Meeting AB

I have referred in a previous post to our family's favorite TV chef, Alton Brown. Alton has a show on Food Network called Good Eats, which we have been watching as a couple for years. BJ is undoubtedly the bigger Alton fan of the two of us, but my allegiance to Alton runs deep because he uses the concepts of science and applies them to delicious cooking; thus, in my mind, he is solely responsible for my husband's transition from Hamburger Helper to real cooking. With the help of Alton, we are now a solid team in the kitchen, and some of our favorite Alton classics include soft pretzels, cheese soup, seedy crisps, cheesy poof, homemade brownies, and knock-your-socks-off apple pie, which BJ bakes nearly every Thanksgiving.

Yesterday we had a very cool opportunity to meet Alton Brown at a book signing in Oklahoma City! It was his first trip to Oklahoma and we had it on our calendar from the first announcement of it. BJ in particular was quite excited to meet his favorite chef and tell him thanks for everything. I seconded with a hearty thank-you of my own. Overall a neat experience and a minute or so to make pleasantries with a man who has definitely had culinary pull in our house for about the past six years.

On other fronts, this has been an exceptionally busy fall for us. There has definitely been a lot of play time, but we've also been putting quite a bit of effort into transforming our home so that it is ready for a second child. Our office had essentially become our "junk room," as my friend Jamie coined for me the other day, and it was truly an apt description. We've spent parts of the last few weekends working hard to disseminate office contents to other places in the house, trash, or a donation pile. Each room in the house has been gone through to create more space, and part of our process has been realizing that we could use our space much more effectively than we have been. We have nearly emptied the office and then will turn that into Silas' big boy bedroom, so that George can have the nursery that Silas currently occupies. All good things.

We've also been to a pumpkin patch, watched Oklahoma State have an awesome football season and rise to #3 in the BCS rankings, baked a number of fall specialties (including pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, chocolate-covered peanut clusters, bourbon cranberry compote, and pumpkin mac-n-cheese), and read tons of books. Silas' favorite activity seems to be reading books, and I'm not kidding when I say that sometimes BJ and I read 75 times a day to this child. He has a rotation of 10-15 books that he just can't seem to get enough of, and it has been a joy to watch his love for books being born. I have absolutely no idea what is normal for a 17-month-old in terms of vocabulary, but he is also talking up a storm now, typically just one to two words at a time. His communication is effective though, which is good for all of us, and BJ and I have counted in the ballpark of 80 words that he has down pat. Fun times!

I finished his OSU scarf and will post a picture of him wearing that shortly as well. =)  Here are a couple of pics from the pumpkin patch. Hope you are doing well, friends!