Tom Eppenberger Jr’s blog

Shelly’s Mom turned 60 this past Saturday, and she got quite a surprise! I was sure that someone would end up slipping, but Shelly managed to pull off a surprise party with about 25 people knowing what was going on.

This isn’t so say that everything went perfectly, because there were some “moments…” The worst was on Saturday morning when we learned that the bakery had lost our birthday cake order. It worked out great though because they had a beautiful cake for us a few hours later, and it was on the house!

Then we got to the restaurant too early, so I pretended to misread a parking sign and drove around the block an extra time before parking. Then we took the long way to the restaurant, about two extra blocks. We ended up walking into the restaurant at 2pm, or right on time.

Donna was totally shocked, we ate some good Mexican food, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. Win… win… win.

Lane was super helpful throughout. He helped Donna open her gifts, make a wish before blowing out her candles, and even managed to taste test the frosting on the birthday cake.

It was quite a memorable birthday for Donna, and I am glad that things worked out so well. You can check out all the photos from the party over on Flickr, and my Mom also posted a video from when we walked in and everyone yelled “surprise!”

On Fourth of July, rather than going out and battling the crowds (and the heat), we decided to do something that Shelly has wanted to do as a family for several weeks now… make Seitan.

What’s Seitan? From Wikipedia:

Wheat gluten, also called seitan ([ˈseɪtɑn]), wheat meat, gluten meat, or simply gluten, is a food made from the gluten of wheat. It is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as a gummy mass, which is subject to further processing.

We followed a recipe from one of our Native Foods cookbooks, and it all together took something in the ballpark of 4 hours to complete. This is not bad considering how little the ingredients cost, and how much we generally pay at Whole Foods for the pre-made stuff.

Mixing the dry goods with the sifter, kneading the dough and then finally rinsing the dough were Lane’s favorite steps. He didn’t seem to care for the process of adding water to the dry goods and making the broth.

After the dough had simmered in the broth for an hour and a half, and cooled off on a plate, we prepared our Fourth of July dinner. Lane helped me puree carrots, potatoes and turnips for a base. Shelly steamed and then pan fried asparagus spears with sesame oil. And then we pan fried some steaks made from our homemade Seitan.

Man, was this ever delicious. All the hard work throughout the day really did make the whole meal taste a lot better! And, now we have a whole bunch of Seitan on hand to use over the next few weeks! Hurray!

Yes, I’m a bit late with this post, I know.

The day started off very nicely, with an amazing brunch at Horatio’s at the San Leandro Marina. We ate very decadent stuffed french toast with strawberries, marmalade, whipped cream, etc, and a candied walnut and blue cheese salad. A much better combination than perhaps it looks.

While we planned on heading over to the Marina Park and flying Lane’s kite after brunch, the weather didn’t exactly cooperate. It was very windy, overcast and there were sporadic raindrops, so we went bowling instead.

Once we got home, it was time for both Lane and Shelly to take a nap. Not more than a half hour had passed until we got a phone call from Shantell… she told me that Ed, Shelly’s dad, had a heart attack. He was taken to the hospital in Oakdale by ambulance, and was being Medivac’d to Modesto.

He was in surgery while we drove the hour and a half out there, and then we stayed with the family in the ER waiting room for a few hours until the surgeon came out with all the news. They had inserted a stint in one of his artery’s, and he was going to be okay, but would have to have bypass surgeon down the road.

Once they moved him into a room, we got to see him for a few minutes before leaving. Lane even decided to give “Popi” one of his rubber ducks to help him feel better…

He stayed in the hospital for a few days, and has been home for about two weeks now. Plans are now underway for him to have the bypass surgery in SF at some point, but nothing is for sure that I know of.

Needless to say, this turned out to be quite the memorable Mother’s Day…

Shelly and I both had our moments of serious skepticism during the planning for Saturday, but we managed to pull it off. Brunch at our house for 6, (including my Mom, Shelly’s Mom and Shelly’s Step-Mom), and then dinner at our house for 10 (including my Step-Mom and Grandmother)… on the same day!

We were up at 8 AM cooking for the 10:30 AM brunch. The menu included Banana Walnut pancakes, scrambled eggs, potatoes, and sausage (both real and fake). Most everything went perfect, except for an early snag with the pancake batter. It was a Swedish pancake batter, and it behaved much differently than I expected. Too much water was added, and so we ended up having to use a box and a half of batter…

Lane was a total ham for all his Grandma’s during breakfast, but this is really nothing new…

After breakfast, we all retreated to the backyard, and Lane showed off his mad T-ball skills for his Grandma’s. As Lane went down for his nap, the party broke up and we began cleaning up for dinner.

The initial plan was to make a Mexican dinner, but we (very smartly) decided to get a bulk of the menu from El Torito. Chicken Enchiladas, Cheese Enchiladas, black bean, chicken and beef taquitos beans, rice, corn cake, chips, salsa, etc. For dessert, we got a Leche Cake from a bakery in Hayward.

Most everyone showed up for dinner early, for a change, and so we spent a lot of time finishing up preparing for dinner after they had arrived. No bother, we think everyone had a good time. My Uncle Bruce was down for the weekend as a (big) surprise for my Grandma, and Lane really seemed to enjoy him being there. Well, either that, or he saw it as another person to help get the balls he hit off his T-ball stand…

The weather was decent, so we all ate in the backyard, and, yes, Lane continued to show off his T-ball skills.

After the T-ball action had finished, I was eaten alive by mosquitos in the backyard while talking to my Dad. I thought I had been bitten two or three times, but this morning I awoke with 20+ bites all over my back, face and arms. Why, oh why, do bugs like to eat me so much?

In the end, the Leche cake got mixed reviews, but I sure dug it. Everything else was either finished or taken home by different people.

We all ended up huddled in the living room around our TV watching photos from our Belize trip. It was like a Simpsons episode where Selma and Patty put everyone to sleep with the slides from their most recent trip… really.

Last Thursday, Shelly picked up Lane a little early from Grandma’s house and took him bowling and then to ice cream. When she called and told me about this, I was more than just a little jealous (especially since I was sitting at a dead stop on Highway 70, two miles outside of Marysville, looking at a massive car accident that would keep me stationary for more than an hour). So, when I got home from Quincy on Thursday night (surprising Shelly and Lane a day early), I told them that I wanted to do the same thing the following day.

I took off from work early, met Shelly at Phil’s house to pick up Lane, and drove over to Castro Village Bowl! Lane was stoked…

I’ve bowled a lot in my life, but this was the very first time that I can ever remember bowling with bumpers. Now, I’m sure that I did at some point when I was a kid, knowing my Mom, but I certainly don’t remember it. While they helped Lane and Shelly both, it took until the 7th or 8th frame for me to accidentally hit them — Shelly was quite happy when it happened…

Lane really loves bowling, and is happy when the ball disappears at the end of the lane regardless of whether it knocked down any pins or not. Actually, I think that he likes it when the ball misses everything just as much as when he knocks pins down, because he gets to laugh and say “gutterball.”

I’m not sure what frame it was on, but at one point Lane had three pins remaining, and Shelly told called a spare for Lane. She was recording this, and was so focused on making sure he was on screen that she didn’t even realize he got the spare until well afterwards!

We let Lane bowl all of the balls in the last frame for all three of us, and of course he was thrilled. He actually ended up doing better with Shelly’s ball in the 10th frame than he had been with his during his turn…

It was great to ditch work early after such a hectic week, and spend an hour bowling with Shelly and Lane. I certainly need to do it more often!