A flashback leading to Sunday Night Traditions

*Epic Flashback... bear with me...* On Friday as I sat with my client and watched our fortunes turn into pennies live on CNBC, we reminisced about days gone by of economic bliss. "Remember that one time, when you could invest in a company that believed in working hard, and watch your stock rise as they grew?" "Or remember the Tech Boom and how everyone worked at a company with a dot-com at the end. And every product had a dot-com on the label. Like.. Garbage.com, or SpaghettiO's.com" "Remember when you had to actually have income to qualify for a mortgage? "Remember when banks didn't collapse?"

It was good times...

And it reminded me of 1998-1999. *cue Waynes World style flashback effect* Mr. Man was a grad student attending what was the #2 Tech-MBA program in the nation. We lived in a darling duplex by the beach, and the Internet was opening doors left and right. Being economically challenged... was not so challenging... companies were giving money or products away to gain consumers. Remember HomeGrocer.com aka Webvan? Loved them, and they gave away tons of groceries. Best of all it was delivered to the house. I WISH something of that caliber returned for groceries. I miss it dearly, and remember vividly when they closed up shop and how my pal Steph and I had a moment of silence for Online Groceries. Albertsons.com is not the same. During the boom we got free or cheap movies, restaurant gift certificates, tons of computer equipment, gardening supplies, household cleaners, shampoo, and small appliances. My favorite site during that time was called ebates.com. They are still around, and I use them, but it's not as crazy awesome as it used to be. If you clicked through them to your retailer you got 50-90% of your purchase back through a monthly rebate. There was a week where there was a 90% ebate at Cooking.com. I went crazy nuts and bought everything Kitchen related I ever had wanted with my birthday money, including a Kitchen Aid Mixer and an ebelskiver pan. Mr. Man.com (hee!) stood there baffled when he saw stacks of boxes taller than him on our doorstep with the Cooking.com logo... especially considering at the time I was still somewhere in the range of a horrible to mediocre cook. Oh, and I barely cooked, in fact I was known to throw a box of Rice-a-Roni.com (compliments of Homegrocer.com) his way and say, "Here's dinner".

The addition of the Mixer to our family opened the door for me to stop being a lazy cook and experiment. Even better Mr. Man joined me in the teeny kitchen/laundry room to help with the experiments. One late night craving for something sweet led to us trying to recreate a dish that I had at my friends house after sleepovers... ebelskivers. Puffy round balls that are pancake-y. We perfected the homemade syrup and tweaked the recipe. They soon became a Sunday night tradition and we had them almost every Sunday night until AK was born. Then life caved in around us, and I went back to throwing the box of Rice-a-Roni at Mr. Man(although it was now the Whole Foods Organic variety). This past weekend, Mr. Man and I found ourselves in the kitchen experimenting trying to make Mashed Cauliflower (kind of like mashed potatoes, and we were unsuccessful!). Standing side by side, Mr. Man reminded me of those Sunday evenings making Ebelskivers, and said, "We need to do that again, I miss it!" So I pulled out the Ebelskiver Pan that evening, and we went to town cooking Ebelskivers for the family. Normally, we did this after we put the kids to bed, however they are getting older and are able to walk out of their rooms and find us scarfing down sugary substances and accuse us of not saving any for them. It was time to make this a family thing. It was a big hit, and we hope to do this weekly again. So, Internets I would like to thank you for the tech boom that gave me the ability to make something delicious for my family, that I hope will create lasting memories.

(The boys, who think it's beyond hilarious to make funny faces for the camera. So funny, I forgot to laugh. Also, that's a Batman tattoo on Mr. Boy's arm that he has had for 4 weeks, it will NOT come off!)

Psst... for those who are intrigued here is a link to an Ebelskiver video demo. Also, here is an official and open invitation to anyone who wants to come over for Sunday Night Ebelskivers. We will accommodate bedtimes, invite yourself, I'm not kidding!