Peter Kovacs

Last night I did a little research on how to make a favorite Rhode Island drink: Del’s Lemonade. When I read somebody describe it as an Italian ice, a light went off in my head. In order to make that characteristic slushy consistency they don’t add blended or shaved ice; they run the mixture through an ice cream maker as if they were making a normal Italian ice and take it out of the machine early!

So, I looked up how to make a make-at-home Del’s and thought about how I’d turn that into a recipe using sugar, lemons, and water. This is what I came up with:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 cups water
• zest and juice from 2 lemons

Directions

1. Add 1 cup of water, zest, and sugar to a small non-reactive pot. Heat until all sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add remaining water and lemon juice. Chill mixture in an ice bath or in fridge for a few hours. It has to be really cold for the next step.
2. Run mixture through ice cream maker for about 10 minutes or until the right consistency. You’ll definitely have to keep an eye on it so it doesn’t get too thick on you.

Laura, a former Del’s employee, says that when she received her delivery of frozen lemonade in the morning there would not be any liquid in it at all, and it would slowly get more melted as the day went on. She therefore suggested that it should spend even longer in the ice cream maker. I just wanted something that I could drink from a cup without having to spoon it out. Also, a traditional paper cup would probably work better, since you can squeeze and shake to loosen up the frozen lemonade.

I just got a very important piece of software up and running on my brandy spanking new Linux box, and I thought I’d test it out by posting a old school picture.

After looking at this you might realize just how much Anderson doesn’t look like me at all.

Andy’s vocabulary is increasing with nearly every passing day. Sometimes though he doesn’t quite get the word right. “Ball” becomes “Bao”, “Open” becomes “Otey”, and so on. Like any self-respecting (former) Bostonian, Andy drops his r’s like nobody’s business. The drawback to this endearing trait is that we can never dress him in a “gray shirt” when we go out in public.

Happy Second Birthday little guy! I can hardly believe its been two whole years already. Andy is about to enjoy a homemade cupcake here from the ridiculously easy recipe I found in Baking Illustrated. The cupcake came out a little crumbly, but very tasty. The homemade chocolate frosting was the best part: semi-sweet chocolate chips and heavy cream. I think I had the proportions a little wrong, because it did not whip up the way it was supposed to. Still tasted awesome though.

“You dig my shades?”

Yesterday morning it was cold and rainy. Then out of the blue (so to speak) the sun came out and it warmed up to about 78 degrees outside. I found these pink flowers on a bush right out side our kitchen windows. Right next to a tree that had leaves on it!

Andy’s go to word these days is “apple”. It’s the word he uses whenever he’s not sure what the word is, but knows that he should say something. This leads to frequent conversations like this at our dining room table:

“Who am I?” I say, pointing to myself.

“DADA!”

“Who is that?” I say, pointing to Laura.

“MAMA!”

And who are you? I ask, tapping Andy on the chest.

“…dada?” Andy asks very quietly, clearly unsure that this is who he is.

“No, I’m Dada, who are you?” I ask, again tapping Andy on the chest.

“…apple?”

I just finished upgrading Movable Type on my server. In fact, I just changed kovax.org over to a new webhost as well. Now I can cut out $20 a month in needless expense. Hooray!

What are you going to do with your tax refund this year? I put aside way too much money this year for taxes, so I get to give myself a very substantial refund. Guess who's getting a new camera?! I still haven't decided exactly what I'm going to get. I guess that's something I'm going to have to nail down. I definitely want to try to get at least one really good lens, and an off-camera flash. So hopefully in the next few months I can get back into the swing of posting pictures. Maybe I'll even take a few of something other than Anderson! Unlike this one:

A year ago today we arrived in a city we had never even visited before. With help from an awesome friend we brought the barest of essentials: our cats, a suitcase, a small tv (for watching the Oscars!), a portable crib and every toy we owned. I mean, one of the first things we had to do when we got here was go out and buy a litter box for goodness sake!

Now, a year later, we're finally starting to get settled. We've finished buying furniture, and we're going to order some rugs soon. There's only 1 more room that we need to repaint. And now that Andy isn't totally scared of strangers, we're starting to meet other families around our neighborhood. For a while I wondered if we had made the right decision in coming here, but then I took a walk yesterday afternoon, in the middle of February when it was a balmy 73 degrees outside. And I noticed that the trees around here are starting to bloom, just like they were when we first arrived. Then I realized that right now there isn't any place I'd rather be.

Some say that you're either a pie man, or a cake man, but I'm still not sure which I am. I've only got a few of each under my belt (and a few that got away as well). But in the latest Cooks Illustrated, there was a recipe for a truly foolproof pie dough. The secret? Vodka. Apparently the alcohol inhibits gluten formation, but still makes the flour wet. The upside is that you have an extremely rollable dough. If this keeps up, I might find myself squarely on the side of pie in the years to come.

It's pretty sad that just two posts down from here, I'm talking about Andy walking. That's hardly news anymore. Andy is walking up a storm, even climbing up stairs. He's endlessly fascinated with being outside, and gets quite upset when he's denied. Hey, sometimes its time for a bath. And today we caught him dancing to a pirate song that was playing on the Backyardigans. He's already got more rhythm than me, that's for sure.