Ike’s blog

I spent last week working in Chennai, India. My hotel was about 50 meters from the office. Here is what the walk looked lie on a typical morning.

Yes, we pulled it off. Barely. It was worth it, and here's how we did it.

First, kept the invite list relatively small. We invited twelve and have to say that anything bigger would have been very difficult. In addition to just having enough space, you'll have to think about the size of your oven so that you can fit everything you plan to cook in one shift. Remember that for every child you invite, there will be at least one parent coming with them.

We chose a simple menu of pizza, smoothies, and ice cream sundaes. We found kids pizza kits at Bed Bath and Beyond and ordered chefs hats online. I bought whole wheat pizza dough, grated cheese, and tomato sauce from Trader Joes. You'll also want to pick up some small shallow alluminum pans and a can of vegetable spray. For the smoothies, I picked up pineapple, strawberries, and mango which was just what looked good in the market. In retrospect, I'd recommend against strawberries since kids may be allergic, but we lucked out. I'd also recommend sticking with fruit that won't brown so you can cut them ahead of the party. For the sundaes, I picked up sprinkles, chocolate sauce, granola, whipped cream, and cherries. Oh yeah, and the ice cream. I stayed safe with vanilla and chocolate. We also had a family member bake us some of her famous brownies.

After getting the kids seated, we handed out the chefs hats and let them decorate it. I rolled out each pizza dough and cut them into four pieces, then put the sauce and cheese into small dixie cups. We wrote the kids names on the pans and sprayed them with vegetable spray before handing them out. Each child got their materials to make their pizza and off they went.

Or so I thought. Some of the kids made nice pizzas, but others including my son decided to take the rolled out dough and mash back up into a meatball. Their pizzas looked like small tomato-cheesy hamburgers and took a long time to cook.

While the pizzas were in the oven, I brought out the fruit and a blender. I let the kids tell me how much of each fruit to put in the blender. I blended the fruit with water and not milk or yogurt in order to avoid allergy issues. By the time we finished the smoothies, the pizzas were ready to take out of the oven.

After lunch, we brought the kids into the living room for some games. This gave us time to clean up the table and set up the sundae bar. We didn't do anything fancy. We sang Happy Birthday using the brownies, then cut it up and served them as the base for each child's sundae. The other parents helped with the ice cream and condiments.

All in all, this was a success. If you decide to have a cooking party, keep it small and simple and you'll have a blast!

I picked up pumpkin tortellini at Piemonte Home Made Ravioli (also see here) last week and got home too late to stop by the grocery to pick up fresh sage. So a traditional butter and sage sauce wasn't an option and I was looking for a plan B.

I started by melting a stick of butter, then added some crushed cashews for texture. I let them fry for a couple of minutes, then added a pinch of cayenne, a half teaspoon of chili powder (New Mexican), two table spoons each of apple sauce and maple syrup, salt and pepper. My measurements are not exact. When the tortellini was cooked, I added them to the sauce along with a couple of ladles of pasta water. I let this cook for a few minutes, then added some chopped parsley.

You might think this is an odd combination, but it worked well. Sweetness from the syrup and apples, spice from the chili, and texture from the cashews. Yum. A big hit with my four year old. I only wish that I had snapped a photo.

This video is hysterical

How to Catch a Star

My three year old loves this book. It's imaginative, it slows him down and it makes him think. It  shows problem solving. The boy doesn't give up, is patient, and shows resourcefulness. The boy shows emotions; frustration, sad, loneliness, and eventually happiness.The illustrations are  artistic and simple.

Ok. It's just a fun book to read.

The Big Orange Splot

D. Manus Pinkwater

My first real milestone was taking 3.5 yr old Ronan and 10 week old girl Pietra to the park for the day. That was a couple of weeks ago. Last night I experienced milestone #2 while putting Ronan to bed. I read Ronan's favorite books while holding Pietra in my arms. After the third book, both of them were asleep.

I celebrate the small stuff.

Grandma and Mom took my one month old daughter to Bloomingdales today. I'm told that this is an official development milestone. Ugh. At least she slept through the full experience.

Reminds me of when we went to the hospital during my wife's pregnancy for the twenty week sonogram. After the test, we went to buy a parking token and the very Italian attendant asked us, "So, how did it go"? My wife replied to him, "Good, we're having a girl". He looked at me, sized me up for a second and said, "You over there. Better start saving your money."

Facebook officially released there API about ten days ago and many developers and organizations are in a rush to complete their apps. When I first looked at the API, I was a bit skeptical about the functionality and the benefit in building an app. But I came back after Memorial Day Weekend and immediately set the team working on an application for TripConnect.

The current version of the TripConnect Application allows Facebook members to build a travel profile and publish parts of it on their Facebook profile page. I have a screenshot below of my profile object showing my favorite destinations, places I want to go, and  my travel interests. If you're a Facebook member, you can also add the TripConnect Application.

Facebook clearly rushed the announcement and release of the API. While MySpace is building their walled garden and finding ways to prevent third parties from integrating their components, Facebook is taking the exact opposite approach and allowing developers to plug in their apps. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Facebook is putting some controls on their application directory and their terms of service reserves them rights to charge fees in the future.

The API has promise. There is a markup language (fbml) for dynamic publishing pages (called a canvas on Facebook) and a query language (fql) for making sql like queries of the Facebook data structures. There are development kits for almost all of the popular web development platforms. But the API looks like it was rushed out the door. Many users are having trouble with authentication, cache'ing and other integration bits. I publish a separate blog for software developers and technologists and plan to put some development hints up there in the near future.

TripConnect Profile Object on Facebook