Recipes

  • Zoom Party Ideas

    Our Christmas Tree

    My son just had his birthday party via zoom, so here are some zoom party ideas as we continue in quarantine. I’ve also had some adult zoom cocktail parties.

    • play Mafia over zoom
    • scavenger hunt
    • Netflix watch party (no further explanation needed)

    Mafia

    Have you ever heard of the game Mafia? We used to play it late at night when we were staying over with a group of friends at a country house. Back when we did that.

    Here are the instructions. I put the names of the guests on paper slips in one bowl and the various roles (mafia or murderer, villager, doctor, detective) in the other bowl. Then I matched every guest with a role and direct-messaged them via zoom. I was the narrator, but actually the boys all really wanted to be the narrator so they could create different scenarios of how people died. I thought the boys would probably prefer to play Among Us (which seems to be the online game equivalent), but not all the boys were allowed to play it, so I did it the zoom way. It worked. We added in other characters inspired by Among Us: the Angel (can tell the narrator one person to protect — if the murderer picks them to kill, they don’t die; the clown (pretends to be the murderer).

    Scavenger Hunt

    So this game was inspired by my son’s gym teacher. He has them do a scavenger hunt for household items, which makes the kids run around the house like mad.

    I decided to add a riddle component. So I used some of these riddles for toothbrush and book (items they’d be sure to have around the house) and also came up with my own.

    I am soft. This item is not a hat. I donā€™t go on your hand. I slip over your foot. What am I?

    Answer: Sock

    #

    I roll, but Iā€™m not a ball.

    Iā€™m paper, but you donā€™t write on me

    What am I?

    Answer: Toilet paper

    #

    You rest your head on me

    Answer: Pillow

    One child unfortunately couldn’t go into the bathroom because someone is his family was using it, which was tough, given that I gave riddles for toothbrush and toilet paper as items they’d be sure to have around the house. šŸ™

    Zoom Party Ideas Summary

    Several parents emailed to thank me and say their children really enjoyed the party. I think the bar is low at the moment and I just occupied their children for two hours.

    Happy Holidays!

    Happy Holidays whatever you celebrate! I hope you had a wonderful Hannukah and have a wonderful Christmas!

    We are busy making Christmas cookies. My favorite Christmas cookie recipe is gingerbread people (reduced fat!) from the Joy of Cooking. I have yet to find a sugar cookie recipe I really love, so if you have one, please share!

    The cookies are quickly disappearing.

    In other exciting news, my first MS Partner Pursuit was the winner of the Hudson County RWA 25-4-25 contest, and the first twenty pages of my second MS Is This for Real? just placed third in the RWA Windy City Four Seasons contest.

    Let’s Talk

    Do you have any good zoom party ideas? What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?

    Happy Holidays!

  • Some Stay-at-Home NYC Mommy Tips

    Bright and Cheery Yellow Flowers left outside our apartment door by my neighbor

    Here are some Stay-at-Home NYC Mommy Survival Tips. We’ve now been in our NYC apartment for 14 straight days, although we luckily have a small balcony for fresh air.

    Overall, we’re lucky. We’re healthy and we just have to stay inside to help flatten the curve. I worry for the medical personnel, the postal workers, the grocery workers, the warehouse workers, the delivery workers and all the rest who are out there working as heroes.

    List of Stay-At-Home NYC Mommy Survival Tips

    • Exercise
    • Keep a Schedule
    • Art and Virtual Tours
    • Food
    • Reading/Watching Movies
    • Crafting and Making Masks
    • Keep Social
    • Keep washing hands

    If you have any suggestions, please share!

    Exercise

    Exercise is important for your immune system and your sanity. I haven’t done enough, but I will keep trying.

    For Kids:

    Create Your Own Obstacle Course: This has been the most successful exercise activity to date. My kids and I each take turns creating an obstacle course throughout the house and then we each follow each other doing it. We run around chairs, climb onto chairs, run around a table, crawl under a table, jump over stuffed animals etc. (Luckily, our neighbors are very nice and have not complained about the amount of extra noise as we jump around.)

    It definitely gets the heart rate up and adds a little extra fun.

    Step up onto the chair, then scoot over the table, then back down on the other side. Do jumping jacks. I think you get the idea šŸ™‚

    GoNoodle and PE with Joe Wicks: We’ve also been doing some dance videos from GoNoodle and P.E. with Joe Wicks.

    For Moms/Dads:

    I am trying out Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s trainer’s workout book. My friend gave it to me last year.

    The RBG Workout by Bryant Johnson

    Another friend recommended this site for Yoga: Dharma Yoga New York Center.

    Keep A Schedule

    I think that it helps the kids to have a schedule. So we have our homeschooling schedule, and to that we’ve added Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems, Exercise and Duolingo (they are trying to learn Danish).

    Art

    I still highly recommend Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems. He’s very therapeutic to watch.

    And he gives writing advice.

    Here is my doodle from Episode 3.

    This New York Times article also lists other authors/artists giving programs, so I am excited to try some of those.

    Virtual Art Tours: I’m excited to go on some virtual art museum tours and other virtual tours.

    TAKE VIRTUAL TOURS
    The J. Paul Getty Museum
    The Hermitage
    Museum of Miniatures (Carmel, IN)
    The Louvre
    The Sistine Chapel
    Rijksmuseum
    Listen to commentary about the dollhouse at Rijksmuseum
    The Guggenheim
    Yosemite
    National Park
    Van Gogh Museum
    Great Wall of China
    Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
    Yellowstone National Park
    Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
    British Museum
    Monticello (Thomas Jefferson’s home)
    Cliffe Castle
    The Uffizi Gallery
    Westminster Abbey
    and a list of 1,200 more museums to explore 

    Food

    I made a shopping list of all our usual food so that when I find a delivery slot open, I can check the list and order from it, otherwise I keep forgetting items. I do spend a lot of time looking for open delivery slots.

    A HUGE thanks to all the grocery workers and delivery people.

    Bread: This is also a great recipe for whole wheat bread from Minimalist Baker. I can’t find yeast available anymore (and flour is also hard to find), but I have some packs left and maybe by the time I use them up, yeast will be back in stock.

    Whole wheat bread rolls – yummy!

    Books/Movies

    I am so grateful for all the books that I can escape into. I may actually make some progress on my #TBR pile. And I’m also watching movies at night, rather than always reading the news.

    Crafting and Making Masks

    I like to craft to keep up my spirits and so I’ve been doing some crafting, in between home schooling, reading and writing.

    I found some patterns/tutorials for making masks, so I think I will try to do that too, although I am not very good at sewing and haven’t yet learned to use a sewing machine. It’s been on my bucket list, so I will check out some Youtube videos and learn to do it. I have a tiny kid sewing machine. It’s a Home EC project for the kids too! At the least, my family can wear my attempts, and hopefully, the shortage of PPE will be addressed. If I get good at making them, then I can send them to a hospital.

    Keep Social

    I am using this time to catch up with friends, so I hope you do too. Try to reach out to a friend every day or other day. My kids are doing zoom/facetime chats with their friends and that makes them happy.

    Let’s Talk about Your Stay-At-Home Mommy Survival Tips

    Do you have any tips for staying-at-home (with or without kids)? Any suggestions for laugh-out-loud romcom books?

    Also, please keep washing your hands (and not touching your face). But it seems to transmit from when you touch someone or something with the virus and then you touch your face, so wash your hands before you touch your face. Which is so hard for me. As soon as I can’t touch my face, something on my face itches. Even writing this, I have an itch on my eyelid. And obviously practice social distancing and stay home as much as you can.

    And if you’re not in an area that is yet in lockdown, I recommend stocking up on pantry staples (like flour, pasta etc.) and kids art supplies. You can get kids art supplies delivered, but you want to minimize people delivering (for their sake and yours).

    Wishing you all the best!

  • Happy Valentine’s Day 2020!

    Happy Valentine’s Day 2020!

    Yes, these are dolls. My husband refused to model šŸ™‚

    I personally like spending Valentine’s Day reading or watching a good romcom. Although if some attractive guy wants to make me breakfast in bed, I’m all for that too!

    Yummy! Plus all that unruly hair!

    Until I met my husband, I don’t think I ever had a date for Valentine’s Day. It was Galentine’s Day for me. When my daughter was due in February, I was really worried that she’d was going to be born on Valentine’s Day. A friend asked, “Why?” And I said, “I gather you’ve always had a date for Valentine’s Day!” (Thankfully, my daughter was not born on Valentine’s Day.)

    Fallen Chocolate Cake Recipe for a Happy Valentine’s Day

    Fallen chocolate cake in ramekins
    Fallen Chocolate Cakes in Ramekins. Image from FamilyStyleFood (with another recipe I will have to try)

    Here’s my go-to recipe for Valentine’s Day: the fallen chocolate cake from Cooks Illustrated. In my draft MS, my protagonist Audrey makes this for Jake when she wants to impress him with her cooking. He is duly impressed. šŸ™‚

    Ingredients

    8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), plus extra for ramekins

    8 ounces bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped;

    4 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk

    1 teaspoon vanilla extract

    Ā¼ teaspoon table salt

    Ā½ cup granulated sugar

    2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour plus extra for ramekins

    Butter and flour (or use cocoa powder) eight 6-ounce ramekins.

    Instructions:

    Melt 8 tablespoons butter and chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over a pan of almost simmering water, stirring until smooth; remove from heat.

    Beat the eggs, yolk, vanilla, salt, and sugar until the ribbon stage – the color will be pale yellow and the volume is nearly tripled. The mixture will drop from the beaters in a heavy thick ribbon. This usually takes about 10 minutes with the hand held mixer.

    Pour egg mixture over melted chocolate and butter; sprinkle flour over egg mixture. Gently fold egg and flour into chocolate until batter is completely mixed.

    Pour batter into prepared ramekins. (At this stage, you can put them into the fridge for about 8 hours. They’ll need to come back to room temperature [about 30 minutes] before you bake them)

    Bake in a 400 degree preheated oven for about 12 minutes or until the the cakes have risen over the rims. They’re done when they have a thin crust and the center jiggles when you tap ramekins.

    Run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake (didn’t need to do that last night cuz Kellie had buttered so enthusiastically) and invert onto a plate. Let the cake cool for about a minute before removing the ramekin.

    When Adam Met Evie

    When Adam Met Evie
    When Adam Met Evie by Giulia Skye

    And if you’re looking for a fun escape read, my friend Giulia Skye just published her book When Adam Met Evie. Woohoo! We met on the train to the Romantic Novelists Association conference in Leeds several years ago.

    I highly recommend When Adam Met Evie. The characters are very believable and engaging, the story hooks, and the setting is the Australian outback–what more could you ask for?

    Here’s the blurb:

    “When former Olympic Swimmer, Michael Adamsā€”now reluctantly Canadaā€™s hottest reality TV starā€” insults his fake showbiz wife on social media, he escapes the ensuing scandal and jumps on the first flight to Australia. Desperate to experience ordinary life againā€”if only for a few weeksā€”he becomes ā€œAdamā€, just another tourist traveling through the Outback. But with a reward out for his safe return and his fameā€™s nasty habit of catching up with him when he least expects, he needs a disguiseā€¦ and heā€™s just found it.

    Sweet and scruffy British backpacker, Evie Blake, is taking a year out of her busy London life. Tired of lies and liars, sheā€™s looking for adventure to heal her broken heart. So when the hot Canadian she meets at the campground offers to be her travel partner through Western Australiaā€™s wild Kimberley region, she grabs the chance, unaware heā€™s got the world out looking for him. Heā€™s just a down-on-his-luck traveler, right? ” From Goodreads.

    Let’s Talk

    What do you like to do on Valentine’s Day? Do you have any romcom or romance book recommendations? Any recent romcom movies you’d recommend? Happy Valentine’s Day 2020!