FHE: Canyon Shenanigans and Deep-fried Sushi

March 21, 2017 in Family Room, Out the Door

I miss the old days of blogging when everyone had a blogspot family blog with photos of everyday life, a widget full of their favorite songs that autoplayed when you opened the page, and a blogroll of their friends’ blogs. I loved discovering old friends and catching up on what they were doing through their cute pictures of family adventures. I loved it when blogs were about telling stories and sharing experiences.

Now it seems like blogging is all about pageviews, sponsored posts, affiliate links, and SEO. The family blogs were abandoned for social media. We share snapshots instead of stories, how-tos instead of here is my life, and tweets instead of time together. Can we get back to storytelling and family adventures?

We had a fantastic FHE last night. Beth and Bree are in California with their high school orchestra, so we loaded up Babs, Joy, and Chuck in the truck and headed up the canyon. I had to do some location scouting for a film I’m working on for a school project, so we made it a family affair, exploring the canyon and taking plenty of photos to bring back to my group. (Don’t we all love group projects???)

My lens was so horribly dirty that all of my photos look like this: one central spot in focus and the rest a blur from a lens completely covered in smudges. Also, the canyon is even more dead and brown than I expected. It’s a good thing I don’t have to turn in my location scouting photos.

Steve is one of the only people in the world still playing Pokemon Go, and he’s got our whole family still playing along with him. While I looked for good hammocking trees and fishing bridges with the help of Joy and Chuck, Babs and Steve searched for Bulbasaurs and Magikarps. You know they’ve gotta catch ’em all.

When I had everything I needed and Babs was out of pokeballs, it was time to find a pokestop and some food. We were up Provo Canyon and had a Riverwoods gift card, so we decided it was a great time to introduce our little sweeties to sushi at Happy Sumo. Let’s just say we don’t feel the need to go back anytime soon.

Joy is loving all things Japanese lately, even taking a Japanese class at school and creating her own manga for a class project, and she said the sushi was delicious but she wouldn’t ever order it for herself. She was content with her teriyaki beef bowl. Of course, the veggies were covered in batter and deep fried, so who wouldn’t be content with that?

Chuck tried a tiny corner of a Vegas Roll and could barely get over the idea of eating sushi to even get it to her mouth. We tried to tell her it wasn’t real sushi, but she didn’t really care that it was deep fried and delicious. She was really excited about her teriyaki chicken bowl and dipping everything into any sauce she could find – not so much about sushi.

Babs discovered she loves sweet and sour chicken as much as I do – which is not at all – and we had no idea! She even politely answered the waitress positively when asked if everything was tasting okay. It wasn’t until we were getting ready to leave that she mentioned she never needs to order that again. She was happy to end the night with ice cream to make up for the whole plate of food she ate and hated.

This is obviously not our sushi. I just really love crab won tons and couldn’t pass them up.

Am I the only one who feels like a horrible parent when my kids suffer in silence? We won the gift card that was paying for this meal, so we weren’t even spending any money. For me that’s the perfect time to try new things and not feel bad if I don’t like them, but my sweet girl was along for the ride and too nice to say anything negative. I would have happily ordered Babs something she could actually enjoy.

I’m super proud that she has learned to politely eat whatever is being served, and I really appreciate that when I spend time sweating over a hot stove to make dinner, but I wish she wasn’t silently hating the food she ordered when we were trying to do something special and fun. Even the veggies served with her meal ended up being the few veggies she hates all combined into one horrifying mix!

I keep thinking about it and wondering what I should have done to make her experience better. Pressed more when I asked how it was? Read her mind and ordered her something new? Deterred her from her menu choice because it’s something I don’t like? None of those seems like a very good option. While I don’t believe my job is to rescue her from every unpleasantness in life, I do want her to know it’s okay to speak her mind and that her needs matter.

Overall it was a fantastic night and everyone had a blast. Chuck asked if our next dining out adventure could include Mo’ Bettah’s instead, and I’ve gotta say, I agree. I’m not really a sushi fan either, but Hawaiian-style teriyaki? Yes, please.

Always,
Melanie

5 Star BBQ

April 30, 2014 in Guest Room, Out the Door

I am a carnivore, a total meat and potatoes gal. I always like a good burger and LOVE a great steak. I have a hard time serving a meal without meat and calling it dinner. Meat, meat, meat. yum

So when I was invited to an event at 5 Star BBQ in Orem, Utah, I couldn’t get the car started fast enough. Barbecue? Yes, please.

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Cute, right? The restaurant is a house that was converted. It is easy to find with plenty of parking on the side and out back. When you walk in the front door, you find this menu board full of MEAT. Love.

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And of course, there are sides and salads, platters, and kids meals, too. The prices are reasonable and the serving sizes are definitely enough to fill you. I brought along my friend, Carrie from My Recipe Confessions, and we wanted to sample as much as we could of what they had to offer, so we ordered the Burly Sampler.

Burly. That’s us.

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The nice guys behind the counter started loading up our plate… and then grabbed another one and kept right on loading it up. Mmm, I’m craving meat now.

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Our Burly Sampler was full of smoked chicken, pork, brisket, and ribs, potato salad, baked beans, stew, garlic toast, and cornbread. For 2 of us.

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A little later in the meal, we had a cup of fresh cream corn delivered to our table because they had just finished a batch.

oh. my. yum.

You probably wouldn’t expect cream corn to be the highlight of any meal, but it was seriously amazing. If you’re thinking of canned cream corn, just stop that right now. This was fresh corn with an amazing creamy sauce that was simply the perfect addition to this meal. We loved it so much, in fact, that Carrie was inspired to create her own fabulous version.

As for the rest of the sides, I always love baked beans. I wasn’t a huge fan of the stew, but I talked to another guest who loved it. It just wasn’t my thing. I’m kind of a potato salad snob, and this one wasn’t my favorite, but it was much, much better than those inedible potato salads from the grocery store.

The meat was good, although it was a bit dry. I have never found ribs that I like as much as Texas Roadhouse ribs, but these did have a good flavor. It was fun to try out the huge selection of homemade BBQ sauces. I loved the white BBQ sauce.

Overall, we enjoyed our night and had plenty of good food to fill us up. While it may not be my new favorite BBQ joint, there are definitely some dishes worth trying. Visit 5 Star BBQ for lunch or dinner Monday through Saturday. And don’t forget to try the cream corn.

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Looking at that menu, what do you want to try?

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