Cheesy record

As we walked through the Whole Foods Market in Louisville last weekend, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of history being made. A world record was on the cusp of being etched into the record books! Yes! I saw it! I was a part of history! Are you on the edge of your seat yet? You may be wondering what world record could be broken at a grocery store.

As it turns out, throughout the month of February, Whole Foods Market was celebrating Parmigiano Reggiano. On Saturday, February 27th, they capped the celebration with an in-store grand finale to honor the tradition behind the cheese while. I don't know if anything was planned for the 28th. In all of its cheese departments at 2 p.m. EST, they broke their own world record for simultaneously cracking open hundreds of wheels of 24-month-aged Parmigiano Reggiano.

They did it, and I saw it happen! They broke their own record that they, themselves, probably created to draw attention to themselves. Bravo! What an accomplishment. The cheese wheel really is something to see, and Ari watched in amazement since it is his favorite cheese. It's the first time I have ever been present for a world record being set. My goal is to now think of some obscure accomplishment that I can do that will get me into some sort of record book. Any suggestions?

The Closest I'll Ever Get to Time Travel

Every once in a while we get to reminiscing on Friday nights. Every once in while that reminiscing leads to scouring YouTube for the theme songs to shows from our childhood. This past Friday was one of those nights. Having done this a few times in the past we really had to look in the recesses of our minds to think of shows that we had not already looked up.

It's fun to find the shows that I haven't seen or thought about since I was a child. Just seeing those intros I almost feel like I am being transported back to the days when those shows were part of my daily life. It's a little eerie. Then I wonder why I was allowed to watch so much TV when I was a kid.

The best example of this odd sensation came when I watched the opening of "Welcome to Pooh Corner" for the first time in probably over twenty years. Seeing this took me back to when I was in kindergarten. I felt as if I had just woke up, and was getting ready for school. I could even smell the cinnamon toast my mom was preparing for me. For almost two minutes, I felt like I had traveled back to the time when I was six years old. It was pretty strange. So, if any of you want to know what my mornings where like when I was in kindergarten, I posted the clip below.

The most wonderful time of the year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend. Mine was jam packed with excitement and festivities! We got things kicked off this year by having our first annual 'cousins' dinner on Wednesday evening, on the Eve of Christmas Eve, if you will. When I found out Eva was coming to town, I thought is would be fun to get as many of the Shifferli cousins together for dinner at my house. The response was great, and it turned out better than I envisioned. Nedra, Eva, Angela, Katie, Theresa, and Tim were the cousins who were able to make it.

Eva and I prepared the meal for the evening; the menu included lasagna, garlic knots, salad (prepared by Eva), and cheesecake with a berry compote for dessert (prepared by Angela). Eva and I made the lasagna noodles from scratch, as well as the ricotta cheese. We also used some homemade marinara from my tomatoes that I saved. The meal was wonderful and the company even better. We even watched Mary Ann's choir on television, so it was almost like she was with us. I wish I had pictures, but I was kind of exhausted by all the cooking and I just wanted to sit back and enjoy the evening.

The following day was Christmas Eve and we had a get-together at my mom's house in the evening. Aunt Sue and Uncle Steve were in town and we were lucky enough to celebrate Aunt Sue's birthday with her. Theresa arrived in a pink Santa hat with gifts for the kids. Ari loves his little wooden car, by the way.


Laughter was in the air.


Memories were made.

A perfect lead in for the Christmas festivities to follow.

Happy belated anniversary to me!

I'm not really trying to draw attention to myself or anything, but I just realized my blog was one year old on December 10. I didn't really have any expectations when I started posting my thoughts and musings a year ago, I was just having so much fun with my Ditalini Press posts, I wanted to do more. So, I came up with latent chestnut, and the rest is history.

I think I've done a fairly good job representing myself here. I don't think I've held back showing who I really am and what my interests are. For those of you who read my blog regularly, I'm sure you've come to realize how big of an R.E.M. and Alton Brown/cooking fan I am. Those are probably the two things I post about the most. Heck, even latent chestnut is a thinly veiled R.E.M. reference. Very thin, I might add, but I had R.E.M. in mind when I came up with the name.

I guess if there is one thing I have held back on, it would be how big of an impact the television show 'LOST' has had on me. I just don't really think I am educated enough to discuss that show here. But I do enjoy it, and I am surprised how much I have learned from the show in terms of science and different theories regarding time travel and whatnot. That show has been one heck of a great ride.

I do have a lot of interests, from Mythbusters, Nintendo, Calvin and Hobbes, quilting, as well as the occasional random observation and quandary. I thought about giving the blog more of a focus, to maybe attract more of a following, but I didn't want to make any compromises. I like how I've done things so far, and don't plan on making any changes. I just hope I don't run out of ideas, though, I will admit working in Lafayette has had kind of a negative impact on my creativity and writing, but it's getting better.

I have to say the high point of the year has to be my R.E.M. quilt post, and remhq posting a link to my blog on their website. I don't think it can get much better than that, and that's alright with me. It was also a lot of fun doing a monthly tomato update and being able to go back and see the changes the garden went through. From planting the seeds to picking the fruit, it was all here. I'll be sure to do that next year, too.

All in all, it was a wonderful first year in the world of blogging. A lot better than I expected actually. I want to say thank you to everyone who reads my posts, your feedback is really what keeps me going (the positive feedback, at least). I just hope that this next year on latent chestnut will be at least half as good as the first.

Boundin'

ABC Family was broadcasting a two hour block of Pixar shorts the other day, and I decided to save it to our DVR because I thought Ari and Emilie would like watching them. What caught my eye initially was the "Cars Toon" shorts starring Mater and Lightning. I thought Ari would be thrilled with some new Cars material to feast his eyes on. What I didn't know was that there would be so many other gems hidden within those two hours of television. I was quite taken with "Boundin'", both for the animation style and the story that was told. I like it so much, I thought it would be a nice touch here on ol' latent chestnut for those of you who may not have already seen it. Enjoy!

How I spent my Halloween

It was Friday, October 30, 2009, and I had just finished churning my pumpkin ice cream. When I opened the freezer door to place the ice cream container inside, I noticed a little frost on some of the apple juice concentrates. I paid no mind to my observation thinking Ari just closed the refrigerator door too hard and the freezer door popped open a little bit. It happened all the time, so I casually closed the freezer door and went about my business.

A few hours later, I checked on the ice cream to see if it had hardened at all. Nope, it was still soft, but the frost was gone from the apple juice, so everything seemed fine. Later on that night, as I put the finishing touches on the jack-o-lantern cake, I checked the ice cream again. Huh? Still not firm? What's going on? I noticed the freezer wasn't all that cold and I picked up an apple juice concentrate and it was completely liquid on the inside. It was then that I realized the freezer had stopped working.

Luckily, our old refrigerator was in the basement in fine working order; so Valerie and I hauled all of our frozen items into the downstairs freezer for safekeeping. I then checked the upstairs refrigerator to make sure it was still working and it everything looked good. A little after eleven o'clock that night, I got a sinking feeling that something wasn't right. I checked the refrigerator again and the butter was a little soft. I took the temperature of the refrigerator and it was fifty-something degrees. Not good. So, Valerie and I hauled the refrigerated items downstairs as well.

My dad was in town for the weekend and he was over the next morning for breakfast. Pa was there as well and they both looked at it and thought that it was most likely the compressor that failed. Valerie and I were at a crossroads. Should we look into getting it fixed or should we just go out and buy a new refrigerator like we had been wanting to? Of course, by now I'm sure you already assume we decided to get a new one; because, why would I be writing about getting a repair? You know?

So, Valerie, my dad, Mary Lee, and I all went around town that afternoon hunting for a new refrigerator while Angela volunteered to stay at our house with Stephen and the kids. We found one we liked at Sam's right off the bat, but still went to several other stores to see what we could find. We ended up getting the one at Sam's because we really liked the refrigerator and we really couldn't beat the price. Our next dilemma, how would we get the refrigerator back to the house?

Valerie called her dad and he wasn't able to help, so she then called Kyle; who is the proud owner of Marty's old truck. He graciously accepted our desperate pleas for help, and met us at Sam's a little after five o'clock. After finally figuring out how to get the refrigerator out of Sam's club (there were four employees trying to help), we strapped it in the bed of the truck and headed home. Looking back, it was quite naive of me to think we would have it unloaded and installed before trick-or-treating, but I thought it nonetheless.

So, we got the old refrigerator out of the kitchen, and then managed to somehow get the new one in. I really need to think about getting a hand truck, by the way. It was a real team effort and it is times like these when I realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful family. I sadly missed trick-or-treating with the kids, and I'm sure it wasn't he Halloween my dad, Mary Lee, Stephen or Kyle were planning on having, but they were there when I needed them without giving it a second thought.

The refrigerator really looks great and it matches the stove perfectly. We ideally wanted a refrigerator with French doors on top and a pull out freezer door, but those were way out of our price range. I am very happy with the one we got, though, and the freezer is a lot bigger than our old one. Perfect for housing all the meat and sausage I've been grinding. Valerie is quite happy with it too, and she didn't waste any time getting it decorated with all of our magnets and pictures. What a day.