Oh I made some canned tuna sushi lunch for the volunteers at little man's school yesterday. I used canned tuna because I wanted to make sure everybody could eat it. Little man loves sushi. Even thought I am no sushi expert I try to make it at home from time to time. We would eat sushi using salmon, canned or cooked, but never smoked or raw. I just don't like it. Amount all the sushi I like Spam musubi the best! Growing up in Hawaii, what do you think? LOL The seaweed salad I eat is nothing fancy, just Konbu and cucumber strips with vinegar and toasted sesame seeds and oil. When I make my own seaweed salad I use dried Konbu. Boil the Konbu to make Dashi for Miso soup. Cut the boiled Konbu in thin strips, Do the same thing with a small peeled cucumber. Toss then marinate with sesame oil and vinegar, sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds over top. Voila, seaweed salad. If I don't feel like making my own seaweed salad I buy packages from Asian stores. You can find them in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean grocery stores. Here in Calgary, the Korean instant seaweed salads are cheapest. The packaged stuff is not the best so you will have to season the salad before eating it. Many kinds are available. Here are a few pictures of what I have at home... The Korean kind: The Chinese kind: Dried Konbu: Gonna LOVE sushi & seaweed salad! Al

I also like the fruit kabob idea, but you could go in a completely different direction and have whole wheat breadsticks with marinara for dipping, or cheese straws or homemade soft pretzels with cheese sauce for dipping. The fruit and yogurt parfaits would be very nice, if you have a place to keep them cool. Rice balls were always popular with my kids, I baked them instead of frying them and they had some veggies in them. They always wanted rance dressing to dip them in. Baked potato wedges with cheese are popular sometimes, again with ranch for dipping. Most kids love corn, so if you could get good sweet corn, maybe cut them into threes or fours and steam, so the kids can just pick them up and eat them. Or vegetable fritters, again with something for dipping, or maybe vegetable filled wraps or wontons or egg rolls... How many kids? Annie

In the spirit of the All-Star game, my family has requested hot dogs. I also got Nathan's fries (frozen) since we usually only get these when we attend a game. Now if I can only manage to have soft-serve Carvel in the house it would be just like being there!

For my job I need to take payment from customers (many of these are small businesses). It seems no one in Saskatchewan has a credit card! We have issues all the time because our customers (99.9999 % Canadians) don't have a credit card to make their purchase. They want us to bill them or mostly they want to go into a local office to pay cash. Most of the local offices of the company no longer accept cash payments which really annoys the customers. The lack of credit cards has been really surprising to my colleagues and I. I think checks are popular here (WNY) as many small businesses here don't like to take credit cards due to the high fees. Speaking to Canadians every day from Vancouver to Montreal I thought I could understand the accents. Went to see a band from Vancouver and talked to a band member during a break. Oh my gosh I could barely understand him. Actually much of it I just nodded my head to, no clue what he was saying. Just like the US, Canada is a very diverse population over many different regions. While communication is sometimes hard, overall it makes life more interesting. Recently was told of a "come and go tea" by a person in Windsor, had no idea what she was talking about. It was like a birthday party. Not sure if actual tea was served.