chinotto is my nemesis

The Fault in Our Stars

2012-01-26T12:50:00.002-05:00

The Fault in Our Stars is John Green at his absolute best (which is how he is, like, always). It is electric and touching and deep and thoughtful and funny and true. It is what writing has the potential to be and what readers like me are hoping to find every time we crack the spine on a new novel. The novel follows 16 year old Hazel, a girl diagnosed with terminal cancer that is being kept at bay through a radical (unfortunately, fictional) drug and requires her to lug around an oxygen tank because her "lungs don't know how to be lungs." Attending a support group, she meets 17 year old Augustus Waters, who is recovering from bone cancer and is an amputee as a result of it.

I know what you're thinking: Gee, Lagerfeld, this sounds like a hoot and a holler of a good time! Believe me when I say that even though you know you will go into the novel and most definitely cry, the tears are sweet and cathartic because they come from that place in all of us that is moved by the spirit in all things, great and small.

There is something you have to know about me: I'm like, super into the Romantic sublime. Reading this book was, for me, a sublime experience. John Green's writing skill is unparalleled. He is able to take this material (two young kids with cancer!) and make it funny and touching without being overly sentimental and maudlin. He doesn't resort to easy outs, or the stereotypical depictions of the person with terminal cancer in their last days, and indeed, he sends up those very conventions. At one time or another, all of us, have been kept awake by the churning of our minds trying to grapple with our own mortality - the finality of it all, the great unknowingness that lies beyond what our senses can apprehend, the totality of the one certainty we know - that we will die and that there is nothing to prepare us for how we handle those last moments before the great unknown. What allows us to go about our mundane (and thrillingly so!) existences is that for most of us, death is an abstraction.

This book talks about what happens when death isn't such an abstraction any more. When your cells, when what makes you, you goes into overdrive. When that basic drive to just make it in a workaday world, when taken up by your own cellular material, gets ratcheted up in the wrong place at the wrong time. How can you hate your cancer? How do teenagers, at that very moment in life when your own mortality is never more abstract, deal with their own impending end? How do you reconcile the futility of existence? How do you shout into the eternal void? How do you cope with the crushing loneliness of knowing that shout is never heard?

These existential questions are in the book, all wrapped up in teenage (sometimes gallows) humour, lovable characters, and a story that simultaneously references Anne Frank, German philosophy, and all sorts of other thought-provoking material that sets of sparks of ideas and deep thoughts. You can't really see the entire picture until you step back from the book and think about what John Green is really trying to say. And what he is trying to say is big, and beautiful, and comforting even in its sadness. He is a brilliant, brilliant author and I wish that every book was as enjoyable a read, and as intellectually satisfying a read, and as emotionally resonating a read, as this one was.

Here's where the Romantic sublime comes in. Wordsworth, Shelley, and all those foppish Brits mooning about the countryside were so taken by nature that they existed in this kind of stunned awe when faced with nature's totality. We can't really comprehend the enormity of glaciers, wind, the oceans, or mountains. But in trying to do so, when we miserable cretins put our limited faculties at the task and try, the limits of our capacity to understand boomerang back on us and reaffirm the glory of humanity. The fact that we cannot but yet we still try - reaching and reaching and reaching until we hit that invisible point at which we can go no further, but oh the glory of the attempt! That is the Romantic sublime. It is a metaphor for existential crises that has sustained and nourished me - that captured my imagination lo many years ago when I took a course on the Romantics in undergrad.

The Fault in Our Stars is a book that speaks to the sublime. The sublime of human existence, of mortality, of the great shout into the void.

Read it. I defy you not to love it.

I feel like talking about 50/50 in this same post, cheapens The Fault in Our Stars. I'll save that for tomorrow.

Fin.

Chinese New Year!

2012-01-24T17:49:00.000-05:00

ZOMG - we had a crazy freakin' weekend. It was fun and very sociable, but exhausting.

Friday night was chill, but the hectic nature of the day and the week preceding it meant that the Dotytron and I passed out at like, 9pm in pools of our own drool, laid out on our respective couches of choice. It was pathetic.

Saturday we spent going buck, cleaning up a storm to get the house ready for Chinese New Year, which is technically just the lunar new year, celebrated by a lot of East Asians, not just Chinese people, even though we like to think we have exclusive purview over it. False!

We did get to start Saturday off with cheese blintzes with blueberry sauce and bacon though. Which the Big Yam turned his nose up at, because he's a weirdo.

Then we went and grabbed our friends Paul & Sandra to take them to Paul and Sandy's Real BBQ out in the wilds of Etobicoke. Just take a minute to appreciate that thematic unity. We ate with a Paul and Sandra at Paul & Sandy's. BEST. We really like the food there. The Dotytron and I split ribs, chicken, brisket and meatloaf. The brisket at Paul & Sandy's is some of the best I've ever had. So juicy and tender and flavourful - falling apart but with a nice, robust, even layer of fat melting across the top. So freakin' good. The Big Yam ate like a pig, because when it comes to barbecue - he's not a weirdo.

I had spent considerable effort procuring supplies to make the Momofuku Milk Bar Birthday Cake for our dessert, but then was a total loser and forgot it at home. Luckily for us, but unluckily for P & S, we got to have a slice. They missed out. The Momofuku cakes are frustrating and labour intensive, because they're all build in a 6" round cake mould. So you make all the composite elements (in the case of the cake below, that's 4 - the cake itself, the birthday cake "crumb" - little crunchy bits of salty, sandy goodness, the frosting, and the milk soak), then stamp out the cake layers out of the sheet you've baked and layer it all together. It's nuts. Not only that, but of COURSE you have to go out and buy sheets of acetate to line your cake mould and so that you have something to support the finished height of the cake. Then, you also have to go and buy speciality ingredients like glucose and

citric acid. Yes, that's right. Glucose and CITRIC ACID (which you use like, a pinch of in the cake). It's bonkers. Needless to say, the Big Yam was over the moon happy about all the Kitchen Aid mixer use in the service of the Birthday Cake.

At the end of it though, I can safely say that this cake is FREAKIN' delicious. It's mean to invoke the spirit of boxed cake mix (the funfetti variety, specifically) but it's a particularly delectable iteration. The genius thing about Christina Tosi (the pastry chef at Milk Bar) is that she has one of those born and bred understandings of texture and flavour balance in a dessert. The crunch of the crumbs against the tender cake, the tang of the frosting ameliorating the sweetness, the punch of salt crystals, they all work together to invoke and play to the elemental cravings of a person. It's all about balance to the excess. It's all about understanding the best part of a something - be it the awesomeness of the graham cracker crust, or doing a dessert shout out to those people who love the nutty, crumbly bits of crunchy streusel on top of a fruit crisp - the people who will eat the crisp and leave the fruit, or the ones who love the buttery, toasty taste of unadorned pie crust (she has a pie crust frosting that is mind-blowing). It's clever, but also grounded in giving people what they want and not over-intellectualizing things. It's pleasurable AND smart food. This cake is divine:

Sunday was the most buck. Big Yam slept in until 7pm (that's good!) - but that meant it was a MAD scramble to get out the door and up to the burbs to make parent & tot hours at our preferred pool (that's bad). Do you have ANY idea how much we have to pack to go swimming in the burbs? It's insane. The prep to swimming time ratio is like, 95:1. Then we went to T & T and Costco. Then it was home, to sew my Poh Poh's pants (my mum made me), then taking Poh Poh out to lunch (at Phoenix, yum!), then it was back home to hang out with my mom and Poh Poh some more, then over to R & R's house so that the Dotytron could give R a guitar lesson, then picking up takeout and then home. It was EXHAUSTING. Also, our car almost exploded from all the crap we were carting around by the end of it. It was also the best guitar lesson of the Dotytron's life, because R & R gave him beer, bought Babu samosas and mutton patties, made chocolate chip cookies, AND R gave me a pair of jeggings that didn't fit her (!!!!!!!!!!!!) You know what I did? Brought over HALF OF A CAKE (the cake pictured above, actually). WHAT THE HECK?!? So imbalanced an exchange!

Yesterday I took a 1/2 day off work (even though I really should not have because of the volume of work I have to do) to attend to final preparations for our Chinese dinner. We had Momma D and her friend/roomie R over for dinner. Even though about half the dishes were bought from T & T - it ended up being a bit of work. The dishes I was making aren't the kind you make in advance - you can't steam a fish in advance of boil dumplings in advance. We had 8 dishes: fried turnip cake, steamed rice with Chinese sausage, Buddha's delight (vegetarian dish), steamed green bass, roasted pork & bbq duck, oyster omelet, and pork & chive dumplings. I also got this coconut & red bean pudding that we ate cold slices of for dessert. I obviously made a TONNE of food and now we have leftovers for days.

Warning: don't look at the photos below if you have issues with toddlers wearing hilarious (and possibly racist?!) cultural attire. We bought the Big Yam this outfit at Pac Mall two weekends ago and I dressed him in it for dinner last night. It was AMAZING. He was so cute in it that we could barely stand it. He was also very slippery because of the silk/polyester. LOL! Seriously, we could barely get a grip on him. I keep looking at these photos because he's just so adorbs that it makes me happy. We'll definitely have him sporting these threads more often.

Fin.

Potpourri

2012-01-20T18:06:00.001-05:00

This is going to be another random grab-bag of a post. I'm not quite ready to sit down and tell you all in excruciating detail why I loved The Fault in Our Stars and why you should all read it. We just watched 50/50 last night (who knew that the theme of my cultural consumption for the week was going to be "cancer"?) so I'll probably review them both at the same time.

Today was my day off. I had a massage and then grocery shopped and prepped dinner and cleaned the house in preparation for Chinese New Year, which we're not really allowed to observe this year - we're supposed to wait until 1 year after the anniversary of Kung Kung (and also, Poppa D's) passing(s). We're not supposed to give out lucky money, because that would be like "giving out death." We're having the Dotytron's family over for dinner on Monday - it's going to be a Chinese food dinner, but it's not going to be "Chinese New Year" dinner, per se, in order to get around the whole Chinese juju aspect.

I picked up the Big Yam from daycare early and we're hanging out. I'm hoping we get a lot of snow soon because I want to take him sledding again. I can't believe he's like, a semi-sentient being. He has a favorite book. It's a pretty hackneyed selection from his library, in my opinion, but he loves it. When I say the word "story" he walks over on his cabbage roll feet and grabs it and then crawls all over me or the Dotytron trying to get into his "story" position. I can't believe he's showing a preference for a cultural artifact. It's kind of blowing my mind. BTW, his favorite story of the moment is I Love You Through and Through. On Tuesday night, when I got home from class, I asked the Dotytron for a debrief. "Oh he was fine," he filled me in, "we were cracking up during dinner." The idea of the two of them cracking each other up is so cute and mind-blowing at the same time. Like, the fact that the Boobla is starting to have a sense of humour?!? And he started off as a cell in my lady parts?!? WTF?!?

So yeah, I'm guilty of being able to have my mind blown by the miracle of life. That doesn't mean that I don't find Jay-Z going buck over Blue Ivy to be super-annoying. He wrote this ghey song for her, featuring her, called Glory, and it's seriously the weakest, lamest, most hackneyed attempt at expressing the wonders of creation, like, ever. I get it, I do. But that doesn't mean that Beyoncé is like, special in any way for being able to squirt out a brat. It also doesn't mean that you get to "dear diary" a rap tune. Also in Jigga Man annoying news: he's said he's not going to use the word "b***h" anymore on account of his baby girl. FRAB! So weak! I'm sure pro-lifers and pro-choicers are interested in knowing at precisely what point in Blue's gestation did she become a "girl" enough for him to lay off calling people b***hes? As my FB friend said, why not swear off on account of his wife, mom, or any of the other remarkable women in his life? It's just so...typical Jigga. Thinking that he's so G-D special or something that anyone CARES that you've been "reformed." Double FRAB.

In other news, we received our first gift subscription (from the Dotytron's Uncle Mert) issue of Reader's Digest this week. I haven't cracked it open yet. Am I wrong in thinking that Reader's Digest is a magazine with religious undertones? Am I making this up? I feel like I always see headlines like, "The Christian side of Islam" out of the corner of my eye at the grocery check out.

Finally, to round out the "am I right or am I right?" observational stand-up comedy stylings of this post, it kind of infuriates me when I see recipes for "lightened up fettucini alfredo" in my food blogs. I feel like if you want fettucini alfredo, you should just eat the G-D fettucini alfredo! Lightening it up is like, the worst. It does a disservice to the dish and to you, cuz you're not even going to get what you want. It's just like, why you guys gotta lighten everything up? Just let it BE! If you want a chocolate chip cookie, eat it. But if you're a chunky wunky who can't handle chocolate chip cookies with butter, rather than trying to "lighten up" a million 1000 calorie meals, just EAT SOMETHING ELSE THAT'S HEALTHY AND ALREADY DELICIOUS. Lightened up fettucini alfredo isn't going to help you.

That's actually a good segue into the non-cancer book I read recently. Born Round is a memoir by Frank Bruni, former restaurant reviewer for the New York Times. It chronicles his unlikely journey from the over-fed, well-loved, son of an Italian-American family (with the stereotypical, Italian Nonna, always pushing food on him), to the restaurant reviewing post at the Times, an unlikely position for someone who battled an eating-disorder and an unhealthy relationship with food and his own body, for much of his life. Bruni is an excellent writer - funny, observant, capable of bringing his beloved mother and his nonna to life, all the while peppering the recollections with the kinds of salivation-inducing descriptions of food that only a true-blue eater can conjure. Bruni is someone who loves food, who loves eating, who loves the whole gamut of tastes, textures, and memories that food can evoke. He can rhapsodize equally over his Nonna's frits (fried dough, either dragged through sugar, or stuffed with mozzarella and tomato sauce) as his first experience eating cold sesame noodles. Amidst all the eating, Born Round documents Bruni's struggle with his weight, his unhealthy tendency to gorge and overeat, and his failed attempts at achieving slenderness (and peace with himself) through shortcuts like occasional flirtations with bulimia, laxatives, and fad diets. He also documents his journey through the world of journalism, which in itself is kind of fascinating - how he went from the Detroit Free Press to the Times, moving from section to section - covering Washington D.C. with no political reporting experience, then becoming the Rome correspondent, before finally landing as the Chief Restaurant Critic.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Bruni is a likeable person, and his writing is open and honest, drawing you in. I don't usually love all memoirs, but either because the subject matter was near and dear to my heart, or through the strength of the writing and story alone, I really liked this.

On Wednesday night, we had whole wheat farfalle with broccoli pesto. An oldie but a (healthy), goodie.

Last night we had the roomie over for leftovers and bean salad (made by her - delicious). Feeling bad about serving a guest (insofar as the roomie constitutes a guest in our home) leftovers, I whipped up a batch of the Milk bar chocolate-chocolate cookies. The above video shows the Big Yam in action whenever the mixer gets whipped out. He loves it more than anything.

Tonight we had shrimp and cheddar grits. The grits were made in the slow cooker - simmered all day in a mixture of milk and water, with a touch of cream. They were sooooo creamy and delicious.

Fin.

Jason Wu for Target

2012-01-17T17:56:00.002-05:00

Bonus Jonas post on account of the fact that I have to kill time before I go to school! Besides, I know that when I finally get down to writing a review of The Fault in Our Stars it's going to be pretty bleak and sad and it wouldn't be tonally correct to tack on a screechy style segment to the end of it.

The look book for Jason Wu's collaboration with Target was released recently. It's quite divine, if you like looking like a lady (and lately, I doooo). Here are the things I'm coveting/considering buying:

This gold top and this pleated black skirt are great basics. You can always use a fantastic shell and a black swingy skirt.

Love the colour and cut and weight of this cardigan. It will be nice over sleeveless summer dresses at work.

This skirt is what sold me on the collection. It's PERFECT. Look at it! Love the colours, love the cut, love the preppy nostalgia. Also love the ribbon necked blouse. Want them both.

Also love this blouse, but I have a lot of long-sleeved shirts already. I would buy the skirt though. Again, a great basic that can be paired with a simple shirtwaist or pintucked top for a really smart, professional look.

I like this sweater, but if budgeting gets tight, it might go. Although this would look smashing with my wide-leg navy pants.

If I stick to a budget, this will probably get axed. It's jersey, which means it'll be comfy, but jersey can also be super-clingy. And I don't know if it'll be tailored enough to stand up to work.

Love this. Already bought it (j/k, but I might as well have).

Love this outfit. Want both pieces (already talked about them separately above...but look at them together!)

This purse is okay. It's a little too lady for me. Like, the purse with the outfit directly above it is too old lady slash Alexa Chung. I don't consider Alexa Chung fashionable.

So I've been on the hunt for a nice, cross body, grown-up lady purse/satchel lately. It's been tough. Everything has either been too expensive or not precisely what I want and not enough selection, etc. So I finally went back to my old stomping grounds, Ebay, and came up with LOADS OF CHOICES! All you have to type in are like, "Gossip Girl" and "satchel" and billions of stuff comes up, most of them priced to sell at like, $30. Thank you, Chinaaaaa! I want one (or two) summer ones and 1 winter one. This is my short list:

I think #1, 2, 4, and 6 are going to make the cut.

That's all, folks!

Fin.

Grunge lives!

2012-01-17T17:01:00.001-05:00

...kinda. The Big Yam admittedly looks odd here - his mouth is hanging open, his weird faux-hawk hair is in full effect, he's just not as his best. But! Behold the wonders of a plaid shirt and jeans on a petit bébé! It's his grunge look - we tried to get a shot of him with the sleeves of the shirt tied around his waist, but he is still of the age when his arm length does not appreciably exceed his girth, and so the sleeves were too short. He's also wearing his "A Minor" xmas prezzie onesie, which was really, a prezzie for the Dotytron as much as a prezzie for the Big Yam.

This is the Mexican tortilla soup I made last night. Look up recipes for a similar soup on Epicurious or similar sites and you'll find that many of them would have you frying flour or corn tortillas to make the topping. THAT IS RIDICULOUS. Ridiculously unnecessary! We just topped ours with sour cream and crunched up tortilla chips and diced avocado. This soup was lovely last night - on a blustery and cold day. Bonus points for the fact that it required no pre-cooking prep and I just left it to simmer in the slow cooker. Meals that are done in the slow cooker so that you arrive home and - PRESTO! - dinner is ready to go are like magic, aren't they? It was soul satisfying and warming in flavour and spirit. It reconstituted a sad and dejected me who finished reading John Green's latest, The Fault in Our Stars and arrived home sobbing, after not-so-discreetly weeping openly on the TTC. I was felled see, but it's Big Questions About Existential Dilemmas and it's story about two kids with terminal cancer who fall in love. I will post a review tomorrow (or shortly), but be forewarned: I AM A JOHN GREEN DEVOTEE and this might be his best work yet, and I will proselytize to you in person and on this forum ad nauseum about how genius this book is and how you should read it RIGHT NOW.

In the meantime, tonight I will miss seeing my little Sweetest Pancake pictured above and I will attempt to sit through my entire Tuesday night class (a feat I haven't accomplished since September, which could account for my 60% participation mark in my first term class).

Here is the recipe for the soup. I still owe you a salted caramel chocolate mousse recipe. That will come this week, promise.

Fin.

----------------------------------------------------

Mexican Tortilla Soup

Serves 6 as a main dish easily, or 2 adults and a baby with plenty to spare (and freeze)

3 dried chilies (guajillo, ancho, pasilla – your choice)

2 chipotles in adobo sauce (from a can)

1-2 white onions, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 28oz can of diced tomatoes

1-2 potatoes, chopped in 1/2" chunks

1-2 sweet potatoes, peeled & chopped in ½” chunks

1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed (I used 1 c. of dried black beans, soaked overnight)

8 cups of water

2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (or chicken legs, with the skin removed, bone-in, as long as you don't mind fishing out bones later)

2 cups of frozen corn

Salt and pepper to taste

- put the dried chilies in a bowl and pour 2 cups of boiling water over, let them reconstitute for 10 minutes, and then puree with the chipotles in adobo sauce.

- put everything else except for the corn in the slow cooker, cook on low for the duration of the work day.

- When you get home, check the liquid of the soup and add more water depending on how brothy you want the soup to be. Stir in the corn. Taste for seasoning, season with salt and pepper and serve.

To serve (all optional):

Diced avocadoes

Chopped green onions

Sour cream

Crushed tortilla chips

Cilantro

The weekend

2012-01-15T14:56:00.001-05:00

This weekend, I almost made the Dotytron divorce me on account of how infuriatingly indecisive I was being about Friday Night Takeout Night. I spent an unconscionable amount of time on Friday (considering people have like, real problems in this world of ours), waffling back and forth on what we were going to eat and whether to go out or bring it back and how the logistics would work if it was pick-up and blah blah blah. I called the Dotytron no less than 8 times. EIGHT TIMES! I was being the worst about it. In the end, we got Chinese BBQ takeout and I ended up having heart burn, so it served me right.

Truth be told, I wouldn't mind getting a divorce. One, because being a divorcée is dead sexy (in my books). Two, because I kinda hate being married. Just being part of an institution that I don't believe in makes me mad. I hate that like, people can't just be common law or live together in a relationship forever nowadays. Like, you still have to be MARRIED for your relationship to be considered legitimate. It's annoying. I hate that since getting hitched I get mail addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. I Dotytron." It makes me SO MAD! I hate how it's assumed that I lost my identity or autonomy upon getting married. I gotta say, peeps can do what they want, but I'm not a fan of a woman changing her last name. It's so wrapped up in patriarchy for me. It's so outmoded and retrograde. It would be one thing if the decision to take a last name was negotiated between the individuals...but it's not. It's the woman taking the man's name and I think that's bulls**t. I think our next kid is going to bear my last name. Just to make a point about it.

Anyway, that proto-feminist rant aside, here is the obligatory, kid-in-pjs-under-the-tree shot, featuring the Boobla in his musical instrument jim jams that he's already outgrown (he outgrew them as soon as I bought them, actually):

And here are some bundled-up-for-the-outdoors shots. Kids who are wearing a million layers that turn them into stocky, chunky tree trunk starfishes are so cute. I love it. We basically robbed him of the use of his joints by stuffing him into 4 layers of clothes to brave the cold yesterday. He could take a few stiff-limbed steps and then he would face plant or fall back. It was hilarious.

Why I love my street, part #996848481. They opened up a Toys R Us Express at the mini-mall near our place and I was there on another mission and saw these little blue sleds on sale. So I bought it. I was carrying it back to our house when my neighbour said, "You didn't just buy that did you?" and then went back to his shed and got his old one and gave it to us. So best. So good to re-use and not just contribute to the garbage piling up in developing nations. I love my street and hood so bad. Here is us taking the sled out for a spin - it's pretty grainy - probably something with our camera settings. One day we'll invest in an HD camera.

Last night's dinner - mushroom barley risotto and pan-fried lamb sausage

C-Hova came over last night to learn how to make beats from the Dotytron. D'awwwww...he also wants to start DJing and throwing small parties, so I finally have knowledge that will be useful to him. It's about time!

I also made a recipe from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook last night. Christina Tosi (the pastry chef) is my hero but she's buck. For a chocolate cookie recipe, I had to make a chocolate crumb component first before then incorporating that into the cookie dough. Each cake recipe consists of at least 4 individual components. I had to buy citric acid and glucose and acetate and a 6" round cake ring for the cakes I'm planning on tackling from the book, and I've devised a plan of attack that consists of making a component a night leading up to the assembly, which has to take place 24 hours before I'm planning to serve, because all the cakes get frozen and then defrosted. It's bucktown. But I'm totally inspired. The chocolate-chocolate cookies pictured above are heavenly. They're like a giant, cookie-r version of an Oreo cookie, salty, deep, dark, chocolatey, with a crisp-chewy texture that's to die for. These would make amazing ice cream sandwich cookies, or a nice cookie to crumble down to mix with whipped cream or turn into a crust. I happen to be doing a fine job eating them as-is, though.

Our Cleveland friends bailed so today we went with Momma D to Pacific Mall to pick up Chinese New Year swag and to buy an outfit for the Big Yam. Spoiler alert: his outfit is awesomeness. For breakfast I made us this outrageously rich eggs benny: poached eggs on oven-crisped proscuitto, on top of sliced avocado, on top of tater tots. With hollandaise!!! Insane!

For dinner I roasted us a duck and roasted some potatoes in duck fat. We also had brussels sprouts and sautéed rapini.

Fin.

I saw the sign

2012-01-13T06:51:00.000-05:00

and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign (life is demanding, without understanding)"

I was randomly singing those lyrics tonight during dinner and the Dotytron was all like, "What does that even mean (specifically referring to the 'life is demanding/without understanding' part)?" and then I started futzing on my computer and tuned him out while he was pondering out loud, only to tune back in to catch the phrase, "a really capitalist perspective." So then I go, "I have no idea what you're talking about" to which he replied, testily, "I'M TALKING ABOUT THE ACE OF BASE. YOU KNOW GODDAMNED WELL WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT." At which point, I DIED LAUGHING. LOL!!!!!!!! HOWLZORZ!!! "The" Ace of Base is the best 4-word combination I've heard in recent memory.

So, I have an important fashion tip update. The other day I rocked a pretty slamming outfit at work - my shrunken (kid's bat mitzah Value Village) blazer, my real skinnies from the Gap, and this orange patterned sleeveless blouse with this touch of black net overlay around the neck. POP POP! Plus I got my hair thinned by SMckay when she came over for movie night with Lolly the last Thursday before vacation ended and I had put the effort in to straighten it so I looked pretty boss. Benetint on the cheeks + straight hair (so much easier to straighten when I have 50% less of it on mi head!) = fly. ANYWAY, MHui gave me a good tip: ladies, don't wear your shrunken blazer with capris, otherwise you look like your clothes got sent through the dryer by accident. It's a little too Pee Wee Herman, naw mean? Okay good, carry on.

Speaking of the opposite of shrunken, while in the States, I went to Stride Rite to stock up on real shoes for the Big Yam, seeing as how he's walking around now and I don't want his indoor slippers getting all jacked up on concrete and whatnot (my views on indoor/outdoor shoes never the twain shall meet-ing are well known round here). Turns out, my kid needs DOUBLE EXTRA WIDE shoes. I liken it to stuffing a cabbage roll inside a teeny tiny miniature sneaker. His feet are as like, as tall and wide as they are long. Not quite, but it's kind of cute...the little fat footed f**ker.

Ehmdo has some new chunes a gwanning. She sang on this Canadian country dude, Josh Macumber's song, Tomorrow and got to be in a big, fancy video:

I kinda find that Josh guy to be...uh...not a looker, per se, but the song is catchy in a red-state kinda way and Ehmdo looks really pretty in it. All that glamming up makes her look older than her years, though, which makes sense because they probably don't want Josh perving on some young 'un. When I watch the video, I keep thinking to myself, "JUST COMPLETE THE PHONE CALL!" cuz the phone gets hung up so many times. LOL!

This is the video for the first single off her coming album (one of my favorite songs on the album):

Oh you fancy, huh? So fancy! I'm so proud of her.

I took today off of work to take the Big Yam to get his 15 month shots. He was such a trooper and we had a really nice day together. I normally try to ditch him with his daycare provider on my days off so I can do stuff unencumbered. Stuff like: groceries, banking, cleaning the house, etc. But I was talking to my friend G at work and she was saying that she keeps her kids home with her on her days off, because soon they're going to be in kindergarten and she won't even have the option of taking them out to stay home and I got all guilty and totally changed my attack. She speaks the truth! I should cherish these days I get to spend with him...why else do I work so hard? QT with my fam-bam and friends, that's why. So we hung out with the roomie as well and I took him to his appointment, and we played and read books and sang songs. It was super-cute and fun.

For dinner I made us pizzas. Three different kinds because I'm crazy like that. A potato, rosemary, roasted garlic oil and gorgonzola one, a proscuitto, grated parm, garlic and baby arugala one (mimicking my favorite pizza from the Magic Oven, a chain I refuse to patron because their pizza is so overpriced), and our favorite, a "spicy pig" sausage from the Sausage Partners, fresh mozzarella, roasted garlic, and caramelized onion one. Woooeee, that last one was delicious.

So excited that tomorrow is Friday! We thought our Cleveland friends were going to be coming into town and cleared our calendar. As it turns out, they can't make it. So we have an entirely free weekend, which is nice. And as an added bonus, we can delay our top-to-bottom Chinese New Year house clean for a bit.

Bonus shot of the Boobla rocking what we call, "The Rooster" all day:

Fin.

Deep thoughts

2012-01-11T20:27:00.001-05:00

Here are some deep thoughts from me:

1) Remember bruschetta? Remember how bruschetta used to be like, a thing? Like, any restaurant you would go to, regardless of type of cuisine would have bruschetta and people saying, "I loooove bruschetta" and getting all weirdly faux-Italian with the pronunciation was a regular occurrence ("BROOOOSCHKKKETTTA") I don't know why this came up recently, but I've been weirdly fixated on it. Like, it was SO ubiquitous, guys! As if chopped tomatoes with some basil on garlic on bread was the be-all and end-all. You couldn't show up to a graduation party without it appearing. I love it as much as the next person (in season), but I feel that the benefit of distance allows me to say that bruschetta is a b***h to eat in public. The tomatoes get everywhere!

2) Last week we walked into Kernals to pick up some supplies for our planned Settlers of Cattan date with Dr. Rei and Hanbo. While we were there, we met this guy who was basically the Kernals-version of Randal Graves. Anyway, we were riffing with the guy about his job and then the Dotytron said something like, "yeah, and then 8 years later, you're still here" at which point I proceeded to die inside while the guy said, "8 years? Dude, I've only been here for 6 months." When we left the store I was like, way to make that dude feel like he's doing a go-nowhere job for the rest of his life and he has no future. LOL! The Dotytron is all like, "what? Noooo...he got that it was a joke, right?" And then when the ramifications of what he had said sunk in, proceeded to feel really bad. We realized that he picked a number that was all-too-feasible for a Kernals front-line employee. It's really easy to meet the 8 year mark doing a gig like that. The Dotytron should have picked like, 80 years or something to drive the joke point home.

3) During what was a generally hilarious conversation later that same evening, the topic of the "2nd earth" (aka the Christmas Planet - worst name, EVER! Why not just call it "unobtanium"?!?) that had been dominating the news over the holidays came up. Hanbo, ever the sensible one, asked, "How do they know the planet is so earth-like?" To which Dr. Rei and I, already on a spinning-each-other-up tear, responded at the same time (respectively): "They just do!" "They can see it........trails off uncomfortably" LOL!!! So typical us.

4) So, as some of you may know, the Dotytron and I availed ourselves of a 50% Porter seat sale to book ourselves a little 10th anniversary trip to NYC. The big question mark was what to do with the Boobla. My mum said no, it's a lot to ask of Momma D, and we weren't sure if we wanted to part with him anyway. The interim solution (which allowed for maximum unfettered restauranting on my part) was going to be dropping him off with my sister so that she would take him into the daycare Little Big Cuz goes to and then picking him up. Not bad all around (even if my heart did falter at the thought of him eating US institutional daycare food for 3 days). Anyway, we were still up in the air about what we're going to do, until Momma D came up with the brilliant plan to come with us to NYC. That way, she could watch the Big Yam at night while we did our own thing and all was right in the world. So cute!

...

Until I started getting the odd email with a food/restaurant suggestion (full disclosure: there have been 2 emails, and 1 of the restos was already on my spreadsheet). I am such a control freak that it had never crossed my mind that in travelling with other people, THEY MIGHT NOT CEDE GASTRONOMIC CONTROL TO ME. LOL! Like, my family generally lets me do the meal planning, if something like that is available. When I've traveled with other friends, it hasn't been an issue. Either they're eaters like me that I trust implicitly, or, they're willing to cede control to me and eat weird random sandwiches on their own time (see: Dr. Rei and the Dotytron in Florence & Rome. See: what a hard time they gave me when I refused to eat anything that wasn't on "the list"). Anyway, Momma D has been lovely about it and has as much as said that I can meal plan the entire trip but even the odd innocuous email suggestion stresses me out. Because I'm a psycho. LOL! We're having to adjust our eating plans anyway to accommodate the presence of the Big Yam.

It just goes to show you that in all things Lagerfeld, it's Lagerfeld's way or the highway.

Tonight for dinner we had braised squid and chickpeas with whole wheat couscous and light, simple, mixed green salad. The braised squid was pretty terrible, I don't think I'll be making that again.

Fin.

High-low dialectic

2012-01-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

First, I'm going to get all high culture on you and talk about the two last books I read. Commencing forthwith.

Téa Obreht is a 20-nothing writing juggernaut who makes me green with envy. She's like this decade's Zadie Smith, though less funny and more sombre and lyrical. Either way, it's maddening. When I asked my friend K if she was planning to read The Tiger's Wife, Obreht's debut novel, she responded, "No. I'm not a fan of phenoms." LOL! The publication of this book was a bit of a literary event and it's received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The story follows a female doctor in an unnamed Balkan country, newly emerging from the fog of war (it's widely considered to be about Yugoslavia/Serbia). Upon learning of the death of her grandfather and after traveling across a newly established border to delivery inoculations at an orphanage, stories of her grandfather's youth mix and mingle with myths and lore to weave a textured tapestry of history, mortality, nationalism, war, kith and kin. Was I smug about how her editor didn't correct Obreht for using the word "shivering" no less than THREE times in the first 25 pages as an adjective describing the motions of plants? Of course I was! "Some phenom!" I scoffed, with the over-sized scorn of the bitterly and enviously untalented. She is a gifted writer though her writing isn't necessarily to my current taste. It's a little too mannered in a stereotypical "literary" fashion for my taste. And I thought certain chapters dragged. The chapters narrated by the grandfather figure resonated the most. I would certainly recommend this title, but I wasn't head over heels about it.

Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone came to my attention when it received an A- grade in Entertainment Weekly (my pop culture bible). Subsequent breathless glowing reports from my sister confirmed that this had all the makings of being able to fill the void left by The Hunger Games in my YA reading life (my sis also introduced me to The Hunger Games, about a billion years before it became zeitgeisty). This is fantasy-driven YA about a human girl, Karou, who is an art student in Prague, raised by demon-like "chimaera" with no knowledge of her past or of how she came to have this strange family. Mysterious things start to happen that kick-starts a breach between Elsewhere and the human world that you and I occupy. Elsewhere plays home to a centuries-long war between seraphim (angels) and the chimaera (demons) and the events of the book follow Karou as she discovers who she is and her role in the battle for this other world. It is GOOOOOOOOOD, folks. Like, I read 2 pages and was INSTANTLY hooked. Like, I read it in 2 days good. It's got everything - forbidden love, sex, demons, angels, a strong female protagonist, Prague as a backdrop, good, evil, war...all the awesome stuff you want. I can't recommend this enough. If you're not susceptible to fantasy then you might be turned off, but all I can say if that is the case is that you're letting irrational discrimination keep you from an excellent yarn. AND IT'S A SERIES! I don't really know how I'm supposed to wait until the next installment gets released in 2012...but it's going to be freakin' tough.

I recommended it to my friend, Montréal I, who is the person in my life MOST likely to love it. We saw her over the holidays and she was lamenting her current single state (she's been single for a while now) and how she's on the lookout for a warrior with the soul of a poet. It's really funny if you actually know Montréal I, how much that archetype is PRECISELY who she's on the lookout for. However, as we were trying to think of people (fictional and otherwise) who embodied this - it became pretty tough. Aragorn from Lord of the Rings is pretty much the standard-bearer and then it becomes pretty slim pickings after that. Once you get into real people, forget it. We couldn't think of a single person who personified warrior-with-the-soul-of-a-poet.

The low culture part of my post comes when I start talking about style. Here is my newest style tip for you ladies who have to dress business-casual. When you wear a sweater/cardigan type thing over your blouse and you are concerned about looking mumsy (which this look can very often devolve into) - my tip is: roll up the sleeves of your sweater so that they're 3/4 length. This very simple trick takes a mumsy-looking layer and turns it into something a little more fashion forward and sharp. Trust me.

So, my updated spring/summer work wardrobe is in need of some killer footwear to polish it off (that and the ultimate satchel/purse...but that's proving to be a difficult fight). Here are some contenders:

SM Reilly Sandal is a more casual entry - not exactly what I'm looking for, this would be more suitable for casual, weeknight/weekending than my every day shoe at work.

Ted Baker's Denoo sandal is almost exactly what I'm looking for. One of the looks I'm trying to get going is a slouchy, trouser-y khaki pant, rolled at the cuffs with a blouse, a shrunken blazer, and shoes like these to give the outfit some lift. These are a perfect shoe to elevate a more casual outfit and ground a flirty, flimsy summer dress. At $119 though, it's a little more than I'm looking to spend on one shoe.

The Adrienne Vittadini Aspen sandal is a more neutral, classy, understated version of the summer shoe I'm looking for. This would be a more versatile shoe that can support a more dressed up look (ie. a summer wedding - if one was actually happening - or, the favorite fashion magazine event that never happens in real life - the garden party).

You can't go wrong with a patent flat in a neutral colour. This will be a summer time workhorse when I'm tired of wearing heels (so like, everyday). These are SM (I think that's what Steve Madden is called now) Gypsi flats in camel.

Finally, Jellypop's Garlie sandal is like a low rent version of the Ted Baker ones above. Priced to move at $25 - these will be a good substitute for me to try this look instead of committing to the price of a multiple-season shoe. They're a little clunkier and a little more cheap looking, but at my work, no one really notices these details except for me.

Decisions, decisions! I probably have it in my budget to get 2 new pairs of shoes...we'll see which ones I end up with.

For dinner tonight we had cheddar broccoli soup and Ace Bakery olive boule with butter:

Fin.

Culture Club

2012-01-08T11:13:00.001-05:00

Watched a lot of movies and have read quite a few books over the break. I'm a little sad about going back to work tomorrow, especially since I seem to have contracted a mild form of stomach flu. The plus side is, all this pooping is going to help me lose some of the holiday weight I gained. J/K! I kid, I kid (not about gaining the weight, but about being glad about having a case of the scoots to lose it). I am NOT endorsing this type of behaviour, impressionable readers.

I will be glad to get my body back on track though. My sis and I hit up the outlet malls near her place so I could bump up my spring/summer work wardrobe. Alls I gotta say is: J Crew outlet. YES! Mad fist pumps! I loves me some J Crew - got me a simple black pencil skirt, a few Jackie O cardigans, two button down shirts, a patterned pencil skirt from their resort line (pictured below) which looks a little matronly but which I think I can sass up with some cork heeled open toed shoes and the right bag/tops (also, the photo below is grabbed from the interwebs...I would NEVER try on a skirt with socks - that's a recipe for dressing room failure. Seriously. Just take your damn socks off and see how the outfit looks with ankles! It's worth whatever phantom case of athlete's foot you're worried you might contract at J Crew.) I also got this pleated, tulip shaped skirt in a neutral, dark khaki griege (that's the new design blog shorthand for grey and beige, yo!)

I also went a bit buck at Banana - got a few blouses and $20 pants. I spent quite a bit, but now I'm pretty much done building my spring/summer work wardrobe and can kick back on that score. I'm a very focused shopper - I know how I want to look, I make a list of the pieces I need, and then I go out and bang it out. If I can't get it online and I have to go to stores, this is a lifesaver for me - it's so efficient. I don't super love aimlessly shopping any more - it's just not my style. That's what the interwebs is for, sons.

I can't believe what a Banana/J Crew slut I am. This is the way it is for the working woman though. I also can't believe how I can pull together a work wardrobe, but like, Zooey Deschanel can still get away with acting like a twee girl-child and people find it adorable.

Shortly before New Year, the video above made the rounds. Dr. Rei and I have already debriefed about this, but we both find this video HELLA ANNOYING!!! I'm just like, YOU'RE 31!!! How come I had to to progress my style and you're wearing a tiara?!!??? GET OUT! What the heck? Are you going to be wearing mary janes and tights and too-short dresses and tiaras when you're 37? NOT APPROPRIATE!!! There's nothing wrong with being a GROWN-UP. Being all girlish and coy and precocious and cutesy is SO not my bag anymore. I mean, all my friends are adorable in their own way. But it seems like such a put-on. I find it annoying the same way I find the Olivia years on the Cosby Show and Elmo annoying. Don't try to be cute. Just be who you are. And maybe that's who Zooey is. I don't know her life. Alls I knows is: it seems like a put-on.

By comparison, I feel like Tavi Gevinson is someone who is moving through adolescence into womanhood in the public eye in such a real, accessible, relatable way that I want to vomit. She's put together this online magazine called Rookie and it's the best. Seriously, check it out. This is the kind of magazine that 14 year old me in high school could have really used to help navigate being a weird duck and that 32 year old me now enjoys reading as a window into how 14 year old me could have been. Originally, I thought I was going to be all over Zooey's venture (with Sophia Rossi and Molly McAleer) Hello Giggles, but it's just not for me. I still find Molly McAleer's blog pretty funny, but at the same time, I realized that these women are way too into Beyoncé for me. I don't love Bey. I just don't. And I also don't love 2 Broke Girls (after making the criminal mistaking of making a decision after the first episode and tweeting about it). It's kind of racist and the writing is poor. They also all love Drake and Lil' Wayne and I'm sorry, I can't go down that nasal alley with them. Sorry.

Auto correct always fixes "relatable" but I'm convinced that it's a word and I can't be bothered to figure out how to spell it.

Anyway...here are some reviews of movies I have seen (in the order that we watched them):

I watched Country Strong on my own waiting for the Dotytron to come back from his last winter concert before the break. I had been hankering to see it for a while. As some of you know, I am a frequent collaborator in the common fixation-hate for Gwyneth Paltrow that is shared by many women in North America. It's like, she's just TOO MUCH. With her patrician features and always going on about being macrobiotic and then flipping the switch and pretending to love eating fried chicken and being a regular gal who also wears Stella McCartney and Balenciaga and can sing and dance and act and "cook" has Senor Spielbergo for a godfather. SHUT IT! Anyway, I wanted to watch this movie, which is ridiculous, because it shows her as a not-so-recovering alcoholic who does self-destructive shiz like try to have sex with disgusting, bloaty guys, and scream, "GIMME THAT BOTTLE!!" while lunging for said bottle across an unmade bed in a designer bra. It was laughable and super-melodramatic, but not without its entertainment value.

So...y'all know that I'm a rabid hypochondriac, right? THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE MOVIE FOR ME. It was super-freaky and super-real and you get to watch GWYNETH PALTROW DIE OF A SEIZURE. Which is kind of the best (see above). Like, she's not wearing any makeup and she looks RUGGED and then she foams at the mouth. Amaze. For people who harbour apocalyptic-preparedness delusions (ie. me and most people I consider deep kindred spirits), then this movie is the exact combination of reality-fear to whip us into a state of taser/cross-bow/semi automatic arsenal gathering. It has the following hallmarks:

1) illustrating the thin line separating civilization from anarchy

2) illustrating how ill-prepared the government is to handle a crisis

3) how quickly disease can spread

Brutal. It also didn't help that my sis was like, "the Centre for Disease Control is one of the most consistently under-funded agencies." AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! We don't even need a zombie apocalypse...we're like one Spanish flu away from total chaos. Which is all to say: this movie is pretty good.

I had super-high hopes for this movie that were quickly dashed. This won the grand jury prize at Sundance last year. Promising, right? It's about these two young uns who meet in America but she overstays her visa and then gets shipped back to the UK and they can't be together and it's hard because they're in lurve. The actress, Felicity something or other, also won the acting prize. The film is beautiful in that hazy, Instagram-y way that shows young lovers in the best light and to which my generation is extremely susceptible. The acting is very natural, with a lot of the dialogue improvised by the actors. We just couldn't get into it. I was like, YEAH DUMMY, YOU OVERSTAYED YOUR VISA SO OF COURSE YOU GOT THE BOOT. WHY DIDN'T YOU FOLLOW THE RULES?!? And then it goes on for too long and ends like, 3 scenes after it should have ended and is kind of silly. The Dotytron's theory is that you either have to be the age of the characters in the movie to appreciate it, or like, 60 years old and nostalgic for the thrill of young love. Anyone in between is gonna think these guys are just janky losers with first world problems.

We followed that up with Pearl Jam 20, which is a Cameron Crowe directed documentary about Pearl Jam. Cameron Crowe has deep roots in that scene and the footage was extraordinary. It's a really engaging, entertaining documentary, that has appeal for anyone who likes Pearl Jam, even superficially, or who grew up in the 90s. It just makes you realize how s**ty music is nowadays and how superficial and how no one sings and how artificial it all is at this point in time (I recognize that things go in waves). I think we're about due. Anyway, grunge was the best. Being in high school at a time when that was the alternative to aspire to was really special and we were lucky that the uniform was oversized t-shirts, ripped jeans, flannel on flannel, and in the Dotytron's case, 3 hole Doc Marten's (aka business shoes...LOL!) The story of how the Dotytron always wanted Docs and then his parents got him 3 holes is legendary around here.

Midnight in Paris is one of the more commercially successful Woody Allen films in recent history. I found it meh. I think you either have to like Woody Allen or you don't and I don't think I do. I get that at the time when he first started, his style was pretty revolutionary - but now, I'm always left at the end of his films being, "is that it?" The same with this one. It was kind of fun to meet that Lost Generation of artists, writers, and intellectuals in Paris (Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Dali, Gertrude Stein et al), but the story around it was so flimsy and the present-day relationship between Owen Wilson's character and Rachel McAdam's character was so unbelievable. I also discovered I have a new pet peeve: when people time travel in movies and the movie spends too much time with the time travelling character being all like, "whaaa?" "where am I?" "Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda...hmmm...this must be some kind of elaborate joke." I'm like: WE GET IT. YOU TIME TRAVELED. MOVE ALONG. It's such a waste of the audience's time.

The Adjustment Bureau is based on a Philip K. Dick story - which I've come to realize make better stories than they do films. They are at once too slight for a film treatment and too sophisticated for a film treatment. There's no room for the importance of Dick's investigation into the nature of control and free will to really sink in - the story gets turned into this action-adventure lots-of-people-running thing that just doesn't do the material justice.

I'll do a literature round-up tomorrow.

Fin.

Holiday photo omnibus

2012-01-03T19:59:00.000-05:00

I know it's churlish to complain that the end of one's two-and-a-half week vacation is drawing to a close, but well, there you have it. We've got a small case of the Monday blues and we're trying hard to not wish away the last 4 days of our time. It's been a whirlwind holiday - here's a capsule review of what we've done:

Montessori parenting - the Big Yam experiencing "water play" (am I the only one whose mind goes to a dirty place when I hear those words?) on the floor of our kitchen. It kept him occupied for a full hour, but he was soaked through after. Next time we do this in the winter, I'm going to blast the heat and just have him sitting in his swimsuit.

Crafty Xmas - homemade Big Yam snowglobes

This year's holiday cookie plate - from the top: chocolate coffee toffee, skor cookies, ginger molasses cookies, walnut cinnamon rugelach, macadamia shortbread. I also made orange-almond meringues (like amaretti), but those were done day-of.

Christmas at our house...you'll notice our tree's lights are brighter on the bottom because the sets of strings are different brands. I'd be lying if I said that the brighter lights on the bottom didn't gnaw away at the Dotytron's soul.

For Xmas breakkie, we roasted up this oven-roasted bacon slab from St. Lawrence Market, which is one of our new favorite delectables. We also had Momma D's ham and cheese strata which featured bread spread with butter on one side and dijon mustard on the other. It was killer.

I followed a Thomas Keller tip by way of a FB friend and torched the outside of the prime rib. Such a good crust on that thing, which was kind of wasted on Momma D's family because they eschew fat (so weird!)

I'm really, super proud of this dinner. I was so worried that I had overcooked the prime rib and it emerged a beautiful, rosy, perfect medium rare. We had roasted garlic mashed potatoes, jus, roasted brussels sprouts & chestnuts tossed with brown butter, maple-ginger carrots, yorkshire puddings, and Momma D's apple squash gratin. So good!

To finish, I was really keen on making this salted caramel chocolate mousse, which I thought would be a nice, light ending to the meal. It was delicious. I'll post the recipe in the coming week.

This is my family's Xmas

This picture is kind of a big deal.

The obligatory "matching PJs shot" featuring the extremely rare and much sought-after Rocher phone.

This is the Dotytron, Manda, and S-dawg assembling S-dawg's gift to my nephew W. It's a 6 foot long, helium-filled, remote controlled shark that's supposed to hover at around 5-6ft. It's HUGE!

Seriously. I can't reiterate enough how much this thing is a blimp. With my family, we open presents in reverse age order, in a series of one-present-at-a-time rounds. The first gift that W opened, he chose because it was a big, heavy box. As he finished tearing off the paper, imagine how flummoxed he was to be confronted with a helium tank. The whole family was mighty confused. We were like, "are you serious? Open the box!" and then S-dawg was like, "no, it's actually a helium tank" and we were all like, "uhhhh, oooookkkkaaay." A few more rounds went by and then W opened the shark. It took 3 people over an hour and a half to put the thing together. It's kind of awesome for like, 5 minutes and then the reality sets in that you're stuck with a 6 foot long shark zeppelin.

For the Dotytron's birthday brunch with Momma D and Ehmdo, we went to try this new brunch place in our hood, Hammersmith's. It's been getting pretty decent reviews. We had the duck hash plate which comes with 1 fried duck egg and a few slices of baguette - for $13. I had a few problems with this place. One: the service was MEGA-SLOW. It's the chef-owner manning the stoves. We got there right when the place opened at 10am, and he must have literally just rolled in 2 minutes prior. They were turning on the lights, the place was cold, the stoves were cold. I don't freakin' care if it's your restaurant, YOU SHOW UP AT LEAST A HALF HOUR BEFORE THE RESTAURANT OPENS! That's restaurant service 101! So the food took an hour to get to our table, and if you look at what we got (alongside a side of bacon hash), you're kind of like, WTF? What took so long? The duck was already confited! The portions were a little small for the price. And I don't appreciate getting dry toast. Offer some butter on the side, please. The Dotytron's take was that they were a little too hype on their own shiz. We also split a "scone plate" for $5 (scones are otherwise $1.25 each) and the scones were TINY. Like, about the size of 4 postage stamps put together. That's HIGHWAY ROBBERY! Also, the scone plate came with jam and honey, but the plate was more than the cost of 3 individual scones, so I'm like, does that mean if you get just one scone, you get that tiny scone with no jam and honey? WTF? How are you guys running your business? Wack attack.

I'll be posting about my time in Geneseo, next.

Fin.

Ringing in 2012

2012-01-03T19:55:00.000-05:00

We spent about 5 days in Geneseo, hanging with my sis and Uncle Rico and the kids. It was an absolutely lovely, relaxing time of eating delicious, vegetable-free, fatty foods, watching a tonne of movies, reading, knitting, and watching my niece and nephews be goons. A few funny things happened.

One day, I saw this felt toy that I had gotten for my niece 3 Christmases ago, sitting in a corner, all forlorn. I was harping on her about it, so Little Ze said that he would make a scene using the felt and then I would take a picture of it to preserve for all eternity. Then, Miss Ramona said she wanted to do one too, so I came up with a plan that we would all vote on which scene we liked best (secret ballot). Here is #1:

And #2:

To reiterate, I, a grown woman of 32 years, decided it would be a good idea to rank and judge two siblings "art works" through secret ballot. This basically flies in the face of ALL contemporary educational research with its emphasis on differentiated learning, child self-esteem, etc.

Needless to say, it was a disaster. Everyone voted for #1 (Little Ze's) and when I realized that it might be 5-1 in favour of #1, I changed my vote (I was the one reading out the results) to #2 at the last minute so it wouldn't be such a wash. Miss Ramona was NOT PLEASED. To say the least. She actually kind of lost her shiz. There was much crying and moaning and angry accusations that, "LITTLE ZE'S ISN'T EVEN STRAIGHT!" and when we tried to console her by saying that it was all a subjective opinion, that two people voted for her, she let out a wail, "BUT ONE OF THEM WAS MEEEEEEEEE!" LOL!!! We all died laughing (secretly). It was kind of the best. It didn't help that I tried to introduce an "artist's statement" section and Little Ze's "explanation" was the most rambling, convoluted thing since like, Hegel.

We did some cooking one night - we had what we called "white trash" tapas the day after New Year's Eve - shrimp cocktail, wieners rolled in Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, artichoke dip, Mexican dip, baked brie with apricot preserves in puff pastry - it was one of my favorite kinds of meals:

There were also lots of opportunities to watch these two homeboys hang out - it's pretty cute. Little Big Cuz wanted nothing to do with the Big Yam but the Big Yam kept going in for kisses (he does this slow, open-mouthed approach) and was continually rebuffed. The Big Yam is also a pretty empathetic cat. At one point, during dinner, my sis was offering Little Big Cuz some ice cream and LBC was shaking his head and holding out his hand (implying he didn't want any), and when my sister moved my spoon in towards LBC again, the Big Yam, sitting beside him in a booster chair, started shaking his head, "no!" It was really cute.

I will say that my colon is glad to be back home, though.

Fin.

Sicko

2011-12-24T10:46:00.000-05:00

I meant to post before this but then I done gone got myself sick. Woke up at 2am on Thursday with awful, awful lower abdomen cramps that had me thrashing and moaning and being a sucky baby that wouldn't let anyone (read: The Dotytron) sleep until they had heard the full extent of my grievances. Called in sick to work on Thursday as my tummy was still all jacked up and tender...limped my way to drop the Big Yam off at daycare and lay about and slept with a heating pad on. By the end of the day things were slightly better, but I was still weirded out.

Yesterday took the Big Yam to the doctor and explain my symptoms. Guess what he told me? He said, "girl you better try to have fun..." no, wait, that's Prince. As soon as I started saying, "I had these awful cramps in my lower abdomen" he kind of sucked in his breath and sighed and said, *Sigh* "The abdomen is really tough to diagnose because there are so many things in there," *sigh* "and with women, there's the extra stuff..." He said that basically, because I was feeling better on Friday, there wasn't anything to do but monitor it. He felt around to make sure my appendix hadn't ruptured and gave me a clean bill of health. The Big Yam, too. I got mother-in-law'd into taking him to the doctor because he's had a dry cough for the past week...as I suspected, there's nothing to do with a cough sans phlegm, fever, sluggishness. He's just gotta work it out. The doctor said that this time of year, they see hundreds of people with coughs and they only treat about 15 of them.

There was a flurry of wrapping and last minute shopping and braving the Mennonites for my Christmas dinner order, and standing in line-ing yesterday. We're mostly done today, as of the time of this post. Just some last minute finishing on tomorrow night's dinner that can be done ahead and last minute tidying.

This was Wednesday night's dinner (pasta w/ rose sauce):

Last night was our Chanukah meal and since I made a 3lb brisket, we put up the House of Plenty signal to try to get peeps over to help us take 'er down. L'Armi and the Roomie obliged and we had a delicious dinner of brisket bourguignon with sweet potato and yukon latkes, apple sauce, and sour cream. It was SOOOOO good! I used a recipe from Serious Eats, which has been my favorite food site for a while. It's just written by my people. They've got good recipes, good restaurant reviews, and they're not snooty like Chowhound (ie. they review fast food restaurant breakfast sammies in all earnestness). This is a link to the recipe I used. No changes made and I wouldn't recommend any, either. It's perfect as is.

Because Chanukah is all about oil and deep-frying (and the festival of lights and the reclaiming of the Holy Temple, blah blah blah) I made a low-key version of doughnuts - churros. Some dusted with cinnamon sugar and some injected with dulce de leche. Dulce de leche churros were sooooo freakin' good:

Huge Chanukah breakthrough for the Big Yam. Walking suddenly "clicked" last night. Fortified with a bellyful of latkes, brisket, and clementines, he went on a walking tear - doing crazy loops and shouting joyously the whole time. He kept it up for almost an hour and you could see the unrestrained glee in his face at the knowledge of his own burgeoning physical autonomy. It's a bit of a nightmare from a baby-proofing perspective, but it's also a wonder to behold:

Note: the above video contains an asinine observation from yours truly that you love your kid more than your niece and nephew. LOL!!!

Tonight it's the traditional Christmas Eve takeout and movie with Momma D and Ehmdo. Poppa D will be missed.

Merry Christmas, all!

Fin.

Attack of the blob

2011-12-21T06:40:00.000-05:00

Have you guys ever had congee? It's like a savory rice porridge that my people generally eat for breakfast in the homeland, but has been adopted as more lunch/dinner fare here. We made it for dinner last night and even though I KNOW that it's like the most cost-effective, high yielding food of all time, I stupidly decided to double the recipe like a total n00b. The thing with congee is, that rice is like the most absorbent starch of all time (this is not a scientific method-based observation.) So it CONTINUES TO ABSORB for like, a full week after you started putting the dish together. Anyway, 2 cups of rice and 20 cups of water later, I have vats and vats of preserved egg and pork congee to keep me warm at night.

It's been a very Asian week so far for dinners - spicy beef kimchi udon on Monday, followed by congee yesterday. The Big Yam has been so-so about it. He's a big fan of spicy food though - he was very nonplussed by the chili heat of the spicy beef udon.

On our way home from the Dotytron Family Xmas to-do, I was pondering aloud about what kind of kid I want to raise. Having been forced around the company of adults from a very young age, dragged to business dinners for my mom and Big D's clients and such, all my siblings and I were forced to learn to sit and smile and be pleasant through interminably long, multi-course epic mealtimes with people who we shared very little in common with - either they were old (meaning adults) or they were weird, nerdy, future doctors of America (the children of said adults). I may not have acquitted myself with grace back then, but it's kind of important to me now that my kid is able to be well-rounded, well-read enough to be comfortable keeping company with adults. I want my kid to have the social skills so that they don't clam up if they're forced into situations where they don't appear to have a lot in common with their companions. I want my kid to okay striking up a genial conversation with all kinds of people, not just other kids. I want my kid to be able to know how to ask questions and find commonalities with others - not just talk about themselves and their own narrow interests.

I want my kid to be the opposite of narrow. I want the Big Yam to have broad interests, to be intensely curious, to be interested and engaged.

This might all be a pipe dream. Right now he's pretty self-absorbed. He can fake it pretty well though. He has this fake curious sound he does, which is a super-exaggerated, "hunnnnh" followed by a "hmmmmmmm" that goes up at the end so it sounds like a question. It's pretty cute but can also be pretty infuriating - especially when he unleashes it after randomly calming down after being a bear. Suddenly he's all like, professorial inquisitive guy, going "hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?" after you've been dealing with him lying on the floor wanting to be picked up for half an hour when you're trying to make dinner.

Ahhhh, life.

Fin.

Walking it out

2011-12-19T06:43:00.001-05:00

This weekend was crazytown. At one time or another, it featured me, the Dotytron, and/or the Big Yam all being foul owls.

Friday night I had the brilliant idea to make our weekend "easier" by organizing this after-work, super-ambitious, Friday night weekly grocery shopping mission, the intent of which was to free up time on the weekend. Well - what little time I freed up on the weekend was quickly squandered by the Dotytron's tension levels at STILL having 2 more holiday concerts to get through, compounded with the usual bemoaning of the busyness that is a life with a kid, a house in Toronto, a super-type A significant other, a demanding job, and a full social calendar. So imagine his dismay, when he met up with me at the veggie store, and I, blithely oblivious and offended at the state of the brussels sprouts at my usually stalwart Fruit King, said, "we have to go the Farmer's Market tomorrow to get carrots and sprouts." He damned near lost it. "BUT THERE ARE CARROTS HERE. JUST GET ANYTHING." Me: "But I want colourful carrots" (imagine, dear readers, how well that reasoning played - know your audience, readers, know your audience.) Suffice it to say that what ensued involved a lot of f-bombs (me) and a lot of long-suffering, tense pauses (the Dotytron.)

When the dust had settled, we realized it was because I didn't pitch it correctly. I should have said, "do you want to go to the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning and get breakfast and have coffee and walk around and then maybe we can see if there are nicer carrots for Christmas dinner?" That would have gone over waaaaaaayyyy better.

Anyway, when we got home, we had this waiting for us:

That would be warm, trippa alla fiorentina (tribe, Florentine style), which we scooped into bowls direct from the slow cooker and topped with grated parm, a dollop of chimichurri I was passing off as salsa verde, and sided with big warmed hunks of my roasted garlic, caramelized onion focaccia for dipping. It was heavenly. The Big Yam didn't think so, but that's because I had bought his grocery shopping compliance with cheddar bunnies. I got him to eat it on Sunday, after he rejected it for lunch, by starving him into submission. Is that mean? Maybe. I don't give picky eaters no quarter, though. Choice is a luxury that is not allowed to him, unless I deign it so, and if he starts throwing perfectly good food on the floor, he can go hungry until he's willing to eat it later (which he was.)

The Big Yam, after 6 months of being a fantastic eater (which isn't all that much time until you realize it's like, half his life) has started to become "snoopy" in the words of Nany. But it's weird and day to day with him. One day he's dumping handfuls of apples off the side of the high chair, the next day he's taking bites out of an apple the Dotytron is eating. There are certain consistencies - like he will always eat: French toast, oatmeal, toast, most carbs, all berries, bananas, clementines, most fruits, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, avocado, corn, beans, etc. Other vegetables are more touch and go...I just keep offering it and offering it again and again.

Anyway, our morning at the farmer's market ended up being very nice. We woke up and bundled ourselves in schluffy clothes into the car and went to St. Lawrence Market and had breakfast sammies from Carousel Bakery alongside some extra strips of oven-roasted bacon from one of the meat purveyors. Did our shopping and came home and got ready for the Dotytron family xmas party which was being held up in Pottageville or some other place off the map.

It was a gong show getting there. First we timed it so we would go to Costco and pick up gifties first and then head to Pottageville. Got to Costco (which is MADNESS on a weekend generally, but ESPECIALLY SO on a weekend leading up to the holidays), and realized I had forgotten my wallet at home, which kiboshed the Costco mission but also kiboshed the me being the designated driver scheme we had cooked up. So we had to drive all the way home and then head out again.

Dotytron family xmas was lovely, though. It was kind of a pot-lucky affair - I brought: thyme and Gruyere gougeres, proscuitto-wrapped prunes, and the homemade kit kat bars. We were supposed to go to Supper Club afterwards but we left the family thing late (around 8pm) and it was too much for us and especially the Big Yam. It would have involved getting him out of the car, waking him up, hauling him to Supper Club for an hour, only to pack him back into the car, him falling asleep, and then hauling him back out again when we got to our house...it just wasn't feasible and fair. I think we'll be more ambitious when he gets a little older - in fact, it's very important to me that he get used to falling asleep at people's houses and being bundled up in his jammies and taken home, but for right now, it's too disruptive for him.

So we came home and started watching Louis C.K.'s show, Louie, which we INSTANTLY fell in love with. It's the funniest thing ever. We were laughing so hard we were crying. It's also viciously smart, nuanced, highbrow, lowbrow, and keenly observant. This scene, is brilliant. Near the end, there's a discussion of the use of the word f****t, which I thought was so layered and perfectly encapsulates comedy, the simultaneously elasticity and rigidity of language, the nature of semiotics, and the use of taboo words. It really struck me.

In retrospect, it becomes all the more striking when it is revealed that my mother-in-law, the dear Momma D, might possibly have heard me call the Dotytron a "f**king c**t" on Sunday. Whoops. In my defense, I was joking. He left the lock for the stroller at home and I was jokingly berating him for messing with my system. She was in the car and this all happened outside the car, with the car doors closed, so I'm not 100% sure she heard it...but the Dotytron is convinced. LOL!!! I actually find it pretty funny. But I can see how this probably doesn't improve my image as the shrewish, shrill, harsh-o-matic outlaw daughter always giving her son a hard time. I can't help it! I've got a potty mouth!!! I come by it honestly, having worked as a blue-collar worker for many years. Cooks have the filthiest mouths. I also go straight to: "I'm going to f**king kill you" any time something small happens. In fact, the smaller the thing, the sooner I am to jump to: "you're an idiot" or "I'm going to f**king kill you." I guess from outside, if you don't know me, I can see how it looks bad...but I don't mean anything by it! That's just the way I talk. Anyway, Momma D and Poppa D like, never had screaming matches (according to the Dotytron), whereas in my family, from the outside, it sounds like that's ALL WE DO. So it's a cultural thing? I don't know. Alls I knows is - sometimes, I'm going to throw down the c-word, and it ain't no thang in my books.

This all happened on the way to the Toronto Christmas Market, which was amazing, the only downside being that it was a victim of its own success. Basically, they turn the Distillery District into this European-style Christmas Market, with little wooden stalls selling mulled wine (DELICIOUS!) and apple cider, and maple taffy, sausage on a bun, schnitzel, mac'n'cheese, candied bacon, etc and also little tchotchkes and stuff...there's a GIANT Christmas tree and there are twinkling lights all around and a bunch of stuff for kids like a Santa's village, and the shops are open so you can stroll in and out. It's beautiful and lovely and very festive. Because it was so awesome, it was also a s**tshow, with way too many people trying to navigate around dogs and strollers and a million other people. If they do it next year, I would want to take an afternoon off and be leisurely about it. I also hope they extend it into the holiday break so that it spreads people out during the holiday, instead of all crammed into the weekend. I highly recommend it, though!

So the long and short of it is, even though we were foul owls at some point, in the end, the weekend was perfectly lovely - full of experiences, good food, and family.

Here is a video we finally managed to capture of the Big Yam working on his crip walk:

Spicy beef udon for dinner tonight. Shazzam!

Fin.

Favorite moments

2011-12-15T06:56:00.004-05:00

My favorite moment of the week this week was having the three of us on Monday night, after the Boobla's bath, in pajamas, lying heaped together on the floor of the Boobla's room, while he quietly played with his toys in his post-bath glow, listening the Nat King Cole Christmas album, playing all scratchy and warm on the Dotytron's record player.

This is hands-down my favorite Christmas album - no one in the world has a voice like Nat King Cole. And on vinyl? Quit it. It's just insanely good. We suspect it was recorded pre-multi track, which is what makes it so good. Remember when the room used to matter? Like where you recorded was a big deal? It's a miraculous album.

The Dotytron was telling me about how when he was a kid, like 5 years old, he would put on the Nat King Cole Christmas album and listen to "O Tannenbaum" and go to the tree and plug in the lights and just sit under the lit tree listening to the album and be like, "this is the BEST!" D'awwwwwww...how cute is that? Picturing wee Dotytron sitting in his footed jammies alone under the lit tree, transported by the pure joy of Christmas as made manifest by Nat King Cole's velvet voice. So darned cute.

I can't wait until this little nugget does that. Well, actually, I can wait a good long time (I don't want to rush him to the age of 5), but when he decides to do it, it's going to be just as sweet:

So, I don't know how many of you know this, but Dr. Rei recently got a job at the Ministry of Magic. It's well deserved, it's what she's wanted, I couldn't be happier for her, blah blah blah. The funny part comes in because she's had a RUUUUUDE awakening these past two weeks as a member of the gainfully employed. You see, Dr. Rei was operating under the mistaken impression that doing a post-doc and being in grad school somehow approximates a job in the real world. So we've been exchanging hilarious text messages about how PWNED she's been getting having to get up early, not take a million personal calls at work, make her lunch every day, not go home when she's tired, etc. LOL! It's been making me laugh. I love that gal. I think now she's starting to understand why so many of our telephone conversations when she's called me at work have consisted of me responding to scandalous gossip with the most terse, non-committal, "uh huh" "i know" and "yeah." Ha!

This was Tuesday night's dinner - freezer polenta lasagna:

The past couple of night's we haven't had much in the way of dinner because yesterday I had this massive holiday catered staff lunch at work and today was the annual buffet at Hart House which is like eating at Hogwart's (think, long wooden communal tables, portraits of headmaster's past, a grand piano, turkey and stuffing and a carving station). So consequently, we haven't been doing much in the way of dinner around here.

Fin.

Rock and a hard place

2011-12-13T09:38:00.006-05:00

I'm stuck in the hinterland known as the place where my practicality butts heads against my principles. It's a bit of a pickle.

Because I'm trying to move away from extravagant xmas presents from siblings, outlaw parents, outlaw grandparents, and the like, I haven't provided preemptive gift list suggestions this year, as I think doing so would be hypocritical and a tacit endorsement of a system that I'm trying to extricate myself from. Yet, at the same time, I know that by NOT providing a list, I leave myself open to all kinds of well-intentioned but misguided items that will subsequently be sitting in my basement until such time as we do a basement clean and they make their way to Goodwill and the like. Is it awful of me? I don't know. I know you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth and be grateful for the sentiment, etc. - but surely we've all been the recipients of gifts where we appreciate the thought and feelings behind them but can't bring ourselves to submit to the actual execution? It's kind of crazy how wrong people can get it, sometimes.

Anyway, so I'm torn. I hate the waste when people spend their hard-earned dollars on stuff that's just not me. But I'm not going to submit a list. All this pent-up frustration has to go somewhere though, and so here are some things that I adore.

Roll Call of Awesome:

BleuForet cotton tights. These are the BEST cotton tights in the whole, wide world. They're so soft and stretchy and warm - like the very best attributes of soft, thin socks and tights mashed up together without any of the thigh-cinching, waist-pinching aspects that can go along with tight-wearing. They are ridiculously expensive, so I can accept that all my cotton tights can't be BleuForet brand. The grey, prune, violet, and pine coloured ones are particular favorites of mine.

In the winter time though, tights are generally a good bet for me. Black, opaque, fishnet, patterned, they're all good and since I almost exclusively wear skirts and dresses to work, I'm always blowing through them.

I've been pining after this for a while. David Chang edits this kind of expensive magazine called Lucky Peach (well, expensive by magazine standards, I guess - it's $28 for 4 issues). It's a compendium of food writing from people and chefs I admire, all packaged in a cool, hip little bundle.

Other good literary-based gift ideas for me: Amazon gift cards so that I can stock up my Kindle, renewing my subscription to Entertainment Weekly for me.

Cast-iron cookware. I don't use Teflon anymore and I'm almost exclusively cast-iron when it comes to cooking nowadays. The problem is, that I only have a small, 10" skillet and while it's seasoned beautifully, as you all know, when I cook, I COOK, and I cook for a crowd. So a big, 14-15" cast iron skillet would be lovely.

As a daily fruit eater tired of retrieving bruised bananas and pulpy pears from the bottom of my purse, a banana guard and a froot guard would be lovely, cheap, stocking stuffer presents for me. So practical!

You also can never go wrong with gift certificate to my favorite stores: CB2, Crate and Barrel, ModCloth, Joe Fresh, Ruched, Anthropologie, Social Butterfly on the Danforth. PEOPLE LOVE GIFT CARDS. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE UBIQUITOUS.

I just recently started using this stuff after reading about it in the pages of In Style magazine for the past 17 years. I got a trial, sample size from my friend M and it's kind of changed my life. A little blush and a bit of eyeliner go a LOOOONG way with me - turning me from a wan, snake-eyed, sickly looking thing in the winter, to someone who looks robust and healthy and glowing. Seriously. I've gotten mad compliments from colleagues who are all like, "you look fantastic after having a baby!!!" and then you have to go and admit that it's all smoke and mirrors and it's only because I'm wearing a bit of this stuff on my cheeks. It's so easy. I don't know how to use highlighter or any of that shiz - but I can rub this stuff on the apples of my cheeks. I find it hard to justify buying a full-size bottled of the stuff though. It's like $30 for a little bottle of dye. That shiz just ain't right.

Sorry for the GIANT photos. Thanks to my gal, Mindy Kaling and her super-smart guy writer friends who helped contribute to her Black Friday gift guide, I've been hepped to Creative Recreation shoes. Look at those kicks. Just look at them. That's some fly, motherf**king s**t right there, folks. That's like the perfect Dotytron shoe. Uh huh. Hot. And they're hella affordable, too.

That's it for this installment of Roll Call of Awesome.

Fin.

Successes/Failures

2011-12-12T06:55:00.004-05:00

Things I'm succeeding at, lately:

- skipping class

- watching movies

- making people laugh

Things I'm failing at, lately:

- attending class

- blogging regularly

- not eating a million sweets/fatty things

I have much to tell, but never enough time to sit down and crank out the lengthy, verbose entries that all my dedicated readers love.

On Friday night I hosted Academic Book Club. We got our house looking as cute as Lil' Ugmo is capable of looking and our little wee house got some rave reviews. I have to say - our house does have personality, even if it is wee. I'm lucky I'm such a visually oriented person and that making our house look all Portland-crafty-blogger-librarian-design-enthusiast magazine ready is something that I enjoy. A few things came out of book club.

1) Those honky grandmas are still trippin'. I love book club. They make me laugh, they really do, and those women are smart and learned and they're like, truly good people, but I feel like some of the ladies just don't know what's what in the world, even when they like, REALLY know what's what in the world, in their U of T professor-y kind of way. Like, they can probably talk about Israel and Palestine in a way more informed fashion than I can, what with my knowledge-gleaned-from-listening-to-2-seconds-of-a-Noam-Chomsky-lecture-before-falling-asleep-and-Joe-Sacco-graphic-novels-derived education on the Middle East. But...but they're also adorably clueless. Like, we were talking about role models and one of them was talking about Tori Amos.

...

That's right, Tori Amos. I kind of died inside. My vagina was cringing. It was the worst. WHO TALKS ABOUT TORI AMOS?!!!??? As a feminist role model?!?

2) They don't really get comedy. As a basis of comparison, I cited Mindy Kaling and Donald Glover as role models. I like ivy-educated funny people, who are creative in a pop-culture relevant way. Is that sad? I dunno. I feel like my way is better because I get humour. So, par example, they were talking about Sarah Silverman, who I don't like, because I find her schtick seriously one-note. I get it, you're cute and you say filthy things. I don't like Chelsea Handler for the same reason. I get it, you're a woman who likes to booze and have sex with dudes with giant d**ks. That's not charming or smart or witty. Boooring! It's not sustainable humour. Anyway, a few ladies were talking about how they love Sarah Silverman, but that sometimes (ie. when she jokes about rape) she goes too far. I feel like that's kind of missing the point of Sarah Silverman, don't you?

Then they found these fake beards I made for SMckay's birthday party. And they were asking what it was about, and I said, "oh, I have a friend who's really into Judaism and beards" and they started laughing, but at the same time, as they were laughing, were like, "I'm so offended!" (a lot of them are Jewish). I get that, I do. Fetishizing someone's religion is kind of offensive. But it's got to be contextual, right? So like, SMckay's appreciation for Jewish culture, while it's an unlearned appreciate, is funny precisely because it's so throwaway...it also has a limited range of applications. She doesn't go around telling just anyone about it (at least, I hope she doesn't) and it's more of a joke for close friends. I just think it's a question of context, and I feel that the younger generation (of which I am tenuously a part) has a more nuanced understanding of context and humour and what's disposable and what's not. Or maybe me and my peers do. As the Dotytron sagely noted, "they don't know where to draw the line." Which I thought was sooooo apt. It's not that Sarah Silverman doesn't know where to draw the line, it's that you don't know. The Dotytron is a super genius, sometimes.

3) I may be a bad person, but I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking. As another example, one of the women listed Dorothy Day as her mentor/role model, because she started the Catholic Worker Movement, where you take in homeless people to live with you, not as charity, but as like, a member of your family and community. To which I immediately blurted out, "ummm, do you like, interview the homeless person or are you supposed to take the first one who shows up?" and they all started laughing again, but I'm like, SERIOUSLY?!? AS IF ANY OF YOU, WHO LIVE IN HOUSES WAY NICER THAN MINE, WOULD LIKE TAKE IN A RANDO HOMELESS PERSON!!! A lot of homeless people are weirdos. And it's not societal. They are skeevy. Skeeviness isn't a societal issue, all the time. Sometimes it's just skeeviness. Wanting to vet a homeless person who you're taking into your home, while it might not fit the acceptable definition of St. Francis of Assisi-style charitable Christian goodwill, is just being a normal person. You just wouldn't do that! I mean, I guess it's awesome that there are people out there who are willing to do that, but I don't actually think it makes them better than other people, sorry. I just don't.

Anyway, we laughed our butts off and I do love my book club ladies. They're the best. It's refreshing for me to be around them because it helps me to realize that not everyone is like me (even if they should be).

This is Thursday night's kimchi fried rice, which the Big Yam ate a lot of, thereby assuaging my fears that he doesn't like Asian food and only likes Indian food:

Saturday morning's breakfast was a homemade sausage and egg sammy with aged cheddar on the most boss buns of life from Strickland's butcher's up the street. I love Strickland's because they're all old-timey in there and it's really bare bones and ghetto looking and they make no claims about selling organic or naturally raised meats but they're 3rd generation butchers and have been working with the same farms for like 75 years and so they're as good as being all hip and trendy and organic. They're super nice and sweet and don't know a think about being modern or cool and I love them for it. They also sell mincemeat tarts in pre-made tart shells and jams, and buns and sausage rolls. It's very odd and the butchers are old and they walk very slowly. In other words: I LOVE IT. Because I'm an old people champion. And I love things that exist in this world that can't be cool and hip and trendy and continue through the support of normal, regular people who still like things like genial, warm customer service. Anyway, the buns are PERFECT. I know, because I live with a bun connoisseur. The Dotytron is very choosey about his buns (human and bread). They're soft and thickly flour coated and so giving and plush - the perfect sandwich bun:

Saturday, I skipped class and we hung out. We decided to do a neighbourhood exploration and so after considering and rejecting the Distillery District and the Junction, we settled on Parkdale - we wanted coffee and to check out the junk shops. We found out there are quite few junk shops, unfortunately, and as Dr. Rei mentioned, that what we really wanted was to be in our own neighbourhood, which is where people go when they want coffee and furniture and antiques. Whoops. It was still nice to go for a stroll - we checked out the Drake General store and found a Christmas tree ornament that looks like Hedwig! Perfect! I've settled on a theme for the tree - we're going with birds and vintage mercury glass. Bird-themed ornaments can be of any material, but anything not a ball or a teardrop or an icicle, will be a bird. I can't tell you how glad I am to have that in the bag.

The best part of our walk (aside from getting the Hedwig ornament) was that I found a vintage Valentino skirt in my size that is work appropriate and was reasonably priced !!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE finding vintage designer stuff! It's suitable for wearing now, which is another bonus - like, it's not some kind of weird relic piece. I love it, so. The thrill of the thrift!

On Saturday night we had Lolly over for a dinner of carnitas and leftover cookies and such:

Followed by a viewing of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1.

I don't even need to do a review of this movie. It's terrible. Nothing happens - except for a long-awaited-by-Twihards marriage, sex, a pregnancy, and a baby. I know when I write that that it sounds like something happens, but seriously, nothing really does. Also, I disagree wtih my sister, who loved Bella's wedding dress. I agree that the back was lovely, but the front! The front looked like this weird harlequin/street mime/Russian gymnast singlet that was entirely too plain and did weird things to her boobs. Also, did Kristen Stewart actually become anorexic for the role? It seems like she did, thereby adding to the list of highly irresponsible and questionable rules that Stephenie Myer, in all her Mormon, anti-feminist, schlock-writing glory, espouses:

1) you should let a guy control you and emotionally manipulate you

2) you should subsume your desires when you fall in love with the guy who controls you and emotionally manipulates you

3) you should not foster any friendships/relationships with your family when you fall in love with a guy

4) you should just barely finish high school but give up all your career aspirations/independence for love

5) sex (which you shouldn't do without being married first) hurts. If your husband leaves bruises all over your body, you should crave it and make excuses for him and say that you love them.

6) when you get pregnant, it is YOUR choice to keep a baby that is killing you

7) it is okay to drink human blood when you're not a vampire to keep your weird, sicko love baby.

WACKSAUCE. I hate the Twilight phenomena and I view it as a highly troubling indicator of the problems with America in general and the modelling for young girls in particular.

Here's a bonus shot of the Boobla Khan looking super-cute in his Christmas party finery with a bonus shot of our tree in the background. Look at how cute he looks, snacking on some cheddar bunnies and in his plaid shirt/cardigan combo. So cute! We went to Momma D's side of the family's annual Christmas party in Markham yesterday. It was fun - although I was the victim of some mother-in-law-ization when I voiced that the Dotytron and I had decided we're not into lining up at the mall to get the obligatory kid-with-Santa photo. Momma D gave me the "You're not getting the traditional photo with Santa!" along with some "what's wrong with you?" eyes. I would like to defend myself and say that the Dotytron and I are in agreeance about this - we have no interest in standing in line and wrestling the Big Yam into submission for a photo with a weird Santa where he'll inevitably be crying. We just don't care about it. And we certainly don't want to pay $20 for the privilege of an over-flashed photo with the Big Yam in some ridiculous white people fancy garb. It's just not our style. If anyone in his life really feels strongly that he's missing out, then they are more than welcome to take him to fulfill this rite of passage.

In the background, you can see our tree, which is a real tree, because as I've mentioned before, the Dotytron has very strong feelings about real trees, which I find endearing. What I also found endearing is that our tree, while a handsome specimen, doesn't have much of a smell, and I've been hearing about it NONSTOP since Wednesday. The Dotytron is truly anguished about it, and it's cute. To the point where we had to buy balsam fir scented incense to make up for it. The balsam fir incense doesn't smell like tree though - it kind of smells like an electrical fire. LOL!

Here's a photo of him at the City of Craft free photobooth they set up. LOL! City of Craft was a bit of a bust. I'm glad I went, because it gave me and Dr. Rei a chance to poke around her hood, but I didn't find anything I would buy. Some of the items were expensive, some were too arcane. There were some people doing some nice prints, but then I got lazy and didn't want to spend the money.

Tonight for dinner we had a chickpea, leek and parmesan soup with salad.

Fin.

Better

2011-12-07T20:43:00.004-05:00

I'm feeling better today. The prospect of a long weekend certainly helps. The smell of hybrid Douglas Fir scenting our vestibule is also easing things along. We're setting up the tree tonight after it's had a full 24 hours of drinking from a bucket of water. Hopefully, if the boughs drop by tomorrow, we can decorate during the Dotytron's PA day and my day off. I'm not sure how to manage vintage mercury glass ornaments & a grabby-handed piccolo bambino, but we'll figure something out.

This is going to be a fun weekend - day off tomorrow with a massage, erranding, xmas tree decorating and then I'm hosting book club. Saturday I have class followed by a carnitas dinner with Lolly and Dr. Rei and their respective SOs, coupled with a screening of a bootleg copy of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Then on Sunday I'm going to City of Craft with Dr. Rei and my friend S, followed by Momma D's side of the family's annual Christmas get together - which this year is taking the form of a jambon dinner. I loves me a jambon dinner. There are going to be a lot of rugrats running around, about whom I feel fairly indifferent, but there is the aforementioned jambon dinner to see me through things. I kind of don't like it when people dress their kids (usually daughters) up in like, ball gowns for a family Christmas, during the day. I just find it really odd and uncomfortable-looking. I kind of hate kids (usually little girls) in velvet and satin ball gowns and those shiny black mary janes. Maybe I'll be tuning a different harp when and if I have a daughter of my own...it's just not my personal style.

On Tuesday we went to see the Dotytron's winter concert - it was so cute. He's so good at his job. There's talk that the school is going to do a "pops" night which is when I'll hopefully see my dream of a kid orchestra playing Kanye's All of the Lights. I've been harping on him to do it for the past year. Any time he's talking about entering Kiwanis or something, I'm like, "you should do All of the Lights" (even though my suggestions/opinions weren't invited), to the point where now, whenever the Dotytron is talking out loud about his orchestra, he preemptively tells me to shut up because he knows what I'm going to say. He's promised that he's going to try to throw something together for the pops night, which has me thrilled. I'm actually contemplating going to the morning rehearsals, because I really want my vision to be realized.

My problem is that I'm a super-idea-generator and I'm also a control freak. After the concert on Tuesday night, the Dotytron and I spent a good chunk of time debriefing, and I'm seriously considering joining the Parent Council at his school, because I feel like I could really up the calibre of the shows. That's psychotic of me, I know. BUT PEOPLE ALWAYS SCREW STUFF UP! I just want the show to be killer. I want them to tear the roof down. I want people to be talking about that shiz for months after and for it to be sold out.

I feel like I would be an awesome school administrator. I'm so good at being organized, it's a damn shame that my talents are being under-utilized running my household and my workload at work. Like, have I told you guys about my awesome fund-raising idea for the Dotytron's band? I think they should sell raffle tickets so that the winner gets to throw a pie at a teacher's face.

...

Genius, right? It works on so many levels!

Monday night's dinner was an old standby, 'round these parts: spaghetti and meatballs. So freakin' good.

Last night we made curried potatoes and cauliflower on brown rice, which I supplemented with Malai Kofta and Kari Pakora from MotiMahal in Little India. Malai Kofta are paneer and potato balls in a creamy tomato sauce. Kari Pakora are chickpea balls in a tangy, yogurty sauce. I kind of got stressed out because it seems like the Big Yam isn't so down with Chinese food, but he freakin' YAMMED (har) that Indian food like it was what he'd been longing for all his life. Fistfuls of cauliflower, spoonfuls of kari pakora-soaked brown rice. I feel like he's a traitor to his race.

My fears were somewhat assuaged tonight when he ate a big bowl of kimchi fried rice. Guys, kimchi fried rice is the lick. I fried up some ground pork in some garlic and ginger, added soft scrambled eggs I had cooked up in another pan, cold leftover brown rice, two jars of kimchi, some frozen peas, and chopped scallions and tossed everything together in a bit of canola oil until hot. SO GOOD! So very, very good.

Tell me that kid orchestra doing this isn't going to be murderation. I can see it in my head: stage is completely pitch black, single spotlight on the Dotytron while the cellos start up, then when the first lyric kicks, full blast lights on, horns going - goosebumps! As I listen to the lyrics, I think we might have to do some rejigging of the lyrical content, but that's a small concern. EEKS! It's gonna be so good!!!

If the Dotytron can realize my vision, that is.

Fin.

Shock

2011-12-07T06:49:00.003-05:00

For the past couple of weeks, I've had a feeling that the initial shock of Poppa D's passing has started to wear off. The strange, insulating numbness that allowed life to continue on with only the vague notion of loss appearing intermittently at the periphery of my life is starting to give way to sudden disruptions of my usual routine with the crushing weight of my loss, the Dotytron's loss, and the Big Yam's loss. I feel like at any moment, the ground shifts beneath me and an event, a thought, will leave me crying at my desk the way I did today. For a while, life continued on with relative ease, as if we just hadn't seen him for the usual amount of time that we'd sometimes go between visits. I took for granted the safety net of the comfortable knowledge of his existence, fuzzy and indistinct like the out-of-focus crowd in a photograph, but still a presence in that mass that could be called into sharp relief if only I wanted it so.

Lately, lately I know that wanting it so won't make it be so. And it makes me so very, very, very sad. I'm sad for the Dotytron, for Momma D, for Ehmdo. I'm sad for the Big Yam and finally, I make room to be sad for myself - for the sadness I feel because of the sadness of these other people. The Dotytron and I will sometimes just start crying together or he'll come down with red eyes or have to stop a task because something reminded him of his da'.

I think this is contributing to my general sourness about the holiday season and the emptiness of the gift buying. I just don't have the mustard for it. I feel like I can't face going out and shopping and trying to come up with something thoughtful and personal to give people. I just don't care. I care for the kids (because as hard-hearted as I am, I'm not so hardened as to want to deprive children of wonder and joy), but I'm also not into kids with their epic, toy catalogue wish lists and short attention spans and disposable mentality. The glut of plastic, branded crap makes me feel physically ill.

I want Santa to give us a do-over on this past year. A chance to take all the good stuff and enjoy that without the too-numerous funerals we attended this year. When it comes down to brass tacks - would I want to erase this year? Ultimately, I guess not - we've come out the other side and the conventional wisdom seems to be that the bad stuff is part of life too. I guess I just want a bit more of my innocence back. Not all of it - but more time thinking that Poppa D was going to be around for a long, long time. More time thinking that he would be able to pick up the Big Yam from daycare and take him to do white-person-grandpa stuff. Just...more.

Fin.

In which I injure my own child

2011-12-05T06:34:00.006-05:00

So...how was your weekend? Mine, mine was okay. EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT I'M A HORRIBLE PARENT AND HURT MY OWN SON. Still feeling awful about it. On Sunday, I stuck him in an empty laundry basket to hang out on the kitchen floor while I rolled meatballs for tonight's dinner. He had a bowl of cheddar bunnies to keep him happy so he seemed okay. Then he tired of the bunnies and tried to stand up and haul himself over the side of the basket. Laundry baskets being the flimsy things that they are, it toppled over, the Boobla toppled with it, landing face-first onto the kitchen tile and biting his upper lip with his bottom teeth. There was so much blood. The poor little lamb's lip swelled up and combined with his cold and possible case of viral conjunctivitis, it wasn't a pretty sight:

Why am I the worst parent ever?!???!!! Who does that??? He's such a good kid, and here I am trying to maim him. Ugh. I still feel terrible - I can see his face all smeared with blood and tears and it makes my heart stop.

This weekend was fairly uneventful, in the end. Except that our car died. AGAIN. Captain Save-A-Hoe is not doing so well. This is the 4th time The Cap'n has died. First time was en route to Cleveland. We get the battery replaced, continue on our way. Then, it dies again, while Miss Ramona was visiting. We get the alternator replaced, and continue on our way (the idea being that the alternator was the problem, since it wasn't charging the battery). Then, our car died AGAIN last week. We got the alternator replaced for free, as it was still under warranty. Finally, on Friday, the Dotytron noticed it was giving the same troubling signs that usually precipitate an all-out car death (brake light goes on, flickering battery light, radio gets wonky) and he managed to cruise into a gas station with the last remaining juice the car had in it. I've told him that since the Captain has a tendency to DIE-die (like to the point you can't put the hazards on, or shift it into gear), that he should pull over as soon as he sees the signs, rather than risk stopping dead on the 401 or something and getting slammed into (my heart stops at the thought). Our auto electric people now think that it's not the alternator at all, but the computer getting the signals all jumbled up. Ahhh, life with the Captain. What a mess.

It doesn't help that the Dotytron has like, 2 holiday concerts this week and so he desperately needs a car - he's borrowed his mum's in the mean time. The only ray of light is that our ROI on our CAA membership is through the roof. That's cold comfort.

Thursday night's dinner was spinach & feta pie:

Saturday morning breakfast was oat scones with devonshire cream and jam:

We scarfed that before jumping into the car at 7:30am to go swimming...only to arrive at the pool in Markham and find that it's closed for maintenance. The number of times we've showed up at that pool, happy and expectant at the prospect of seeing a joy-filled Boobla splashing around in the water, only to be turned away due to an error in our reading of the swim time schedule or some other such thing, are too numerous to count. So we did a bunch of lame errands which made the Dotytron unjustifiably testy at me (he seems to have a hard time understanding the fact that now we do errands on the weekends and that's what being a grown up is about, unfortunately). We had lunch with my grandma and my mom at Ajisen Ramen in Markham. It was good. I like the selection better than the selection at Kenzo Ramen, but I like the base broth better at Kenzo. The Ajisen broth was a little too salty and msg-laced for me. But they have this thing called "tenderous" ribs which was pretty boss and the pork ramen that I had was chock-a-block full of tender, fatty, pork neck pieces. I do loves me some pork neck.

Saturday night's dinner was roast chicken legs, tatties roasted in chicken fat, brussels sprouts, and carrots:

Then the Dotytron abandoned me to go see his friend A, who'd been staying with us while he was visiting from NYC play a show. So I ever-so-foolishly PAID for Love, Actually on ROD and instantly regretted every second of it. Mostly because Alan Rickman's character does a very foolish thing and I hate situations in which I can't like an Alan Rickman character. It makes my heart stop.

Sunday breakkie was my attempt to recreate a dish I quite like from Lady Marmalade. My version is a wholewheat crepe, stuffed with ham, quick-sautéed spinach, rolled up and baked with a cheddar cheese sauce on top, and then topped with two poached (in my case, over poached) eggs. It was deelicious.

Here is my latest holiday craft - my felt ball garland! So cute, huh? I've got it hung in that broad expanse of light grey hallway we have in the house. I'm using little mini wooden clothespins to clip up any cute xmas cards and such that we get this year - it'll also be nice to hang any artwork done by the Big Yam in the future:

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti and meatballs and salad.

Fin.

Bunkering down

2011-11-30T06:30:00.007-05:00

All I want to do is hunker down in Lil' Ugmo with the boys and haaaaannnnggg out. I'm feeling very sluggy lately. I don't want to do anything but quietly craft and eat cookies and wear flannel pjs. It's that time of the year for me.

Last night we had a perfect night with the Big Yam. It was one of those nights when dinner came together quickly, he ate well, we gave him a bath, he went to bed without a fuss, and he was in a good, giggly, laughing mood the entire evening and didn't whine or squawk once. Those nights are somewhat rare (it's rare that we don't have at least a little jag of whinging), but it's so lovely when they happen - like all is right and good in the world.

I'm so committed to hibernating that I've been a bad dodgeball coach and I haven't really been trying to hustle to make it to games. We had to forfeit this week because we didn't have enough people to make a team and I was not-so-secretly pleased at the prospect of another quiet night in. The following photo is for the benefit of one SMckay. Two years ago, shortly after we first bought Lil' Ugmo, I upgraded all my plates to a set from Crate and Barrel. In between each plate was a piece of corrugated cardboard meant to keep the plates from chipping. Well, shortly after we moved in SMcKay was over and I was wondering what to do with the cardboard and she was of the opinion that I should throw it out but I was of the opinion that I might be able to recycle it into some kind of craft project. Here is the resulting craft project, two years later:

Ta-da! It's a garland of corrugated cardboard stars strung on red yarn that we have hanging over the archway between our living room and dining room. I think it looks quite handsome.

While we were sick last weekend we watched J.J. Abrams' Super 8 which I really wanted to love because it stars Coach from Friday Night Lights but which I couldn't love because it was boring and lacked emotional resonance and failed utterly at capturing the childhood wonder and adventure of 80s films that were standard bearers of that genre like, E.T. or Goonies. It just fell kind of flat the whole time and the cast of kid characters was too big and too poorly developed for you to care about them the way you care about Chunk from Goonies. I feel like I'm ready to come right out and say that I don't like J.J. Abrams. I don't get what all the fuss is about. The Dotytron also attempted a viewing of Crazy, Stupid, Love which he turned off after a good 45 minutes because he couldn't handle how unfunny it is. I still don't understand how so many people went crazy for that film and thought it was the smartest, funniest, mature film treatment on relationships in years. FALSE!

Tonight for dinner we had shakshuka eggs and warmed pitas. I love shakshuka eggs - it's a tasty, filling, 20 minute meal. What's not to love?

Fin.

Words cannot express

2011-11-28T19:39:00.012-05:00

What has been happening around here lately! I haven't posted since Thursday because things have been insane. I worked my little butt off to get my literature review for class on Saturday (that I skipped) done by Friday so that I could go into the weekend and not feel stressed. I did it (got my marks back today and I got a 98% on it too!) - which meant that in addition to just generally feeling pumped for the weekend, I had the added high of handing in an assignment early. That is one of the greatest highs of life.

This was our Leslieville Wanderlust dinner of beef stroganoff, root vegetable mash, and brussels sprouts:

So good! Look at that? Don't you want to faceplant into that bowl? I know I sure as heck do. The Big Yam has been a bit of a picky eater lately. He basically just wants to eat nothing but fruit and carbs. Which overall, is better than wanting to eat nothing but straight up fried carbs, but not enough for the controlling mother in me. He's been sick from one thing or another for the past month or so, so I'm willing to give him some leeway, but he's just being a weird jerk sometimes and refusing stuff he's eaten before and just hucking perfectly good food on the ground, etc. So I've asked J to cut out his afternoon snack and it seems to be working. He can't afford to be picky if he's hungry, right? Works for Africa, right? (Too soon?)

The Wanderlust was so much fun. We met up with my friends M & M and had a grand old time being idiots on the street. Dr. Rei and I were yucking it up non-stop and we ran into some friends of hers at Bobette and Belle. All the stores had little nibblies and cookies and we got to poke around and window shop. It was a good time. There was also this weird, sketchy homeless-looking guy selling charcoal-grilled souvlaki outside of this rando store on Queen East called Holy Cow! which occupies a disproportionately large storefront and seems to be in the business of selling vaguely "ethnic" looking tchotchkes like giant fiberglass cows. The funny part was how willing the Dotytron was to eat a souvlaki from that guy when I made a joke about it. It was hilarious how sincerely he wanted homeless souvlaki.

I wanted to buy some birch branches to put in these galvanized planters I have outside the house, flanking our Costco wreath which only cost...wait for it...$17.25. SEVENTEEN TWENTY FIVE! FOR A REAL WREATH! Steal of a century! I want birch branches and like some of those branches with the berries...but birch branches are expensive and the participating florist at Wanderlust wasn't cooperating with big enough deals.

On Friday night I was feeling tired and cranky from a sick Big Yam waking up at like, 3 am. So I opted out of Ladies Night Out on my street, even though I was the one who organized it and made the reservation, etc. I was sad because I do love a chance to hang with the Ladies, but it just didn't make sense for me, considering the rigours of the weekend to come. So I went straight home and started holiday baking and got to live out one of my sublimated dreams of parenting:

First of all - look at how cute he looks in his polo and dark rinse jeans. Seriously. It's a fine line when you're dressing children. Dressing them in mini-versions of adult clothes can be super-cute (see: little black toddlers dressed like Kid Cudi or Kanye) but it can also be kind of icky too (see: little toddler girls wearing faux fur stoles and mini Uggs.) Basically, it comes down to this for me: don't dress your kid like a privileged spoiled brat in first year at York University. It is a difficult line to negotiate, but I will say that light rinse jeans for kids are THE WORST. Why you wanna be dressing your kid in dad jeans? Secondly, look at how cute he is all up on the step stool watching (soon to be "helping") me put together a batch of cookies. He's such a little homunculus!

Saturday morning breakfast - french toast, cinnamon peaches, breakfast sausage. Did you know that the Dotytron claimed that he didn't know how to make french toast? I couldn't believe it.

Saturday pre-Prince we had a surprise birthday party for SMckay - the theme of which was "SMckay's favorite things" which meant: beards, Jewish-related stuff, and Pizza Hut. So I made rugelach:

So good! And so easy! I'm adding it to the Xmas cookie rotation. They're so cute, too. The cream cheese dough comes together lickety split and is really easy to work with. Here is the decor that I picked up:

Then there was our date with His Purple Majesty himself. I can't even describe it. That guy is pure charisma. The sexiest, velveteen miniature pony with winged eyeliner that has ever walked the earth. How is he so sexy? No one knows. It seems so counter-intuitive. It was non-stop hits - banger after banger that had us up out of our seats dancing our little heinies off. A few well-placed slow jams. A rocking light show and a backup band of super models. It's insane. Like, hotter than the servers at Moxies by far. I don't know where he breeds them, but they're all gorgeous, insanely talented musicians/singers, and 99% female. It's crazygonuts. Anyway - he is so over-the-top and melodramatic and he brings a pretty diverse crowd out. People bedecked in ball gowns. More leather leggings and stiletto ankle boots than I've ever seen in my life. He introduced a "special guest" to the stage and it was his guitar. LOL! And the man can SHRED. Each time he's done with a guitar he tosses it off to the side and it's the responsibility of some poor AV tech to make sure they catch it each time. So G-D funky. I loved every minute of it. We had been primed that the people on the Friday night show had received 5 or 6 encores and so we were so disappointed when we only got 3...but the man is 53 and totally gave us our money's worth. I wish he would move back to Toronto. I mean, Andy Allo is okay, I guess - if by "okay" you mean, "gorgeous, talented woman"

I think that Prince is the only person left alive still supporting Versace. He finished the concert wearing a velvety Versace number. Zomg. I can't believe how good this concert was. It was the first show I've been to in like, over a year (since I was pregnant and went to see Rush) and it was PHENOMENAL. What a freakishly talented person. Shouts to Lolly who totally babysat the Big Yam for us while we went out.

Post-Prince, post-being up super late, post-post-party cleanup breakfast of hanger steak, over-easy eggs, Brick Street Bakery bread toast and chimichurri. We finished up Sunday with a visit from the Dotytron's good bud A, who is in town playing a few shows from NYC, and I took the Big Yam with me to our friend L's hot dog party at his house. He made up a bunch of fancy hot dogs and J & S brought homemade hot dog buns and I brought baked beans and made these maple doughnuts which were THE LICK. So good. Such a nice doughnut recipe - all yeasty and light.

Bonus shots of the Boobla in his skeleton PJs, looking all cute:

Look at his skinny little legs and his chubby feet! In other Boobla news...he's taken his first steps!!! He did it last week some time...I can't quite remember exactly what day...I think it was last Monday, November 21st. He's so funny - he won't do it all the time...but J has been practicing with him. He's tucks his arms up by his armpits like little chicken wings and he walks with his belly out in this loose-limbed, drunken, old-man sailor way that is really funny. We had Momma D over on Sunday for a brief visit and it was classic mother-in-law behaviour...the Dotytron mentioned that the Big Yam had started walking and she says, "What! Nobody told me!" *insert accusing glance in my direction* I dunno!! I forgot!!! And why is it my responsibility??? Anyway, he's not walking just yet...more like he'll take a few stumbling steps from one set of arms to another. Pretty cute that the Dotytron may or may not have teared up the first time he saw it happen. D'awwwwwww.

This was dinner last night. Freezer Greek Mac'n'Cheese and salad (not pictured - just greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette) and my new favorite, quick, cheaty appetizer - proscuitto-wrapped prunes baked in the oven for the ultimate in sweet-savoury one-bite goodness.

So I'm having this ongoing dilemma about xmas - basically, I don't want to buy presents for anyone over the age of 18. I think it's ridiculous. But Sdawg is insisting and to a lesser extent my sister is insisting that we continue to the holiday consumer glut. My sister, whom I love dearly, and Sdawg (whom I also love dearly. Most of the time) are way more "American" and "mainstream" than I am in their general belief systems and degree to which they can be swayed by the forces of capitalism. Growing up, we didn't get presents. We went away on a trip over the holidays, and to this day, I prefer experiential gifts over stuff that's essentially garbage (I'm talking more like, grandparent presents or presents from people who go-off list) - garbage in transition?.

I feel like buying on the list is stupid, because how much thought is it for me to go out and get you your freaking windshield wipers? It's the antithesis of what I enjoy about gift-giving. But going off-list is even more dicey, because you're basically just making me help Value Village line their pockets when I inevitably dump that stuff off to them. And it just sucks all around. In my heart I would much much much prefer that people kept their hard-earned money rather than knowing that they spent it on garbage for me. I would rather they did something useful with that money other than create clutter. However, I believe Sdawg feels that he missed out as a kid and that's the line my sister gave me last night when she was trying to talk me through how much I don't want to be doing it. Because it makes them "happy" to do this big, ostentatious display. But then I'm wondering, when does my happiness get taken into consideration? When does the fact that I believe it's at stupid, crass, empty display of poor financial management in action get to be heard and taken under advisement? Short answer: it doesn't.

It doesn't help that my family is the anti-handmade gift type. Like, my brother always makes a big show of being a jerk and saying, "how much did YOU spend on your niece and nephew?" when I've knit them a sweater or something (this after he goes out the day before Christmas and gets in line to get them a tickle-me-Cookie Monster that just gets neglected in their mountain of toys.) If I had the time to make by hand or craft something for everyone I would. Especially if I knew they appreciated it...but as a general rule, my family comes from the "if it doesn't come with a price tag, it's not a present" school of thought. Meanwhile, I'm always gazing enviously at all those shiny, happy, design-y families in the blogosphere who get together to craft beautiful presents of engraved mugs or something else charming and sweet (and impeccably designed and executed).

I think ultimately, I don't like having my hand forced. I like getting stuff for people when I think of it or when I come across something thoughtful and personal and specifically tailored. I don't need you to get me my cotton tights. What I DO want is stuff that you can't afford. Like a Fisher Paykel 2 oven gas range. And I certainly don't expect you to get it for me.

Anyway, the conversation with my sister was redeemed by some funny moments when I asked her what we should get for Little Big Cuz. "Don't get him toys," she told me, "he just got a GIANT sock monkey from his aunt, I'm talking life-sized." To which I replied, "What do you mean 'life-sized'? It's a sock monkey! Is it the size of a sock? Or a monkey? Or a human?" LOL! Little Big Cuz is also a fan of those intensely boring non-fiction picture books that I personally can't stand - the ones with photos of real babies and trucks and real animals and stuff. So my sister goes, "well, there is one thing he does like, he likes my Everyday Food magazine" (which, in case you're not aware, is a Martha Stewart recipe magazine). So I guess I'm getting my nephew a subscription to Everyday Food. LOL!

Fin.

Clobbered

2011-11-24T06:51:00.002-05:00

The clobbering of one K. Lagerfeld, Esquire continues! But the weekend is in sight and if I work very very very extra extra extra hard, then I will have my literature review done and I can have my super-packed weekend of fun unencumbered.

I finished reading Bonnie Jo Campbell's Once Upon a River the other night. I really enjoyed this book and the frustrating cipher heroine at its center, one Margo Crane. Margo takes off at the age of 16 down the Kalamazoo river in rural Michigan in search of her mother, armed with a stolen .22, her copy of an Annie Oakley biography, and her own preternatural still, reflective, observant nature and drive for survival. She is beautiful, remote, and as more than one character refers to her, "a throwback" in 1970s Michigan with her ability to hunt and fish and provide for herself. I haven't met a character quite like her in modern fiction and I enjoyed that this quasi-survival tale was told from the perspective of a woman, with the unique challenges faced by women trying to make their own way and choose their own life, given their due. The novel is spare, a little haunting, and draws you into this small-town world by the banks of the river. In a way it reminded me of Winter's Bone, with alternating periods of more and less menace that that depicted in the film burbling below the surface. The book can be maddening at times, with Margo's innocence and ignorance coming together again and again to undermine her naive attempts to "live her own life." I highly recommend it.

These are last night's perogies:

Tonight we're having beef stroganoff with a sweet potato, regular potato, and celery root mash and sautéed brussels sprouts. Dr. Rei and possibly Hanbo are coming over for dinner and then we're all going to bundle up and partake in the Leslieville Wanderlust - a night of shopping and nibblies and live music at the various stores in our 'hood. I LOVE MY NEIGHBOURHOOD! Not for nothing has the New York Times proclaimed us the Williamsburg of Toronto (which I don't think is true, but n00bs will buy it and I can deal with that cool-by-association pedigree). I had to manage Dr. Rei's expectations...last year's Wanderlust, while fun, wasn't like some kind of winter-wonderland/Rockefeller Centre tree-lighting extravaganza...but it was still fun and it's worth it just to sample Bobette and Belle's hot chocolate with the torched marshmallows and poke around all the vintage/antique shops.

Fun!

Fin.

Busy as a motherf**ker in here

2011-11-23T05:55:00.003-05:00

I am getting OWNED right now. OWNED! Work is busy, school is busy, life is busy and I'm so OVER Christmas. Actually, revise. I love everything about Christmas except the gifts. I'm over getting gifts, I'm over the pressure to get gifts. I'm definitely over gifts for anyone under the age of 16. I just think it's so ridiculous. Like, what are you going to do? Get me stuff I can buy myself? As a believer in the "Treat. Yo'. Self." school of conspicuous consumption, I don't really need someone to get me rando shiz. I like, REALLY REALLY REALLY don't need someone to get me rando shiz. I just feel like the holidays are stressful for everyone, and we all KNOW it's stressful going out and buying something special and meaningful for people on your list in like, the 2 seconds you have when you're not running from work, to home, to socializing with people in a meaningful way, to being at home and doing meaningful, non-capitalist driven stuff that actually HELPS the world more than more stuff does - so why do we do it? Why do we do it to each other? So not worth it!

I love seeing my house lit up with the kind of kooky, non-Martha Stewart approved light display I cooked up while still recovering from gastroenteritis on Monday (I teetered on a step stool while experiencing the chills) and I love being with family and visiting with friends and I love eating cookies and baking cookies and giving cookies and I love crying through the Peanuts Christmas movie and I love snow and hot chocolate and wearing slippers and soft flannel jammies and the smell of firs and evergreens and the holiday buffet at Hart House which is the closest I've come to eating in the great hall at Hogwart's.. Those are all things I love about the holidays. The gifts? And the shopping? And the endless piles of garbage-making? I can do without.

Next year I'm going to make the Big Yam an advent calendar and I'm going to put like, 1 piece of chocolate in and the rest of the pockets will be filled with activities like "drinking hot chocolate" or "watching a holiday-themed movie" or a book or something. Holiday memories are about being together. The stuff is the least of it. I will make a concession for a stocking. I like stockings. But I'm going to take a page from Little House on the Prairie. You know what Laura and Mary got in their stocking? I'll itemize it for you:

1 tin cup each

1 cookie cake made with white flour

1 penny in the toe of the stocking

That's IT. There might have been a stick of striped peppermint candy, but I'm not sure if that was Little House on the Prairie or Little House in the Big Woods. Either way, it's pretty chill. I came across this grouping of stocking stuffers in my blogroll and I like the categories: something to eat, something to read, something to play with, something to wear. That seems very reasonable and yet still fun.

Things that can take the wind right out of your sails: finding out, 3 weeks after submitting your mid-term exam, that you did the wrong version of the exam, the version of the exam that was longer and had more components, because the prof didn't send out an email about the revised take-home exam available on the course website, and you always leave class mid-way through so you didn't hear the announcement. AI-YI-YI, papi! What the heck? I'm waiting to hear back from the prof on how we're going to fix this little situation.

I have a lit review, a final exam, and a research paper (a baby one) due by December 10th and I'm working my butt off to get everything in by then. Technically, I have until the 16th...but I don't want to be working until the 16th. I want to enjoy my Hart House Holiday buffet lunch on the 15th with an empty belly derived from my clear conscience.

On Monday I made us minestrone with spinach-cheese tortellini:

Yesterday we had tuna noodle casserole with a buttered challah topping:

I really, really, really love me a tuna noodle casserole. It's so comforting, with the Campbell's Cream soup all up in there like it's the 1960s all over again.

Tonight we're having dressed up perogies with caramelized fennel and onions and bacon and roasted broccoli and sautéed kale. With a billion pounds of sour cream, of course.

The Big Yam had his one year check up yesterday and our doctor was loving how he sat so still and quiet while he checked his ear and then of his own volition turned his head so that Dr. S. could check his other ear. He did cry when he got stabbed with 3 needles but it subsided quickly. The little muffin. I love seeing him all bundled up in his bulky winter coat and his weird sock-mitts that I knit for him with his face framed by his aviator cap - there's something about when you frame the Big Yam's face that makes his eyes look extra dark and his little button nose extra-buttony and his chubby cheeks extra chunky wunky and his little pretty-boy mouth extra girly.

Okay - that's it for me for the time being. I've got a book review for you tomorrow.

Fin.

What a waste

2011-11-21T11:59:00.002-05:00

...of a perfectly good weekend. This past weekend was supposed to be SO FUN! We were going to a party hosted by our friends R & R featuring gin-themed cocktails and then we were supposed to have our anniversary dinner at Woodlot (our second attempt), and instead, shortly after leaving Costco on Saturday afternoon after a dim sum lunch with my mum and grandma and CHova, the Big Yam started on a puke-a-thon. Like, stomach-emptying, partially-digested chunks of char siu bao and blueberries barf-o-matic. Like, all over the clips of the car seat vomitorium. So. Gross.

The grossness aside, the Boobla couldn't have been more of a sweetheart. He was so unbothered by it. One minute he'd be laughing, then he'd barf, and then he'd get tired and fall asleep in a pool of his own vomit (this was when we packed up the car and headed home and he barfed on the DVP). Seriously kid? Why are you the gentlest little soul around? Then mid-way through Saturday night, the Dotytron, who'd been feeling off but had chalked it down to feeling bad for the Big Yam, started his own journey down the barf-brick road. Then I started feeling woozy on Sunday morning. It was THE WORST. Ugh. I'd just been bragging about how I never get the flu and I felt awful. Thankfully, my immune system is pretty freakishly strong and I didn't get the barfs or the scoots. But I was so tired and cranky and miserable and feeling like my whole body ached and that my skin hurt - it was like coming down off particularly bad LSD (not that I know anything about that.) By that point, the Boobla had gotten over his bout of illness and so imagine feeling so uncomfortable in your skin and then having to deal with a happy baby on what turned out to be a gorgeous late-fall day and being cooped up in the house begging your equally sick partner to please feed you saltines because your arm hurts too much to lift a cracker towards your mouth. THE WORST!

The only good thing to come out of it was this photo of a particularly sweet moment:

It's like the Big Yam knew exactly what his Baba needed. He usually NEVER sleeps on us. His new heartbreaking thing when he wakes up from sleep is to sit straight up in a corner of the crib in his dark little room, crying and staring at his balled up fists in his lap. It's heart wrenching. So he woke up from his nap and was doing that thing but when the Dotytron picked him up he just snuggled in and went back to sleep. Durrrrr...so freakin' cute and sweet.

The weekend had started off really promisingly. Settlers of Cattan with Dr. Rei and Hanbo was hilarious (but cut throat) fun. My sunchoke-celery soup turned out delicious - especially topped with roasted garlic oil croutons. I loves me some croutons in soup.

Our banh mi was spectacular. Look at that thing. That is a TWO DOLLAR sandwich. How is that possible? That's an MBA thesis, right there. It's like a foot-long crusty-but-soft French loaf, stuffed with a smearing of salted butter, a smear of pate, some roasted pork, some ham-type stuff, pickled daikon and carrot, a cucumber, and sliced chilies and cilantro, if you so please (I do not). It's crazy town!

I also made us my cardamom-spiked pineapple upside down cake, which I make at least once a year.

I took today off of work to shake the rest of the sickness - last night I got some pretty bad sleep on account of the body ache and general mind-fuzz from a day spent motionless on the couch watching bad movies on TV. I can't imagine that I used to marathon TV. I can't do it anymore. I don't have it in me. I used to crave a day spent inside with blankets on the couch/bed eating snacks and considering it a failure if I didn't prepare properly and had to leave the house. I can't do it anymore. It makes me feel downright sick. Granted, that was in my early 20s, and a lot of the things I did then make me feel downright sick (see: previous post on the shady, seedy weirdos with whom I used to keep company).

Tonight we're having the roomie over for dinner. I'm making minestrone with spinach-cheese tortellini (tortellini is purchased - I'm not crazy) and we'll have it with bread and butter and maybe cheesecake brownies because I know they're the roomie's favorite. It'll be nice to get back to our regular scheduled, pretty healthy eating routine.

Fin.

I love this show

2011-11-17T12:51:00.004-05:00

I don't know how/why this came up, but it did today (came up in my head) and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it with y'alls. This show is still consistently winning me over, unlike say, other comedy winners of years past like Modern Family (too sentimental!) and Community (too something - too caught up in its own shiz). The best thing about Community right now is Donald Glover, who is one of those insanely multi-talented people (like Mindy Kaling) that I aspire to be. He wrote for 30 Rock, he's an actor on Community, he does stand-up, and he produces some pretty good tunes with one of the best names of all time (other than Gucci Mane, natch), Childish Gambino (from the Wu-Tang name generator, natch natch). And he does most of his own production:

Seriously? Why aren't more people in my generation like this? Instead you have people who are like, mired in consumer debt, easily polarized by fringe issues (I'm looking at you, America), and who are more often than not, like the majority of my classmates, first rate dumbys. Ugh. It seriously makes me scared for the future of the public service that it's made up with so many people who are so limited (by themselves!) in so many ways. Actually, let's expand on that: I'm seriously scared by the future of our world that it's made up with so many people who are so limited in so many ways. Being smart, being politically aware, being into popular culture, and being funny are NOT mutually exclusive attributes (see also: Aziz Ansari)! The above track is like a perfect storm for Lagerfeld love - I love tinkly, anthemic, orchestral rap tracks with slow, sluggy beats. It's like my kryptonite.

This is a bit of a randomonium post. Can I also tack on that I don't like Adele? I think she comes off as phony. Her songs are such "all the single ladies" sad sack young woman bait. Meh. What I **do** love is the Prince versus Charlie Murphy skit on the Chappelle Show - so good. We watched this last Friday and were almost in tears, laughing:

Last night for dinner we had twice baked potatoes. They look like zombie potatoes because I used Guinness-infused cheddar for the topping...which obviously has to melt down like a bad skin graft. They were delicious, though.

Tomorrow is my day off - so I'm going to be doing errands and sorting out my pension and other scintillating stuff like that. We're having Dr. Rei and the Hanbo over for dinner and Settlers of Cattan, though. Maximum bo!

Fin.

2011 will forever go down in infamy

2011-11-15T19:59:00.003-05:00

as the year we paid about $500 in parking/speeding/driving without valid insurance card tickets. Seriously. We can't take Captain Save-A-Ho anywhere without getting dinged with a ticket. Add to that what we had to pay because it turns out that the Dotytron GOT HIS LICENSE SUSPENDED (he fought a parking ticket, missed the court date because of what happened with his da', forget to pay the resulting fine, and BOOM! that's the recipe for getting your license suspended in case you were wondering).

This means that this week he's been getting up just after 5am to TTC it to work. We *could* risk having him drive with a suspended license, but knowing our luck, he'd get pulled over or rear-ended or we'd end up like my friend G's neighbour, who got pulled over with his kids in the car with a suspended license and they were going to call Child Services to have his kids taken away.

Just thinking about all that money is enough to make my hanging-on-to-middle-class-by-the-skin-of-my-teeth a** cry. I keep thinking about our long-delayed kitchen/bathroom renos and how all those tickets could have gotten us...I don't know...a Toto toilet or something. Thinking about kitchen/bath renos has been consuming me lately. But that's okay. When it gets done, we are going to do it RIGHT. I'm talking: Toto toilet, Bosh dishwasher, composite counters, Marimekko shower curtain - the whole lot. Maybe...maybe...a 36" stove. Neither me, nor my line of credit(s) that will be subsidizing this venture are f**king around. We're going whole hog and it's going to look gorgeous.

Which isn't to say I'm not happy now. Look at what we had for dinner on Monday night - made in our current kitchen, with the manky mirror and the holes in the ceiling that are getting cobwebbed:

That's a delicious bacon, roasted pumpkin, and swiss chard risotto with asiago cheese. Pretty darned fantastic.

Also, truth be told, getting up just after 5am doesn't make a huge difference when you're GOING TO BED AT 9PM. LOL! That's what we do now. We watch 1 episode of television (lately it's been The Walking Dead), then go upstairs, brush our teeth, go peek in on the Boobla, and then read a book/knit/massage myrrh into our nail beds (I'll leave it to you to assign the preceding activities to the fitting party) and pass out. Also, I don't know how we could push back our mornings any more. The Big Yam wakes up at 6am invariably...and in order to get out of the house by 7:45, I need that much time for feeding the two of us, cleaning the two of us, dressing the two of us, and packing the two of us up to start our days.

The new baby has started at the daycare. He's a bit of a crybaby. Like, any time he's put down he cries. Which had been making me worry about the amount of attention that the Big Yam is getting but J is fantastic. As she says, crybaby "he has to learn" and she makes a point of distributing the love. She also seems to favour the Big Yam a bit right now because he's such a good sport about, well, everything. He smiled his way through his fever and roseola and he starts every day with her so calm and good - I think she appreciates that so far, he's a chill baby. Hopefully he stays that way so she'll stay in the biz and be willing to look after any potential future chillun of ours.

Tonight we're having twice baked potatoes for dinner. I love me a baked potato. Did you guys know that a lot of people don't eat the potato skins? That's like, a travesty for me. Potato skins are SO FREAKING good, ESPECIALLY as vehicles for sour cream and butter and dill. I love the textural contrast of that papery, dry, chewy skin giving way to a flood of buttery, dairy, potentially-bacon-studded richness. Anyway, yeah, twice baked potatoes for dinner topped with Guinness infused cheddar. Nom nom.

I devoured Mindy Kaling's book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) with unseemly haste. Well, maybe it was seemly, considering I've had it pre-ordered since early last year. I found this collection of essays so entertaining. Kaling is whip-smart, self-aware, okay with being narcissistic and frivolous and aware of pop culture (which is where I find myself warming to her more than say, Tina Fey) and as a consequence, I find her very easy to relate to. She's also hilarious - her lists and the stories of her growing up with her professional parents as an androgynous, chubby child are laugh out loud funny, which is precisely what I needed after the heaviness that was Tom Perrotta. She has also perfected the modern, social-media fostered technique of giving the reader the impression that you're getting "real" access to her - which was nice, because I personally found Bossypants (Tina Fey's essay collection) too guarded. I don't know why I'm comparing the two - is it anti-feminist to compare the two? That seems to be the trend - both Tina and Mindy are like, "don't compare us just because we're two funny, Ivy-educated women who published books of humorous essays within the same year" but I'm like, "I get that, but why shouldn't I compare you? Wouldn't I compare two autobiographies of Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the United States of America if they were published with fanfare within the same calendar year?" Like, what's more sexist here? To compare, or to allege that the comparison is sexist?

I dunno. All I know is that I found this book utterly charming and funny and her depictions of the strictness of 1st generation American parents resonated. Go get it!

Sigh. There's a new Oscar season ramping up and I feel like I've barely made a dent in the films I wanted to see last year. What's a girl to do? This season is pretty thin, IMO. Not too enthused. Did I also mention that we're pretty much booked up until the New Year? [deadpan] yay [/deadpan]

Fin.

The weekend that was

2011-11-14T07:08:00.005-05:00

fairly uneventful, by all standards. I made us a pre-class breakfast of baked eggs florentine in ham cups - it was okay - I think it would be better topped with hollandaise or a cheese sauce next time. The ham gave off quite a bit of liquid - maybe I'll try with proscuitto next time, or maybe bake the eggs in bread cups and serve the ham/proscuitto/other breakfast pork product on the side:

Saturday night after class we had the Dotytron's childhood friend S over for dinner - I made us carnitas - which are the BEST entertaining meal, ever. It's so easy! The pork does all the cooking all by its very own self and all you have to do is warm corn tortillas, open up some bottled salsa, maybe dice up some avocado if you're feeling extra ambitious, and quick-pickle some onions. Otherwise, pork shoulder slowly braised with garlic and cumin in citrus juice and then fried-crisp in its own rendered fat truly doesn't need any other adornment. My favorite mode is the pork, some pickled onions, and diced avocado squirted with lime. I ate an ungodly number of these, accompanied by a red cabbage slaw that was also extraneous - it was nice to feel like we were consuming some vegetables to combat all that lard.

The next morning I scrambled up leftover carnitas with some eggs and we had it for breakfast, with me again eating an ungodly number. I think we're going on a healthy eating binge for the next little bit - too many meals out this past week.

Sunday was a day of errands and such. We had a bit of a sad moment when I had it in my head to finish up the photo albums I've been working on by tagging them with post-it notes when the year changes - otherwise, it's kind of hard to know when things happened - when you have 10 years together, they kind of start to blur into one another. I found a photo marking a definitive year and then worked forward...coming to the end of 2010 was really, really hard. The photos for the year always end with the Christmas festivities with my family and with the Dotytron's family. Seeing my Kung Kung and the photos of Poppa D broke my heart a bit and made the sadness come. I can't quite believe what we've been through in 2011. It feels like the funeral for my grandpa was so long ago, and yet, he only passed away in February or something. I still can't quite believe that Poppa D is gone - I don't know when I'll start believing it - he was so well, until he wasn't, and it happened so quickly. The past two months feel like a living dream and look - we're midway through November already. I don't know how to express how I'm feeling - how mixed this past year has been - watching the Big Yam grow into the little joy-filled being that he is - a year of laughter and happiness punctuated with so much sadness and so many tears. I'm still in shock. I sat at our dining room table and cried for a good long time, until I looked up and beheld this:

I don't know how we're supposed to reconcile that face with losing Poppa D - the two emotions don't seem like they could possibly exist in the same world. Somehow they do - and I guess that's what makes this living.

We've lost a lot of things this year - my Kung Kung, Poppa D, the Dotytron's license (it's temporarily suspended - that's a story for another day), and, for an all-too-extended period this weekend, the Dotytron's cell phone. The little Boobla hid the Dotytron's cell phone for the better part of Saturday and Sunday, but he hid it in an obvious place and when we slowed down to actually look carefully, we found it again. I'm hoping we can do that with the other stuff, too.

Fin.

10

2011-11-11T07:50:00.006-05:00

Yesterday marked 10 years in the ongoing saga that is Karl Lagerfeld and The Dotytron. That's a third of our lives spent grinding it out, together. This is what we looked like when we first got together:

Just about every other person in that photo we no longer hang out with/associate ourselves with because they're either mad seedy, or weirdos, or jerks. I mean, I guess they're like, normal people, but totally not our style. Anyway, that's not the point.

Look at what babies we were! That was at the apex of the Dotytron's Abraham Lincoln, chin-strap raver phase. Awwwww...he was such a PLUR-tastic n00b back then. I always thought that when I met the Dotytron, I was like, old. Like, it's not like we were high school sweethearts or anything...but when you think about it, we met when we were both 22. So only, 3 years out of high school, really (well 4 for me, because I fast-tracked through high school back in those prehistoric days when there was still an OAC grade. Anyway, NBD *cough* Iwasinthegiftedprogram *cough*). And here we are, a decade later, in a house, with our happy cute little baby boy, and our 2 cats, and our network of non-seedy, non-weirdo, non-jerk friends, and our extended family.

I can't believe how quickly the past 10 years have gone by and all we have as a record of it is a few scattershot memories and photo albums. Nothing that speaks to the hundreds of thousands of mundane minutiae that make up our life together - all those companionable hours sitting on the couch, or driving to buy groceries, or walking to get coffee, or doing our respective reading before bed...no one particular moment from that swirling mass of everyday stands out, and yet taken together, the ordinariness of that blur provides the backbone for us now, 10 years later.

I got lucky somehow. So yes, maybe we're not soul mates or something, but at this point, we might as well be - we've grown on each other and together like loud, opinionated, brassy lichen on an easy-going, funny stone.

We spent our anniversary evening having dinner with Dr. Rei (pretty fitting, as my bff-ship with her dates back the same time) at Duff's Wings talking about urban transportation, the city's funding shortfall and Vibes Kartel. Which is a pretty hilarious, fitting, and timeless snapshot of the M-R-I dynamic. We're going out for a nice dinner this weekend. And we might squeeze in a Guu dinner with our Guu compadres, MHui and her hubby, later in the month. That's a pretty good way to celebrate 10 years together, I think. Even if all the Dotytron wants to ever do is go to Hashimoto and eat a $300/person kaiseki meal.

Today is Remembrance Day, which is a government and bank holiday. I kept the Big Yam home and took him to the drop-in centre and then we biked to Riverdale Farm and visited with Poppa D at the necropolis and visited with the animals at Riverdale Farm. Riverdale Farm is an urban treasure, guys. Whereas High Park Zoo makes me super sad (because I don't think it's right keeping those animals penned up in the park), Riverdale Farm, because of the farminess of it and the focus on domesticated beasts of burden, is awesome. They also do all kinds of cheap programming like knitting and needle craft and pottery for kids which is so cool and when the Big Yam is old enough, I'm totally signing him up. I'm ESPECIALLY signing him up for "Farmer's Life" which is geared towards 10-13 year olds and inexplicably has a million spots open on it's registration list. Farmer's Life 4-eva, sons.

Lolly is bringing us dinner tonight, which is sooo nice! I love having dinner brought over. Can't wait to get a visit with her. Our stove is also fixed. Huzzah! The roomie brought over Coyote Willies on Wednesday and it was pretty tasty. They make some mean "fries" (they're like crispy on the outside, but pillowy on the inside fries in the potato wedge idiom). I'm going to make us dulce de leche dessert crepes tonight.

I have class tomorrow. Boourns.

Fin.

Kim Kardashian

2011-11-09T17:13:00.003-05:00

So, the person in my life with the most to say about Kim Kardashian's divorce is (somewhat surprisingly) the Dotytron. He is OBSESSED with Kris Humphries, in a kind of classically Dotytron way. Which means that he doesn't know his name, but will periodically update me on the status on Kris and Kim's relationship by asking questions like, "Have you seen the guy Kim Kardashian is dating? He's a centaur!" So I've been hearing centaur-related updates for the past few months. I find is so funny that he thinks Kris Humphries is a centaur.

Not much to report here. I have dodgeball this evening and then the roomie is bringing us dinner, which is good, because our stove is all effed up (yay! Exactly what we need right now!). It won't turn on and when you turn the dial the "burner on" light flickers but doesn't go on completely - I think it's just a loose wire and I'm trying to get someone in to fix it. Still a pain in the butt - how are we supposed to go a few days without a stove?!??

We've started watching The Walking Dead, and by "watching" I mean, I sit with my hand up blocking my view of the television and hyperventilate and repeat tersely "I hate this show. Why are we watching this show. I hate this show."

I've also started stressing about the holidays because well - the holidays kind of blow. What the crap am I supposed to get for the Big Yam? He doesn't even know what's going on right now. He only recently figured out how to clap his hands together! I think next year I'm going to go more buck making an advent calendar and whatnot for him, but for right now, I think he'll just be happy that we have a tree that he can destroy. Ugh...I just want to call Christmas off all together.

This has been a pretty randomonium post. Sorry.

Fin.

Roseola butt

2011-11-07T19:55:00.003-05:00

Coping with a certain little roseola butt accounts for the blogging delays. The little mister had a pretty rough weekend - he was clingy and didn't want to be put down and was being a bit of a whiner. It was tough to deal with, especially when you're trying to get a midterm done at the same time. At a certain point, when the Big Yam was crying to get my attention I just kept saying, "SHUT UP" and then the Dotytron chastised me for being a jerk and I felt really bad.

Especially because later that same day, I was lying on the futon mattress on the floor of the Big Yam's room (we haven't moved it out from the night we kept a sick and sleepless vigil over him) trying to nap while he crawled around and played around me. At one point, he lay down on his back beside me and I sang "Twinkle Twinkle" and did the hand motions and then we found a scrap of paper and started playing this silly made-up game where I kind of flapped it around and it made him giggle over and over again. Imagine how bad I felt then for telling him to shut up when he was sick and just wanting to be held. IMAGINE. I'll give you an idea: REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD. Like, approaching war crimes-bad.

Out of all the wonderful, wonderful, new, heart-piercing feelings that are associated with parenthood, you and your child lying on the floor on your backs, side by side, looking up together - playing with your hands, reading a story, watching the slow-moving drift of the mobile - is an especially sweet one. Feeling your child's giggles reverberate through his cheek pressed against yours at the same time as you hear that sweet, sweet sound so close in your ear will make your heart swell with a love you didn't know was possible. I love the little muffin top so much.

[/gross human-interest story sentimentality]

Holy crikes. I might as well be that great dane with the seeing eye dog friend at this point.

Friday nights' dinner: braised Chinese style pork belly in a sweet soy sauce with eggs, sautéed Chinese greens from our CSA, and brown rice

The Dotytron and the Big Yam at the Evergreen Brickworks. This photo doesn't adequately capture the magic of that place - the cold snap of the fall, the whispering visibility of people's breath in the air, the comfort of chilly fingers wrapped around warm cups of coffee, the camaraderie around the fires, or waiting in line for a breakfast crepe. This is fast becoming one of our favorite Saturday morning rituals.

Saturday nights' dinner - turkey and brown rice cabbage rolls. So good.

Saturday night's dessert - pouding chomeur w/ vanilla ice cream

Sunday breakfast - toasted pecan whole wheat waffles with bacon and bison breakfast sausages from the new store, Sausage Partners, that just opened up a hop, skip, and a jump away from us.

Sunday night's dinner at Momma D's: red currant glazed, prune stuffed pork tenderloin, baked potatoes, asparagus, her special turnip & apple casserole

Monday nights' dinner - braised sausages from Sausage Partners again - the "organ grinder" (organ meats) and the bacon and bison ones with a white bean, kale, tomato, and rosemary ragout.

Last night was book club - I love my academic book club ladies. I stayed until almost midnight talking with the stragglers. It's such a nice, supportive atmosphere and it's funny to see how this disparate group of women spanning a wide age range has come together and found commonalities and become friends.

Class tonight - ugh. I definitely have to go as I've missed the last 2. I'll leave during the break and hope for the best when it comes time to do the final take-home exam.

I brought leftover braised sausage for dinner.

Fin.

I hate to use this expression, but...

2011-11-04T12:11:00.002-04:00

...FML.

Here is what I've been going through lately:

1) The ongoing trials and tribulations of the Big Yam's health

Tuesday night, didn't make it to my class because the Dotytron called and was like, the Big Yam feels hot, J said she thinks he has a fever, how do I take his temperature, blah blah blah. So he takes the Big Yam's temp and it's like, 38.3 and then 38.9!!! (Anything about 38C when the temperature is taken rectally is a fever.) So we got the last appointment at our clinic (once again, I'm so so so thankful I got onto one of the Family Health Teams in Toronto - it's like the smartest, most efficient system, EVER!) - as it turns out, our doctor's office keeps a few appointments open during the day for just such a scenario, and it's called a "will-call" spot or something, and basically it's the doctor's call whether they think the symptoms warrant a visit. So we see the doctor and she's like, "Well, a fever alone is never harmful, it's the body's way of clearing infection. I know parents worry about febrile seizures and brain damage..." (cut to me SPAZZING OUT HARD on the inside because I HAD NO IDEA I SHOULD EVEN BE WORRIED ABOUT SEIZURES AND BRAIN DAMAGE!!! WTF?!??? WHY DOESN'T ANYONE TELL ME THIS STUFF?!!!??) "but," she continued, "that rarely ever happens. Even if your baby has a fever of 40C over 24 hours, it's not a cause for concern." She did say it was weird that he was presenting with a fever after being on antibiotics for 3 days, but she told us to monitor it and if it went on for more than 48 hours, to bring him back.

So, on Wednesday night, I come home from work and he's got a fever of 40.3!!! So the Dotytron and I totally freaked out and cancelled dodgeball so that we could basically just sit and stare at the Big Yam in silent worry. The Dotytron had basically not eaten dinner on Tuesday night because he just sat and stared at Master T in lieu of eating, even though throughout this, the Big Yam has been totally cheerful and fine and eating. Wednesday night was super weird, because Master T would suddenly break out in these inconsolable crying jags, that were so uncharacteristic of him - like, full on pouty, miserable, real-tears crying, for no reason! It was so weird. So we totally got freaked out by that.

Thursday, the fever is gone, and he's kind of back to his usual self, but appetite is decreased and a little clingy and irritable.

This morning, I notice he has this tiny, pin-prick rash on his forehead in between his eyes. When I'm changing him, I notice the same rash is all over his torso. I think it's a heat rash because we gave him a warm bath and put him in fleecy pajamas, note that he's not feverish, and bring him to J, who tells me that it might be chicken pox (which again, I HADN'T EVEN CONSIDERED BECAUSE I'M THE MOST OBLIVIOUS MAMA EVER!) but that she'll still take him because he's likely not contagious anymore (I've said it once, and I'll doubtless say it many, many more times over the years - I LOVE MY DAYCARE PROVIDER MORE THAN LIFE - especially cuz today, not coming in to work wasn't the best option for me). So I totally sent my kid to daycare today with chicken pox. Or, what my sister thinks might be roseola, another virus kids get that has high fever, pinprick rash symptoms. Oy. Vey.

2) The good news

The good news is, my kid takes a rectal thermometre like a champ. Seriously. So completely unfazed and cool with having something stuck up his butt. It's the best. My advice for parents: go to the doctor armed with rectal temperatures if you are the kind of person (like me) whose ego loves validation from traditional professionals (lawyers, doctors, not chiropractors, etc.) The doctor's look of approval after we responded "rectal thermometre" to her question about where the temperature was taken was almost enough to mitigate how bad I felt with the Big Yam being a sickie. A distant second choice is armpit, but that might be the way to go if you are worried about puncturing your kid's rectum - but seriously, the "just the tip" rule of thumb works really well here.

3) Interment

Yesterday was the interment for Poppa D's ashes, which was sad and sorrowful and stressful at the same time. He's in a beautiful spot at the Toronto Necropolis, which is close to our house for visiting and is one of Toronto's oldest cemeteries - it's really peaceful and quiet there and it's across the street from Riverdale Farm, which is perfect - I'm planning on taking the Big Yam there on Remembrance Day, when I have the day off of work. I still can't quite believe that Poppa D is gone - it hurts to think about it and it hurts every time I think about how fast the Big Yam is growing up and how he's growing up without his Poppa. My heart hurts and my head spins from the fact that life insists on continuing. I get teary thinking about how much he would have loved to see Master T in his cute little log costume and how much he's missing and how much the Big Yam is missing not having his Poppa around. I'm sad for how much the Dotytron is missing, not having his dad around...it's just sad all around...it's not fair.

4) Arson!

Last night I heard my trashy neighbours yelling something so, being the not-so-discrete snoopy voyeur that I am, I looked out the window, thinking that I might be witnessing a domestic. They were shouting something and I saw this weird orange glow on their faces and noticed other people gawking on the street, so I went outside. Well, as it turns out, MY NEIGHBOUR'S TWO GARAGES WERE ENGULFED IN FLAMES. Not my neighbour-neighbour, like the house on the corner, about 14 houses down. He had two extremely derelict, ancient garages that were really just shack/frames, but they were ON FIRE - like flames already up onto the roof and jumping onto his fence and the front of his (new!) car on fire, fire. It was insane. I went out and confabbed about it with the neighbours and the one who called it in to 911 said that when she called, the flames were 2 feet off the ground, but in the time it took her to make the call, the entire thing was up. The fire department says it looks suspicious - my neighbour didn't keep anything in there (other than his car) but had just down the raking and had 12 bags of leaves in there. The fire department came super quick and got the blaze out but the guys garage is a smoking, charred wreck, his car is donezo, and his fence got all burned up.

If I were the fire department/fire marshals/what have you, I would have INSTANTLY gone around interviewing the bystanders. Because if you're an arsonist, wouldn't you want to hang around and see your work? That's what I've been led to believe by such incisive, informative, hard-hitting journalism pieces as Backdraft. If I were the fire department, I would be looking around the people assembled for this guy:

Is it bad that when I came back into the house all a-twitter with the excitement of the fire and the thrill of talking with your neighbours out of context in your pajamas that I wanted to dig out this record and blast it into the street?

If this ever happens again (let's hope not), I can just see me and the Dotytron looking at each other, giving each other a nod, and then pushing the speakers and sub woofer up to the front windows, putting on this record, and then raving in the street. LOL.

5) Group work and mid-term hell

I'm trying to merge all the components of my team for this stupid final report for a school assignment and it's killing me and no one else cares and it's driving me crazy. Those foolios better not think that I'm bringing the whole document together, because that ain't happening. I can tell you that much. I offered to bring the works cited list together and make it cohesive and that's what I'm doing. Then I have a mid-term due next week that is crazy. The prof has set these insaneo page limit expectations like, 7 pages single spaced for Part A, but when I look at the questions, they look like one line answers to me. UGH. Do you know how much WORK it is to make up so much b.s.? Answer: a lot. More than if I actually had a lot to say.

So that's the update. Things have been bats**t crazy around here and it's been non-stop stress and go and managing too many teams/coordinating too many events (like buying Prince tickets). This weekend our social docket is blessedly free, thank my lucky stars. We have massages on Saturday and I have to make a brief appearance at a baby shower on Sunday before having dinner with Momma D and Ehmdo at Momma D's house. Sounds pretty darned blissful, doesn't it?

Fin.

Welcome to Twin Peaks

2011-10-31T20:25:00.006-04:00

Special Agent Dale Cooper

The Log Lady and her Log

Me (recycling sushi costume from 2008), Big Yam, Neighbour & her daughter at the

drop-in centre's Halloween S**tshow

O.D.B. Pumpkin

David Lynch pumpkin

The house - decorated

Halloween debriefing:

a) I'm so so so glad I took yesterday off. Getting the second of my two pumpkins done was an exercise in down-to-the-wire frantic, stressful carving. I'm pretty proud of both pumpkins though - there's something about the candlelight that imbues the carvings with more life than your standard issue stencil job. Also:

b) Halloween started wicked early! Peeps are crazy! I had dinner ready to go at 5:30 and we were just finishing up and washing up when the whole troop of neighbourhood kids came by our house at like, 6:15. What the blood?!? I was running out the house trying to get my pumpkins set up and lit and getting the mummy lanterns done accompanied by the very-un-Halloween and kid-inappropriate exclamation, "HOLY CRAP!?!??!!" when I answered the door.

c) I think it's really, really lame when the neighbours all shut down their candy giving at like, 7:30pm just because THEIR kids are all super-young (like, under 5) and they want to get back to their usual nighttime routine. It's just weak. I think 9pm is an acceptable time to shut 'er down. In the suburbs, we would go to 10pm, easy! And it's like, just because your kids are young now, what do you think is gonna happen when they're like, 10 or 11? Halloween is FOR EVERYONE! It was just super-depressing answering the door at 8pm and seeing all the other houses on the street all shuttered and dark with their pumpkins blown out. That's now how you become the street to be, jerks!!

d) I obviously have crazy "Street to Be" aspirations that aren't shared by my neighbours

e) Two forty year olds (1 in a mask, 1 sans) came to our house and wanted candy. The Dotytron felt sorry for them and it was just awkward all around.

f) Next year, I'm totally going to make gravestones. I've wanted to for the past TWO years and have been thwarted. We had crappy cardboard ones the first year we moved in, but I want ones made out of foam insulation (tutorial courtesy of Martha Stewart, but of course)

g) I wore my recycled sushi costume to answer the door but the Dotytron wore his "home clothes" uniform of: plaid flannel pajama pants, t-shirt, and junky hoodie, threw on a lei, and called himself a "stay at home dad on vacation" - LOL!

h) family costumes were a big hit this year. Here is a sneak peek at next year's idea:

That's right - going as Prince and the Revolution, with the Big Yam dressed up as Prince. LOL!!!!!!! I can't even talk about how funny this costume is going to be. Master T as Purple Rain era Prince?!??? With a little teeny tiny mustache drawn on? So freakin adorable.

i) The Prince thing is inspired by the fact that he's kicking off his next tour in Toronto, later this month, and we kinda want to go, if we can afford it. When SMckay found it she basically screamed loud enough to wake the dead and was totally willing to pay like, 50000 bajillion dollars for floor seats - we are not so similarly inclined. We'll see if we get tix!

End of Halloween wrap-up.

Last night's dinner was SO FREAKIN' GOOD! I made a curried buttercup squash and apple soup with these broccoli rabe, mozzarella and homemade tomato jam paninis. The homemade tomato jam is AMAZING. It's like a sweet, slightly spicy, best tasting ketchup - almost like a cross between a pepper jelly and ketchup. So good!

Tonight is snoozeville class for jerks. All I want to do is curl up and read Mindy Kaling's book which was delivered to my Kindle this morning, but no, I gotta sit through a boring lecture on Data Analysis. From a prof who likes to show us how "cool" he is by starting each lecture off with a clip from the Daily Show or a Calvin and Hobbes comic - and I LIKE Calvin and Hobbes (or at least, the Karl Lagerfeld of 1993 did)!!!

Fin.

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Tomato Jam

makes about 3/4-1 cup

1 1/2 lbs plum tomatoes, cored and coarsely chopped

2 T. lemon juice

1 t. grated fresh ginger (or more, to taste - I used ground ginger because I didn't have fresh...about 1 t. ground)

1 c. sugar

1/2 t. ground cumin

1/4 t. ground black pepper

1/4 t. red pepper flakes

1 t. salt

- combine all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot and cook over medium high heat until it boils.

- reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered, stirring every now and then, until the mixture gets thick and syrupy.

- this is a fantastic, fantastic condiment that is worth your time, trust!!!

So much a gwanning

2011-10-29T14:03:00.003-04:00

I meant to post yesterday, but we were so busy with our collective ditch day that I didn't get a chance. The Big Yam had a decreased appetite on Thursday that J noticed during the day and he barely at any dinner at night was pretty sad and tired so I brought him back to our doctor, who said that one ear was definitely in ear infection mode and put him on some penicillin. He seems to be doing better already but Thursday night was a write-off. The Boobla woke up in the middle of the night inconsolable so I brought him into bed with us and he was so snuffly the Dotytron couldn't sleep and he moved down to sleep on the couch so we all got a rotten night's sleep. The Dotytron called in sick because we were having B & G and S & P over for dinner last night, and if he hadn't, with all the running around (I had a massage in the morning) carting the Big Yam to his appointment and back I would have had to cancel dinner.

So we all ditched. The Big Yam ditched daycare, the Dotytron ditched school and I kinda ditched but not really since yesterday was my day off. It was nice. I loooove ditch days. I also loooove 4 day work weeks.

Even in my bleary-eyed, sleep deprived frustration at being a human cow suckled on by a mouth breathing pint-sized zombie, the Big Yam was pretty hilarious. He got all milk drunk and started doing this drunken flop around the bed - pitching himself forward and backward, babbling silly stuff, laughing to himself, and playing with our hair like a drunk girl at a party. It was pretty funny.

On Thursday night I had my friend K over for dinner. I had made this Greek Mac'n'Cheese on Sunday (part of a whirling dervish Sunday where I cranked out 3 meals in like, 2 hours and was EXHAUSTED afterwards). The mac'n'cheese was a HUGE HUGE HUGE winner, so I've posted the recipe at the end. I doubled the recipe, which made enough for 3 square foil pans of mac'n'cheese. One for us to eat on Thursday and two frozen - one for us at a later date and one for my neighbour when she has her baby:

After dinner K and I went to see a reading put on by the Walrus as part of the International Festival of Authors. Going to IFOA makes you feel like part of the Toronto intelligentsia (which I like). We saw Elizabeth Hay read from Alone in the Classroom and Tom Perrotta read from his latest, The Leftovers, which I just finished reading about 10 minutes ago. I hadn't really been interested in Elizabeth Hay - her Giller Prize-winning novel, Late Nights on Air I had (unjustifiably) written off as "mom-lit" (in this category I put books like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) - I was in it to see Perrotta. As it turns out, Hay won me over. She is a lovely, lovely reader. Her voice is smooth, subtle, soothing with a faint husk to it and the way she paces the phrases is so bewitching to listen to. I felt transported into the world of her new book and am intrigued by the salacious intimations of some bedrock-shaking scandal hinted at in the passages she read. Perrotta, by contrast, isn't as great of a reader. He also picked a weird chapter, in the middle of the novel, which required too much explanation - if I were him, I would have chosen the beginning chapter, which lays out the complicated world of the book a bit better. His voice and elocution aren't as strong as Hay's (K later told me that Hay has a radio background, which makes sense). But it was still nice to hear them both. If I had gotten my act together I would have gotten a book signed, but as it was, it was late on a Thursday and I didn't have the mustard for it.

I loved this book. The book follows the Garvey family - a small town father, mother, daughter, and son, as they each try to make sense of their lives and find meaning in the wake of what has become known as the Sudden Departure - an event 3 years before the events of the novel, where millions of people around the world suddenly disappeared, as if the Rapture had occurred. However, part of what makes characters in the book unhinged is the randomness of the Sudden Departure - the indiscriminate religious affiliations and morals of those who dissipated into thin air. They weren't all Christians, which makes it even harder for those left behind (religious and non) to accept. Stephen King, in his review of the book in the New York Times Sunday Book Review said it best: "Perrotta has delivered a troubling disquisition on how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the unobtrusive ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism." The aftermath of the Sudden Departure finds each member of the Garvey family struggling to cope in different ways: father Kevin, now the town Mayor, gamely tries to put the uncertainty and misery behind him, longing for a return to the halcyon normalcy pre-disappearance; wife Laurie finds comfort in a cult/movement known as the Guilty Remnant - people who dress in white, take a vow of silence, and chain smoke, appearing at events and standing as visible reminders that the world cannot, and must not, slide back into its ignorant, evil ways; son Tom quits university and joins another cult headed by a charismatic figure known as "Holy Wayne" - a man whose reputation is built on his ability to absorb other's pain; and daughter Jill flounders in the wake of the abandonment (by choice) of her family - drifting without an anchor in a sea of high school bad influences.

The book is about family, it's about faith, it's about how people deal with the unexplainable - both on a large scale, and also, on a small scale. Having recently dealt with the loss of a loved one, I found Perrotta's text really spoke to the uncertainty and rootlessness one can feel when one loses someone. The mass disappearance of the Sudden Departure is but an exaggeration for the questions and purpose-defining self-examination that occur after you lose someone - with death always, no matter what, seeming random and without purpose when it touches your life. I also thought the book really brought to life how someone can turn themselves into a fanatic so slowly and how "normal" the process can be. It's something I've always wondered - on more than one occasion, I've looked across the table at the Dotytron and wondered if one day he would wake up and turn into an evangelical Christian - the way people seem to suddenly do (ahem, Kirk Cameron.) Is it a sudden shift? How does one suddenly turn their back on everything they once held dear? The book describes the process in a way that is real, subtle, and for that, all the more terrifying. It also deals with how hard it is to be young - a teenager, a college student - when these generation-defining moments turn an already turbulent, unstable time into more of a chaotic mess of fraught choices. I would highly recommend this book. I'm feeling lost as to what I'm going to read now...I've got that weird blues you get when you finish an engrossing book, the hangover or coming down off of a good read.

Me at 7am on Friday, about to put 3 racks of ribs on the smoker

Our ditch day breakfast of fried salt pork and Swedish pancakes.

Guys, Laura Ingalls doesn't lie - fried salt pork is the ill na na. It's soooo good! The fat turns puffy and translucent and airy light - it's like a cross between the most ephemeral pork rinds and the sweetest bacon. I highly recommend it (in moderation - ie. once a year).

Fridays dinner: ribs, coleslaw, baked beans, cornbread

Peach cobbler and Tahitian vanilla ice cream

Why don't I make cobbler more often? Good question. Eating the crunchy biscuits on top of the soupy, silken, just-sweet peaches was enough to make me question my own non-cobbler-making-sanity. Cobbler is for people who like biscuits (should be everyone) and peaches (should be everyone). I will post the recipe tomorrow.

Today was my ditch day. I just didn't feel like going to school after a late dinner with good friends (people didn't leave until after midnight!!) and a night spent with the Big Yam in our bed, which had the unfortunate appendix of him falling OUT of our bed and onto the floor. Ouch. I can still see myself flying out of my half-asleep daze when I heard the thump and see his outline, on our floor, on his back, in the dark and I'm still shook about it. Luckily he was fine - nothing a lot of kisses and cuddles couldn't fix...but I still feel awful about it.

We broke from our Saturday morning St. Lawrence tradition to check out the Evergreen Brickworks farmer's market instead - so nice there! It's still being held outdoors for the next week or so - it was cold, but they had steel drum fires going and there seemed to be a dios de los muertos theme happening. We got these delicious breakfast crepes from Clement's Crepes - his crepes are made with red fife flour and the one we like has egg, spinach, chunks of ham, mozzarella, and hollandaise sauce and it's SOOOO good. It's $9, which you would think is really steep for a crepe, but it's actually a very substantial meal. You get full eating it and finishing it is a bit of a chore.

Then we went to the Friends of Greenwood Park (FROG)'s annual Fall Festival - they had apples and coffee and a fire truck and a police car and face painting and a magic show...it was small but nice. I think I might join FROG and become more involved - did I tell you guys I was thinking of running for school board trustee? I figure FROG is a good way of starting...

We brought the Big Yam in his costume and it was the hands-down favorite of the people we saw, including our City Councillor, who took a picture of him and tweeted it.

I am very vocal in my bias against store-bought costumes - and I feel like the photos above show why.

Tonight we have two (!) Halloween parties that we'll be attending at the very UN-party time of like, 7pm, with the aim of being in bed by the very family-friendly time of 9pm.

Fin.

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Greek style mac'n'cheese

adapted from Saveur Magazine, makes 8-12 MASSIVE servings

3-6 slices bread, torn into smallish pieces, or I used the heels (about 3" long - both ends of the bread) from a multigrain loaf

3 T. olive oil

6 T. butter

1 lb (approx) of elbow macaroni (I used whole wheat)

1/2 c. flour

6 cups of milk

1 lb (approx) kefalotyri cheese, grated

3/4 t. ground cinnamon

1/4 t. grated nutmeg

1 x bunch scallions, sliced

3 x bags of baby spinach (or 2 of the clear salad containers)

1/2 c. chopped dill

2 c. crumbled feta cheese

- buzz the bread in a food processor until they turn into coarse crumbs. Toss with 2 T. of the olive oil, set aside.

- melt the remaining 1 T. of the olive oil with the butter over medium heat in a large pan. Whisk in the flour and cook over medium heat until it's combined and some of the raw flour flavour is cooked out, about 2 minutes or so. Slowly whisk in the cold milk. Whisk and cook over medium to medium-low heat until the sauce thickens and bubbles. Take off the heat, and whisk in the kefalotyri cheese.

- meanwhile, cook the elbow macaroni until cooked through (past al dente), drain.

- sauté the scallions and the baby spinach over medium heat in a bit of oil until the spinach is all wilted and all the moisture has been absorbed. Toss the spinach mixture with the pasta and the cheese mixture in a big bowl. Stir in the chopped dill.

- season to taste with black pepper. Additional salt won't be necessary.

- pour into a buttered casserole dish (a 9x13 pan would be probably enough, but you may have some overflow) and top with the bread crumbs and the crumbled feta.

- bake in a 400F oven covered with aluminum foil for about 30 minutes, then take the foil off and bake an additional 15-20 minutes, or until the macaroni and cheese is bubbling and the top is golden brown.

Tales of a mama dread

2011-10-26T07:04:00.003-04:00

So yesterday I came across this idea from this woman's blog I follow. The woman is raising 2 kids in the Montessori style and is a former Montessori teacher with some Waldorf-y leanings in there as well. The idea was for a "discovery/treasure basket" which is a basket filled with everyday household things with a variety of textures, weights, shapes, and temperatures for the kid to play with, the idea being that you put the basket out and the child quietly entertains themselves exploring the basket for a half hour or more (as in her case).

So I came home from work (I skipped class last night) all fired up to enact this grand vision of sensory, open-ended play. For the Big Yam to be connected to the world and to foster his curiosity and wonder in the everyday, blah blah blah. Total treasure basket fail, guys. I put in a ball of yarn, some cardboard stars, some felt, an ice pack, an ice cream scoop, a bench scraper, a wooden cheese spreader, a mason jar filled with beans and another bag of beans (he's been super into bags of beans lately), set it on the floor, brought him in, and watched expectantly with my eyes a-star with cherished parental hopes while he ignored it completely and clambered over to my legs asking to be picked up. My visions of me dreamily stirring a pot of marshmallows and butter for rice krispie squares while he quietly played in the corner of the kitchen were dashed asunder, much to the cackling, skeptical delight of one Dotytron, esquire. Ah well...play is a learned activity. I'll report back on progress or if this thing is just a dud for my kid.

Behold, Monday's pumpkin stew with warmed parathas in the background - a delightful fall dinner. Last night I had leftover spicy grain soup at work with a mortadella and mozzarella sandwich, which was kind of depressing. The food wasn't depressing, eating at work is. Tonight is more of the same although this time I have leftover chicken dill soup and I'm getting a grilled cheese sandwich from the cafeteria. Too many depressing meals at my desk!!! We have a dodgeball double-header tonight, which is the reason.

I shouldn't complain - I have a slew of 3 and 4 day work weeks coming up. This week is my first earned day off, next week I took Halloween off to take the Big Yam to the drop-in centre and carve pumpkins and whatnot, the week following is Remembrance Day, which is generally a government holiday and then the week after that is my earned day off again. I can get used to this life, even if it makes getting all your work done in the 3 or 4 days a bit of a pinch.

Fin.

Friendsgiving

2011-10-24T08:21:00.002-04:00

Super-successful Supper Club - Friendsgiving edition. We had cheeses and baguette to start, alongside these prunes wrapped in proscuitto and baked which were so freakin' fantastic that I'm afraid I definitely and unrepentantly ate more than my share, good manners be damned. For the main course we had turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, cheesy mashed potatoes, asparagus, brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, a fresh cranberry relish, and some pumpkin rolls. For dessert my sweet potato pecan pie, some ginger molasses cookies I baked and shortbread that our friends brought. Stupendous!

The age difference between Master T and his friend D is only 12 weeks but it seems like light years. D is walking confidently and his vocabulary is extensive. Even his babbling has the cadence of speech and his motor skills are pretty advanced...well...advanced compared to the Big Yam, who makes up for in happiness what he lacks in developmental milestones. Awww...poor little tuber root.

We went swimming and did our erranding and a day of laundry and house stuff yesterday, culminating in a delicious Sunday supper of mustard glazed, thyme breadcrumb coated roasted chicken thighs on top of braised leeks, potatoes and celery root mashed with roasted garlic, maple glazed carrots, and oven roasted purple brussels sprouts. It was pure fall harvest time Sunday supper and I loved every minute of it.

I took today off of work because I suspected that the Big Yam might have an ear infection - his nose has been a geyser for the past week and he's had a raspy cough. No fever, but I noticed he was scratching at both ears. Our doctor said that his ears looked borderline - slightly inflamed but not full borne so we were advised to just chill and see how he does - especially because he's been eating and drinking this whole time and he hasn't presented with a fever. Apparently ear infections can be viral and bacterial, but the research suggests that 80% are viral, which means you just have to let them go away on their own and that doctors are now realizing they might have been over-prescribing antibiotics. Since the Big Yam has been symptomatic for over a week, it's likely that he's on the tail end of an ear infection and he's fought it on his own. I wouldn't have taken him in except for the fact that he woke up at 1am last night and was crying and inconsolable. We brought him into bed with us and he was very sweet - falling asleep on top of the Dotytron and smooshed in between us - if he did that all the time, I'm pretty sure the Dotytron would reverse his co-sleeping opinions. He's already more pro co-sleeping than I am and all it would take is a smushball Big Yam sleeping session to put him over the edge.

I'm taking the time to work on high priority things like his Halloween costume (and spend time with him, of course.)

By request, I've posted the recipe for the apple cake that I've made a few times.

Fin.

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Definitive Moist Apple Cake

6 apples (I would use mutsus or golden delicious), peeled, cored, cut into 1.5" chunks

1 T . cinnamon

5 T. sugar

2 3/4 c. flour

1 T. baking powder

1 t. salt

1 c. vegetable or canola oil

2 c. sugar

1/4 c. apple cider, apple juice, or water

4 eggs

1 c. chopped toasted walnuts (optional - I definitely omit these)

- preheat oven to 350F. Grease a tube pan (image attached below. I use an angel food cake pan with the removable bottom - because of the large amount of leavening in this cake recipe, I'd be wary of using your standard bundt cake pan in case it overflows - the cake rises a lot).

- toss the apple chunks with the cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

- in a large bowl, whisk together the oil, the eggs, the juice or cider, and the sugar. Stir the dry ingredients together in another bowl and add the dry to the wet, stirring until incorporated.

- spread 1/2 of the batter into the prepared pan. Add 1/2 of the apples over top, top with the remaining batter, and then the apples (the amount of batter will appear thin - and it will be hard to spread and get good coverage - this is okay. The batter will rise. I generally wet my fingers slightly and smoosh the batter around to cover everything.)

- bake for 1 1/2 hours (approximately) or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then flip the pan over onto a plate. Wait for the cake to drop down, then remove the pan, sandwich the cake with another plate, and flip it over again. Dust the top with icing sugar, if you like.

Epic LOLs

2011-10-22T09:57:00.002-04:00

This photo kills me. Oh, Ice Cube - wha happened to you? I wonder what Weezy is gonna look like in 20 years. The internet has been doling out mad gems lately - it's like Christmas came early or like finding yourself in Oscar the Grouch's trashcan for a day. There was also this:

Guys, Aunt Viv #1 is the ONLY Aunt Viv. She was the best. She was so 'ardcore and Aunt Viv #2 was a rank impostor. I kinda want a shirt that says Real Aunt Viv 4-ever with Aunt Viv #1's face on it or something. I came across a line on the internet: "Aunt Viv #1 is my patronus" - AHAHAHAHAHA!!! Truer words have never been spoken. This was the same day that the reports came out that Gaddafi had been taken out and the photos of his dead body were plastered all over the news. I avoided trading in that rank sensationalism by reveling in this kind of entertainment instead. It's healthier, I think. It's weird that Aunt Viv can engender such strong opinions in me but when it comes to Becky #1 or Becky #2, I have no strong preference. I might slightly prefer Becky #2 just because she was a bit easier on the eyes. Becky #1 had a touch of the Kimmy Gibbler.

There's also that site called Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses. Tuesday night, the Dotytron is brushing his teeth and readying for bed. Me, coming into the bathroom, remembering I had something really important to tell him: "Have you seen that person's site where he draws Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle heads on people's noses?" The Dotytron, laughing, "No. But I can see it already and it's awesome." The tagline for the site: "God is the artist. I just find the Ninja Turtle in his work" totally restores my faith in humanity. Is that weird? I just love living in a world where this kind of genius exists.

Last night we went to see the Ides of March. I liked it enough - the performances of all the actors are great, although I do agree that Ryan Gosling might have been miscast - he's a little too vacant in the eyes and it doesn't translate to portraying a seasoned veteran of the campaign trail. The subject of disillusionment and intrigue and political maneuvering can be extrapolated beyond the direct political sphere of the film and serve as a greater metaphor for becoming an adult, or surviving in the business world. Paul Giamatti and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are fantastic - Rachel Evan Wood less so and Clooney seems to just be portraying a more reserved version of himself. I found the culminating scandal on which the plot hinges a little unnecessarily lurid - it doesn't seem necessary that it should have gone so far to enable Gosling's awakening to the murkiness of the world he moves in. I found the scandalousness so amped up that it stretched credulity and brought me out of the talky, Sorkin-y world that had otherwised engrossed me. I also found some of the character's motivations (particularly Evan Rachel Wood's) kind of implausible and there was a major plot point that I didn't understand and could have easily been reconciled with access to a line of credit (which, I would assume, all these characters should have?) It does peel back the curtain on the construction of political figures and how nobody is pure and clean in the business of politics. It's not so shocking if you have any critical engagement, but this is the kind of film you appreciate for the acting and dialogue. Not necessarily deserving of the Oscar buzz it's been getting.

I'm writing this while in the SNOOZIEST class of all time. Instead f tackling a 60 page major research paper, I elected to take the course called "Topics" where you're taught how to do "research" but the paper is only supposed to be 25 pages long. The class is THE WORST! She's teaching us how to differentiate what a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal looks like !!! Worst! Sample quote: "it's rectangular...the text is very dense, the pages are printed with many lines..."

^^^ This is why I need stuff like funny .gifs of Aunt Viv #1 in my life.

Today is Supper Club Friendsgiving! I made sweet potato pecan pie. We're sleeping over in Markham and then taking the Big Yam swimming tomorrow morning.

Fin.

Guys, I totally love the GAP

2011-10-20T07:04:00.003-04:00

It took me a long time to get to this point, but I'm ready to be out and proud about how much I love the GAP. They're kind of amazing. I just bought 2 totally work appropriate and stylish blouses and 1 silk-ish skirt (also work appropriate) for like, $45. That's better than Joe Fresh prices, folks. Buying something full price there is a chump move, but the lack of chumps is probably what's contributing to the instability of the brand. The GAP is in trouble! They're not making enough money! What am I going to do if they go under (what are the chances that they would go under?)??!!??

The stuff that makes the GAP good is also what makes them vulnerable - the insane return/exchange/refund policies (ie. my friend G told me about how she bought her kids' winter jackets in like, August, knowing that this way they could "hold" the sizes they needed, keep the tags on them and then return the jackets and buy it for the reduced sale price in a couple of months - side note: they were advised to do this by GAP staff!!!), the crazy sales, the roomy dressing rooms and knowledgeable and helpful staff. Competition from stores like H&M probably isn't helping the GAP either, but lemme tell you, I was nosing around the H&M at the Eaton Centre before class on Tuesday night and that place is rank GARBAGE. The clothes are totally uggie and so cheaply made and everything is itchy and falling apart and to put together an outfit there (exempt from the garbage classification: kid's clothes and **some** accessories) would make you look like either one of the denizens of Grey Gardens.

I guess this is a plea to save the GAP and check it out and shop there. Or, if you're not going to do that, don't buy any of the Really Skinny Pants so that I can stock up before they go kaput.

In other news: my dodgeball team WON last night!!!!! Which was kind of a big deal because we've been getting our a**es handed to us ever since the season started. We totally needed a big win and we got it - all the more commendable because we only had 6 people show up and we 6 had to iron-man it and play the whole time.

In other other news, my academic book club selected Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie for next month's reading and those books are sick. They totally hold up. This is literally my 10 billionth time reading them both and present me finds them as engrossing and engaging now as 8 year old Karl Lagerfeld did, lo so many years ago. Anne of Green Gables holds up a little more - the story is fantastic and you gotta say this about L.M. Montgomery - the b***h could write. She had a way with simile and metaphor and description that is unparalleled - especially in describing the natural world. The descriptions of Avonlea, the changing of the seasons, the way the tips of firs look against a deepening, darkening sky are so plummy and evocative and rich that you could lose yourself in them for days. So too is her way with human emotions - the passages that describe Anne's feelings of loss when her beloved Matthew Cuthbert dies in particular resonated:

Two days afterwards they carried Matthew Cuthbert over his homestead threshold and away from the fields he had tilled and the orchards he had loved and the trees he had planted; and then Avonlea settled back to its usual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their old groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, although always with the aching sense of "loss in all familiar things." Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be so--that they could go on in the old way without Matthew. She felt something like shame and remorse when she discovered that the sunrises behind the firs and the pale pink buds opening in the garden gave her the old inrush of gladness when she saw them--that Diana's visits were pleasant to her and that Diana's merry words and ways moved her to laughter and smiles--that, in brief, the beautiful world of blossom and love and friendship had lost none of its power to please her fancy and thrill her heart, that life still called to her with many insistent voices.

"It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure in these things now that he has gone," she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan one evening when they were together in the manse garden. "I miss him so much--all the time-- and yet, Mrs. Allan, the world and life seem very beautiful and interesting to me for all. Today Diana said something funny and I found myself laughing. I thought when it happened I could never laugh again. And it somehow seems as if I oughtn't to."

"WhenMatthew was here he liked to hear you laugh and he liked to know that you found pleasure in the pleasant things around you," said Mrs. Allan gently. "He is just away now; and he likes to know it just the same. I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us."

I can't find a better description of the guilt I felt immediately after Poppa D died when I found myself laughing at some antic of the Big Yam's.

Little House on the Prairie isn't enticing from en English-language, literary perspective. It's more like a written trip to Pioneer Village. This could be seen as either boring OR fascinating depending on your ideological leanings (full disclosure: I LOVE romanticizing about pioneer times.) I can't believe how different a time it was - how good Laura and Mary are with so few things to entertain them - just some scraps of wool and a dried apple for a doll. As my book club friend said, "Ma and Pa are my new heroes...if only my kids did their chores unasked, just for the pleasure of seeing me smile ever so slightly." LOL! It's all about Ma giving a slight smile of approval and that meaning the world to the girls. Anyway, the book is pretty informative, if your interests lie in knowing how log houses are built or if talk about "sizzling corn cakes" "molasses" and "fried salt pork" set your taste buds a lather (full disclosure: I mainly read the Little House books for the description of the food.)

Last night for dinner we had braised pork chops and apples, braised with onions in a mixture of apple cider and beer. Served alongside roasted garlic mashed potatoes (is there a more comforting dish on a blowsy, sleety weeknight than bowl full of mashed potatoes?) and kale chips.

Tonight for dinner we had spicy grain soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with the roomie, who came over for dinner.

Fin.

Things that help

2011-10-18T06:48:00.003-04:00

get a person through a day:

1) a slamming outfit. I'm feeling pretty good about my work outfit today. Yesterday was a mumsie Talbot's write-off. Today though...today is much, much better. I *gasp* curled my hair and decided not to go super-straight and just go with the waves. It's kind of working for me, I think. The outfit is super super super skinny black pants, a thin, dark heathered grey dress with an asymmetrical neckline, and that Value Village boy blazer that I talked about ages ago but haven't gotten rid of because I have nothing else. My mustard infinity scarf looped twice around the neck for a pop of colour. I kind of look like either Elizabeth Olsen (the lesser known of the Olsen siblings) or some other young professional working in a creative field (even though my field is not, in fact creative, I like to crib from those stylings. Should also note: even though I'm not technically all that young anymore.)

I gotta say - the Gap's Really Skinny Pants are the sickest s**t ever. First of all, you have to buy them a size down, which already makes you feel like a zillion dollars. Then, they fit like a DREAM. They're like leggings except they're pant-weight and so stretchy but not saggy and they look amazing on (I had to get mine hemmed, but whatever). Seriously. Buy a pair. They're going to be my go-to leggings replacement this winter and I might go out and buy another pair in black and maybe the flint grey as well. So best.

2) Coming home to this meal, made by the Dotytron:

Doesn't that just look delicious? Imagine coming home from a long day at work and walking into a house that smells like pancetta and clams. I got home early because I biked yesterday and I was able to basically waltz in and start eating dinner and be done eating by 6:15pm which left us with almost 2 whole hours of bath and pre-bed play time with the Big Yam. So good!

3) Liberté organic 0% Vanilla flavoured Greek yogurt. This stuff is LIFE! We tried it based on a glowing recommendation from Ehmdo. It's so creamy and rich that it's a good dessert substitute if you're counting calories (which I am. Kinda. Sorta. Diffidently.) It's kind of mousse-y? The only problem is that the vanilla flavoured variety tastes a little artificial vanilla, but the plain one tastes too much like plain yogurt, but without the extra rich tang of my ultimate favorite yogurt, Saugeen Country Dairy (which tastes so wholesome and farm-fresh and good for you, but weighs in at a whopping 4% fat.) So if you're going to buy this to store in your kitchen at work so that you don't end up going to Tim Horton's for a chocolate glazed pick-me-up, go for the vanilla flavour.

Ugh. I so don't have the mustard to face class tonight. On the plus side, I've packed myself the fixin's for a meatball sammy with fresh mozzarella. I have a feeling that's going to be cold comfort around 8pm tonight when I'm falling asleep while listening to my prof drone on about evaluability assessments.

Fin.

"Everyone but myself"

2011-10-17T07:11:00.002-04:00

Blah blah blah, crazy weekend, blah blah blah. So busy! We're never going to try to head up to Markham for 7pm dinner plans again. I actually said we were going to get to R & R's house by 6:30pm. LAUGHABLE! We didn't get there until quarter after 7. It's too crazy - what with getting home, packing up the car, dealing with a hungry Big Yam who I think misses his mama and his nai nai a little too much. When we finally arrived, it was THE BEST! but I think we're going to scale back the ambitions for our Friday night socializing. Weekend was a busy blur. Visits with MHui and her delightful family, Bamiyan takeout on Friday night, Babu takeout on Saturday night (good news: we DIDN'T get Babu'd this time!), Baskin Robbins ice cream cake, swimming with the Big Yam, brunch with Nany and Momma D - it was a lot. A fun lot that still gave us time to do our house stuff like laundry and whatnot - but still it was a lot.

This is my apple pie with brown butter oat streusel. I wish the brown butter flavour had come through a bit more - I think I pulled the butter off the pan a little prematurely.

In other news - I'm not happy with my work outfit today but it's too late to change anything. I feel I look like a mom.

So last weekend for Thanksgiving I went and bought my mom about a half dozen pastries from Bonjour Brioche. A nice little, "just because" kind of present. Later I didn't see the bag, so I asked her about them. "What happened to the croissants and stuff?" My mom, "I hid them" Me: "Uhh...from who?' Her, without an iota of embarrassment: "From everyone but myself." LOL!!! That is SO my mom the way Raven Simone is SO Raven. It's textbook her. Then she started in with, "Last week, I went downstairs and there were cupcakes and then later I went and they were GONE!" Me: "Mom, I bought those for [my sister]'s birthday. The cupcakes were a birthday present for her." My mom: "That's not very nice. Buying cupcakes and not getting any for me." (Note: as far as I know, she didn't get my sister anything for her birthday.) Me: "Well, I still have some leftover birthday cake you can have if you want" (Note: the birthday cake I made for Master T's birthday lunch) Her, with a derisive face and a snicker, "I don't want that. I didn't like it."

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to grow up with a mum who doesn't require you to prostrate yourself paying tribute to her and who is you know, like supportive and nurturing and stuff.

I guess I'll never know.

Ha! I love my mum, I do. She's the only one I got. She's just kinda cray sometimes. I kind of wonder what stories the Big Yam will tell of his cray mum when he gets old enough to realize that I'm certifiable.

Dinner tonight is an oldie but a goodie - linguine with clam sauce and a baby spinach salad.

Fin.

This is me now

2011-10-14T06:36:00.004-04:00

Incidentally, if you haven't seen the movie, Working Girl, you should. It's kind of the best. So entertaining! And the Carly Simon theme song is feminist empowerment defined. Why don't they show this stuff on a lazy Sunday on TV anymore? Why is it always a movie that you don't want to watch, like Paul Blart: Mall Cop (which, incidentally, I caught the Dotytron watching on Sunday before I convinced him to switch to the latest version of Jane Eyre) or Goonies for the zillionth time?

Speaking of Jane Eyre, the newest version, starring my future husband, Michael Fassbender (after the Dotytron grants me my long-wished-for divorce), is kinda snoozeville. Mia Wasikowska is suitably girlish and somewhat plain and does a good job being very reserved and still and yet hinting at the depths of passion that stir just beneath her milky countenance, but overall I found the film kind of rushes through the events that make Jane, Jane. It also rushes through the events that make Jane and Rochester, Jane and Rochester. I didn't really buy the love stuff between them. In the book it takes AGES and each exchange builds upon the last until you're nearly swooning with anticipation that they just hook the hell up already. Michael Fassbender is a little too handsome and not quite gruff enough to be Rochester - he's a little slight in the build and a little too fair to be so gloomy and brooding but I have a soft spot for him so I'm willing to overlook it.

The film is gorgeous - really lush and painterly and filled with absolutely sublime shots of the English countryside in all its' woodsy, heathered, stony glory. I loved the look of it, but the story fell short, for me. That could very well be because I've never been a HUGE Jane Eyre fan. I always read up until the point where she discovers the crazy woman in the attic and runs away and then I get bored. I especially hate the St. John interlude (it doesn't help that in the film it's pronounced "SinJin" which lead me to make cracks about "SinJin the non-Asian") and I hate that Rochester gets all messed up in the end and lives the rest of his life all blind. I also don't find Jane to be that entrancing a character. Maybe for early 19th century England, but it doesn't translate. She just seems kind of poky.

Watching it on the heels of Paul Blart: Mall Cop did result in some hysterical laughing about "Lord and Lady Blart" and "Lord and Lady Mall Cop" which the Dotytron made me promise not to share because he said it wouldn't be funny out of context but I'm seriously laughing out loud while I type it, so there you go.

First Day of Work Report:

It went amazingly well. I really do love love love my job. And (most) of the people I work with. And my building. And being busy. And joining teams. And having a purpose to my day and a reason to put on nice clothes and straighten my hair and get my act together. I'm so not meant to be a stay-at-home mum. I can't do it. I loved being home with him, but I'm so much more engaged and useful when I'm firing on all pistons and when my calendar is filled up with stuff and I've got a long-long task list to beaver away at. That's just the nature of me.

The Big Yam had a good day. I dropped him off and there were no tears (there are never tears when I leave him with someone.) He happily waved bye-bye to me from J's window and she said he was totally lovely. He didn't eat many vegetables (she's providing us with a written write-up for him for the next week or so) because there were Cheerios being offered and his nap schedule got all messed up, but other than that it was smooth sailing. He was totally hungry for the boob when I got home and although I didn't find myself missing him during the day, I was near frantic to see him when I got home, which wasn't helped along by a stupid TTC delay, frazzling my nerves and ramping up the tension even more. J is Chilean so her English isn't perfect and her write up was hilarious. Does it make me a bad person that when I read the comment under "Notes about nap time" (it said, bluntly: "He cry") that I laughed? Poor Boobla. He hates sleeping in pack'n'plays and not in his own bed so I can only imagine how much "he cry" when J tried to put him down. I just find it so funny how poorly "he cry" captures what really must have gone down.

The Dotytron was on dinner patrol and this is what he made:

As my neighbours enviously commented, technically, I just use the Dotytron as my proxy - like in Ratatouille. I do most of the complicated chopping and lay out the mis-en-place and he executes per my detailed email instructions. I came home to a scene last night where the Dotytron was losing his mind and bemoaning about how "ruined dinner" but he was just super-anxious about getting it right. It turned out perfectly. That's leftover polenta that I froze, sliced and pan-fried, topped with creamed spinach and leeks, poached eggs, and cheddar cheese. So simple and so darned tasty.

Timing worked out pretty well. I was home by 5:45, dinner was on the table at 6:30 so I got to play with the Big Yam in between, and after dinner we had over an hour to hang with Master T before putting him to bed at 8pm and getting back to our own business. Hopefully we can keep up the momentum!

This weekend is a doozy. Tonight it's dinner at R & R's house. I made an apple pie (all the neighbours have gone apple picking lately and we're being gifted with the inevitable surplus - apples are just too easy to pick!) with a brown butter oat streusel. We're getting takeout though and hopefully playing Settlers. Then we're spending the night up in Markham because we're babysitting my Poh Poh tomorrow. We'll take the Big Yam swimming and then do some errands and then hang with MHui and her family. Sunday we're having brunch with Nany and Momma D and then home for some much-needed down time and house cleaning.

Phew!

Thanks to all you dear readers for the love and support and words of encouragement during this time! Much love to you all.

Fin.

This one time...

2011-10-12T09:42:00.006-04:00

at band camp...

Band camp was the best - we had amazing weather and it was a beautiful location only an hour north of the city. The closest town is Sutton, but it's just north of Keswick, on the banks of Lake Simcoe. The camp takes place every year in the 3 days leading up to Thanksgiving at the Salvation Army's Jackson's Point Camp and Conference Centre. The facilities are pretty sweet - there's a big conference centre that's newer-looking with a cafeteria, a great room, and two wings of dorm-style rooms, each with a private bathroom. Then there are a tonne of cabins and lodges and another giant auditorium with another mess hall on the other side. The grounds are lovely - they have a strip of private beach and the fall colours were on full display, with some late, Indian-summer warmth to make the days in t-shirts really pleasant.

The Big Yam was a HUGE hit at Band Camp and he and another baby who showed up had a set during the Talent Show. The other baby was a bit of a dud so the Boobla carried the show and brought the house down with his vocal stylings. It was pretty cute. I've already been instructed by the president of the parent council that we have to come back next year. During the day the kids do sessions with visiting clinicians and then at night they have some free time and activities like bonfires, a dance, etc.

I spent the days with the Big Yam exploring parks and going for walks and we visited our friend C and his family in Orillia - had a DELICIOUS lunch at this place Apple Annie's - if you're ever in town, I highly recommend it - my smoked turkey and cheddar panino was scrumptious.

The kids at band camp were all around well-behaved, kind of nerdy meatballs (this IS band camp after all) and it kind of made me realize how YOUNG high school kids are. They're babies, really. And the intermediate kids are like, zygotes. It also highlighted to me how spectacularly unsuited I am to be a teacher. I have no sympathy for mass amounts of kid-based posturing and the spiraling lunacy that happens when you have that amount of prepubescent hormones teeming together.

Last night we had Momma D over for dinner and I made us steak, sautéed mushrooms, baked acorn squash, and sliced tomatoes (green zebra and this variety called peach tomatoes that I've never had before - they're fuzzy!) with mozzarella cheese cubes and balsamic.

Tonight for pre-dodgeball dinner we had BLT's made with English bacon and roasted garlic-scallion aioli, with sweet potato fries, and broccoli salad.

Tomorrow is my first day back at work...eep!!!

Fin.

525 948.766

2011-10-11T08:26:00.004-04:00

That's how many minutes there are in a year (according to the Google calculator, NOT according to the song from Rent.) That's how many minutes young Master T has been in our lives. That's how many minutes we've spent falling in love with this little guy who started as an idea, grew in my tummy, and emerged as him - a fully-formed human being with a pretty amazing personality. A little baby who began with scrawny chicken legs and arms and a low voice who is now a funny, babbling, winding and grinding, almost-walking little Boobla.

Each minute that passes makes you marvel at the point you're at now, while simultaneously being wistful for the the baby that was before. We're looking forward to what kind of ridiculousness he's going to spout once he starts talking, but when I hear him babbling away to himself in the back seat I know I'm going to miss the sounds of his nonsensical pre-verbal musings.

This year has been filled with sweetness and light and bitterness and shadow. Last night, when we started reflecting on the magnitude of what this year has meant for us with the Big Yam, we couldn't also help but have a cry about what we lost, too. I'm so very, very sad that Poppa D didn't get to spend T's 1st birthday with us. I know he would have been over-the-moon and would have loved every minute of it and would have been thrilled to be there to spoil him and laugh at his hijinks. We hadn't had a cry like that in a while and we needed it. The one year marker is a significant one and I was struck anew by how many moments and milestones Poppa D wouldn't get to witness. I really wanted T to experience a grandparents sleepover and going to a ball game with his Poppa and seeing his Poppa cheer him on at school plays and sports games. There is so much about this moment that f**king sucks, even as we're celebrating. I has thought that Thanksgiving would be harder, being the first major holiday without Poppa D, but I'm finding that I'm having a much harder time with the Big Yam's birthday.

Here are some photos from the weekend - for Poppa D.

T wearing his birthday crown & tux

T's birthday cake - a classic golden cake with chocolate frosting (which was too sour, but whatever)

The Big Yam's first taste of refined sugar was VERY favourably received

All tuckered out post dim-sum lunch

We spent Sunday afternoon playing kickball and touch football with the cousins - this is a scene from the sidelines.

I don't start work until Thursday, so today I'm spending with Momma D and the Big Yam.

Fin.

BAND CAMP

2011-10-05T09:05:00.004-04:00

The Dotytron has abandoned us for the next 3 days for Band Camp which has me super-bummed. Although there's a slight chance that me and the Big Yam might be able to join him up there - which would be THE BEST! It's about an hour and a half away on the banks of Lake Simcoe and I think it would be a nice little fun getaway for the three of us...especially since the Dotytron is already gutted that he's going to be away from us for so long and I'm equally gutted that he's going to be gone for the tail half of the end of my maternity leave.

Dinner on Monday - whole wheat penne with roasted eggplant, roasted garlic, cherry tomatoes, and basil. Also a spoonful of kalamata olive paste thrown in there in lieu of whole smashed olives, which is how I usually make this pasta. We had the roomie over for dinner and served this alongside my current favorite salad - baby arugala with grated parm, dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. So simple but so delicious.

Just waiting to hear back on whether we're going to Band Camp or not...cross your fingers for us! We really really really want to go! But even if we stay, we'll have fun...just not as much.

Fin.