Chopped

I feel like I should tell you about a lovely little "game" my family and I played on Labor Day. If you didn't know this... I love food network. It's the only thing I watch on TV. AND there is this great show called Chopped on late late at night. (My siblings and I would watch it during the summer when we had no responsibilities. sigh.) In any event, it's a show with four people each challenged to make three different dishes. The first round is the appetizer. They have three secret ingredients they have to use. They're judged and one person is "chopped". Then they do the entree. Someone is "chopped". It's super dramatic and quite entertaining. Then the last two make a dessert. Then you have a winner.
So we played this game. My parents shopped at Macey's while we ran around the store listening to bottles (more on that later) then judged our dishes when they were finished. We had teams:

Anne and G-man

Natalie and Cousin Daniel

Cami and Me (you may think I was at a disadvantage...but I was, I mean, wasn't.)

The two rounds included an Entree using: pork, red potatoes, water chestnuts and smoked canned oysters. Talk about sick. I shall curse those oysters for a long time. Anna and Garrett were chopped ever so dramatically (my dad is good at the whole "pretend you're on a TV show and act like a menacing host, pausing at all the right moments")
The next round we had to make a dessert with peaches (hard as rock, I might add), croissants, and red hot candy. Garrett was placed on my team since Cami decided she wanted to make her own concoction. Daniel and Natalie put up a good fight but in the end, Garrett and I pulled through.

We had a lot of fun, made a mess, washed lots of dishes, laughed and learned a lot! We're definitely going to be doing this more often. :)