Time Flies

...when you're hustling like a mofo.  Which I am, all the time.  It is exhausting and leaves little time for other stuff.

Lots of irons in the fire and I'm seeing some payoff for my preparation and drive, which is good, but it might lead to some hard choices, which is not bad, per se, but fraught.

WAS THAT VAGUE ENOUGH FOR ALL Y'ALL???

The past few weeks and the next few weeks until the end of June are pretty much bananas.  But it's okay, I've made my peace with it.

We spent the May 2/4 weekend in Cleveland with H & A and their kid, Danger.  We managed a 5+ hour drive there and back without having to resort to screens in the car, but we almost broke down (and by "we" I mean, obviously, "the Dotytron" who is ready to unleash the screens-in-the-car-kraken at the slightest provocation) on the way home.  The kids were cranky and overtired and I was driving and it was a bad combination.  I just gotta say: when I'm riding shotgun, I KILL the kid distraction game.  The Dotytron's methodology is very strange.  It involves near-instant capitulation, turning up his own music in the car VERY LOUD, playing one half-hearted game of "Eye Spy" and then asking why we can't turn on Eddie VAN Halen's DVD player.  At the end of the day, the point is: we made it.  My tips for longish car rides with kids success:

1) PACK SNACKS.  SO MANY SNACKS.  I have an emergency stash of snacks in the car, and before we go, I pack a snack container of a mix of goodies for each kid.  Each kid also has their own bottle of water

2) Try to do the driving around bedtime, if at all possible.  We'v gotten burned before thinking that if we leave the city at 3 or 3:30pm, then we'll "beat" rush hour traffic heading out of the city.  THAT IS A G-D LIE!  All you do is pick up rush hour traffic.  Basically, you leave the city by 2pm, or not until 6:30 or 7pm.  So, we eat dinner at home, get the kids into their jammies, and then pack up and roll out with the aforementioned snacks.

3) Depending on your kids' interests, pack some appropriate, portable, no small pieces entertainment gear.  The Big Yam gets some crayons and markers and a big pad of paper.  The twins get to hold a foam sword, conducting baton, or one of those magna doodle boards.

4) Bring music your kids like.  We have a Spotify playlist of all their favorite tunes, so when they get tired of being quiet, we play that for an hour until they invariably pass out.

And that's it.  We've never driven for longer than 6 hours.

We basically just chilled out, ate some food, hung out with their friends.  Went to some playgrounds and their Museum of Natural History.  It was very low-key.  Some snaps from our time there:

LOL at my cautious Big Yam struggling on this thing.

Three amigos

I made that toffee bundt cake from Baked Occasions but this time put a brown butter glaze on it.  It was MURDERATION

They took us to Eddie's Grill, which is this cute, old-timey place that serves chili dogs and fries and hamburgers along lake Erie.  I have to say though, Americans have no idea how to cottage.  They're clueless.

We tried Michael Symon's new BBQ joint, Mabels.  The brisket was delicious.  The lamb ribs were way too fatty.  The pig's tail was in this super-spicy, vinegary, buffalo-type sauce which was super-addiction.  Baked beans and slaw were good.  As was the spaetzle side and the beet salad.  It was tasty, but kind of expensive.  Not sure if I would go back.  Portion sizes were kind of weak.


Whenever we travel, we always come back and get Vietnamese takeout from our local.  It's a tradition.  We came back late on Sunday of the long weekend, which meant we had all of Monday to relax.  We spent the morning doing chores/laundry, and then grabbed takeout and spent the afternoon at Cherry Beach.  It was the perfect long weekend day.

This past weekend was lovely.  On Saturday, the Dotytron was at the Discening Coyote's bachelor party, and our caregiver invited my kids to her son's 12th birthday party at her house, I was on my own on Saturday night which was SO NICE.  I went shopping for a dress (in a REAL. LIVE. STORE.) for my brother's wedding, and then met up with Lolly and we had dinner at Lamesa, which is a modern Filipino restaurant on Queen West.  The irony is not lost on me that my kids were chowing down on home-cooked Filipino food and I was eating an upscale version.  The food was delicious, though.

Our appetizers, a crispy pork belly with papaya slaw and sawsawan reduction, and a tuna/avocado poke-type thing with shrimp chips for scooping.

Our mains: octopus and crispy polenta; chicken adobo with garlic rice (so good!); a charred eggplanta caponata thing with creme fraiche; and this DELICIOUS grilled zucchini with coconut zabaglione, and foam and housemade ricotta.

I really loved the vegetable dishes in particular.  There's nothing bad about a super-charred eggplant dish and the zucchini was delectable.  The coconut was so rich and light and the lightly grilled zucchini played so well with the ricotta.  I would definitely go back and it was a fantastic choice for gluten intolerant people.  We lucked out because it was a walk-by situation.

Then I came home and had my buddy M over to watch a movie as part of this half-assed Marxist film.

Sunday the Dotytron was pretty wrecked so we took it easy and kept it local.  We went to the farmer's market and hung with people we saw there, then came home and had dinner with Momma D, freshly returned from Iceland.  I made pizzas on the grill, which were good, but not great.  I need to get my grill hotter!  I don't know how to do it. They were still tasty, but the pizzas need a minute or two under the broiler to get the top browned (the bottom cooks before the top crust can get really burnished).

In other news, this actually happened to me the other week at lunch with my homies KD and G.  We were at Burrito Bandidos and because I'm really making a concerted effort to shape up, I got a "wrapperless" burito bowl.  I ate half of it and the rest was in my styrofoam container that I had closed up because I was planning on saving the rest for lunch the next day.  While we were sitting there, an indigent man had come into the restaurant, and rifled through the garbage next to our table, looking for something to eat.  He came to our table and asked if he could have my container of food.  I hesitated, probably longer than was decent (because I really wanted to eat the rest!), but after a pause, I said he could have it.  He opened up the container, looked at the mess that was inside (a wrapperless shrimp burrito bowl will never win any plating awards), and then shook his head and handed it back to me.  LOL!  It was kind of hilarious that he was hungry but not THAT hungry.  But also sad.  But also good that people maintain their humanity and always have standards?

I've been on this pretty disciplined weight loss regimen for the past two months and I've actually seen results.  I'm about 4 lbs off from my pre-twins pregnancy weight.  I run about 5km 3 or 4 times a week, getting up buttf**k early in the morning to do so (I'm up and around before 6am, ideally).  And I do gross things like start my day with a green smoothie and exercise portion control and log everything I eat.  I feel like I do this every summer, but this is the first time I've seen marked results, and I think I can chalk the success down to this: being kind to yourself.  That was the breakthrough for me.  So, if I have a bad day where I go off the rails on what I eat?  It's no biggie.  I try again the next day.  I don't sweat, or stress, or beat myself up over it.  Which means that the shame/guilt spiral of excessive overeating that used to accompany previous lapses doesn't happen.  Same with the exercise.  If I feel like not doing the full run, I don't do it.  I don't beat myself up over it.  It's working for me, this whole being kind thing, and I kind of like it.  If I know I want to eat ice cream for dessert (which for me, is I KNOW IT), then I just dial back on dinner a bit.  Not hating myself for enjoying myself makes a big difference, I've found.  It's just easier to dust yourself off and try again (try again).

I can't believe the twins are almost 3!  THIS IS UNREAL.  They're such little people now.  So much talking and being ridiculous between the two of them.  I love their little butts so much.  This week, Quincess woke up and barfed a few times.  He wasn't feeling well.  When Lindsay (Twin B) heard, he scuttled down to the basement to get their toy doctor's kit, and was talking to himself the whole time about how he knew what to do.  He then struggled to get the doctor's kit up the basement stairs.  He was so determined!  I was in the kitchen futzing around and Twin A (Quincess) was in his high chair and all I could hear was him screaming, "LEAVE ME ALONE!!! LEAVE!!! ME!!! ALONE!!!" as Twin B advanced on him with a plastic syringe.  So cute.

This video shows the cute little gasps that Lindsay does when he's excited about something.  He's such an enthusiastic little dervish.  He's been all over his "ice lollies" lately (that's a Peppa Pig reference).

Lindsay talking about his "snow cones."

This guy's morning hair

 

At one of our new favorite playgrounds

Outside all day, erryday.

Twin A is so funny.  He has this belly-laugh chortle which is so adorable coming out of his wee little body.  He also gives major teenage-style attitude.  "Line up your shoes on the mat!" Response: "I diiiiiiiiiid" and then he throws his head back and drags his body around like Paul Rudd in Wet Hot American Summer:

He also gets very teenager-y when he wants something and drags all the words into one moany-sentence.  I'm trying to capture it on video.  It's so good:

So. Much. 'Tude.

For all my friends who still have the option of avoiding this fate: don't drop off your kids/pick them up at school.  I don't have the stomach to watch schoolyard dynamics play out.  The other day, I went back to watch the Big Yam surreptitiously from the side after dropping him off.  He ran up to a friend of his, and playfully grabbed his friend's baseball cap off his head.  His friend whipped around, annoyed, and ripped the hat out of the Big Yam's hands and hit the Big Yam with it.  Then the kid turned around and continued talking to this other kid.  I watched the Big Yam stand there, kind of chastened, his arms akimbo, all awkward-like, and then you could see him trying to recover, so he asked his friend, "Are you Iron Man?" and his friend ignored him.  The Big Yam stood there for a bit more, before running off to play with other kids, and my heart hurt for the rest of the day.  I could barely stand it.  

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

I know that I can't protect him.  I just don't have the heart to watch this stuff happen.  He is a very sweet, gentle, weird kid.  He's not great at reading social cues.  I mean, he's okay at it, and he likes other kids, but he's also very content to play in his own interior world.  Like, if all the other kids are doing a game of hide and go seek, the Big Yam will frequently just go off and do his own thing...he's not the one to succumb to the group propulsion to do what everyone else is doing.  These are all beautiful, lovely attributes.  I just want him to be safe in who he is.

This sweet little butt.

I also know that a lot of the time the view from outside is way worse.  That I'm likely projecting a lot of my adult psychological baggage and nuances onto his social interactions...it doesn't make it easier.  Can I just like, never drop him off and pick him up?  

I've been gently probing during our dinner time conversations, because I want to know about other stuff happening that might be bothering him.  I feel like we don't know very much about what happens during his day.  The other night, I asked, "Did anything happen that made you sad, or mad today?" He thought for a moment, and then his whole sweet face brightened up and he said, "Something made me so happy! Our butterflies hatched!" And then he went on a long, rambling description of the butterflies hatching.  Never change, Big Yam, you sweet little soul.

Dinners around here lately:

Oven roasted kalbi and bi bim bap rice with fried egg

Leftover almond toffee from making the bundt cake with maple bacon ice cream and mercury espresso ice cream (I have a bit of an ice cream problem at the moment)

Stew oxtail, squash, and spinach with a double

Quickie weeknight meal - brisket in the freezer, King's Hawaiian rolls, and broccoli

Soft shell season!  Breaded soft-shell po' boys with bacon and homemade remoulade

A veggie-heavy meal - tater tots (fried, of course), roasted aspargus, poached eggs, proscuitto and hollandaise.

Fin.

Poor Long-Form Written Word

This poor, poor blog!  So few posts compared to the halcyon days of yore.  And yet, I can't stop won't stop.  I won't give up on blogging.  Not now, not ever.  I will hold true.  There is room for the long-form reflective written word and this is my space.  You can't supplant it with all the Snapchats and Instas and FBs and Twitters...you just can't.

What have I been up to?  ONLY HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE.  The weekend before this past one was literally insane in the membrane.  That's the technical designation for what I did.

Friday was my day off and I spent the day running around like a maniac.  I helped out at the book fair, went back to the Big Yam's school to do sub lunch, did mad errands, and that night I met my friend M in Kensington and then had tortas from Torteria San Cosme which were DELICIOUS.  We split the chicken milanese and the cubano, and I also bought a cochinita pibil one for home.  The sandwiches are priced at around $9, which is kind of pricey, but they're substantial and so well made and they griddle the bread, which is key.  It's a nice touch.  I'm of the belief that hot sandwiches should be served on buns that have been kissed with some kind of fat and then burnished on a flat top - it provides a texture barrier and just ups the general ante.  Anyway, the space is super-cute - it looks like a little cafeteria lunch counter with excellent floor tile work.  I'm a little in love with it.

That Friday was one of the nicest spring days we've had yet, and I was running around in my very ancient, vintage Mexican embroidered shirt that I've had for over 10 years.  The moms at the Big Yam's school were going apes**t and one of them asked me if I got it from Anthropologie.  There's been a lot about cultural appropriation in the media of late (see: Justin Bieber's dreads) and I was like, damn, am I culturally appropriating?  Should I not be wearing this shirt?  Then at Torteria San Cosme, one of the Latin American women working the grill (and it was super-amazing that the whole crew behind the counter was women - assuming they also have a say in the means of production), pointed at my shirt and mouthed the words, "I love it."  That made me feel a little bit better, but also: am I just being lazy and relying on a "native insider"?!?  WHO EVEN KNOWS ANYMORE.  The point is, those sandwiches, that I might have zero business in the world eating, were freakin' delicious.

Then we saw a Frida Kahlo documentary that was meh.  It was very "classic documentary" which meant long, still shots of the light on a wall and the sound of birds chirping.  It was about this Japanese photographer who went to Kahlo's house and took photographs of Kahlo's stuff and then they framed it by also interviewing women in Oaxaca who produce the embroidered clothing (it was just a random coincidence that I wore my shirt that day, I swear) that Kahlo wore.  I get what the documentary was trying to accomplish, linking Kahlo's embrace of her Mexican heritage and work as a woman artist with the traditionally female craft work and domesticity, but it was a bit of a slog and the thesis could have been tightened up a bit.

Saturday we played in the Regent Park playground with the Wonder Twins and then followed that up with dinner at Bar Isabel with Dr. Rei and Hanbo.  Such a fun time.  I love those guys.  My mum watched the kids and was hilarious about it.

Sunday was Mother's Day.  Mother's Day has been AMPED UP in recent years.  My FB exploded with heartfelt and sentimental tributes to all mothers...it was a bit much for me, to be honest, but the Dotytron was lovely and took the kids away for a couple of hours so I could work on a quilt.  Then we went on a nature walk, and then Momma D came over and watched the kids so we could have dinner at A3 Napoli (one of my favorite restaurants) with JJ and S and then we went to see the Noma documentary at Hot Docs, Ants on a Shrimp.  

This documentary felt like a slog, to be honest.  It's ostensibly about the time the chef, Rene Redzepi, packed up the whole restaurant and transplanted Noma to Japan, for a 3 week engagement.  What emerges is this slavering fanboy flick that doesn't critique anything.  You don't get any sense of the thought processes that go into the dishes, what they're after, how the dishes taste, what the reception of this endeavour was...basically, as a viewer, you're supposed to take it on faith that the stuff tastes good.  It was very acritical and all I got out of it was flashbacks of my time on the line.  There was also all this hyper-masculine, macho stuff: the film opens with the chef de cuisine and the sous chef charged with conceptualizing the menu, both of whom are heavily tattooed dudes, and are shown in the opening scenes of the film doing weird cross-fit type stuff like pull-ups and working on rowing machine until they get blisters.  Just, ew.  Get over yourselves, stupid macho kitchen mentality.

The Don is so magical

Comic book nerds are also magical

Some of the awesome stuff I picked up.  Love that Prince and Bitch Planet poster!

This weekend we had my friend C64 and his partner over for dinner on Friday, then on Saturday we went for a rainy walk in the Don Valley with the Wonder Twins, and hung with SMckay that night.  The Dotytron went to see Lee "Scratch" Perry and on Sunday, SMckay and I hit up the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.  I dragged the Big Yam which was, in retrospect, a bit of a mistake.  Although I was gazing longingly at some of the other parents who had children, seemingly younger than the Big Yam following them throughout the crowded halls, with their noses buried in comics.  Really want to share my nerd interests with my kids, yo.

That being said, the Big Yam has been hilarious.  A few week's ago we went to see Peppa Pig at Boston Pizza.  They were blasting Peppa Pig on the screens and Peppa came around to all the tables.  At a certain point, as she was making her way, the Big Yam craned his neck to see, and announced: "Peppa Pig is coming!  ... Jesus."  LOL!!!  He's so funny.  The other night, we had our neighbours over for dinner and were having a big conversation about wants versus needs.  I asked him, "So, can you think of something that you really need, versus just want?" and he said, "Ummm...wifi?"  Touché.  Can't really argue with that, can we?

Some snaps from around here, lately:

Sleepiest bubbies

B-b-b-b-bath time!

These two.  Finally starting to get along and be friends.  They're doing more collaborating and colluding and are frequently in cahoots.  During their increasingly fraught nap times, I'll hear Quincess test the door knob of their room (we have one of those door-knob protectors which means they can't turn the knob), and report back to Twin B, "It's locked."  So cute.

Eats around here, lately:

Company dinner: tagliatelle with radicchio and bagna cauda, with a poached egg and crispy croutons

Made a pretty kickin' chicken biryani with green beans thoren.  There are some refinements to be made, but it's definitely a good foundation.  Next time I might add some plumped raisins and will make some extra rice.

Saw some stunning artichokes so we roasted them, I made chorizo potatoes, and seared some ling cod and served everything with romesco.  GAH!  Love romesco so damn much.

Fin.

Living and Thinking and Carrying On

Things I've been thinking about, lately:

1) Decentreing whiteness (and heternormativity) and how so many (white, heteronormative) people get so bent out of shape as soon as they're not the focus of like, everything.  It's like, seriously?  Have some chill for once in your damned lives.  The number of assumptions that get made on a daily basis by white people about what the cultural touchstones should be has been really chafing me lately.

2) Further to the above, I've been thinking about how annoying white moms are on the internet.  I mean, as was rightly pointed out to me, "that's on you." Haha!  That's true, I don't have to go looking for anxious, spun up, privileged intensive mothers who are going to make my blood boil with their neuroses and anxieties and constant need for validation from randoms.  But sometimes...I come across it and it makes me SO ANGRY that capable women are choosing to be oppressed and neurotic about the dumbest s**t, that I just can't even.

I got into it with this woman on my twins forum who was basically ready to fire her nanny because of some small infraction (the woman's son wouldn't let the nanny leave because he wanted to hold the nanny's umbrella and so the nanny told him to go take a bite of an apple and then she would let him hold the umbrella and when he went to eat the apple, she snuck out - this of course led to a chorus of [all white] women freaking out about how "deceptive" a practice this is, etc.,) and then of course the conversation spiraled into these wackadoos and their wackadoo expectations for the less privileged (almost universally), women of colour (ditto) who look after their children for not very much money at all.  These employers expect gold-plated service but certainly don't pay the amount that you would assume if you expect your caregiver to basically have a Phd in child psychology, or be an exact proxy for the parent.  There's a different between a caregiver and a parent.  There are huge structural differences between the (often vulnerable) people we pay to look aft our children and us.  It sucks, and you know what, lady?  Some people have real problems.  Why don't you go to Emergency a few more times because your kid has a "strange rash."

Further to the above, someone posted this thing on Facebook that was women's stories of being "assaulted" in child birth by medical practitioners who performed c-sections "without consent" and where women were "shackled" to fetal monitors and "strapped" to hospital beds and "forcibly" coerced into one "medicalized" procedure or another.  My immediate reaction was, that this whole thing of women thinking they know better than medical professionals about what's safe and natural for their children is what lead to the anti-vaccine movement?  I ended up running it by my midwife friend who had some smart points - namely, there's a difference between trauma and assault.  Lots of births can be traumatic - she said that she even found my birth, with the twins, traumatic, but that there is a fundamental difference between trauma and assault.  Like, having to have your baby's collarbone broken so that they can fit through your pelvic opening is super traumatic.  Labour and delivery is such an intimate experience that it's kind of already poised for trauma - you're dealing with life and death!  I think it's wonderful that evidenced-based decision making and women becoming their own health advocates is more and more of a thing, however, we need to strike that balance and dichotomizing the issue so that you have midwives on one hand and evil, military-industrial complex OBs on the other doesn't really sense.  As I was looking into this, I saw that some people use the term "birth rape" which is hugely problematic.

3) I have so many thoughts on the Ghomeshi trial, which is obviously a flashpoint for feminists.  I think ultimately, I feel like I can support and believe women who have been the victims of sexual assault and at the same time, feel like he is absolutely guilty in the court of real life, but that also, the judge's verdict does not constitute a miscarriage of justice.  I don't know how the courts will reconcile the fluidity of consent with the necessary standard of guilt required by the law, I don't know that the courts are the place to do this, even as they are so much a necessary piece of the larger framework.

Right now, I have a kid who likes to strum his junk like a guitar and thinks it's hilarious to do so in mixed company.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that and how to manage that, in a way that preserves his innocence and still doesn't allow the calcification of misogyny.

I recently read Chester Brown's The Playboy, which is a comic that was originally published in 1990 and was reissued.  It details Brown's (author of Louis Riel, among other comics) anxiety and guilt around masturbation and purchasing Playboy magazine.  The Dotytron and I both read it, and even though we both agreed that Chester Brown, as a person, is kind of gross, the Dotytron thought that Brown does a good job of honestly representing the shame spiral that happens for adolescent boys faced with the driving compulsions of their desire.  Like, apparently it feels like your brain kind of shuts off and your primordial lizard brain takes over when you're masturbating and then when it's done and you've had an orgasm, then shame comes flooding in.  Shame at what?  He (the Dotytron) posits that the shame is rooted in how quickly the lizard brain takes over and how subsumed the person is to it - like your desire to masturbate is so all-consuming that you're embarrassed and how you let it control your life.

This spurred a conversation about how to negotiate this, as the parents to three boys.  Is the shame and guilt necessary?  Does it have to be that way?  My favorite podcast, Pop Rocket recently had a sex-themed episode and two of the hosts, who are around my age talked about going into bookstores or the library and taking out the sex manuals and moving to a different part of the store/library and furtively thumbing through the pages.  HOW INNOCENT IS THAT?!?  Like, now, you can see the most depraved, disgusting, dehumanizing stuff with the right search string (or even a very wrong search string!).  How do you mitigate THAT? How do you make sure that your kid is processing and on some level, critically engaging with the stuff that shapes their sexuality?

Hell if I know.

Snapchat is kind of the best.

Last weekend was B-A-N-A-N-A-S.  But it was the kind of soul-affirming weekend that grizzled parents need sometime to remind us that we are multi-dimensional people with brilliant, smart, funny, dear friends.

Auntie Em got the twins these jackets recently and they are THE BEST.  Look at these guys!  It's almost like they get along!

I made a new friend!  At JJ and S's house, we were invited to brunch along with their colleagues, whom we had never met before.  At first, the Dotytron and I were like, "no new friends" and were kind of being sour pusses about it, but it turns out these people are AWESOME.  They live in our 'hood, they are both professors at U of T, they are funny, and the woman was automatic kindred spirit.  We are both obsessed with American Crime Story and Togetherness and she is just lovely and smart and their daughter is adorable.  This is a woman who described author Junot Diaz as: "His 'decolonial' love' shtick is kind of catnip for woke WOC" - a million heart eyes emojis.

 Corned beef hash is pretty much the best dish post-late-night dancing dish in the world.

That night I went to Pusha T with my buddy Merrick and it was everything this ol' gal needed.  Pusha T was incendiary.  The crowd was a beautiful multi-ethnic mix of hip hop heads and I got to dance my butt off and it was amazing.

Came home and Record Club was in full swing, which meant that I got to swan in, high off an amazing hip hop show and try to weasel my way in as the only woman in Record Club with my thoughtful insights into Kamasi Washington's album, The Epic.  Late night, and the next day the Dotytron was pretty ruined, so I made myself some corned beef hash and eggs, and then the Dotytron rallied enough so that we could take the kids to an east side indoor play space, which we love, because it's big and clean and the Dotytron and I can go head-to-head on the pop-a-shot game:

Twin A is terrible at this.

Our general modus operandi when doing stuff with the kids is to act like giant idiots and have all the fun while our kids tool around untended.  Half the time we take the kids to a playground, the Dotytron and I are challenging each other to weird parkour or rock climbing stunts while our kids give us the side-eye and other kids stand staring at us, mouth agape, because we generally cavort like fools.  Being able to be a ding dong around kids is very important.  Never lose your silly.

 Then on Sunday, our supper club of mostly high school friends met at Magic Noodle on Harbord. They do Northern Chinese hand-cut noodles in broth and some small shareable plates.  I got the brisket soup which was delicious, and the noodles were fantastic (nicely chewy), but the small plates were hit or miss.  In the top right of the picture above you can see there's a chicken dish which had this weird, mala-style Sichuan peppercorn based sauce that just tasted weird and funky.  We got this potato salad which was good, and lamb skewers (also good).  I don't know if I'd go again, especially given we're on such a ramen kick lately.  

 Quincess wearing his goggles.

Speaking of ramen, we took it easy this weekend and visited my grandma in Markham, followed by Sansotei with my mum.  This crew.

Sansotei why are you so damned delicious???

Some of what I'm doing on Snapchat - a van full of Peppas on the way to the pool.

 

My classic bin of beans made its first appearance for the twins this weekend.  It kept them quietly occupied and giggling for about 30 minutes?  Which is next level.  But then they started dumping beans everywhere which was annoying and inevitable.

Twin A double-fisting this disgusting breakfast concoction I force them to eat: steel cut oats, mixed with full fat cottage cheese, apple sauce, vitamin D droplets and hemp/flax oil.  It's so gross!  

 

Twin B singing the Totoro main theme in Japanese.

Twin A has a huge sweet tooth and loves all things cake, cookies, ice cream, chocolate, etc.  When we had Momma D and Ehmdo over for dinner last night, we took a break after finishing dinner to tidy up the kitchen, pack away leftovers, and open presents before the cake portion.  I popped my head out of the kitchen and saw that Twin A was still sitting in his high chair, so I asked Ehmdo to take him out.  She said that she had tried to do that, but he refused.  As it turns out, he was doggedly sitting in the chair because he was waiting for the dessert portion of the meal.  He sat there for 30 minutes, craning his neck to see the action in the living room, and refused to let us even turn his chair to face the living room.  Such a crafty little sugar butt:

Wanting to be involved, but wanting more, for cake.

For the birthday dinner I roasted two chickens, made gravy, roasted potatoes, roasted cauliflower, and roasted brussels sprouts.  It was an all-oven meal:

I also made this cake, which is known as "The World's Best Cake."  It's Norwegian in origin and features two duplicate layers of butter cake, with a layer of almond-flecked soft and marshmallowy meringue adhered to the cake, and the two layers held together with whipped cream.  I think next time I might add some sliced strawberries to the middle layer, but otherwise, it might not be quite the "world's best" cake, but it's pretty damned delicious.  I've posted the recipe below.

Other things I've eaten/made lately:

I made Smitten Kitchen's spaghetti pie (which is based on cacio e pepe) and I thought it was kind of meh.  I used good fontina and the cheese flavour was kind of pungent but the overall dish was bland and the baked spaghetti texture just wasn't a good fit.  We had this with a classic chocolate cake (I used this Food52 recipe), which turned out good, but not as fudgy as my go-to devil's food cake recipe and the frosting was only so-so.  Still on the hunt for the perfect quick and easy chocolate frosting (not buttercream).  This cake was adapted from the classic Hershey's chocolate cake recipe and I honestly think the Hershey's is better.  Can't improve on that.

Breakfast burritos: scrambled eggs with spinach, piled in a large flour tortilla that's been spread with refried beans (I made mine but easily could be canned), with some grated cheddar.  Rolled up burrito style and then pressed on a panini press and served with tomatillo salsa, sour cream, and guacamole.

Ribollita - basically a version of minestrone with kale, and lots of vegetables and plump canellini beans.  Topped with a very necessary dollop if Italian style salsa verde (parsley, mint, garlic, capers, etc.) and big slices of my sourdough bread with grated parm, toasted for dunking.

Yellow dhal with coconut and muttar paneer and brown basmati rice.

Leftover Micelli Monday taco meat became a giant taco salad - a whole heap of greens, diced tomatoes, sliced black olives, tossed together and topped with the taco meat, optional beans, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, and crunched up tortilla chips for extra texture.  

The Big Yam is obsessed (OBSESSED) with pulses of all shapes and sizes.  Good thing this year is the year of the pulse, according to the WHO.  This is an oldie, bacon-braised lentils, atop a bed of baby spinach, and breaded, fried pucks of goat's cheese to be smeared on crusty bread.  It's a go-to meatless meal.

My St. Paddy's day meal.  Once I started baking corned beef, I've never gone back.  I smear it with a paste of brown sugar and grainy mustard and then bake it in a foil packet until tender. With champ and roasted brussels sprouts and maple carrots.

This was the birthday bundt cake that I made for my mom that she didn't care for.  The recipe (from Baked Occasions) had me right up until I was supposed to mix a portion of the batter with cocoa powder and chocolate and use that to make the dark tunnel.  I dunno, I think I just like a classic, pound-cakey kind of bundt cake.  The chocolate-coconut tunnel was kind of dry and crumbly and tasted neither chocolately or coconutty.  I wouldn't make this again.

 Fin.


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The World's Best Cake
Serves 10-12, technique adapted from Sweet Paul Magazine

10½ tablespoons (1 stick plus 21⁄2 tablespoons) butter, softened

1 2⁄ 3 cups granulated sugar, separated

1 1⁄ 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

5 large eggs, separated

1⁄ 3 cup whole milk

1⁄4 cup sliced almonds

1 cup heavy cream

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F, with a rack in the middle position. Line 2 8" round cake pans with parchment paper. Grease the pans and the paper.  The original recipe recommended using metal pans over glass. I had metal pans so that's what I used so I can't comment on the glass.
2. Beat the butter and 2⁄ 3 cup of the sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and creamy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add the flour and baking powder and mix well on low speed.
4. Mix in the egg yolks and milk.
5. Scrape the batter into the baking pan (the batter will be thick - I used an offset spatula to spread it).
6. In a large clean bowl, beat the egg whites and the remaining 1 cup sugar to soft peaks. Spread on top of the cake layer. Sprinkle with the almond slices.
7. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the meringue is golden brown and puffed. Cool on a wire rack in the pan. Gently unmold one of the cake layers and place cake-side-down on a serving platter.
8. When the cake is cool, put the cream in a medium bowl and add some vanilla extract (I used 1/2 tsp. of vanilla bean paste). Beat to medium-firm peaks with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes.
9. Cover the cake on the platter with the cream. Gently unmold the other cake from the baking pan.  Place the other half, meringue side up, on top.
10. Let the cake sit for 1 hour in the fridge before serving.