Family, Food, Fun

This weekend, my parents came to visit. Like us, they are very excited for Ryan to join our family. He will be their third grandchild (all grandsons). They are a 5-hour drive from us, but we see them fairly often, and they will be a big part of Ryan's life. My dad has been wanting to learn how to make a pretzel-like Italian recipe called "tarales," which my paternal grandmother often made. They were always a family favorite, so I’m really glad my grandmother taught me how to make them a few years before she passed away in 1996. (Many of my fondest childhood memories involve her wonderful cooking and baking.) It is a multi-stage and rather labor-intensive process which takes an entire day for one person to do alone, so I don’t make them often (and whenever I do, I’m amazed that my grandmother was doing this into her 80’s). My dad and I spent most of Saturday working in the kitchen:


Fortunately, all that work yields about 200 pretzels, so there are plenty to share, as well as plenty to have around as an excuse to put our usual carb-conscious lifestyle on hold for the next several days.

Since food is one of the most common and enjoyable ways of connecting with our ethnic backgrounds (Rob’s family’s Scottish shortbread is also to-die-for), we hope that Ryan will be interested in trying Taiwanese food one day. Rob and I certainly are -– we’ve found a Taiwanese restaurant in our area that we can’t wait to try (we’ll be going this Tuesday night). I would bet that, as the American little boy he will be, Ryan’s favorite foods as a child will be more along the lines of macaroni-and-cheese and french fries, but we will be sure to take him out for Taiwanese when he is a little older and interested in trying “new” things.