Back to Business

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The business of food of course! Now that we’ve settled back into our daily routines and rolled through the mountains of laundry (Well, it’s almost all folded anyway!),  we’re back in the kitchen working our way around the world. For the next few weeks we’ll be sampling various recipes from the country of Armenia.

A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a mountainous country and lies in both Western Asia and Eastern Europe. The cuisine in Armenia is really rather varied, but almost always includes an extensive amount of fresh ingredients. For our first recipe we went with an Armenian side dish that we thought had a chance of winning over Mr. N and Miss A, an Armenian Chickpea Salad. Continue reading →

French Toast Madness

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By Mike
Thanks to all of you who tuned in for our Banana Bread quest that wrapped up this week, and congratulations to Doree, Sally, Sweet Caroline, Dawn, and all the other fantastic recipes we tried last year. With every end comes a new beginning, and we’re embarking on our next quest with our final recipe from Hong Kong, a Hong Kong-Style French Toast.

That’s right, this year we’ll be breaking down the world’s best French Toast recipes, culminating in an NCAA Basketball Tournament-style Final Four. See, with French toast, it’s not exactly simple to just make it, freeze a slice, then break it out when it’s time to pick a champion. So in the great spirit of college basketball, we’re going to test recipes throughout the year, then when March Madness rolls around next year, the selection committee is going to hole up in some secret location, armed with spreadsheets, data, stats, photos, and years of expertise. We’ll choose our Final Four entries, seed them into our tournament bracket, and square them off in a winner-take-all series of head-to-head matchups in a quest for that One Shining Moment.  Continue reading →

Quest for the Best Banana Bread: Final Showdown

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It’s finally time! Thirteen recipes and nearly a year later, here we are at our final banana bread showdown. As many of you know we began our quest for the best banana bread last spring. It all started with the Big Bird banana bread years ago that I would make with my dad. Then for years without any banana bread at all, we were introduced to Doree’s banana bread and became convinced it was the best. And so the quest was born…

We certainly didn’t come close to touching the millions of banana bread recipes out there, but we did try a variety of often vastly different loaves on this journey. Starting with our Peanut Butter banana bread, we baked 13 loaves and saved several slices of each wrapped up carefully in our freezer. Just before leaving for our trip, we pulled out the slices to thaw, and you should have seen the kids bursting with excitement at the site of all the bags strewn across the table.

Miss A, who was crowned my sous chef when it came to banana breads, was eager to get the taste test underway.  Continue reading →

Mahalo…A Hui Hou

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We returned from Kauai on Sunday evening well-rested, sun-kissed and happy. It was a much-needed, relaxing, utterly beautiful and fabulous vacation. We’ve been fortunate enough to have taken many vacations over the course of our marriage, and even quite a few since the kids have been born, but I honestly don’t remember another time I came home this peaceful and relaxed. I didn’t even have my post-vacation “it’s over” sadness, just utter contentment. I suppose someplace as beautiful and magical as Kauai can do that to you.

Dawn of a new day.

Mr. N and Miss A even fully immersed themselves in the relaxation of this trip. With the exception of a few minor meltdowns from Miss A (which frankly were nothing in the grand-scheme of things – pretty remarkable for a three-year old) and a few initial protests about an activity from Mr. N, both of the kids were absolutely in-tune with each other, us and the vacation.  Continue reading →

Island Time and Giveaway

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Well we meant to get this post up earlier in the week, but let’s face it, we’re living on island time right now.

So while we enjoy our last few days in the sun, we thought we’d have a little fun (giveaway is coming…read on). Last month we celebrated our one-year milestone for Eat, Play, Love, and in these past few weeks we’ve had a lot of fun planning this post and looking back over our year of blogging. When we first started this little adventure we had two goals in mind. First and foremost, we wanted to open the kids up to the world’s many cultures. We want them to have open minds, hearts and an understanding that there’s a big world outside of our little suburb – which brings us to the food.  Continue reading →

Last But Not Least – Quest for the Best Banana Bread

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This is it! Our very last banana bread recipe for our quest, and it’s a special one. There were two things that prompted our search for the best banana bread, which started in early 2011. The first was our friend Doree’s recipe. We knew it was amazing and were quite sure it was the best ever, so we wanted to put it to the test. The second was today’s recipe – Big Bird’s Banana Bread – which I used to make with my dad when I was a little one.

And so while the kids are still adjusting to the time change here in Hawaii (we’ve been up since 3:45 a.m. this morning), here’s a recipe that’s close to my heart. Big Bird’s Banana Bread is a recipe from The Sesame Street Library books that came out in 1977. These books were a favorite of mine as a child, but were ruined in a flood many years ago. Fortunately, when Mr. N was born I was able to find the complete set on eBay. Since then, I’ve been waiting for the day my kids would be old enough to make their very own Big Bird Banana Bread.  Continue reading →