Dave's Headblog

In my latest attempt to help stretch our already drum tight budget, I’ve embarked on a new culinary adventure... making our own baby food. I feel like a huge hippy doing this, but the reality is that you can make better safer food yourself for about half the price of the pre-packaged stuff. I also kind of like knowing exactly what is going into the food.

Baby food is easy, mostly because at this stage it rarely has more than two ingredients. At the moment, I’m sticking to fruits and vegetables. So far I’ve made a batch of summer squash and a batch of pears. I might try peaches and green beans this weekend.

Basically, all you have to do is this:
1. Thoroughly wash the fruit or vegetable.
2. Peel fruit or veg and cut into half inch cubes.
3. Steam until soft. Save excess water from steamer.
4. Puree in food processor (or blender). Add water from steamer if necessary to get puree to a pourable consistency
5. ‘Pour into clean ice cube trays.
6. Freeze. Each cube is about 1 oz. of food that can be thawed quickly in the microwave when needed.
7. Fruit and Vegetable can be kept frozen for at least three months

So yeah, big hippy Dave.

In Salem, MA, we celebrate Halloween for the entire month of October. It’s the busiest month for tourism, and all the local witchy and ghosty attractions kick into high gear. During October, every building in Salem is “haunted”. Vendors with hot cider and fried dough are all over Essex Street, and psychics and christian evangelists push flyers into your hand arguing the pros and cons of the season. Locals will complain about the October tourists and traffic, but not me. I’ve only been in Salem a couple years now, not nearly long enough to be jaded and grouchy about the holiday. I think even the crabby oldtimers secretly enjoy Salem Halloween, even if they can’t bring themselves to admit it.

Last night, this year’s celebrations were kicked off by the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade. It’s mostly for the locals, with lots of local schools and marching bands, kids in costume, cheesy floats by local businesses, and of course, the Mayor walking the route with her family. It’s a fun little parade, and since it’s Halloween, it takes place at night, making it extra spookalicious. This year’s theme was “Pirates of the North Shore”. I sure hope the Ninjas get a parade next year, or there’s gonna be trouble.

We hadn’t planned on going to the parade this year, since it was happening during Alex’s dinner time/bed time, but fate and traffic interceded and we decided to stay in town and watch the festivities, equiped with an extra bottle of formula provided by daycare extraordinaire Miss Kathy. So Alex got to enjoy his first parade, along with his daycare pal London, who’s Mom also decided that it was easier to stay than fight the parade traffic. Alex mostly really dug it, except for one point where a drum corp got a little too close for comfort. It got a bit loud and we had to cover his ears. Otherwise, a huge sucess.

I guess I’d better get off my butt and find the kid a costume... ‘Tis the season.