Dwyeropolis » Married Life

The Second Thanksgiving

Angus — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:38:13 +0000

The week before Sarah gave birth, in a fit of outrageous overconfidence (I’d call it hubris, were it not so blindingly obvious I’m in a comedy) we started accumulating the elements of a proper (if small) Thanksgiving meal. The idea was that I would make Sarah and I Thanksgiving dinner while she was resting/taking care of the baby and the baby was napping/being taken care of.

(I’ll give you a moment to stop laughing and pull yourself together.)

Needless to say, things did not go according to plan. Luckily, my parents were willing to bring us a pair of to-go plates from a diner in their neighborhood in exchange for some face time with their granddaughter, so we didn’t go hungry (or even turkeyless) that day. We did, however, have a rather ample supply of Thanksgiving-type foods occupying space in our chill chest and on our counter (to whit: a frozen turkey breast, several as-yet-to-be-mashed potatoes, a box of pre-fab stuffing, a can of cranberry sauce, green beans for our experimental* deep-fried green beans appetizer). And there it sat for almost two weeks as we tried to figure out what the heck to do with it.

The solution, of course, was to serve it as my birthday meal. So yesterday (my birthday, natch) that’s what we did:

We prepared the turkey using a variant of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” recipe. Since it was just the breast, we cut the brine in half, and lacking certain ingredients in their ideal state we used fresh ground pepper, ground allspice and ground ginger rather than peppercorns, allspice berries and candied ginger. The absence of a body cavity also required us to monkey with the way the aromatics were used – they went into the bottom of the roasting pan (in a little water to prevent burning) rather than into the bird.

In spite of (or, perhaps, because of?**) our futzing with the recipe, the meal was a success. The turkey was moist and very flavorful (though I didn’t pick up as much of the apple flavor as Sarah did – I think I may be getting a little sick) and cooked in under an hour. Sarah did a great job with the stuffing – it’s amazing what you can achieve by following the directions on the box, rather than just boiling the hell out of the mix as I am wont to do. I made the gravy a bit thick, but it had a nice flavor, and I’ll hopefully learn from my mistakes next time.

So anyway, I had a very happy (and tasty) birthday, with my two favorite gals. My only regret: not getting a little Pilgrim hat for Cal. It would have been very cute, I think.

* read: ripped off from TGIFridays
** no, in spite of

Baby Update

Angus — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:18:43 +0000

Please accept my apologies in advance if this post is slightly incoherent; I’ve been more-or-less up for about 72 hours. Just so nobody is worried – Sweet Pea has been born. Her real name is Prudence Victoria Dwyer. She and Sarah are both doing well. They’re still at the hospital, but will hopefully be sent home tomorrow. Since we’ve been moved from the labor and delivery wing to the maternity wing I now have to abide by visiting hours (albeit slightly expanded ones for dads) and am thus home blogging, dealing with an even more emotionally needy than usual Calvin, and being about to fall asleep. I’m going back to the hospital first thing tomorrow morning, hopefully to return with mama and baby.

Thank you to the medical staff of New York Downtown Hospital, everyone who included us in their prayers and all those members of the CT who stopped by and lent a hand (you know who you are).

Rest assured, there will be many, many photos, but not right now. I’m only one (very, very tired) man!

Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)

Sarah — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:14:01 +0000

Angus and I have been spending a ridiculous amount of time in these last few pre-baby weeks trying to get the apartment in tip-top shape for Sweet Pea*. Baby clothes have been washed! Furniture has been moved! The Darjeeling Limited has been watched! A noticeable lack of deep-fat frying has taken place! It’s thrilling down here in the Financial District of New York!

However, we are a bit behind in some very important matters. In other words, yes, Campagna crew, you are due an e-mail. And, yes, blog-reading world at-large, you are all missing on your recommended dose of pointers to penguin cookie cutters because of our neglect of Dwyeropolis. Please accept our sincere and heart-felt apologies. It’s only temporarily slow here. Promise.

*Well, that and also asking ourselves “what would Ron Paul do?” a dozen or so times a day.

And Many More

Angus — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 02:07:33 +0000

Last Sunday was our one-year anniversary. It’s hard to fathom its already been a year…. On the one hand, I can barely remember life without Sarah; on the other, it feels like we were just hand-sewing our bedroom curtain (one of our zanier honeymoon activities) to keep the guys in the parking lot across the street from being able to see in the window. Maybe I just have a really bad memory and/or sense of time.

Anyway, our anniversary was very nice. First off, I didn’t have to work, which was nice (and, lately, unusual). After Mass, we went to the South Street Seaport (now a mall, rather than a mob-run fish market) where we had delicious Nathans Famous hot dogs for lunch (never let it be said I don’t buy her nice things).

On our way back, we passed a little tchotchke cart where they were selling pencils with little wooden animals instead of erasers. I spied, with my little eye, a penguin pencil, and since it was our “paper” anniversary, and my bride is dangerously obsessed with penguins, I leapt at the chance. (Also, the anniversary gift I’d gotten her hadn’t arrived yet [indeed, it still hasn't ... ]) So, we got the penguin pencil, and since there was a price break at three we got a monkey and an elephant, too. (Ahh, Zoidberg, at last you’re becoming a crafty consumer!)

After that, we went back home and watched that classic paean to marital love, Woyzeck. We were on a bit of a Klaus Kinski kick for a while, but that’s thankfully cleared up. I’d planned that we would have a big steak dinner at Harry’s (our friendly neighborhood steakhouse), but had neglected to make reservations, or even make sure they were open on Sundays. And, indeed, they were not. (Have I mentioned that I’m the world’s greatest husband?) So, after some hemming and hawing, we went to our old standby, Jackson Hole, where we had a colossal hamburger and a ginormous chicken sandwich, respectively. Then, on a whim, we caught Superbad at a nearby theater. (Sarah is almost penguin-level obsessed with Michael Cera; I just wanted to see the movie so I could say stupid things like “It was good, but it needed more Korsmo.”) Then, tired but flush with cash from having not spent $100 on steaks, we took a cab home. And that’s all I’m going to say about the rest of our evening, this being a family-oriented blog.

Well, there you have it: this blog’s first genuine, substantive post. I promise this space will eventually be mostly cute baby photos (and maybe some recipes). In the meantime, I’ll try to avoid inflicting too many solipsistic blow-by-blows of my days on you. Not that hard, mind you, but I’ll try.