ginger Snap cookies

Like the last two months, I posted the photos below, but also made a short video using the pictures via a site called animoto.

Known as the Ginger Nut in most of the English-speaking world and as a variant ‘pepper cookie’ throughout Scandinavia (eg, Swedish: pepparkakor, Finnish: piparkakut, Estonian: piparkoogid, Norwegian: pepperkaker), the Gingersnap actually has its roots in the Middle East, coming to France in 992 from an Armenian monk named Gregory. 

This highly addictive, sugar coated cookie that gets its chewy texture and spicy flavor from adding molasses and (of course) ginger to the batter. Well, the only molasses we had at home was Black Strap molasses. For molasses neophytes, the first time sugar cane is crushed and boiled, the yield is called ‘cane syrup.’ It’s light and sweet. The second time it’s boiled to extract sugar from cane, the residual is molasses. It’s dark and sweet but a little bitter. Then they boil it a third time, separating a dark, viscous goop from the rest of the cane, which is then used for ethyl alcohol and cattle feed. This goop is high in B6 and iron and, because H tested as being slightly anemic, is what we had on hand to make these cookies. We also used actual ginger root instead of crystallized or powdered ginger.

We hope they enjoyed the piparkoogid!