Wait - who loves you?

It kind of blows my mind that when kids hit a certain age they go through a phase of getting night terrors or nightmares.  On Monday night, the Big Yam woke up screaming and crying at 3am and it was tragic. He was saying stuff like, "Baba...light!" and "Mama, help me!" (Seriously, is your heart breaking?  Mine did.)  When he's gotten upset in the past, I generally just give him squishes and then run through the list of people who love him, "Mama loves you, Baba loves you, Nana loves you, Poh Poh loves you," etc.  Recently he's started doing it himself, except it sounds like "Mama lalloo, Baba lalloo...." Super-cute, right?  Well I noticed that not too long ago he started adding his own peeps in to the mix:

That's right.  Dora loves you.  Boots loves you.  

He sometimes includes Map and Backpack too.  Man, the allure of that little Latina is impossible to resist!  Every kid goes down the Dora the Explorer rabbit hole.  I know that J sometimes lets the kids watch a bit of TV while she's getting lunch ready but I'm not fussed about it.  He doesn't get it at home and the lady has to get lunch ready!  I'm glad he's getting his popular culture there and not asking for it with us.  The other night the Dotytron was watching old Buster Keaton movies with the Big Yam and they were having a blast.  

Tuesday night's dinner of braised tilapia with chorizo (which actually wasn't chorizo), arugala, and tiny gem tomatoes from my CSA with orzo.  So good!  

Tonight is Academic Book Club.  We read Richard Ford's Canada.  This book was THE WORST!  I was literally angry loud-flipping through pages on the TTC and doing a dramatic sigh as I speed-skimmed the whole thing because I was so mad that I was wasting valuable reading time with this dreck.  You will find that my opinion is not shared.  Jane Urquhart wrote a glowing review of this for The Globe and Mail (assuming you put any credence in The Globe and Mail's culture reviews - I do not), and The New York Times was similarly favorable.  They were taken with the writing style and the richness of the language and the voice of the protagonist - all of which were things I abhorred.  The story is told from the point of view of 15 year old Dell Parsons, who recounts how his parents' decision to rob a bank irrevocably set in motion a series of events that altered his life and the life of his twin sister, Berner.  The book opens with this line:  “First I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.”  Which is admittedly a cracker of a way to start a book.  TOO BAD IT TAKES LIKE 300 PAGES TO EVEN GET TO THE BANK ROBBERY.  So much set up!  So much exposition!  So much telling instead of showing!  Unlike other reviewers, I didn't think that the author inhabited the mind of a 15 year old boy at all.  I thought as a reader, the characters' motivations and interior selves was maddeningly opaque. You'd get sentences like (and I'm paraphrasing here), "He always refused to believe that other people could think differently from him," or "As was in keeping with his tendency to blah blah blah," and I hated it.  I hated being forced to rely on the observations of this (too-reliable?) narrator.  You never question people's motivations because the protagonist tells you what to think and what they're thinking and there was no room for my imagination to fill in the gaps.  I can't tell you how much I didn't want to or didn't enjoy reading this book.  It was epically bad.  

We're doing a Canada-themed party for one of our members who recently became a Canadian citizen - so I made butter tarts.  I'm also meeting up with Dr. Rei beforehand for a nice little ramen & bootie-shopping session.  So excited about that.  

While I'm waiting for Laini Taylor's next instalment in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy to be released (November 2nd! Can't wait!), I've got the following in my queue: the new Jonathan Tropper, The Book Thief, and Beautiful Ruins.  

Day off tomorrow!  Woot.

Fin.

Pre/Post

I walked into this weekend a kite neophyte and emerged a die-hard kite enthusiast.

Spinach & cheese manicotti - I overcooked the mozzarella topping a bit.  I like it when it gets chewy and leathery but this was just a tad over.

This weekend was another exercise in lovely.  It had a bit of everything.  Friends, family, home time, getting stuff done, personal time, nuclear family time.  It was perfectamundo and it strengthened my resolve to not over-schedule us.  We sat down to dinner on Sunday night, with the rain drizzling down and a cold, hard, bracing fall chill in the air and I looked at the faces of the people I love most in the world around the dining room table and it was one of those moments that encapsulates what life is about.  Perfect.  A big plate of spinach and three cheese stuffed manicotti, a salad, some garlic bread, a large bottle of seasonal pumpkin beer, the Big Yam randomly shouting: "Chew-ca-ba!" and his other current nonsensical catchphrase, "Bung-Gung!" and the sounds of the Dotytron's new favorite satellite radio station, the wind symphony station, filling our house with mad dynamic range and swelling emotion - it was perfect.

Friday night we squandered Friday Night Takeout Night.  Big time.  We tried this place near us, called The Fuzz Box, which purports to sell real Nova Scotian donairs.  Which apparently you JUST CAN'T GET anywhere else in Toronto.  Uhhh, there's a reason for that.  They're disgusting.  A donair is a shaved meat-stack sandwich featuring slices of peppery meat, served on a pita, with a light sprinkling of chopped tomato and onion.  I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that this sounds an awful lot like a gyro.  Well, what differentiates a donair from a gyro is a sauce that's specific to the donair, which is charmingly called the "jizz."  It's a white, runny but viscous, condensed milk based sauce which is sweet.  Appallingly sweet.  As soon as I heard this I was deeply suspect and therefore got my donair with sauce on the side.  To me, it's disgusting.  Completely unbalanced and without it, my sandwich was dry as all get out.  Now, I LOVE the lemon sauce that comes on a gyro.  And I love tzatiki.  So the question becomes, why would I eat a donair when I could have a gyro?  That question will never be asked again, because I'm never eating another donair.  It's sooooo sweet!  We also got garlic fingers, which is a big pizza spread with garlic butter and topped with cheese and then cut into a million thin wedges which was as good and stoner-food-y as the description suggests.  We also got fried pepperoni, which is another classic Nova Scotian bar snack.  This was also good.  But neither of these were worth the price of admission.  We were bummed.  It sucks wasting a Friday Night Takeout Night.  But we're never gonna know unless we try, right?

Saturday was Mandarin.  Emery's parents (note the plural!) were BOTH there, so I'm not sure what's going on with that.  It was a review class.  Not gonna lie: I aced it.  The Big Yam, not so much.  LOL!  

Then we biked down to the Beach for Wind Fest, which is a kite festival and OMGWTFKITESKITESKITES!  Obviously the Dotytron like, immediately bought a kite.  I can't tell you the number of times he faux-casually mentioned, "there's a booth over there selling kites..." We immediately became COMPLETELY KITE OBSESSED.  Ummmmmmm...kites are the bomb.  Are they a cruel mistress?  Yes.  But is it the funnest thing in the world, controlling a kite?  YES! YES! A THOUSAND TIMES, YES!  We basically came away cursing every minute of our lives NOT spent flying a kite.  It was also cool just to watch the kites in action:

No joke, this kite was like, 30 feet long.  It's being held up by the other kite flying above it.  I can't even get into how awesome this kite was.  I took a million photos trying to capture the kite's majesty and failing miserably.  It was infuriating.  

We had R & R over for dinner on Saturday which was lovely.  R is the cutest preggo I've ever seen!  For some reason, whenever we get together with those guys it becomes the airing of the couples' grievances, which is pretty funny.  R is like me on steroids.  I mean that literally, in the sense that before she got preggo she was lifting 50lb weights, and I mean that figuratively, in that she's a souped up, more driven, more exacting version of me.  It's pretty scary/admirable.  Those two are having their baby shower at the Mandarin, which is obviously the most boss location you could pick.

Anyway, because they are the BEST GUESTS EVER, they brought oysters (Pemaquid, Kumamoto, French Kiss) and a bunch of beers - COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY, GUYS! - and I made us bouillabaisse with rouille and toast and a salad of pancetta wrapped figs & arugala and the Dotytron made an apple cake which didn't make it out of the pan in one piece, but which was still pretty delicious.

Sunday was off the chains.  I made 9 (!) jars of concord grape jelly (the process is easy, but kind of a giant pain, if that makes sense - recipe below), and we had Momma D by for breakfast (scrambled eggs with corn & scallions, salsa, avocadoes, toast, sausage from The Sausage Partners) and then she watched the Big Yam while the Dotytron and I cleaned the basement, which was in dire need of a post-reno, post-us-not-giving-a-s**t re-org.  Now it's glorious and makes sense.  Huzzah!  

 Slipper shot

So we did ALL THAT this weekend.  And yet still managed to find time to watch episodes of Louie and knit (me) and play guitar (the Dotytron) and be cozy with the Big Yam and feel like we weren't under the gun every second.  It was perfection.  I can't stress it enough.  My attempts to limit weekends to something manageable is resulting in weekends that feel restorative and constructive, which is precisely what they're meant to be, naw mean?  

Fin.




---------------------------------------------------------
Concord Grape Jelly
makes about 9 pints

8 lbs of concord grapes, stemmed
2 granny smith apples, chopped (seeds and skins and all)
4 1/2 cups of sugar

- stir together the grapes and the apples with 1/2 c. of water in a big stockpot.  Bring to a boil, put a lid on and reduce to a simmer, and simmer 10 minutes.
- strain into a measuring cup.
- strain that liquid again through a wet cheesecloth
- take the twice-strained liquid and pout into a large stock pot.  Stir in the sugar.  Turn on the heat and bring to a boil.  Boil, skimming off the foam until it reaches 220F or until desired level of set is reached.
- process in sterilized jars for 10 minutes in a boiling water canning bath.

MINE! All Mine!!!

Treat yo' self 2012.  As you know, I've been kind of obsessed with satchels.  I've had my eye on the Cambridge ones, but they were a bit too rich for my blood (ASOS was selling them for around $215 depending on the color/trim).  Anyway, this week I stumbled upon an ASOS promo code and I decided to treat myself to a 14" Leather Satchel Company schoolboy satchel in oxblood leather.  It came to $130 (including shipping) for real leather, which I think is a pretty darned good deal!  I'm in looooove with it.  

I don't know what the difference is between the Leather Satchel Company and the Cambridge Satchel Company, but I suspect that it's the same difference as Uggs vs. Emus.  Same product, different name with less cachet, lower price.  

Other than that, my fall wardrobe buying has consisted of a few pairs of tights and some stuff from Joe:

I also got a classic two-tone oxford shirt from the Gap:

And that's about it.  I'm on the lookout for some black booties and a pair of black pumps for work and I'm donezo.  I feel like the booties will look nice with all the skirts and dresses I generally wear in the winter.

Fin.

Current faves

So the Big Yam is Big Verbal right now - he can basically parrot anything you say (which can be dangerous, as in the case last night on the bench at dodgeball when he repeated the key word in my phrase, "your mama's playing like s**t tonight" - SPOILER ALERT: the key word wasn't "tonight"), and it leads to funny moments like when he says, "sixty bucks" or when he mimics my exasperated, "hello?!?" that I often yell up the stairs at a lolly-gagging Dotytron, who has invariably told me that he's ready to go but then keeps me waiting at the door while he listens to a Sonny Rollins record in his room.

One of my faves is when he gets so excited by what he's seeing that he can't formulate the words.  Last night on the way home from dodgeball we pulled up alongside a bus and he goes, "Mama! Baba! -----" and you could tell that every synapse in his brain was firing with "BUS!" and his body was vibrating with excitement but he was SO pumped he couldn't actually get the word out.  He pointed out the window and and tried to get the word out and it was the cutest thing.

Another fave is me teaching him about being "cozy."  In the morning, I've built in enough time (because I wake up at 5:45am thanks to a certain someone) that when he gets up I can scoop him into bed with me and pull the covers over his legs or pull him onto the couch with me and his bottle of nai-nai and pull Nany Dotytron's afghan over our legs and tuck the coverings in around his feet and tell him that we're being cozy.  Now he asks for it and it's the sweetest.

Final Big Yam fave.  Ever since he's been a wee bobbin, if I was wearing him in the carrier or strolling him in the stroller, I would periodically stop abruptly and say, "Guess what?  I love you."  Last week I was wearing him on my back on our way to daycare and I stopped and said, "Guess what?" and he said, "Lallooo" and it's the cutest, dearest thing ever.

Recently we watched the documentary, Marley.  It's an extremely well-produced and entertaining documentary that offers a glimpse into Bob Marley's early years and historical context for the creation and popularization of reggae music.  If I had one critique, it's that the documentary doesn't critique his womanizing (and his wife, Rita's, tacit enabling of it) or the deification of him.  First-hand testimony from his wife, some of his mistresses, his kids, and people like Bunny Wailer and Lee Scratch Perry alongside archival footage and still shots makes up the bulk of the documentary and while I still feel that Bob himself is a bit of a cipher at the core of the film, the doc is extremely well produced and interesting.  Like, hello, Rastafarianism, much?!  And what's with believing that Haile Selassie is the second coming of Jesus?  It's insanely interesting and has lead to some homework on our parts figuring out the religion and where Selassie fits in, which in turn has lead to looking up Marcus Garvey and reading up on the pan-African movement and the repatriation of Jamaica.  Fascinating stuff.

One of my favorite things from the doc was listening to early Wailers tunes - before reggae was created,  when it was ska and the unique sound that developed from the Jamaican attempt to replicate the 50s/60s doowop sound.  I particularly loved this song called "Selassie is the Chapel" which I had never heard before, but it's this sweeping, beautiful ballad with gorgeous, thrumming, swooping harmonies.  It's just gorgeous.  What the film made me realize was just how prodigiously talented Marley was and what a colossal shame that he died so young.  I mean, we've all heard the tunes off of Legend a million times over, and I am definitely guilty of feeling like they're played out, but situated within the context of musical history and culture, I have a new found respect.  Let's face it - the tunes are catchy and poppy as all get-out and they deserve to be played as often as they are.  Digging deeper into earlier catalogue is also rewarding.  Peep these two tunes:

Tuesday night's dinner was kimchi fried rice topped with a fried egg.  I've switched over to pan frying in coconut oil and I'm a total convert!  It burns clean, is loaded with good fats, and bonus: your house smells all coconutty when you heat it up (but no coconut flavour is imparted to the food).  I'm sold!  This was made with kimchi made by our neighbour's mom, who we call halmoni (the Korean word for grandmother)

Last night's Greek mac'n'cheese

Tonight was leftover night. 

Fin.

Not-PC

There's this kid in our Mandarin class named "Emery" which is a perfectly lovely name...except when it's pronounced by someone with a thick Chinese accent (as is the case with our truly amazing instructor), because then it sounds like the teacher is mis-pronouncing the name "Emily."  I know it's not very politically correct for me to find this mildly amusing - and yet I CAN'T NOT.

Tonight is the first game of dodgeball after a looooooong hiatus (almost a year?)  I had dodgeball dreams last night that involved me freaking out because our team is inexperienced (true in real life - TIRL) and no one knew what they were doing (TIRL) or had read the rules (TIRL) and I was screaming my head off (TIRL) and we lost (TBD, but probably TIRL) and I lost my voice (TBD, but probably TIRL).  I've been having funny dreams lately.  The other night, the Big Yam was upset in the middle of the night and I felt like a squish and a cuddle so I pulled him into bed with us at like, 2am.  This is generally a mistake.  This means that he will kick and roll and heavy-breathe and otherwise be a giant nuisance and disrupt my sleep, all for the numbing 5 seconds of pleasure I get upon waking up bleary eyed and seeing him sleeping soundly.  Seriously...it's never quite as idyllic as it seems in my head and I definitely never get as great a sleep.  Most of the time, anyway.  That night, I dreamed the Jean-Ralphio from Parks and Recreation (pictured above) had come up with a whistle-y 2 note song and it was repeating and driving me crazy.  Upon waking up and gazing lovingly at the prone and prostrate form of my sweet little Boobla Khan, I realized that the two note song of my dreams was really the sound of his whistling, clogged little nose as he breathed.  LOL!  Worst!

I recently finished Amy Waldman's The Submission.  I also am going on record as saying that it is CRIMINAL that this book was overlooked for the Pulitzer, or that awful, boring, tripe-y books like Emma Donoghue's Room get short-listed for prizes instead.  This is one of the smartest books I've read in a long time.  The book talks about a jury in Manhattan charged with selecting the monument that will stand in place of the World Trade Centre towers.  A blind competition, the entire process is derailed when they submission they select turns out to have been created by a Muslim-American by the name of Mohamed.  As the jury, America, the media, the architect, are thrown into each other's orbit, the author makes sage and astute observations about the state of American media, about art, about artistic intention, about Islamaphobia, about the roots of fundamentalism, about lobbyists, about politics and politicians, about grief, and about this moment in time for the America that was changed by the events of 9/11.  I know, I know.  When I write it like that you think this is going to be a boring, didactic treatise.  But it's not, I swear!  The characters are so well constructed and each position is so nuanced that you don't feel like you're being lectured.  Instead, I found that the story made me think about the intractability of Islam-focused racism in the United States and how few options there are to move forward with the discussion.  In light of the shootings at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, the anniversary of 9/11 that recently passed, the subsequent discussions about what constitutes "terrorism," and how we still consider the default American (or Canadian) to be white, this need for this kind of discussion is heightened in my mind.  This book is a pleasure to read and made me think about the dimensions of "the nation."

I needed something lighter after that so I hate-read Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bébé which capitalizes on the current fixation with motherhood and parental anxieties by telling us how American kids are  undisciplined hooligans and how French children are so well behaved and polite and will eat anything and you can take them to restaurants, etc.  I'm being glib, but look at the subject matter.  Again, this was a piece of anxious, navel-gazing parental neuroses masquerading as some kind of quasi-armchair academic study of why some other parenting style is mystical and has all the answers and why Americans are raising a generation of boors (not entirely untrue).  Basically, I found the book a bit of a bore because the author adopts this weird, neophyte voice where she's like a babe wandering through the woods: "Why is my daughter so ill-behaved?  Why won't she sleep through the night?" and the proscriptions of the French are so common sense that it's ridiculous that people feel they need someone to tell them.  I think ultimately, that's my problem with the book.  I've discovered I have a major problem when people turn to books for things that you don't need books for.  To me, it just shows a lack of critical awareness and lack of confidence in your own good judgement.  When did parenting become a thing you learned in a book?  When did it get to the point where we need someone with authority to tell us that we have to establish a framework and discipline our kids?  The problem with this book is that this book has to exist and got any traction at all.  The "French" style is basically common-sense: go into things thinking that your baby is supposed to sleep through the night, be stern, have expectations, blah blah blah.  Anyway, you don't have to read this book.  The reviews encapsulate the arguments perfectly and the author is a bit of a pill.

Tonight for dinner we had freezer Greek mac'n'cheese and a salad of baby arugala with roasted beets.

Fin.

Wa-wa-wa-weekend

In which: we are unjustly persecuted in Mandarin class (to keep things thematically sound?) and we take a side trip to Lahore and Nicaragua.

We had a big, ol' UN weekend around here.  Friday night was Sukhothai with Momma D and Ehmdo.  Saturday morning we hit up the Brickworks Farmer's Market for those breakfast crepes from that guy, Clement, that we love.  It was kind of a s**tshow though.  Clement and his assistant are super passive-aggressive with each other and work so slow it makes the former line cook in me go inwardly ballistic.  But the breakfast crepes are so good.  Ham, a cracked egg, mozzarella cheese, scallions and hollandaise.  So freakin' tasty.  AND they do that thing I love where you melt some cheese on the griddle so it gets all crispy and toasty and lacy on the outside of the crepe.  I just wish they could work twice as fast.

We picked up concord grapes which I turned into a beautiful, gorgeous, thick and luscious jelly.  I ate it this morning for breakfast on PB on toast and it was divine.  Plus, Lil' Ugmo smelled so deliciously grape-y on Sunday that it was delightful.

So yeah, Mandarin.  The teacher came up to me and the Dotytron during the break and was all like, "Jennifer said that only one parent is allowed per child." And we're like, ummmm...okay, EXCEPT THERE WERE AT LEAST 3 OTHER KIDS WHO HAD BOTH PARENTS THERE AND SHE ONLY TALKED TO US ABOUT IT.  We were, in fact, STANDING NEXT TO another kid who had both her parents there.  We were totally like, "WTF?!" about it and are prepared to make a big stink next class if we see other people getting away with it.  PERSECUTION.  Truth be told, we had already decided that we were going to divide and conquer for the Mandarin class - that way, the other person can have a morning to do their own thing at home.

Saturday was kind of bucktown.  We followed up the farmer's market and Mandarin with this apple festival being held in support for a local community centre/drop-in centre where the Big Yam had his first bouncy castle experience.  Him being the cautious, safety-conscious little bobbin that he is, he basically spent the entire time kneeling at the front of the castle, clutching the edge, and grinning cheerfully at us and looking enormously proud as he slowly rocked up and down, like a rubber ducky in a tub.  I don't know where this cautious nature comes from, but it's quite hilarious to behold.  I think he might get it from Poppa D.

Saturday night we were supposed to go to our friend L's birthday party, but bailed because we are routinely EXHAUSTED and because we had an impromptu visit from the Roomie and T and later, L'Armi.  I made us chicken tikka masala and green beans thoren with brown rice and we bought garlic naan and palak paneer from Lahore Tikka House:

Sunday morning we had breakfast - waffles and English bacon and smoothies and then we hung out and I worked on my presentation and then we had dinner with Dr. Rei and Hanbo at La Bella Managua, which is a Nicaraguan restaurant Dr. Rei recommend.  SO GOOD!  We had ceviche with plantain chips, this giant tamale, and this fried yucca and fried cheese appetizer that came with avocado salsa.  For our main, the Dotytron got a carne asada with a mix of sweet and salty plantains, rice and beans and I had this dish of fried pork (like chicharrons) layered with a cabbage salad on more yucca.  Yucca for life!  The Big Yam went to town on it.  It's so good.

Then for dessert we went to Baker Bots.  They do cookies and make build-you-own ice cream sandwiches with Greg's Ice Cream.  The cookies are soft and yielding and they pack a tonne of ice cream into the sandwich.  You can get either one cookie cut  in half or a whole cookie.  A whole cookie would be an insane amount of sweet to eat.  I got an "everything" cookie (which is similar to the Momofuku compost cookie) with sweet cream ice cream.  The Dotytron got a peanut butter cookie with sweet cream ice cream.  

Why I love my 'hood: neighbours who buy facepainting kits and paint your kid's face for you, thereby mitigating 30 minute lineups for the service.

AND this weekend I made homemade oatmeal cream pies (homage to Little Debbie) and I NAILED it.  Two soft, chewy, oat-y cookies sandwiching a filling of marshmallow cream-whoopie pie filling.  I mashed up a couple of oatmeal cookie recipes and came out with a winner, especially after pumping up the salt quotient so you got a nice sweet-salty juxtaposition.

Fin.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Oatmeal Cream Pies
makes about 12 4" sandwich cookies

For the cookie:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 c. + 2 T. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1 c. + 2 T. all purpose flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 1/4 c. rolled oats

For the marshmallow cream filling:
1 stick unsalted butter
2 c. confectioner's sugar
1 7oz jar of marshmallow fluff

Cookie:
- cream butter and sugars together until fluffy, about 2-5 minutes
- add eggs and beat well
- stir in dry ingredients on low speed
- using a 1.5" ice cream scoop, portion out balls of cookie dough on a silpat-lined cookie sheet (about 8 per tray), leaving 2 inches between.  Refrigerate the dough balls for at least 1 hour.
- preheat oven to 350F.  Transfer cookie sheets directly to oven from fridge.  Bake for about 14-16 minutes until they're evenly lightly golden brown on top.
- transfer trays to racks to cool.

Filling:
- cream together all ingredients until well mixed.  Try to match up 2 cookies and spread with 1 1/2 T. of filling and then sandwich them together.

Overheard

Overheard by one of my teacher friends, who has an office where the windows allow for mad courtyard eavesdropping without being seen:

Group of boys (probably aged 12 or 13):

"I think she might like girls"
"Well, she says she's not a virgin"
"She said she's been penetrated before"
"Do you know what that means?!?  'Pene-' as in penis '-trated'!"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Especially hilarious given the letter that is being offered to conservative Christians and Muslims asking that parents be warned before "sensitive" topics (like homosexuality, environmentalism, sexuality, marriage, and evolution) are brought up in the classroom.

Yep, that's obviously what today's kids need.  LESS INFORMATION.

Clearly, they're being taught all they need to know at home.

Fin.

Getting owned

Momma D emailed me and asked me what's been keeping me at work lately (I've worked through lunch and stayed late already a bunch this week) so I was like, "LEMME TELL YOU" and broke it down into a giant 10 page email.  It's so bucktown right now!  So many research requests!  And we're hosting this conference and I'm presenting a panel session in addition to intro-ing two other sessions.  And I applied for these two Research positions that I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get but I'm prepping for interviews in case I get called anyway.  One of the positions requires knowledge of macroeconomics and quantitative research experience so I'm boning up on Excel and making tables and graphs with it.

This life, man.  It's intensity in ten cities.

AND YET.  In the morning, when I leave the house with the Big Yam nattering away on my back in the Ergo  pulling my bike loaded with the sundries I need for a day of work alongside, there is a nip and a chill and a briskness in the air that says that summer is steadily loosening its suffocating grip and we are easing our way into fall weather.  And as we all know, I LOVE FALL WEATHER.  My heart thrums with excitement!  Forget ice creams and semifreddoes - here comes leisurely weekend baking, the house redolent of cinnamon, feeling the cold tile of the kitchen under our feet as we make deliciously rich weekend breakfasts, the return of sweater dresses and tights and thick scarves looped around my neck.  I'm feeling fall, y'all.  I'm feeling it in a big big way.  I'm feeling one-pot dinners, braises, thick nourishing carb-laden meals and proper Sunday suppers featuring giant joints of meat that have roasted slowly all day.  I'm feeling pulling out Nanny Dotytron's crochet afghan and sitting on the couch after dinner when it's already dark at 7pm and reading stories with the Big Yam tucked in next to me wearing his little leather moccasins.

I've got fall fever.  I think this year's fall wardrobe will include some kind of bootie for work.  I'm feeling like my "all flats all the time" policy is due for some reassessment to help me be a grown-up.  The problem is I have giant calves, so I need something that's gonna make my ankles look nice and trim.

In other news: major Halloween costume progress has been made.  Dr. Rei and I hit up the Eaton Centre and surroundings on Tuesday night.  Haven't been to a mall in forevers.  Here's my ranking of best tunes played in mall stores:

1) Forever 21
2) Hot Topic - Dr. Rei: "Are we seriously in here right now?"

Last place would be everything else: Zara, H&M, Ardene, Claire's.  Yikes, is all I have to say.  Yikes.

The reason why we were even around the mall is because we saw Celeste and Jesse Forever.  Which was co-written by Rashida Jones.  It's about Celeste and Jesse, who have been together since high school, got married, and are separated but still together all the time.  It's about what you do when you still love your significant other but they're not right for you and you're maybe not IN love with them any more.  There were some really great, funny moments.  It's filmed in that hipster-y, washed-out, sun-refracting Hipstamatic style that's so popular with the young folks nowadays.  This can lend everything a very hazy, L.A.-feel which is good sometimes, but can feel kind of lazy other times.  The soundtrack is also kind of annoying and invasive. The performances are pretty good - especially from Jones and Samberg.  Elijah Wood is wasted as this weird gay one dimensional co-worker character who never really gets fleshed out.  Emma Roberts plays a spoiled teen pop-tart on par with Miley Cyrus or Ke$ha and does a good job.  She has luminous skin and expressive eyes.  She's SO YOUNG.  My problem with this movie was the story.  It kind of makes sense and then it kind of doesn't.  I dunno.  I get that sometimes you can love someone but still not be your best self around them.  But I feel that the script doesn't really convey why  they're not right for each other or shouldn't be together, because Celeste and Jesse's rapport (and the chemistry between the two actors) is so convincing.  They don't seem like they shouldn't be together.  Or, if they shouldn't be together, there shouldn't be so much longing for each other.  I feel like the thought of still being with any one of my exes fills me with disgust and revulsion.  Wait.  Let me verify.  

Yup, still filled with disgust (I just went and looked at photos of my exes).  I'm just like, if you want to be with them so bad, you should be with them, ya know?  Anyway, those are my thoughts.  The movie also seems to say that being best friends isn't enough and I would disagree.

The stuffed eggplant

Monday dinner: penne with eggplant, grape tomatoes, olives & basil

Wednesday dinner: pulled pork, coleslaw, corn

Fin.

Grand Electric

Psych! Here's the thing about lining up for tacos (keep in mind, I'm planning on visiting Grand Electric someday), I can make perfectly good tacos at home.  Like, absolutely delicious tacos.  That's what we did on Friday.  I had the day off and I packed off the Big Yam to daycare (with some twinges of guilt) and cleaned the house and prepped tacos in advance of Dr. Rei and Hanbo's visit.  I made fish tacos and shrimp tacos and we had them with awesome tortillas from La Tortilleria and the green tomatillo salsa and the smoky red salsa from La Tortilleria as well.  Some chopped avocado, a cabbage-carrot slaw, some crema, some home made tortilla chips - so easy and so delicious, plus it's AYCE and you can't beat the price or setting.  AND we had that toasted almond meringue lemon curd semifreddo for dessert, and I have a hard time believing that anything Grand Electric serves up can test that.

We had such a good time chatting with those guys.  We covered a lot of topics - my chances of getting an interview for these jobs I'm applying for, which yielded this photo of Dr. Rei being a good bff and laying it down:

I love this photo because she looks like her beloved Pai Mei from Kill Bill. 

Also: check Uncle Hanbo reading the Big Yam a story!

We also covered "hipster racism" and artistic intent and the coming US-election.  It was aces.  The conversation also yielded this classic M-R-I exchange:

The Dotytron puts Des'ree's "You Gotta Be" on the Youtube.

Dr. Rei: "Who is this?"

The Dotytron: "I don't actually know.  Jodeci?"

Me: "Uhhh, Jodeci is a guy."

Dr. Rei: "Actually, Jodeci is TWO guys!"

LOL!  I don't know why I find that so funny, but it was hilarious at the time.  

Here are some "after" shots of the Lil' Ugmo facelift:

I'm still waiting for the shelf that I want to use as a landing strip to come in.  We have to put that up and my junk store oval mirror and then it's pretty much done (barring a light fixture for what used to be hallway light).

Saturday we showed up late like classic skidballs to our first Parent & Tot Mandarin class.  It was pretty good!  It's only 45 minutes long and it's basically an extended story/circle time at the drop-in centre.  We did songs, then a game, then a story/interactive play with a vocabulary lesson in which I eagerly glommed onto the Mandarin words for "rabbit" and "frog" that closely match the Cantonese.  The point of this class was to get the kids used to calling their mom's "Mama" and their dad's "Baba" which means the Big Yam had a bit of a home ice advantage.  The best was the Big Yam walking in (late), sitting down and listening to one song and then getting up and saying, "All done!" and trying to leave the class.  LOL!  The other best thing was that we gossiped about the other kids and parents when we were in the car coming home.  We learned two lines of a song and I think it's pretty fun.  I'm excited to go back.  

The other good thing about Saturday class is that we get to hit up Chinese food in Markham/Scarborough afterwards.  This week we met my mum for lunch at Congee Queen.  Otherwise, it was a pretty lazy weekend, which was nice.  I think I'm going to make a concerted effort (she says now) to not overschedule us on weekends.  It was nice having the one night of socializing and then two whole days and evenings to work on our own stuff and be relaxed and chill around the house.  We biked out to Riverdale Farm and stumbled upon the Cabbagetown Festival.  We hung out with our neighbours and planted some mums in the garden and did laundry and put up pictures and visited briefly with the Roomie and baby T.  It was all so delightfully lowkey:

I could use a million more of those types of weekends, please!

Saturday night we had take out night and we tried this Thai place called Sukho Thai, which is the restaurant from which Khao San Road spun off.  The benefit of Sukho Thai is that it's not in clubland and they pay lower rent (= lower prices for similar - and some same - dishes!) and it's close enough that we can nip out and get take out and eat in the comfort of our own home (big bonus for us).  We had the Guaytiaw Sukhothai, which is like a Thai take on Vietnamese pho - in this case, the broth is punched up with lovely anise and sour notes.  We had it with beef brisket and it was tender and flavourful.   We also had the Pad Kee Mao with chicken and the Gaeng Panang with beef.  The last dish we ordered spicy and they weren't joking about the heat levels.  All the flavours were incredibly well balanced and in proportion - it was incredibly delicious and a great alternative to Jean's Vegetarian Kitchen for when I'm looking for meat-filled Thai food.  So good!  I'm glad we have this restaurant in our back pocket now.  

We were talking restaurants with the neighbours and the Dotytron was summing up our attitude towards restaurants which is basically like, we want to spend either $10 a plate or like, $60 a plate and be wowed.  Anything in between is completely uninteresting to us.  That's where you get a lot of your typical "neighbourhood" joints where the food is good, but nothing outstanding or worth travelling over.  If it's just protein, starch and vegetables on a plate and there's not much in the way of inventiveness or technique, I'm not interested and I'd much rather cook and entertain and eat at home, really.

Taco salad!

Roasted tomato soup, grilled cheese & pepper jelly sandwiches and kale chips

Fish & shrimp tacos

Toasted almond meringue & lemon curd semifreddo

Wild blueberry buttermilk pancakes & smoky thick-cut Mennonite bacon

 I've found my go-to buttermilk pancake recipe.  I've posted it at the end of this post.

All-in-all, a great way to close off the first week of the school year.  I love my family and I love that fall is coming and that we can start hunkering down at home more.  I started working on my quilt again and I pulled out my knitting and I jarred up 5 litres of my tomato sauce.  I'm also doubling up on a dinner once a week (so I made two dinners' worth of the stuffed eggplant) to go in the freezer so that one day a week all the Dotytron has to do is turn on the oven or reheat something already prepared.  

Yay fall!

Fin.

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Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes

makes about 16 regular sized pancakes and a bunch of silver dollar pancakes

2 c. all purpose flour

1/3 c. sugar

1 T. baking powder

1 T. baking soda

pinch of salt

2 c. buttermilk

3 eggs

- Mix the wet ingredients together 

- Stir together the dry ingredients then whisk wet into dry.  Whisk until no lumps remain.

- Stir in 2 T. of melted butter and 2 c. of wild blueberries (or whatever fruit you want to mix in)

- cook as per usual.