10/19/2010 (Tue) - Cookin' and Dancin'

Most of you know I am a little cooking impaired.....well okay okay, so I am totally cooking impaired.  Eight of us went to The Mesa Regal Resort for what I thought would be a tough day, as today was Cooking Class Day.  I had images of me cutting stuff with really sharp knives and I don't like sharp knives they really scare me.

Our Group of Eight

 We sat at long tables and just watched the chef do all the work.  I'm thinking,  "Now this is my kind of cooking class."  We were given a hand out that had all sorts of neat stuff to make for Halloween.  I mean really neat stuff. 

Jim and I

My favorite was what the chef called, "BOO NANNERS."  What you do is peel some bananas, cut them in half widthwise.  Push a popsicle stick into the cut end.  Cover each nanner by itself with plastic wrap and freeze for about three hours.  Melt in a micro 1.5 ounces of white chocolate.  With a knife spread the white choc. all over the frozen nanners.  Yes...of course you take the plastic wrap off before hand.  Once coated with the white choc, place the nanner on wax paper.  Put choc. chips for the eyes and nose.  Return the nanners to the freezer until you are ready to eat them.  I'm thinkin keeping them wrapped keeps them from turning black.  Wow now that would be even scarier.

Boo Nanners

(not the best pic but you get the idea)

So after he showed us and told us all about the handout items, it was time for lunch.  Lunch today was a meal for gobbling and it wasn't even Halloween.  We had Stuffed Alien Heads, Bat Wings, Salad Coffins, Witches Toes, Ogre Fingers, and fruit Jack-O-Lanterns. 

Stuffed Alien Heads

Salad Coffins

Witches Toes

Ogre Fingers

Fruit Jack-O-Lanterns

Cute cute lunch!

Now in English that would be stuffed peppers, BBQ chicken wings, salad in a bread bowl, little half wrapped hot dogs,  sausages with yellow bell peppers, fruit in an orange cut out, and dessert.  We also had either coffee, soda, or water to drink.   Was more than any goblin could possibly eat.  At every eating event they of course had the to go boxes and many took them.  Now if I told you the total cost per person was $5.00 would you believe me?  Most likely not but that was the cost.  That all took place between 10:45am and 12:45pm.

Once back we got ready for out next outing which was another class.  The other day when we were at the store called Sproats we noticed that a Fred Astaire Dance Studio was next door so we stopped in.  End results was we decided to take a few lessons and today was our first lesson.  

Our Dance Site

We supposedly learned the country/western swing and the AZ two step.  We can now go forward and back and side to side.  I think I will always remember the swing dance as the instructor told us there is a three step process to holding hands in order to dance the swing.  Step 1:  He told Jim to hold his hands like he was holding cans of coke.  Step 2: He told me to hold my hands like claws.  Step 3:  He said to put the claws into the coke cans.  Got a visual of that? 

The really hard part was when we actually had to dance to the beat of the music.  Never knew forward and back could be so hard.  My legs hurt by the end of the class and it was only for 30 minutes.  He did try to teach us the basic step to the waltz, but haha we knew it.  He was so pleased with us. 

I would have thought he could have given us stickers for doing so well, but all we got was, 'hey good job.'  I need visual praise, darn it I wanted a sticker! 
We go back tomorrow for another lesson and this means we are giving up ice cream social day.  Jim said we did not need it, little does he know.

We topped off the evening by joining Bill and Pam over at Mel and Joanna's for a social time.  We chatted and played another game of Hand and Foot.  Had snacks for dinner instead of wholesome food.  Tomorrow we are all eating dinner together at Mel and Joanna's and then we are going to our first play together.