Siblinghood of the Traveling Socks

Summer is finally here! Well…almost.  I still have to get through finals but I am hanging in there. For the rest of you who will not be studying physics as if your lives depended on it this weekend, enjoy the sun! Go to the beach, eat some ice cream, take a walk in the park.  I don’t know, whatever cliché summer activities you can think of, enjoy them.  And what a perfect time to buy a bag: big enough to hold your towel, sunglasses, sunscreen (that’s right nobody wants to get burned), and other extraneous items you like to carry; durable enough to spend time at the beach and still look brand new; available in wonderful summery colors.  You know you’re tempted…

So this week I am going to tell you about a strange tradition.  My brother Jake left yesterday morning to start an internship in Washington D.C.  So we all had our heartfelt goodbyes and hugs and kisses and all that, and we were sad to see him go.  But then this morning I woke up to a wonderful surprise.  No, Jake did not decide to stay home.  It’s even better.  I opened my backpack and found the infamous Hanukah socks.

Let me rewind so you can understand the significance of these socks.  Jake and I have never been good at getting each other nice Hanukah gifts.  We would always go to the temple when the Hanukah sale opened for a day and I would buy him candy, something I thought was a nice gift even though it really did not taste good.  But for three years straight, Jake bought me Hanukah socks.  They say Mazeltoes! on the tag and are either blue or white, decorated with Jewish stars.  I don’t think I have to tell you, but they are not exactly my cup of tea.  So every year I would eagerly tear open the wrapping on his gift, hoping for something good, and immediately deflate upon spying that cursed blue and white fabric. 

On the third year (I must have been 12 at this point) I confronted him about it.

“Jake, why do you always get me these stupid socks?”

“It’s a nice gift. You should appreciate my generosity!”

“Jake they are ugly and I checked the price tag. $2.50.”

“Stop being so greedy!”

*Standing up at this point
“I always get you a nice gift!  And you buy me these ugly socks!”

“You get me the same thing every year!”

“At least it’s better than those socks…”

So I saved the socks.  All of them.  And tied them together with a white ribbon.  He left for college, and in the fall of his freshman year we visited him.  I left the socks in his closet. He brought them home and hid them in my room.  When he left again after winter break, I slipped them into his bag moments before he departed.  I thought I had done a good job, but he beat me with the next one.  For my birthday, he put the socks in the box with my gift.  I had to give him credit for that one, but my most recent handoff was the all-time best. I mailed him a snuggie for his birthday, and hidden in the bottom of the box were the socks.  That was in January.  Needless to say, they had slipped my mind.  Until this morning, when I found them in my backpack.  Since the socks have never actually touched human feet, the only traveling they will ever do is back and forth between Jake and I. 

-Emma 

Kitchen Confidential

This week I am here to tell you about something very special, very close to my heart.  Something that has been there through times of sadness and celebration, something that has brought people together for years.  No, I am not exaggerating.  This something is magical.  I am talking about the snickers brownies.  Now I know what you are thinking.  Brownies? Some chocolate, flour, salt (this is why I am such an awful cook).  But how good can they be?  Think again.  These brownies may not be technically difficult or earth shattering, but something about them is sublime. 

Though the recipe was entrusted to my mom by David’s mom, Aunt Laura, the snickers brownies are my mom’s go-to dessert.  But only for other people. Give them as gifts, bring them to parties, cookie exchanges, recitals.  You get the jist.  But the unspoken rule is that they are NEVER made just to eat in our house. She even made an entire tray for my dad's brother, Uncle Steven, and he will never forget it.  My mom will make an entire batch and I will ask her to leave just one or two at home, but no.  That would “mess up the presentation”.  So as you can imagine, my dad, Jake, and I get pretty excited when the opportunity to eat one of these bad boys arises.

This week was a week of the snickers brownies.  So we were pretty giddy.  First up was Mrs. Musselman’s retirement party.  I have never known anybody who loves these brownies more than Mrs. Musselman, Jake's and my fourth grade teacher.  My mom used to make them for her as a holiday present each year, and she would go crazy for them.  She once told my mom that she hid them under her desk and was momentarily paralyzed when a student said she smelled chocolate.  But she made it out without giving away the secret location.  Phew.  So it was fitting that my mom should bring them to her retirement party.  No wonder Jake volunteered to go along.

Next was my solo recital for clarinet.  Everyone waits until the last performer before heading into the hall for a reception.  And though we all like to think that we are slick, it is obvious that everyone is anxiously eyeing the treats by the time the second performer steps up.  The brownies tend to be a hit at these concerts, and if you listen closely you can always hear somebody saying,

“Have you tried those brownies? With the caramel on top? They are delicious!” 

I’m not making this up.  I have heard it several times.

So what is it that makes these brownies so special?  My mom, David, and I tried to figure it out at Thanksgiving this year.   We could not pinpoint the appeal.  Was it the mix of salty and sweet?  The density? The moistness? The chocolate chips? They all contributed, but none was the prime seller.  David, however, looked at it from an engineer’s perspective.

“It is the way that the chocolate chips are suspended in the brownies.”

That was it!  That was our answer.  Leave it to David to solve the appeal of a brownie with physics.

So to all of you whose mouths are watering right now (I know mine is) this week is for you.  For everyone who buys a bag this week, we will enclose the secret recipe for the snickers brownies.  Don’t try to figure it out by yourself, you won’t and you might get hurt.  So if you are considering a bag and have a secret addiction to chocolate, this is your lucky week!  

-Emma

You Say Tomato...

Funny story about last week.  As you all know, it was Mother’s Day last Sunday.  So, being the wonderful daughter that I am, I went to get my mom flowers.  And because I know my mom so well, I bought her favorite roses: the orange ones with the reddish tips.  I gave them to her and she was happy and loved them and all that, but here’s the best part.  She had gotten me the same ones! You see, I am a dancer and I had shows all of last weekend.  After the final one on Sunday afternoon, my mom handed me the roses, and we just burst out laughing.  It was too perfect.  Which got me thinking.

My mom and I are a strange pair, let me tell you.  We are both ridiculously similar and different.  Let me start with the differences.  Number one: Cleanliness.   I am very clean when it comes to hygiene and all that good stuff, but I am something of a pack rat, and… I don’t want to admit it…a messy person.  Not like I spill on myself or have stains on my clothes (Ew!) but I leave things EVERYWHERE.  And this year it has gotten worse.  On Sunday nights I pick up all the clothes on my bedroom floor and hang them up, but Monday the buildup starts.  It starts with a few T-shirts next to the closet, then the jeans, slippers, socks, sweat pants, dresses, outfits that I thought would look good but realized I didn’t want to wear five minutes before leaving for school, and by Sunday night my mom is walking by saying “You’re room is disgusting.”  I think that is a little harsh.  Bacteria under the bed is disgusting.  But some clothes? Not that bad…right? 

My mom, on the other hand, is the shoe Nazi.  She has this no-shoes-in-the-house policy, and I swear she can hear the sound of rubber soles hitting tile from miles away.  She could be drifting in and out of sleep upstairs in her room when my dad comes home from work and she will sit up and yell, “Paul! Take your shoes OFF!”  Once she was out of town and my dad and I told her that we were running around the house in our shoes, having a shoe party, sleeping in our shoes.  I think she almost had a heart attack. 

But let’s get to the similarities. And at times, it scares me how similar we are.  Exhibit A: the roses.  We both love orange roses, and our favorite flowers are gerber daisies.  But it gets weirder.  Our favorite shoe store is called City Soles, and we both have a weakness for Chie Miharas.  So one day we were at the shoe store and I picked up a pair of flats.

“I love these!”

“I already have those…”

But I bought them anyways.  We are just extra careful to never wear them on the same day.  We really have the same style in general.  Over the summer, she decided to clean out her closet, and I gladly took handfuls of shirts and jackets to my room. And those just add to the belts that I have already stolen.  And the dresses that I borrow.  And the shoes that I wish I could fit into. And the jewelry that I admire…oh lord.  

But one thing that we have the EXACT same style in is bags.   So when my mom started the business, and she was designing, the two of us would sit there cutting strips of vinyl and piecing together color palettes.  And what did we end up with?  The fabulous bags that are right here on this blahg!


-Emma

Chevre

Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there! Maybe some of you lucky ones will be receiving very cute tote bags…

So for all of you who love goats and cheese, you might appreciate this story as much as I do.  My mom loves goat cheese more than anyone I have ever met.  She loves it so much that she has dreamt up a fantasy career in the cheese business.  Mind you, the cheese-making mom comes second to the tote bag-making mom, but the fact that she has taken the time to think this through is proof enough that she really does love goat cheese.

My mom woke me up this morning with a funny story about her fantasy cheese business that, until this morning, I knew absolutely nothing about.  Here is how it went:

“So you remember my fantasy artisinal goat cheese making business?”

“No”

“You know, with the cute labels and the goat in the back yard?”

“Still, no”

So she explained it.  A friend had asked her that morning how the blog was going, and she said that it was going well, but that she always had her fantasy artisinal goat cheese business to fall back on if it didn’t work out. She could just have the goat live in our back yard and graze on our grass.  And as we all know, Chicago really is the prime location for goat farming.  Anyways, her friend asked:

“How many goats would you need? How many goats does it take to make enough cheese to sell?”

“Oh, just one.  I think one would be enough.”

“What about during the winter?”

“Oh, the goat could just live in Jake’s room.  You know, lay down some sod and the goat’s happy.”

My mom went on to explain the cute labels and packaging that this endeavor would call for.  When she mentioned that part of the process, it all made sense.  Because for the first part of this story I had been a bit confused.  You see, my mom HATES pets.  I really mean it.  For about a week my brother and I were each allowed to have a snail, cleverly named Jake and Emma (though we never did decide which snail was which), until my mom made the executive decision to free them into the DesPlains river.  I was crushed, to say the least.  Probably so were the snails shortly thereafter.  She also had veto power over my brother, my dad, and me when we begged her for a dog for years.  We lost that battle. 

So here she is talking about her cheese-machine goat in the back yard.  I was confused, because I for one was not going to be taking care of the goat.  And then she explained the cute packaging and labels, and I knew that her draw to the cheese business had nothing to do with cheese, but the presentation of the cheese.  So everything was clear.   And after all that, the whole elaborate story, my mom’s friend asked:

“Do you have to kill the goat to make the cheese?”

She obviously had no experience in goat milking.  Once again, Oak Park is not exactly life on the farm. 

So I’ll give you a heads up when you should be expecting extra-cute goat cheese in a super market near you.  And you can bring it home in your tote bag. 


-Emma

Rhymes With Log...

This day has been looming in the back of our minds for weeks now: David is leaving.   That’s right, our tech support is going to work in California for the summer, which means that we are going to have to outsource to the West Coast for our technology issues from now on. 

On a happier note, we have received some pictures.  On the left is David.  Where would we be without David?  Susan strikes a pose on the right.  No, not my mom, the other Susan. She is modeling the Argyle Tote Bag in Candy. So fabulous!

The next is my mom’s friend Robin, who is sporting the Argyle Tall Tote in Mint.  She shows that the bags are great when you are on the go!  (I know, shameless pitch).  The car costs extra.

 

The fourth is my Aunt Laura, David’s mom.  She poses with the Argyle Tote Bag in Mint.  And the last is Aunt Laura and Rex.  Let’s be honest, the superstar in that photo is Rex.  I know he looks a little upset, but I swear he is always beaming in the holiday card. He sits comfortably in the Horizon Tote Bag in Twilight. 

*    *    * 

My mom called my Grandma this week to see if she and my Grandpa had looked at the blog yet.  Keep in mind that my Mom emailed them the address weeks ago.  Apparently the pronunciation “blahg” is genetic, because when my Grandma says blog it sounds more like “blaaaaaahhhhhhhhg”.  I was sitting next to my mom in the car listening to the conversation (starting with my Grandma).

“We don’t have email in California.”

“What do you mean? Do you have internet?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have email.”

 “Oh.  Well how do I get to it?”

“w-w-w-dot-t-h-e-t-o-t-e-b-a-g-c-h-r-o-n-i-c-l-e-s-dot-b-l-o-g-s-p-o-t-dot-c-o-m”

“ok so blaaaaaahhhhhhg spot?”

“No blog.  It rhymes with log.  Blog. Log.”

“Log. Blog. Got it.”

Like I said.  It’s genetic.  Lucky for me I seem to be the exception to the rule.

-Emma