A solstice party

I've been casting around for years now trying to land on a tradition for the solstice and I think we've found one. . .this year we had our own spiral in the yard.  It combined the best of everything for me, candle light and homemade lanterns, outdoors at night, fire, neighbors, school families and kids running around, all of it.

We set it up as an open house so people could come and go.  We served soup and bread and a few other snacks and people brought sweets to share.  The spiral was beautiful and fun.  We had a nice fire on the back patio and people sat out and watched the spiral, and watched the fire, and ate soup, and stayed late, and the rain held off.  So, now we have it: winter solstice garden spiral and fire.  See you next year.  

Mommy, what are we going to do with all these leaves?

Well, small one, we're not going to do anything with the leaves, but the stems, we're going to cook with sugar and lime juice and then we're going to add rosewater. 

That's right, we made rhubarb and rosewater syrup recently.  It tastes great and is really beautiful; sorry I didn't think to take a picture during daylight.  I mix it with sparkling water.  Except now it has turned cold and rainy again so I'm thinking of mixing it with hot chamomile tea.  Seriously. 

This rhubarb plant is an amazing thing.  Someone gifted it to me about 3 years ago, all of two and a half small leaves and completely wilted.  It was an 80 degree day in August.  Not transplanting weather.  But, into the ground it went with a bag of compost and a bucket of water and now, well, it has taken over the front corner of the yard.  It is sending up flower stalks for the second year in a row and they are at least six feet high.  Another thing that should be photographed in daylight.

Liam has a cold.  A cough that I hoped was on the way out this morning seems to be, instead, settling in.   Poor small thing, he was asleep by 7:00 tonight.  He desperately wants one of his school friends to come over and play tomorrow afternoon and "stay for dinner, please, mommy, please, please call her mommy and ask" and it would be fine with me except I'm not sure he is going to be up to it.  I'm trying to steer this energy towards Pizza Friday in hopes he'll be rested and better by then.

We suffered the death of one wooly-bear caterpillar this weekend and are now trying hard to take better care of the second one.  Pets that live in jars are so not my thing.

Hammock

We've had two and a half (So far!) sunny days in a row, and Liam's babysitter is on vacation for the first part of this week so I've been spending afternoons at home.  Makes me want to work part time.  If only.

Yesterday afternoon we got an old hammock out of the garage and strung it up in the rhododendron tree.  Well, the vegan strung it up, I offered commentary and mostly watched.  Liam jumped up and down and demanded that it be higher, higher, higher.

Then Liam was introduced to the joys of swinging in a hammock.  Which he took to immediately.  I am of the gentle rocking hammock people.  Liam, not so much.  His favorite thing was to be spun unceremoniously out of the hammock onto the ground.  "Again!" he says.  Again.

Climbing trees and making nests

Liam is up in the rhododendron tree every chance he gets these days.  Just like always.  I'm glad that Will and I worked out some tree climbing rules early and I've managed to stick with them.  When we first got this house that tree was all over and on top of the front porch.  I think Will spent three weeks every day working on it, carefully, carefully pruning out old wood, watching the shape emerge, bringing it back. 

It is at least 70 years old, that tree.  In the earliest photo of our 110 year old house that I've tracked down so far, it is a little shrub by the porch.  You see these same rhododendron trees a few places in the neighborhood, and in the city park at the top of the hill.  It's neat to think of them all being planted about the same time 70 odd years ago. 

Liam likes to pull off the little sucker branches and toss them to the ground (He was very excited to learn this used to be his father's job, and he takes performing it very seriously.)  He also is building little nests, in hopes birds will move in.  Thursday night I climbed up the tree to take a picture of one of the nests and he could not believe that a mommy could climb a tree. Funny.

In a month or two it will bloom and be full, full of light purple flowers and buzzing bees.

Besides Easter, we're determined to get some more peas in the ground this weekend.  And I need to finish some sewing that must be wrapped up by Monday, and hopefully visit the farmers market, just opened for the season.

Sunny and Starry

This is the smile of a person who wonders if her shoes will ever be the same, and has found that somehow she actually is going through with getting two (Two!) chickens.  And these are the arms of a person who has wanted chickens ever since he realized they existed and (might) be a possibility.

Sunny and Starry came from a lovely little farm (Four and a half acres that must be right up against the city limits, not 5 minutes from town; made me want to sell something and start house looking right away.) which also had about 50 blueberry bushes, a big lavender patch, a huge vegetable garden, the kind you till with a tractor, goats, pigs, and, of course, chickens.  The chicken people used to live on our street, and come to the neighborhood after-Christmas party as alumni.  When we saw them this year they let slip about the availability of the chickens, and we've been speeding towards them ever since.

Chickens, it turns out, do not really want to stay in a cardboard box, and if you don't hold it tightly closed they will jump out.

Once home the chickens were installed in the lovely coop and hen house (Mollie's re-purposed dog house) that Auntie Chris made for them.  This deserves its own post and photos; if it ever stops raining.

So far Sunny and Starry have yet to learn to use the chicken ramp to get back into their hen house, but I'm sure they'll get it pretty soon.  We're still waiting on eggs, but in the meantime we have enjoyed lots and lots of "chicken TV" staring at them out the dining room window --- grooming, pecking, scratching, resting, hopping, grooming some more. 

Liam was totally, entirely beside himself.  Last night he was actually in tears; he told me he loves the chickens so much.  "Oh thank you Mommy. . .thank you. . .thank you for the chickens."  Well, you're welcome small one, I read on the inter-webs that pet chickens can live 8-10 years, luckily they're already starting to grow on me too.

We have snow

We have some snow.  About 15 inches at the house, I think, give or take.  It mostly fell overnight and is mostly fixing to melt right now.  I'm hoping for more like 10 inches in the morning and more like none by Friday; it's supposed to be almost 40 degrees here tomorrow. 

Snow is fun until you get too cold; or too wet; or too sick of being inside trying to work with a 4 year old doing Lego projects rated for 6 year olds.  (Sample dialogue: "Look at the picture. . .what pieces do we need to make it look like the picture?  Okay. . .how do they go together?  Do you want to take a break?  No?  Okay.  Let's look at the picture.")  Eventually a helicopter and a sea plane were accomplished.  And crashed. 

We drank hot chocolate.  I worked by conference call.  We dug out two cars but didn't drive anywhere.  Texted back and forth with the vegan who lives in the hills and has lots more snow than us. (Sample: "Hey - what are you doing?" "Sweeping snow off the porch, what are you doing?" "Shoveling snow off the roof."  Okay then.)  Auntie Chris made dinner.

We walked up the hill to the school to go sledding.  When your child gets too cold to put his (wet) mittens back on without crying and you decided it is time to pull him home downhill on the sled, sometimes you have to run to keep up.  We have some snow.  Lovely.

Ready for peas

The pea brush is up; it needs a little filling in here or there, but it's basically ready.  And the ground is roughed up and compost added.  December was so dry that I was even able to work the soil enough to get a little weeding done.  Liam loves to help with the pea brush, but will weed for only about 10 minutes.  He pulled some carrots and then played a complicated pretend game involving trucks.  If there is a better way to spend new years day, I don't know it. 

We won't plant until February or early March.  This year, I think we'll grow Avalanche, again; we have a small growing space, so productivity is important.  It was slow to start last year but once it came on, it went great.  I'm toying with the idea of growing it on the new-this-year wire front fence too.  Is it possible to have too many peas? I don't think so.

Happy new year everyone!

Blocks from sticks

I told the vegan that I thought it would be nice to have some of these natural-style blocks for Liam.  (Actually, I think I might have said: Would you make them? I can't figure out how to turn on the chop saw.  Which is true, I can't; but I will learn some day.)  So today he stopped at the house on his way home from working and chop, chop: 100-year-ish old azalea wood from the bush I cut out in front of the house last weekend is now a bucket of blocks.  

Liam picked through the branches to find the ones were big enough ends for blocks, and he watched (from a distance) the operation of the chop saw.  Tried to catch the blocks as they were tossed out of the garage.  Was thrilled to wear his own hearing protection.  And he occasionally offered instruction on whether the blocks should be big or small, and how many should be cut from any given stick.  Said "Oh. . .thank you!" for virtually every block.  At the end, he also wanted some blocks to paint, so a 2x4 was cut up. 

Then all the blocks came inside and Liam made a forest. 

I had thought blocks like this would be a nice birthday present for Liam, but now he's going to receive some beeswax or wood oil or something like that, and a little tin and a soft rag so he can finish his own blocks.  (I have been told by the block maker that they are "just fine" the way they are, but I like the idea of Liam being able to finish them.)

See Liam's open hands in the picture?  So relaxed.  He gets that from his father.  I am a fidget-er and tend to have something in my hands always, or close them and put them under me.  Liam has this easy way of being still that came with his wiring and I hope he keeps forever. 
 

Outdoor Play Kitchen

Stay home day today -- so when not trying to shoe-horn in work, Liam and I:

• Picked up the dog at the kennel, because I got stuck at the office late yesterday and forgot, that's right, forgot to go get her after work.  When driving home Liam was nattering about moving his railroad track to somewhere where Mollie wouldn't knock it over and I said "crap, I forgot to get Mollie" and pulled over and called the kennel.  No harm done.  She loves it there; they take her on trail walks every morning.  I guess we're officially looking for a new home for the dog.  She's just too much for me. And I'm not a dog person.  I'd like her to have a family that is more dog-oriented.  Hear that universe? 
• Oil-changed the car.  Finally.
• Grocery shopped, except I have already thought of things I forgot.
• Went to the old house (now rented) and checked things over since the renters are moving out, and measured two of the windows that had lost their seal and are still under warranty from the great house remodel of 2002.  Sent the measurements away to where they needed to go. 
• Had the neighbor boy over to play for about an hour -- trains, airplanes, garbage trucks, cranes! 
• Made this small, mud-pie outside play "kitchen" and broke it in.  No sawing required (or at least none done).
• Made cinnamon rolls (unrelated to the above and inside, in the real kitchen); still working on perfecting the whole wheat version.
• Got Liam's hair cut -- at the neighbor's, she cuts his hair (and mine) she's great.  (Photos are from before the haircut.)

All I can say is: Ta-Da!  Day over.  Back to work tomorrow.

Raspberry patch

 

In process but making progress.  A few weeks ago Shane (of pizza Fridays) and Liam put in the posts.  Today we went to my old house (now rented) and dug up some raspberries, brought them home, and planted them.  Done and done.  Fingers crossed.  Liam calls it the raspberry trap.

Apple Trap

 I'm trying to get just a little, tiny bit more serious about the food production here in the yard this year.  This means getting the garden in on time for a change (even though Spring has yet to cooperate in any way) and working on the apple tree.  (Also raspberries have been almost organized, more on that some other time.)

The apple tree.  What to say.  It's lovely.  It's huge (taller than the house).  It's over a 100 years old.  (The house is 110-ish, this year.)  It makes a ton of apples, all of them inedible and infested with various bugs.  So this year, a hard pruning.  (Thanks Ananda!)  And, "apple traps" as Liam likes to call them.  Red plastic "apples" painted with something that seems to be basically Vaseline and hung in the tree as soon as the flowers start to come out.  Check, check, check.  Fingers crossed.

After one apple traps, one swings, of course.

May Day

Please excuse the crummy photo, taken with my (also crummy) cell phone. 

Today Liam and I came home (late, I had a work dinner) to May baskets on the front porch.  So. Very.  Sweet.  Did you do that when you were a kid?  Make May baskets?  We did and ran them all around the neighborhood every year.  So, Liam learned the May Basket Song, and I had the following conversation with our across the street neighbor when I went out to get the mail and he was getting in his car to go somewhere.

(Shouted, in a neighborly way.)

Me:  Hey!  Do we have you to thank for our May Baskets?
Him: May Baskets?  Don't look at me.
Me: Really?
Him: Wait? Small baskets of flowers? I might have heard something about that. You ring the doorbell and run?
Me: Exactly, it's good practice for all kinds of things.  Thank you.

I love my neighborhood.  I am so blessed and lucky and thankful to live here, with these good people all around me.

Dandilions

A day of almost no rain today.  Astounding.  We've been breaking all records for cold and rain.  It has been rain, rain, rain, rain.  Serious rain, the kind that falls as snow in the mountains one moment, and on snow in the mountains the next; and causes lowland flooding.  

Despite this, we have peas, kale, fava beans, shallots, romaine lettuce, and carrots up in the garden.  Strawberries putting on the green.  Rhubarb looking huge and bright and prehistoric.  The season changes despite itself.

And today clouds but no real rain until now, and a very slow walk to the park, filled with dandelion after dandelion until my pockets were stuffed.  And Liam said "Mommy!  Where did all these pretty flowers come from?  Where?"  And I said they came for the spring sweet boy, they mean it's finally coming on to be spring.

The garden is up; the fence is down

Peas planted three weeks ago at least, before the snow and then the flood and then the weeks of rain, sleet and hail, those peas are sprouted.  And the kale too.  Still no sign of the shallots or fava beans, but I'm hopeful.  Optimism and willingness to work in the rain are the two most important qualities for successful gardening in the maritime NW as far as I can tell.

The second lift of peas went in this weekend.  (Sounds so huge, it is only really two more short rows, about four feet each, the width of the raised beds.)  Carrots went in too.  Romaine.  More kale.  Planted by Liam and me on the first sunny day in ages, and slept their first sleep under the biggest full moon one could wish for.  Beets and other lettuces will follow soon.  Summer broccoli.  And we'll go on that way for a while until June when maybe it will be warm enough for the pole beans to go in and the basil.  In July I'll get tomato transplants from the Farmer's Market, and maybe a hot pepper or two.

Liam found some side-shoots from the overwintered purple-sprouting broccoli when he was helping me plant.  He was so excited to eat it raw from the garden; purple broccoli was a revelation.  It was a beautiful purple, but none of the pictures came out.

Just before the great snow, yes, before, I started a somewhat misguided front-garden-wall-replacement-project.  The fence did not survive the great melt/flood/deluge and collapsed into the back excavation for the new wall, so now it has become a wall and fence replacement project.  I got into this sideways when the north side neighbor mentioned that the fence line zigged when it ought to be straight and it should be fixed in a way that would give me four more feet of sun.  Four feet of sunny front yard perfect for blueberries?  Okay, I can get comfortable with that.  Except the elevation difference between my place and her's is about three feet in the front.  So, the side wall needed to be moved.  And it is, of course, attached to the front wall.  So I think, if we're going to get into this we should do it right and just replace the whole crooked, cinder-block wall mess with something that will look decent.  Thus began the total replacement of the wall; and now the fence too.  Note to self: leave things well enough alone already.

It has been too wet and rainy to get the wall in right for most of the past two weeks, but Friday's half dry day started real progress again and I'm cautiously hopeful that they might wrap it up this week.  Liam is very much enjoying watching all this unfold, from the big truck with detachable forklift that delivered the blocks, to the wall digging and progress, to, especially, the mud pit that used to be our parking strip. 

Happy first day of spring; we are ready for it around here, that's for sure.

Snow!

So, we finally got some snow and have been busy making the most of it.  It snowed a little Wednesday night, then all morning Thursday, and on and off the rest of the day.  About 5 or 6 inches altogether.  Today dawned really, really sunny and cold, with schools (and therefore daycare) canceled again. 

Liam's first thought on getting outside yesterday was, apparently, "Snow Angel!"  Mine was some version of, "Oh my God, you couldn't pay me enough to lie down in that snow."  So, our first and last snow of the winter and I think we got it all done: snow angels, check; pulling the sled up hill to the elementary school where the sledding is, check; sledding, check; snow person making, check; snow ice cream making, also check (Liam: "Mommy, can I just have regular ice cream?"); catching snowflakes on face and tongue, check; snow shoveling, check; dog going crazy in snow, check; Liam pretending to be the dog going crazy in snow, also check; stare at the garden and say a prayer for the peas, kale and fava beans planted less than a week ago, check; wet snow stuff all over the kitchen, check, check, check.

As of tonight we're grateful to be tucked up safely warm and dry (well, as warm as a drafty 110-year old house with original windows gets, which is to say: wearing sweaters but not sleeping in hats), preparing for tomorrow's forecast: big thaw.  To apparently be followed by big rain.  And then, doubtless, big mud.

Liam doesn't care for hot chocolate (this is so strange I don't even know what else to say about it), but I promise I have consumed enough for both of us.  I miss Will all the time, but acutely when we have days like this: when I get to experience a little peak of what snow is like to someone who still wants to lie down in it and make snow angels.

The pea brush is in

Pea brush -- waiting for peas.  It's still very wet and we've had ten days of on and off frosts (but nothing too deep) with more expected this week.  Even though I chipped ice off the hummingbird feeder this morning the seeds could probably go in now, but I'll wait just a little while longer.   Shallots went in today; that was enough.   Peas will go in next week, and favas too this year.  Followed quickly by carrots, the studier lettuces, kale, chard, nasturtiums.  So much goes in in the early spring here that it seems there will be nothing left to plant in summer; but of course there will be.  In the meantime, we have one more overwintered collard plant to eat, and a few measly shoots from the purple broccoli, which may be too wet and bug-y to bother with.   The normal routines of the garden are a comfort; happens pretty much the same, pretty much every year.  It tithes to the past even as it looks fundamentally to the future. 

Liam and I went to the "flower store" (garden center) and got him kid-sized gardening gloves.  He is so proud to pull weeds, use the big loppers to cut the pea brush (with help and close watching, of course), and put the brush in the ground.  He is very excited about his new gloves "just like mommy's," except mine don't have race cars or some kind of creature from the Toy Story franchise on them, thank God.  What is it with kids stuff, why is it (almost) all the way it is?   We also got some primrose and pansies for the pots, and a small shamrock plant for inside.  Liam carefully supervised the placement of each one, and then watered them within an inch of their lives. 

Somehow I have begun to sort through books.  This is not something I planned to do, it just started.  I think Will must have had 500 books, maybe more.  I'm not great at these kinds of estimates.  Four or five tall, wide bookcases full, at least.  This on top of my books.  Even thought I managed to weed through the duplicates  (there were many) when we combined households, there are still lots of books in every room.  This isn't a bad thing, of course, but they're not particularly organized in any way.  And except for the obvious stuff there's a lot I don't even really know what's there.

It's a hard thing and sad.  Will resisted sending any book out of the house, under any circumstance.  But, there is just so much that I'm not sure I want.  The entire canon of what I think of as grim, despondent, somewhat disturbing fiction. . .everything by Delillo, everything by Chuck Palahniuk, Cormac McCarthy, those really sad Danish authors who's names I can't spell.  Everything by that guy who wrote Trainspotting.  And more and more I've never heard of but suspect by looking that it would be grim.  Or worse.  And it goes one from there.  A giant, stack of Murakami.  A giant stack of Pynchon.  A shelf and more of Augustes Burroughs.  David Foster Wallace.  Massive amounts of Kafka.   Everything by John Irving.  David Eggers.  And so, so much more.  Half undone now and spread over tables and boxes all over the house.  Dusty.

The thing is, I don't want to read grim, disturbing fiction.  I can barely make it through a New Yorker every once in a while.  Any time soon, I'm unlikely to get to any more Delillo than I've already read, let along any more Pynchon.  (I know they are not all grim; and maybe some not grim at all.  Please don't argue, the point is I'm not going to read them.  Judge me if it makes you feel better.)  But, but I think, should I save them?  Organize them somehow so when Liam is trying to figure out who his father was, maybe they'll offer some clue, somehow unlock something I can't explain.  Something more than: he was smart, he read things---lots of things---and he thought about them.  Liked talk about them and make connections.  Fully half have little slips of paper, post-it notes, this or that marking where he was reading when he last set it down.  He read and re-read. (Aside from being overwhelmed with working full time, Liam, and helping Will, one of the reasons I pretty much have stopped reading is I could always count on him to have one or two things going at once, and to talk about them with me.)

As much as I had one, that was my plan: get the books undercontrol and put them somewhere.  But now, who knows.  They are lose in the house, I don't know where they'll land.

Stay tuned, I think we have an owl

During my not sleeping times at night, I've been hearing things.  Starts around 10:00, if I'm listening.  This has been going on over a month now.  It's something outside, I thought a squirrel, a. . .I have no idea. . .what could it be.   It says Oooo [space] Oooo [space] Oo, Oo, Oo, Oo [fast and descending].  It has sort of a high voice (not chirpy high, more like alto).

Umm, 3-years of field biology in college resulting in, wait for it, a degree that is more wildlife biology than anything else.  For a month I've been listen to this wondering, wondering until day before yesterday I realized, of course, it's an owl.  For the love of God.   So last night I tried to record it, but I got too cold, and it went off somewhere, or it decided to clam up when it saw a clearly crazy woman in her PJs out video taping in the pitch dark from the back patio.  (Also, it was after 10:00; Liam is going through a phase where he wants to review the major points of Will's death every night, I was tired and sad and didn't want to wait around.) 

I listened more closely last night though and I think I have a plan for tonight.  It starts out in the mash up of fir and hemlock across the alley right out the back door.  (Does it live there?  How exciting!)  Then, I'm pretty sure it moved to the 100 year old apple tree for at least a little while.   It must fly around! 

Full moon will be here end of next week. Stay calm owl, I am coming for you with my video camera and my link to the registry of bird songs at Cornell University (priceless), and we are going to get to know one another.

In the evening we play in the yard & Liam channels house painters

Truly, I don't know what we did before the great yard makeover.  Liam is out in the yard continuously.  Tonight it was a lot of walking on the logs and, as usual, swinging. 

Painters start on the house tomorrow.  We have been saving for this since we moved in three years ago.  A long time coming.  I hope it looks better than great when it's done.  Tonight we were talking with Liam about the painters and it went like this.

Me: Liam the painters are going to start working on the house tomorrow.
Liam: Whyyyy?  Who?
Me: To make the house look nice.  The head painter's name is Murph.
Liam: I'm Murph, I'm a painter.
Me: Hi Murph.
Liam: (I'm not making this up) Sorry!  Sorry, we're running a little late.  That's right. We're running a little late.  We're not going to paint the house today.  We'll paint it tomorrow.

Thanks Murph.

Grilled Pizza!

We are eating a lot of pizza made on the grill these days.  It started a few weeks ago and shows no signs of slowing down.  Seems like on all the mom-being/home-making/child-raising blogs I read they are grilling pizza these days, so we're in (really) good company.   See, for example, here, and here. 

Here's how we do it, the full-time-working-mother-has-to-have-dinner-on-the-table-fast way. 

On Saturday or Sunday (or Monday night, or whenever but not the day we want to eat the pizza), we make the dough.  I use the basic pizza dough from Mark Bittman, basically.  It works just fine.  Three cups flour (I use 1 white 2 whole wheat), 1 tsp yeast, some glugs of olive oil (probably 1/8 - 1/3 a cup, this is more than Bittman calls for) and 1 to 1 1/4 cup warm water.  Mix all the dry ingredients, including the yeast.  Add 1 cup water and the oil.  Add enough more water to make a dough.  Kneed until smooth and let rise.  Punch it down and put it in a plastic bag in the fridge until you're ready to use it.  We don't add salt (Will's mom is low salt), but  Bittman says you should.  It works best if you take it out of the refrigerator as soon as you decide you're going to grill pizza, so it starts to warm up a little before you have to work with it.

When you're ready to make them, get the grill really hot.  We make these individual sized.  Pull off hunks of dough about the size of a baseball and stretch them out.  Because you used some extra olive oil in the dough and the grill is smoking hot, no need to oil.   Put them on the grill.  Turn down the heat to medium high.  Let them cook until the bottom is done and the edges are starting to firm up.  Flip them.  Now you're looking at a cooked side and the raw side is down on the grill.  Top with sauce, cheese, etc. and drizzle with just a little good tasting olive oil. Put  the grill lid down for a few minutes until everything on top of the pizza looks melt-y and the bottom is cooked and, voila, you're done!  I guess it's more flat bread with toppings than pizza. 

We've been sticking pretty close to tomato sauce from a jar, fresh mozzarella and/or ricotta, and basil.  Sometimes we add caramelized peppers and onions.  I have an idea that smoked salmon, corn, goat cheese and basil also would be really, really good, but we haven't tried that yet. 

These will be good no matter what you do.  Trust me.  I have screwed up the making of this pizza every way possible.  Grill too hot: done that, you get more char than you want, but it's still really good.  Grill not hot enough: done that, you get less char than you want, and it takes a while to cook, but it's still really good and everything melts perfectly.  Forget that you have to flip the pizzas over and put the sauce on the raw side.  Embarrassing, but you can flip them anyway and the sauce just chars a little.  Still really good.  They are so, so much better than any pizza you will ever make in your oven, I promise, you really should try this. 

Liam pretty much likes them, although his excitement about the prospect of eating pizza surpasses his actual consumption so far. 

Because it's summer we pretty much always have the following in the fridge: sauteed zucchini leftover from dinner past, barely cooked green beans good for snacking, carrot sticks.  Put one or all of these on the plate with the pizza.  Liam eats a lot of carrot sticks. Salad is good too if you have time to make it!