Archive for January, 2008

Foot

Saturday, January 19th, 2008


infant baby foot

We’ve hardly left the house after coming home from the hospital. Cheyenne’s milk came in on day 4 and Ronin can’t get enough. She also can’t seem to poop enough. Crap… this kid can go through diapers. In fact, just a minute ago, she soiled 3 before we could even get it changed. We were allowing her to air dry before closing up the next couche when she made a classic fountain. he he. We waited a minute to make sure she was done before cleaning her up again. I put a clean one under her and turned around to wash my hands when… poooooooooop. Silly girl. We gave her a chance to finish the job before starting again, but she made another fountain during the dry cycle.


2 days old

Wednesday, January 16th, 2008

baby ronin coxwell


Welcome to Earth, Podling

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Ronin and Cheyenne

Ronin was born yesterday, the 13th, at 12:24 in the afternoon. She’s 7 lbs 9 ozs and 20″ long with a full head of hair and a healthy colon.

I’ll leave the birth story for Cheyenne to tell…


Leaves on Paper

Thursday, January 10th, 2008


Trai Au

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

Trai Au Bull Head

I found these in the produce section of Fubonn and had to have them. Of course, I had no idea what they were or what to do with them, but I trust in the powers of the world wide internet to see me through. At only $1.48/lb they’re a bargain even if they just end up as part of my voodoo death necklace. The label identifies them as “Bull Head / Trai Au.”

Trai Au Bull Head Fubonn supermarket produce label

Clearly a Vietnamese name but google wasn’t all that helpful. We see two results in English and several in Vietnamese. I can’t read the latter and none of them look like recipes anyway so I concentrated on the former. One blogger also found them at Fubonn and didn’t have many hard facts to offer. The other found them at a market in Vietnam. He claims that the market lady told him that they were Trai Au and explained that they were Lotus Roots. Obviously he misunderstood. I know a lotus root when I see it and these things aren’t the least bit root like. I think they are thorns because they resemble the ant infested thorn bushes we fought our way through while hiking on Isla Providencia.

Cheyenne and I have prowled the markets of Vietnam ourselves and don’t recall having seen anything like it. Either they were out of season or they aren’t too common. Of course, we could have missed them while we were distracted by the live scorpions or the imitation cockroach extract (I kid you not, it’s called Ca Cuong).

Trai Au Bull Head cracked open

They turn out to be pretty hard to get open. Forget about doing it by hand because of those spiky ends. A hammer works well but it doesn’t seem possible to remove the meat in one piece. I hit them until they break open then pry the insides out with a knife.

They are bland and mostly tasteless but very slightly bitter with the texture of mature coconut meat. I still don’t know what to do with them. It doesn’t seem worth the effort to eat them as nuts and I can’t imagine cooking with them either.


Cheyenne Weil, Joshua Coxwell