No, thanks

I moved some furniture around this morning to prepare for the arrival of our Christmas tree, which has been researched TO THE TEETH by a certain Dotytron, desperate to make up for the egregious error that resulted in our scentless tree of 2011.  We have species, people!  No more fake balsam fir incense for us!  Anyway, I set up the Big Yam's stocking and this morning I knelt down and pointed it out to him and told him about how it's going to be filled with presents.  My exact words were, "Santa Claus is going to come on Christmas Eve and he...or she...is going to fill it with presents!"

I look up from my prostrate state to see the Dotytron giving me the sceptical eyes chased with a very emphatic: "Uh, Santa Claus is a guy.  Now you're going too far."  LOL!  To be fair, I was on unsteady ground and I knew it.  Pronoun changing for Santa?  No dice.

We do a lot of pronoun changing when we read the Big Yam stories because I'm trying to fight all the gender conditioning.  Like, why are tugboats and steamships always boys?  Or dinosaurs?  We love the How do Dinosaurs... (Count to Ten, Say Goodnight, etc.) series but all the dinosaurs are always referred to with male pronouns.  So we make a point of alternating pronouns on each page.  I was also so mad about how gendered things like pull-up diapers get that I got him the "girl" ones.  Because you know what?  He doesn't give two s**ts about Diego.  He likes Dora.  So he goes to bed wearing his "Dora dipe-dipes" and loving life.  

The Big Yam has been hilarious lately.  He's all about his "No, thanks!" "No, thanks, Mama," "No, thanks, Baba" lately.   J told me that yesterday she asked him if he wanted to go potty at daycare and he was like, "No, thanks!"  It's so funny.  I'm also happy he's learning some manners through osmosis. 

Last night was a fun, fun night, with a less than fun purpose.  I met up with SMcKay and we grabbed dinner and then went to a visitation for our friend's father-in-law.  We tried this new place: Fancy Franks, because no one loves a good hot dog the way SMcKay and I do.  The concept is simple - you have your base all beef hot dog $4.95 that you either dress up with your own combination of toppings (basic toppings are free, fancy ones are priced like fancy pizza toppings) or go with one of theirs.  I'm a purist, so I went with a Coney dog and then I went all outside with their "Franks got Seoul" which has shredded Korean short ribs and kimchi.  SMcKay got the pizza hot dog, which as you would expect, is a dog covered in tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni.  We also split an order of fries and I got a vanilla shake.  They also do fresh, Tiny Tom-like donuts, but we were too full by the time we were done.  

The good: the fries are delicious - skinny, not too potato-y, not too crispy - more like flaccid, Montréal diner style fries.  The gravy is gooood...deep, dark, good consistency and probably powdered, which to me, is legit.  I liked both my hot dogs, but I didn't love them.  The chili on the Coney dog was missing some layers. SMcKay loved her pizza dog.  I think ultimately, my problem is with the base dog.  And the price.  The base hot dog is supposed to be an all-beef hot dog, but the texture is so fine and it has the pinkish cast of more of a pork hot dog.  I didn't think the base hot dog had great flavour, for $4.95.  Also, the price.  At Happy Dog, in Cleveland, which kind of sets the bar for this kind of establishment, all hot dogs are $5 with unlimited toppings from an epic list of like, a million.  And the tater tots are all $3 with an epic list of dips from like a million.  Granted, Fancy Franks is a lot well, fancier than Happy Dog, which is a dive of the highest order, but I'm willing to bet the beer selection at Happy Dog puts Fancy Franks to shame.  Anyway, I would go back with kids or with a group of hot dog lovers.  It was good enough on that front, but I might stick to my own topping combinations - or at least try the pizza dog.

Then we hopped into the car for an epic ride out to Etobicoke, which resulted in me listening to a Bruno Mars song and looking for Q-Tips in SMcKay's giant bag of doom so that I could "cauterize" my tongue sores with the bottle of Listerine I was packing.  Luckily, there were some Q-Tips in her bag, because I was nearing the point of applying Listerine to my mouth with a tampon.  Then we got to the visitation and had to fight through a pack of a million Shaugnessey O'Shannahans and then inadvertently cut in front of a million leprachauns to visit with our friends.  Whoops.  Then SMcKay told me that some people don't wear underwear under pantyhose and I was so thoroughly appalled that I had to re-cauterize my mouth sores all over again.  It was a good night.

Tonight for dinner we had slow cooker Italian wedding soup & cheddar, white onion, and mortadella paninis.  It's been the winter of soups and sandwiches around here!

Fin.

You'll have to excuse me...

I'm not at my best.

So, it turns out the Big Yam gave me the hand, foot, and mouth disease.  NOT to be confused with foot and mouth disease, which is what cows and other cloven-hoofed animals get (so like, goats and horses and Tim Curry in Legend).  This has been a lesson in poor parenting.  Last week the Big Yam was waking up crying in the middle of the night so we brought him into our bed for a bunch of what we call "Sleep Away Camp" and I was kind of stressing because I thought he was just getting into the habit of it and didn't want to sleep in his own bed.  THEN he got this weird speckly rash on his butt.  THEN he had pretty bad cold symptoms (cough and runny nose) and he probably had a fever but we didn't check because we're the worst.  THEN he complained about having a "boo boo mouth" but I totally told him he was faking.

BEST MAMA EVER.  LOL!  So the worst.  On Friday, when I discovered I had FIVE cankers in my mouth, I naturally assumed that I had mouth cancer and hypochondriac me was already tearing up thinking of the Dotytron raising the Big Yam alone and how I was going to control their lives from heaven or hell.  Then I realized I'd had a stressful week (I had a job interview on Tuesday for a job I REALLY REALLY REALLY want but so does like, everyone in Canada and will most likely not get, meaning this will be my 3rd consecutive failed job interview) so that was probably it, but I was still like, that's kind cray because I usually handle stress well.  I also started getting weird blisters on my feet so I was like, "I should stop wearing stockings and kicks."  Anyway, I dragged Dr. Rei EVERYWHERE on Friday during lunch looking for Listerine to gargle with which burned the hell out of my mouth and gave me temporary relief.

Then on Friday night we had S & P over for dinner and suddenly I got these pin-prick blisters on the palms of my hands and more blisters on my feet so I started freaking out.  I went to the walk-in clinic that my doctor's office holds for patients (by the way: super hooray for the Family Health Team model, province of Ontario!) and the doctor was like, 100% hand foot and mouth.  By the way, at this point, my tongue is like 30% ulcerated and I'm in constant pain and talk like I'm brushing my teeth all the time.  The good news is: the virus clears up by itself in about a week.  The bad news is: there's not a lot they can give you for the fact that your mouth is on fire.  She told me about this juju Doctor's Book of Home Remedies bulls**t that consists of rinsing your mouth with equal parts Benadryl and milk of magnesia but that barely works.

In summary, my kid had hand, foot, and mouth and we did the following:

a) ignored him
b) told him he was faking
c) stressed about how we were going to "wean" him off of his only source of comfort (Sleep Away Camp)
d) sent him to daycare

BEST!  Apparently only kids and babies get this virus but occasionally it makes the jump to immune compromised adult humans (so in addition to not getting the job, the stress from the interview gave me s**t mouth, great).

I spent the weekend starting The Vampire Diaries which is pretty bad but also good because it features the signature teenaged Karl-Lagerfeld plot bait that is "the-bad-guy-who-falls-in-love-with-the-heroine-and-is-somewhat-but-not-fully-reformed-of-his-sexy-brooding-misunderstood-badness" (see: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, EVERY HARLEQUIN ROMANCE EVER).

Then on Sunday we went to Canadian Tire to pick up Christmas lights for the front of Lil' Ugmo and I basically had a melt down and LEFT before paying to sit in the car in fulminating, sullen, tear-filled silence while the Dotytron paid for the purchases with the Big Yam.  Here is the context: EVERY YEAR the Dotytron complains about how we don't have a plan for our lights and how he doesn't like them.  Every year, I've put them up.  So this year I was like, let's do it up proper.  We go, and the Dotytron did this thing that he does where he gets all weird and super-unhappy about shopping for anything that's not a pick-up for his Tele or like, vintage records, and was all abdicating responsibility for the decision-making and I got super-frustrated and then gave up and had a meltdown which resulted in: leaving the Big Yam and the Dotytron in line to pay for our purchases to sit in stony silence in the car, followed by tears and lots of f-bombs at the house.  IT WAS CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON ME.  BUT ALSO CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON DOTYTRON.  Because I'm the one dealing with both families and making sure that people get presents and making sure that things get made for his family's various holiday potlucks and also getting stuff for the Big Yam and making sure that he gets a special holiday.  So yeah.  All the equality stuff I was rhapsodizing about in the previous post goes out the windows during the holidays through a combination of: being a psycho, lack of delegating, lack of communication, and internalized martyrdom.  Anyway, in order to mitigate that stuff I'm going to put him in charge of contributing something for the Doty family Christmas.  And otherwise delegate stuff out so that I'm not the only one responsible for the MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS.  I hate myself for even talking about that right now.

Related: I find it weird when grown adults get amped about presents.  I just can't wrap my head around it.  It's so not me.  I'm of the school where if you want something, you go out and get it your own damn self.  I guess there is the case to be made for stuff that you want but will never get for yourself?  But I dunno...all the things I want, I'll get.  The notable exception being: one of these head massager thingies

which totally feel amazing and that I totally want but can never justify getting for some reason.  Although last Friday while I was dragging Dr. Rei around everywhere, she was like, "It's $5. TREAT YO' SELF."  So I did.  See how simple that process was?  I get that it's one thing when someone sees something in some Moroccan bazaar that is PERFECT for that other person and that other person is never going to be there to get it themselves and so they buy it as a present.  I totally get that.  Or when it's motivated by you seeing something thoughtful and going and grabbing it in the moment.  I just don't like the whole, birthday and Xmas need to produce manufactured pressure.  I just took a look at my own list of "stuff I want" and yup, I plan on getting all that stuff someday.  I'm trying to think of what I would want someone to secretly surprise me with and I can't think of a single g-d thing.  What can I say, I'm a self-reliant, endlessly practical person.  

I served P & S this gorgeous pork & poblano stew from the slow cooker - we destroyed it.  I served it with salsas, corn chips, and shredded cabbage.  There was supposed to be avocado too, but stupid Chinatown bargain basement avocadoes were mad bargain basement.  

For dessert: coconut tres leches.

Saturday night's dinner was similarly divine (though it doesn't look like much). Turkey tetrazzini - turkey and egg noodles and mushrooms with leftover gravy-jumped bechamel and leftover brussels sprouts folded in, baked with a crispy panko topping.  Casserole love!  

Served with bacon roasted carrots and parsnips.

Last night's dinner was inspired by April Bloomfield's cookbook, A Girl and Her Pig.  I made us ribeye with chimichurri, roasted broccoli with lemon & garlic, duck fat roasted potatoes (!!!!!) and sautéed mushrooms.

Tonight I get to dine with SMckay!

Fin.

Muy Silencio...But Agradecido

It's been muy silencio around here lately.  Apologies for that.  I can't say that I've been doing anything spectacularly interesting with my time.  Just reading, some minor crafting, and mobilizing forces and schedules and energy reserves to face the coming onslaught that is: THE HOLIDAYS.  Plus, after the whirlwind that was Friendsgiving and Pie Party, I think I've needed to just zone out and decompress as much as possible.

One of my favorite things currently is coming home and making sure I get into the house quietly, so that I can watch the Dotytron and the Big Yam in the kitchen getting dinner ready.  It's just funny and cute watching them interact.  For example, from my vantage point at the front door yesterday, I saw the Big Yam standing on the stool by the sink and then he said, "Woooooowwwwww," followed almost immediately by the Dotytron going, "DON'T EAT THAT! IT'S YUCKY!" because apparently he had plucked a piece of last night's leftover turkey from the SINK DRAIN and stuck it in his mouth.  The Big Yam's drawn-out, "wooooooowwwww" is so awesome.  Mostly because it sounds vaguely sarcastic and it's always random things that prompt it.  

My other favorite part is when the Big Yam realizes I'm home and shouts, "Mama!" and then comes running out to tell me about whatever is on his mind (usually as of late, Dora-related) and gives me a big hug.  It's a cute little ritual that warms the cockles of my heart.  Last night he came running to the door and said, "Mama!" "Moon. Stars." which was pretty freakin' adorable - the Dotytron and the Big Yam had been talking about the night sky on their way into the house.

I think the heart-warmth comes from feeling so grateful that I have a partner in life, love, and parenting who shoulders an equal amount of responsibility for the big stuff.  As a younger, more biting feminist, I used to have a very black and white view of equality.  Equality meant that EVERYTHING was 50-50.  Finances?  50-50 (regardless of differentials in earnings).  Household chores?  50-50.  I'm still pretty bad about stuff but being with the Dotytron has resulted in incremental steps towards less rigid parameters.  The problem with being rigidly 50-50 about everything is that I'm a micro-manager.  So even if I expect my partner to do 50% of something, it still has to be done to my specifications.  That is like, totally obnoxious.  I can admit it.  Having the Big Yam has definitely helped to relieve the micro-managing.  I had no say on what happened during Dotytron Daycare in the summer.  Sure, if I wanted the boys to get some shiz done, they had to work that into their day, but I wasn't responsible for packing the snacks or the bag or figuring out activities.  I like the freedom it gives me to be able to do book club or a movie night without having to "worry" about what the Big Yam and the Dotytron are getting up to.  Hell, more often than not, the Dotytron is a much better parent than I could ever hope to be.  

We play to our strengths.  Home renovations and dealing with contractors?  That's all me, kids.  Packing up the car?  Over here (I wouldn't have it any other way).  Imaginative, unstructured play?  Mostly the Dotytron.  Bedtime routine?  All Dotytron all the time (I come in for stories, but duck out when it's the moment of truth time).  Bath?  Mostly the Dotytron.  It's a good system.

 Tonight for dinner we had leftover borscht and proscuitto, pear, and brie panini

Last night's dinner: freezer borscht w/ dilled sour cream & calabrese & provolone panini

Tuesday night's dinner - so freakin' good.  Open-faced turkey sandwich on white bread with gravy and leftover Friendsgiving beets and brussels sprouts.  I loves me an open-faced turkey sandwich so hard.  It's a holdover from when my family used to do road trips and we'd stop at Howard Johnson's and I'd get a hot turkey sandwich and a brownie sundae.  So boss.  Nailed the gravy, too - it had a nice overtone from the white wine I used to deglaze the pan.

Mad soups and sandwiches around here lately.  Last week's curried acorn squash soup with the Dotytron's signature tuna melts.

Fin.

Lucky button

What a weekend!  It was exhausting but filled with good food, friends, fun, so ultimately, I can't complain, right?

Friday night's dinner: wieners & slow cooker baked beans!

Friday night's dessert: pumpkin pudding with sour cream topping - like a pumpkin pie without the crust.  This was a bit of a let-down.  I now know that part of the intrinsic pleasure of a pumpkin pie for Karl Lagerfeld, Esq., is the juxtaposition between flaky crust and creamy filling.

We skipped Chinese school to clean the house top to bottom and prep for Friendsgiving.  So I made us a little treat of leftover puff pastry scraps turned into nuttela-filled turnovers.  Delicious.

Friendsgiving version 2012 was a monster success.  11 adults, 2 toddlers all crammed into Lil' Ugmo for a night of 9 bottles of wine and near the end, tumblers filled with ice and rum.  It was epic!  We had 4 dips: carrot, hummous, white bean, and squash, with pita and sliced baguette.  Cheddar sage breadsticks.  Blue cheese-stuffed proscuitto wrapped prunes, baked until gooey and sizzling.  Fox's cheesy potatoes.  A carrot, cabbage slaw with sunflower seeds.  Roasted beets.  Brussels sprouts.  A fresh cranberry sauce and a cooked cranberry sauce.  I was responsible for the turkey (which turned out perfectly, might I say), and gravy and stuffing and a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.  It was lovely.  I cooked the stuffing in a wide, shallow enamelled cast-iron casserole which meant that all the lovingly hand-torn bread pieces got all craggy and crispy.  Just take a look at that feast!  We shared stories and laughed and caught up and had intense policy discussions on participatory democracy.  It was everything I dream of in a gathering of friends.  I felt very, very lucky.

It was also good because leading up to it, the Dotytron and I hadn't been in the best of spirits.  His long-dormant Record Club (of which our Discerning Coyote friend is a member) was resurrected on Friday night featuring Nas' Illmatic.  So they drank 40s and beer and Hennessey with the end result being that the Dotytron didn't stumble home until 4am, and this is AFTER he missed our stop on the streetcar and had to be awoken like your garden-variety late night public transport drunkard.  Saturday was ROUGH, for the both of us.  I hadn't slept well.  The Dotytron's favorite glass broke.  I accidentally left a pot on with my butter-wine basting mixture while we went for a walk and we came back to a smoke-filled home with a burnt-beyond-recognition pot.  People were late for dinner.  It was tense.  But as we gathered up spent wine glasses at 1am and surveyed the scene, there was nothing in us but gratitude for our lovely circle of Supper Club friends.

Sunday morning's breakfast is a favorite of mine - leftover stuffing pan fried in little cakes topped with poach eggs.

Momma D came over and joined us for breakfast.  Of course, we followed this up with a PIE PARTY at JJ's house.  She made us empanadas (not pictured, sadly) and I made baked brie puff pastry hand pies (also not pictured), and the Discerning Coyote made us a deep-dish Chicago pie which I instantly want to go out and replicate:

And then...and then because meals at JJ & S's are nothing if not gluttonous extravaganzas...we had THREE different pies for dessert.  Chocolate cream (JJ), apple (Discerning Coyote) and sweet potato pecan (me).  Oy!   We were smart enough to split the spoils so now, in addition to a fridge stuffed to the gills with turkey stock, and turkey dinner leftovers, I also have leftover pumpkin cheesecake, 1 pumpkin pudding, and remnants from 3 pies.  Lordy.

Tonight's dinner: sunchoke soup w/ leftover breadsticks, pita, and dips.

Pumpkin cheesecake.

So, so, so good.  

As I was driving to JJ's house yesterday with the Big Yam in the back seat, we stopped at a stop light. There were no street cars in sight.

The Big Yam: "Mama?"

Me: "Yes?"

The Big Yam: "Street car.  In my head."  *taps forehead*  "In my head."

!!!!!  LOL!  So funny.  The little guy and his mind movies.

Fin.

Bad news cycle.

Catching up on the news post-weekend is depressing stuff. Anne Hathaway survived on dried oatmeal cakes to lose 25 lbs for Les Misérables? Worst.  Petraeus carrying on an affair like a n00b?  So dumb.  The fiscal cliff? Depressing.  The on-going miasma of misinformation surrounding teacher negotiations in Ontario? Grim.    The spate of sexual assaults in the GTA? Appalling.

I got into a Twitter convo with L'Armi about the Petraeus thing.  He's all like, "who cares if he had an affair?" and I'm like, yeah, I get that.  I certainly never care who is panking who and when.  That's private business, yo.  What I do have problems with are people who carry a great deal of responsibility acting like n00bs.  In this case, they were both giant dum-dums about it.  It's like Adam Giambrone with the affair that cost him his mayoral candidacy.

Dr. Rei and Hanbo hangs last night meant that we had several depressing conversations about microfinance, charity work, the province, cronyism, and how to solve everything, punctuated by interruptions from the Big Yam screaming and doing the thing he does when people come over, which is to run from couch to couch and slam himself face down, while yelling, "HUPPAH!" (or something like it.)  We had dinner courtesy of the Burger's Priest and it was a nice end to what had been a little bit of a trying day with a sick Big Yam.  There was lots of whining and indecisiveness and clinging to my pants' legs (I hate hate hate the feel of hands tugging on my pants' legs!) resulting in me finally throwing up my hands and deciding that 2 episodes of My Big Big Friend is what the doctor ordered, followed by a long, cozy couch nap for the two of us.  I did manage to get a few things done - laundry (I'm engaged in the fruitless and self-defeating pursuit of a house of empty hampers), fig pinwheel cookies, Mona's Mother's Mother's Favorite cookies, some knitting, a curried acorn squash soup for tomorrow and...

...a completed Advent Calendar!  Here it is, after the first of what will probably be many, many trips to the iron, hanging on our downstairs bannister.  Ta-da!  In my folly, I opted for linen, so it has beautiful drape but will wrinkle if you look at it funny.  I stencilled the numbers on the pockets with a Marta Stewart-by-way-of-Michael's typewriter stencil kit and black acrylic paint, and then sewed the pockets and the velcro straps with red thread.  It wasn't the hardest project, but not the easiest, especially since I was doing everything off an Excel spreadsheet-for-graph-paper and crayon-on-sketchpad schematic.  But it's done and it's ready to go for December 1st and I am happy about it.  It will have pride of place alongside my other holiday crafts like the GIANT QUILTED TREE SKIRT OF DOOM.

Here is a shot of my chocolate babka.  As you know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the culinary and restorative wisdom of Jewish grandmothers, and I'm considering adding chocolate babka, toasted and buttered with salted butter, to my arsenal of sickness or sucky baby fighters.  Let me tell you: there is no better snack in the world than toasted, buttered, babka.  Sweet, rich, tender dough folded around layers of bittersweet chocolate.  This recipe has been my go-to, but I'm dying to have a crack at this one.  A freezer full of babka is good insurance, I think, for most if not all of life's ills.

On Saturday we went to R & R's baby shower, which was held at the Mandarin.  Smartest move, ever.  Best shower location, ever.  I haven't been to a Mandarin in about 20 years.  It's like I never left.  So, so good!!!  I had the misfortune to sit next to a female body builder.  I'll let you guess whose plate belongs to who up there.  

Sunday night we had our 11 year (!!!!!) anniversary dinner at Guu Saka bar and brought along my sis and outlaw bro for the ride (outlaw bro has never been to Guu).  For the record: I had made us reservations at Woodlot, less you accuse me of never wanting to eat at a non-Guu establishment.  

 Friday night's dinner - latkes, panko-breaded chicken thighs with sweet chili dipping sauce, and sauteed sprouts.

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti with a spicy shrimp scampi sauce and a salad of baby dancine lettuce, radicchio, and roasted beets tossed with buttermilk chive dressing jumped up with fresh grated horseradish.

I spent about 2 hours tonight putting up that shelf up there and my $10 junk store mirror.  THAT MIRROR ONLY COST TEN DOLLARS, Y'ALL (that was a Tami Taylor "y'all" in case you were wondering).  BEST!  I'm sooo happy and all the mucking around with drills and masonry bits and anchors and Tapscon screws was worth it.  I'm not 100% happy with the vignette but that will be a work in progress.  In the meantime: landing strip happiness!!!

I have been reading up a storm lately.  Rebel Angels is the follow up to Libba Bray's New York Times' Bestselling, A Great and Terrible Beauty, which I read ages ago.  At the time, I found it a good enough read but wasn't compelled to follow through.  I'm still on the fence about it.  I like it enough and it is deliciously creepy with it's Victorian setting and covens of witches and the like, but I'm not completely on board with the protagonist and her coterie of friends.  I think that's my problem though.  It's almost like I want the protagonist to smarten up and make the same decisions I would, but that's impossible and unrealistic and while it might be personally validating, doesn't necessarily make for good fiction.  I recommended it heartily to Dr. Rei because she loves 3 things that are well represented in this series: boarding schools, Victorian-era England, and magic/witches.  We'll see how she reports back.

Next up was The Age of Miracles.  This novel has been getting good buzz and good reviews.  It's told from the perspective of a 12 year old girl living in California with her parents.  One day, scientists start to notice that the world is spinning slower on its axis, making days and nights longer and longer.  The book chronicles the first year or so after the "slowing" and the impact this has on the girl, her parents, her community, and the world at large.  The voice of the narrator is perfect - talk about food shortages and the sleep deprivation and blistering UV sun from 72 hour "days" is told with the particularly flat, matter-of-fact, incapable-of-understanding-the-magnitude detachment of a 12 year old.  What is also good about this book is how it shows how rather than dissolving into instant chaos and looting and rioting, the world continues on - there are  boys to crush after and bus stop indignities to endure, yet.  There are the fractures in her parents marriage that either existed before unseen or were brought about by the slowing.  There are the social and economic effects on countries and cities that happen slowly.  And there is the great unknown of the future - the questions that are always with us but are usually kept at bay by our blissful ignorance of the tenuousness of it all, our faith that tomorrow will be like today.  Again, I didn't love this, but being the doomsday prepper/apocalypse obsessed nutjob that I am, it did give me SOMETHING NEW TO WORRY ABOUT.  I contemplated tweeting Neil deGrasse Tyson to find out how likely a similar scenario would be in real life.  I still might.  Again, the detached voice of the narrator made it difficult to feel connected to the text and to her. I'm starting to realize that I like idealized teen narrators.  I want you to be exceptional!!!  

I most recently finished Nell Freudenberger's The Newlyweds.  Another much-lauded recent hardcover.  From Bangladesh, Amina and her doting, complicated parents pin their hopes for their future on the marriage she has arranged with George in Rochester, who she meets on an online dating site geared towards east Asians and their North American suitors.  This is a sweet, quiet little story about two people moving across nations to be together and carrying with them the baggage, desires, and secrets of two people moving across the world to be together.  The title is so deliciously deliberate.  Who are we when we choose to marry another? Is the leap of faith between two high school sweethearts really any different than an online marriage between a Deshi Muslim woman and her engineer husband-to-be?  The writing is top notch - it is evocative without being showy, plain and still but revealing and imminently readable.  I loved the tone that Freudenberger struck and her astute eye for the details - both in Rochester (and how thrilling it was to hear reference to places in the Rochester area that I knew and had even stepped foot in!) and in Bangladesh.  At it's heart, this is a love story, though an unexpected one.  It's also about faith and hope and the disconnection between the developed and developing worlds, who are at once so very far apart and not so different after all.  I quite liked this novel and would recommend it.

Fin.

I'm trying very hard

...to give Veteran's their day, before EXPLODING about how the stress from holidays with my family makes me implode but ARGH, ARGH, A THOUSAND TIMES, ARGH!!!

This year, the Dotytron and I decided that in lieu of buying people the stuff off their "list" (and keep in mind, my family sibling Secret Santa has a limit of SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS, plus what we buy for the parents, grandparents, and nieces, and nephews, and not including what we get for the Dotytron's side of the family), that we would put that money towards sponsoring a less fortunate family.  Any extra money would be donated to Applegrove Community Complex, which hosts a drop-in centre that the Big Yam frequents with his daycare provider and offers lots of great services to new immigrants, etc.  We're still going to buy presents for the little kids because I'm not so monstrous as to believe that Xmas isn't about children.

This accomplishes a few things:  1) it underscores the truly fun part about the holidays, which is really about eating cookies with your family and loved ones and seeing them and spending quality time together; 2) making us mindful of the rampant consumerism of our lives; 3) reducing the amount of misguided gifts that we often end up giving away.  Let's be real: anything that I really really really want costs hundreds of dollars.  I don't expect anyone to get that for me.  I actually feel icky about the need to have a pile of presents on Xmas morning.  It's weird and random to me.  

Anyway, of course (of course!) my family is balking.  Notably, my mum is balking.  And somehow, in all of this, I'M GETTING TURNED INTO THE BAD GUY.  Which is the most laughable part of the whole run down.  Like I'm "ruining" the holidays.  I'm not saying, don't do the family Secret Santa.  I'm just saying, I'm not going to participate.  It would be one thing if my family were also the sort to appreciate handmade presents - but they're not.  I've seen jars of jam and barbecue sauce languishing on shelves in my mum's pantry for years and years.  I've seen hand-knitted goods be worn once or twice and then never to be seen again.  All of these things represent hours and hours of my labour, and they're not appreciated.  No, STUFF is appreciated and that's the part that makes me feel icky.  Because there is no more precious thing on this world than TIME and to not appreciate the time that it takes to make or craft something is truly, truly sad.

The other issue here is family autonomy.  As generations grow, individual family units will start to make their own family traditions - separate and distinct from the previous generation's.  That's okay and an important part of growing.  My family didn't HAVE a holiday tradition growing up.  Invariably, we were on a plane on Xmas.  I think Big D bought us presents one year, and that was the year he first joined the family and was being all "cool stepfather trying to win over the brats he inherited" about things.  My mum has never bought us birthday or Xmas presents growing up (I'd say, from the time I was born til about 23).  It just wasn't our thing.  I'm okay with that.  It doesn't phase me.  It just rankles that a new tradition is being presented as set in stone.  Traditions grow and evolve and morph and change based on the people enacting them.  

Anyway, this is my usual customary holiday rant to say: I'm sticking to my guns.  In the same way that I think kids receiving piles of plastic, branded birthday presents is excessive, I'm saying the same about Xmas.  

You know what I really want for Xmas?  BABYSITTING VOUCHERS.  YES, PLEASE!!!  Or, let's go out to dinner.  Or make a time where you buy me lunch or I buy you lunch.  I want to sit and talk and eat good food and drink wine with you.  That's what I want.  I want to be able to have a night out with the Dotytron and not have it cost us double because we have to pay a babysitter.  Give the gift of time and thoughtfulness.  Give the gift of hanging out and building memories.  

I know, I know.  I'm such a pinko Mama Dread.  I can't help it.  It's even harder being a pinko, lefty, Mama Dread born in a family of POLAR OPPOSITES.  But I will keep fighting the good fight!  Water wears away the stone (although the stone might be me).

Sigh.  I promise not to rant about Xmas any more.  This has been freeing actually.  I might still try to bang out some crafty projects, but we'll see how it goes.  

Tomorrow is my day off! I have a pretty big slate of projects on deck.  Namely:

- make a sweet potato pecan pie
- make baked brie lollipops with my home made quick puff pastry
- make two chocolate babka
- make and freeze rugelach (dough is already prepped)
- make fig pinwheel cookies
- make Little Big Cuz's birthday cake
- get a massage
- grocery shop
- work on my advent calendar

:|

We'll see how it all goes down.

Tonight for dinner we had chickpea & kale falafels with pitas with store-bough bought baba ghanouj and tzatiki.  Kale in falafels = amazing.

Fin.

U.S. Election Day!

Aside from the choices made to elect the next POTUS, I'm extra nervous and on tenterhooks today on account of the fact that my outlaw bro will find out whether he gets elected to be District Attorney.  It's nerve-racking!  I semi-strongly believe that the differences between Obama and Romney are largely negligible and I'm worried about what the Republican party is likely to do in the wake of a loss (whether they're likely to go more far right and abandon the moderate centre), but my investment in this election is mostly from the perspective of wanting Uncle Rico to win.

Go go Uncle Rico!  

At the very least, I'm happy that my lovely sister and her family no longer have to participate in the absurd farce that is US electoral politics and campaigning.

Yesterday I had a terrible, awful, no good very bad day.  I came home and dinner wasn't ready and so we ate late and I was crochety.  As an attempt to re-align the family, I started the "What was your favorite part of the day?" round.  

Me: "Big Yam, what was your favorite part of the day?"

Big Yam: *not missing a beat* "Meatballs."

LOL!  He looked right into my eyes, too.  He believed it.  So funny!  He's a bit of an unreliable witness - I'm not sure that he actually had meatballs or came in contact with meatballs yesterday.  

In other funny news.  I was emailing my sis to find out what I should get for Little Big Cuz's 2nd birthday.  She emailed me back, "I just asked him and, no joke, he said 'Big Yam' and when I asked him if he wanted to SEE the Big Yam, he said yes."  !!!!!  So cute!  I love that the two cousins love each other so darned hard.

This weekend was legit.  Friday night was Ladies' Night on my street.  We went to the Riverside Public House.  It was pretty good!  I ordered the burger but I should have ordered the fried chicken.  You get two drumsticks and a thigh (I tried my neighbour's) and it's perfect, crunchy, juicy fried chicken served with a heap of mashed potatoes and kale with gravy.  All this for $14, which I think is a great price.  I highly recommend it and wished I had ordered it instead of what I did get.  I ordered the burger, which was fine - delicious, juicy, with skinny salty fries, but the fried chicken was much better.  I split some appetizers with my neighbour as well - a mussel and lobster chowder and chanterelles on toast.  I love love love chanterelles - what's not to love about a pile of buttery, rich, gorgeous sautéed mushrooms piled on toast?  Absolutely nothing, that's what.  

Saturday was Lolly's wedding - it was a beautiful affair in a beautiful space with amazing food.  We sat at a table with the full slew of kdubsguelph crew and it was one of the few times we've ever had to sit at a table at a wedding without the (seemingly) obligatory random couple shoe-horned in.  It was great!  Uncle Jesse made this video that they screened during the reception - it's adorable.  He's so talented.  

The Irish Artist - A Wedding Film from Jesse A on Vimeo.

Then SMckay slept over and we woke up the next morning and gave the Big Yam a haircut and she bought us McDonald's and we gossiped.  Maybe it's a by-product of being raised by super-strict Asian parents who were always like, "why would you ever want to sleep somewhere OTHER than your own bed?" but I don't think I'll ever get tired of friend sleepovers.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm particularly well suited to communal living.  I just think it's the funnest to come home to your besties!  I would happily lose the ability to walk around the house naked for living with friends again.  I'm a big proponent of it taking a village.  Which is all to say that I love it when SMckay sleeps over.  

Anyway, I drove her home and picked up Momma D, who had extensive hand surgery last Tuesday, which means that she's not really equipped to be on her own for long stretches until she gets the hang of doing everything one-handed.  She came over and we napped and snoozed and watched movies and ate pizza.  It was lovely.  I banged off another batch of cookies (hazelnut thumbprints) and made hot chocolate and we were cozy on the couch.  I didn't feel like I particularly got the benefit of the extra hour, but we made up for it that night by going to bed at 8:30pm and not waking until 6am the next morning.  Bliss!

Last night's (rescued) dinner: sunchoke soup with bacon, cheddar cheese, and chives.  This was soooo good!  I love Jerusalem artichokes so much.  The flavour is so unique.  I had wanted to smoke the sunchokes but didn't get around to it on Sunday.

Tonight we had the roomie and T over for dinner.  We had a baked pasta with ricotta, mozzarella, and a turkey tomato sauce.  With an arugala & radicchio salad with parm and lemon juice.  I also made us ginger molasses cookies.  That up there is the PERFECT blanket of cheese with the PERFECT amount of browning for chew/goo.

We got our MPAC assessment in the mail today.  Ugh.  It's so bittersweet.  The good news is: according to MPAC, our house has increased 135% in value since we bought it (and actually, the appraised price then was more than we paid for the house).  The bad news is that our property tax rates will go up accordingly.  

Fin.

Dia de los Muertos

We had a really good night.  We told funny stories about Poppa and Kung Kung and Poppa D and Grandpa Reid and we left them food and drink on our little altar:

My posole also kicked about 10 different kinds of culo.  I could eat that shiz all day.  What's not to love about hominy, beans, and pork shoulder simmered for hours and hours?  NOTHING.

I forgot to post these photos yesterday - check out these awesome Day of the Dead masks:

From Scrumdilly's blog.  They put glowsticks in the eye sockets for night.  Brilliant!

Tonight is Ladies' night on my street.  We're going to go out to this restaurant in the 'hood called the Riverside Public House.  It's not getting the most amazing reviews but it's close and the menu is low-key enough for some of the more unadventurous eaters in the group.

Tomorrow is: Lolly's wedding!!!  I've got my outfit all ready and I've been practicing my reading.  Looking forward to partying with all my kubdsguelph crew and SMcKay sleepover, post.

Fin.

Halloween! (And Sansotei Ramen review) (And Dia de los Muertos!)

I took yesterday off of work to prepare for Halloween and I just BARELY MADE IT.  Seriously, pumpkins were being lit, I was yelling at the Dotytron to throw the Big Yam outside and dinner clean-up still had to happen by the time the first kids started knocking on our door.  I don't know how you do it if you don't take a vacation day.  

These are my pumpkins this year:

Golias from My Big Big Friend.  My one Halloween concession for the Big Yam was this pumpkin.  He was so happy when he saw it!  He also insisted on bringing the wet, slimy, pumpkin-smeared paper template I used to the drop-in centre with him.

Prince because I like to keep things thematically sound.

I was pretty crazy productive yesterday, so that made things worth it.  I banged off a batch of snickerdoodles, made a double recipe of pie pastry for the freezer, made yesterday's dinner and tonight's dinner, made a lemon meringue pie, went to the drop-in centre, carved 2 pumpkins, and squeezed in a trip to Kensington market and back for a (fruitless) search for Day of the Dead decor for dinner tonight.  Oh, and I also made a last-minute batch of pumpkin butterscotch blondies because if there's one guarantee in life, it's that rainy evenings make me yearn for something warm and homebaked.

I took the Big Yam out trick-or-treating.  He didn't really get it.  He was just happy to be outside after dinner for a change.  He walked up to people's houses and when I coached him with, "what do you say?" he said, "please!"  It was pretty cute.  But I can tell you that I wasn't about to go traipsing around all night in the wet and cold so we were out for about 20 minutes and then headed home (20 minutes in toddler trick-or-treating time is like, 5 houses).

On Tuesday I went to see Thomas Keller speak with JJ (the Discerning Coyote's big sister).  Thomas Keller was a bit of a robot.  He's not really a cook anymore - he's a restauranteur, and the interviewer was lobbing really soft questions and he was answering them in a really boring way - it was all standard stuff: "learn from your mistakes" "practice" but delivered in a paternalistic, vaguely patronizing style.  I wasn't a fan, but it was fun to go and get the cookbook, and hang with JJ.

Beforehand, I took advantage of the time in between work and the start of the talk to check out this ramen place that's had Toronto ramen aficionados all abuzz, Sansotei Ramen.  The last time I tried to go with Dr. Rei, they ran out of broth and posted a sign on their window (which is pretty hardcore, in my humble opinion).  There are also frequent line-ups.  I got in around 5:20pm and sat down and looked at their slim menu.  I'm a purist (as everyone who knows me is already aware) so I almost always get a tonkotsu ramen or a shio ramen.  I'm not a fan of Kenzo-style "king of kings" or spicy ramen with corn and stuff.  It's just not for me.  Anyway, this place caters to purists.  Your choices are tonkotsu, tonokotsu shoyu, shio, or miso ramen.  There are 3 or 4 other items.  I ordered the zangi (bits of fried chicken thighs) and the tonkotsu and it was without a doubt the best ramen I've ever had in my life.

The ramen noodles were perfectly cooked, still chewy and al dente.  The egg was divine, with a gorgeous, golden runny yolk.  They serve their ramen with fungus and a tasty piece of rolled pork shoulder.  But the broth - the broth was perfection!  Sweet, milky, creamy with all the rendered goodness of pork bones long simmered.  The pork shoulder was juicy, rich, and ever-so-slightly smoky tasting.  The balance of seasoning was on point - unlike so many other places, it wasn't too salty.  At Kinton, they thwack the extra fat on top, but I didn't notice this here, which means that the broth is less rich, but more tasty for it.  The zangi was crisp, juicy, but a bit paltry for the $4.50 price tag.  I couldn't think of a more satisfying meal on a rainy day.  I also can't wait to go back with the Dotytron in tow.  The flavour of that broth and the juicy, fatty pork haunt me.  I loved the chewiness of the fungus.  With ramen places opening up at the rate of one a week in Toronto, that Japanese font (that Guu brought to TO) is really getting a workout!  

Last night's dinner: wild mushroom barley risotto with a poached egg and bacon.  Salad of fried green tomatoes (properly breaded this time) on dancine lettuce with bacon and buttermilk-chive dressing.

Today is the Day of the Dead!  We are observing this year to remember Poppa and Poppa D and my Kung Kung.  I set up a little altar in the living room with photos and candles.  We will eat posole and I made a lemon meringue pie (Poppa D's favorite).  We will hopefully talk about them and remember them and laugh and hope that their spirits come back for a visit and a nosh.  I love Dia de los Muertos.  I think it's such a wonderful idea - to celebrate and laugh and remember the dead fondly instead of being all super-white person repressed about it and burying our feelings.  The dead do walk among us, and just because they're no longer occupying a flesh-based dimension, doesn't mean that we shouldn't invite them into our homes.  I'm going to get on the ball and order some proper decor for next year.  Sugar skulls and skull candle holders and those beautiful tissue paper cut-outs garlands and the like.  If the weather wasn't so rotten we'd be doing something at Poppa D's grave, but we might save that for this weekend instead.  

Here is a photo of those butterscotch pumpkin blondies.  I made them to rid my fridge of a tupperware of leftover pumpkin puree from Thanksgiving pie making.  I tinkered with the recipe a bit and came up with something I really enjoyed.  It's quite light, and not dense like a brownie/blondie is.  I added an extra egg and doubled the amount of pumpkin and changed the chip type from my base recipe.  It's like a soft, mushy (but in a good way!!!) pumpkin square with warm, spicy, toffee notes.  I think my messing with the recipe resulted in a lack of that crackly top that you usually get with blondies/brownies, but I've been getting rave reviews for this, so I've attached the recipe below.

Happy Dia de los Muertos, everyone!

Fin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies
makes 20 squares

1 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. white sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 c. flour
1 t. salt
3/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. allspice
1/4 t. cloves
1 c. butterscotch chips

- melt the butter in a small saucepan and cook until the milk solids are caramelized and the butter smells nutty and toasty (do not burn!)*
- whisk the butter with the two sugars until well combined.
- stir in the eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla.
- add the dry ingredients.
- fold in the chips.
- pour into an 8" square baking pan lined with two strips of parchment paper laid crosswise with overhang.
- bake in a 350F oven for about 35-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- let the blondies cool for 15 minutes, lift out of the pan with the help of your parchment overhang and cut into 20 squares.

*note: the original recipe called for browning the butter.  I didn't notice that I could taste the browned butter so I think you could easily omit this extra step.