Alvin, French and the Potato Latkes

Today was dark and drizzly - rain we've desperately needed for months teased us most of the day but didn't quite come through. As we move into night, severe storms are brewing, so if we're not blown away by the remnants of Olga, we might actually get the promised rain overnight.

But since it was so dark and drizzly, I decided to take ZBoy and his friend Jesse to see ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS. I was fully prepared to hate it.

I loved it.

Sure, there were places where the story got a little slow or a little hokey, but on the whole, it was a terrific tale of not giving up and making family where you find it. And one of the great things about this movie was the audience participation. Lots of kids. The chipmunks liked to watch "SpongeBob SquarePants" and after each opening line - Who lives in a pineapple under the sea... all the kids would sing SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS! Dude, I haven't seen audience participation like that since "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and honestly, no one was drunk or dressed up as sweet transvestites for "Alvin".

At the end, the audience applauded. They actually did. It was amazing and one of the best movie-going experiences I've had in a long, long time.

On our way home from taking Jesse back to his mom, I called home to see if Darling Man needed anything and he told me that the prodigal French had returned. French has been AWOL for three days and we were getting seriously worried about him. He had some ticks, both ears have been shredded and one eye is weepy. Plus, he seems really tuckered out.

We don't know where he goes when he disappears. He's a serious outdoor, wild-ish cat. He shows up to eat and get a few pets every other day or so, and we've suspected that he hangs with the neighbor across the street the other half of the time. But I won't be surprised if he just stops showing up one day. He'll tangle with a fox or an owl and that will be it. That idea used to upset me, but that's who he is. He knows what's out there and he goes anyway. I would be sad, but I would also be honored that he chose to share his life with us for however long that is.

After Darling Man told me about French, he told me he was scrubbing potatoes. Yay! I know Chanukah is over, but ZBoy had checked a book out from the library and it had a recipe for potato latkes in it that we've been wanting to try.



We had all the stuff we needed. Darling Man grated the potatoes and the onion, added kosher salt, one egg, some bread crumbs and mixed it all together.



Then he fried them until they were golden brown...



Gotta love a man who cooks!!!!!

I got the honor of trying the first ones out of the pan. They were kind of thick, more like potato burgers than pancakes, but they were DELICIOUS!

A little applesauce and/or sour cream on the side and we had plates of sheer heaven for dinner.

It was a cooking-kind of weekend... Last night we made Amish Friendship bread and Banana-Pecan bread with bananas from our back yard! Both turned out really well, but we also came up with several things we'd do differently...

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?