May 22, 2012

Ground Flower Competition

     Since there's no such thing as a first annual anything, this is the announcement of the first Pedal and Petal ground flower competition. So what is a ground flower? It is an unpicked flower, or one that is still in the ground. And there lies the criteria for the competition — it has to be a ground flower.
     I am making this clear now because I started sending out text messages requesting people to send me photos of their favorite flowers, and of course Guy was one of the first to respond with a photo of a bouquet taken at the local grocery store.

Not an acceptable submission, photo: Guy

     Remember Guy? He has a lot of kids and a lot of stuff.

Some of Guy's kids hanging on for their lives, photo: PandP

Some of Guy's stuff — he has to extend his garage with a tarp. photo: PandP
     For the next few days (or until I have enough photos) I will be accepting pictures of your ground flowers. Once I collect the photos via, text, email, Facebook, Twitter (@pedalandpetal) and through the comments section on this blog, I will objectively judge the flowers and pick a winner.
     After I choose a winner, you'll be presented with a prize — a ground flower of my choice. You're more than welcome to nominate yourself or someone else for this competition, and I wish you luck in finding the perfect ground flower to submit.
     Remember, this is not a flower blog, I just write about them once in a while.

Please send any questions you have my way.
Keep pedaling

May 20, 2012

S'more of what?

     Often times my Fave and I unselfishly put Syd to bed early so we can do things together that a kid would enjoy without actually having one around. Sometimes we end up playing a game or eating a dessert that Syd didn't know we had, however, the last two nights — we've been roasting marshmallows and making s'mores.

     The first night we pretended our new barbecue was a campfire, we weren't completely prepared and ended up having to use wooden skewers that were far from flame proof. However, the s'mores themselves turned out good, I noticed that I was roasting one marshmallow at a time and my Fave was roasting two. I wasn't surprised because she typically picks up new skills quicker that I do, and she's also better at eating dessert than I am.

One mallow, vs. two mallows (photo: PandP)

     She claimed that roasting two marshmallows for my s'more was the only way to go, so I decided to try it her way. I bought metal skewers for the second night to support the extra weight of the added mallow. First I ran the idea by Jak, who wasn't so sure about the two-marshmallow method.

Not sure about this (photo: PandP)

     As unsure as Jak and I were — sure enough, my Fave was right. Two marshmallows is the way to go.

My Fave burning her mallows (photo: PandP)

     What my Fave didn't expect was that I would quickly become the master of her technique, and that my s'mores would appear more appetizing than hers. She also didn't expect me to take a picture for documentation. In the photo below she's trying to reposition her s'more for the camera.

Wait, "it looks better from this angle" (photo: PandP)

     It didn't help, here's her s'more after the repositioning.

This poor s'more (photo: PandP)

     And here's mine after two nights of s'more training — the student becomes the teacher.


     As my Fave walked away in defeat with marshmallow stuck to her chin, she muttered, "hand me your stick so I can get the gooey white stuff off."