Recipes and Responses to Questions

May 25, 2008 in England, Europe, Travelogue

< ![CDATA[  It has been a lot of fun to get e-mail from people all over the world, from Serbia to Canada, asking questions about our edventure and our family. Perhaps most precious was a little boy from Ohio who wrote to ask about our boys and if they got tired of riding their bikes all day every day. For those of you who have not been following along for months or been reading The Institute for R.E.A.L.I.T.Y. monthly newsletter for years and don't already feel like you know our family, we're going to post responses to a few of these questions to help bring you up to speed: Who are we? How old are our kids? We are the Millers (obviously) Dad is from Wisconsin, Mom is from Canada, and the kids are from Indiana, Illinois and New Hampshire. Hannah is our oldest girl at eleven. She loves to read, play her fiddle and think up thousands of new games and stories to keep her brothers interested in life. Gabriel is ten and the oldest boy. He spends a lot of time trying to secure his post as "Alpha Male" and is our hunter, fisher, and explorer extraordinaire. Elisha is seven and the middle boy. He is exactly like Daddy, only smaller. He is our artistic guy and is continually noticing things that no one else sees. This apparent distraction (which isn't really distraction at all, it is a focus on what we haven't noticed yet!) has earned him the nickname "Space Boy." Hannah has invented a whole series of comic strips in which Space Boy saves the world in unexpected ways. He loves his super powers! Ezra is five and you'd better not call him "the baby" if you want to live long and prosper. He is by far the most determined of the bunch and would rather die a thousand deaths than not keep up with the big kids. Right now he's munching a "chip" (read that french fry) and trying hard to follow the football (read that soccer) game on the big screen. He's the tough guy. To answer the question of our little friend in Ohio, no, they don't get tired of riding their bikes. They'll ride another two miles around the campsite of an evening if we let them. Mom and Dad get tired of riding the bikes sometimes! Who is Megan? Megan is our friend. She's fifteen and has very brave parents who entrust her to our care for weeks at a time to travel the world. She has fabulous curly hair, which Hannah and I call "princess hair" and she has the admirable quality of never complaining in even the most horrible weather after pushing up mountainous hills. Just the kind of girl we like. She cycled the Maritimes of Canada with us last summer (if you've gotten the Maritime Packet for the Virtual Field Trip then you've read about her!) and she's been to NYC and Washington DC with us as well as on little adventures closer to home. She took off with us in Boston on April 30th and we'll ship her home from Berlin, Germany. What do you eat? How do you cook? Food. With stoves! Ha ha. In response to several requests, we've posted the PDF of our recipe cards on the right hand side of the Travelogue page. Few of these are original. Most have adapted and morphed through the years to be suitable to our style of camping and two little stoves. The amounts listed feed our family of six. The instructions for shopping are due to our need to stop and shop every single day. The directions are written so that Hannah and Meg can cook us dinner. Yes. The girls run the camp stoves BY THEMSELVES!! Why have big girls if you can't make them cook!! We carry our cards into the store with us and it speeds up the daily shopping keeping us from forgetting vital ingredients! Please keep writing to us and asking questions. We love to know that people are enjoying the Virtual Field Trip and following us along. Feel free to cook up some of our recipes on your next camping trip!!]]>