#Views

The other night I had a really hilarious dream about Drake.  I'm not generally into his music.  I've been unmoved by most of what I've heard.

In the dream, I was supposed to be arranging pick up of an item I had purchased off one of those Facebook buy and sell groups.  Then when I finally meet the guy, it's DRAKE.  And in my dream, him being Drake means the same thing as it would IRL, except it's strangely not a big deal, but he's still very famous and very sought after and kind of a beta male.  Anyway, we're talking and I notice he's wearing like, 5 t-shirts layered on top of each other, and I'm gently chiding him about it, and it comes out that he's super self-conscious about his body?!  So the next time I come over, he's wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, and he's very self conscious about it, and his body is okay...like it's fine...he's not overweight or anything but everything is kind of lacking definition in a way that I now know (after a quick - and satisfying! - Google image search) it is not IRL, and in the dream I was trying to be supportive and comforting him and then it turned into FULL MAKE-OUT TIMES AT UNLIKELY PAIRINGS HIGH.  Like, I basically woke up out of making out with Drake.

Maybe this means I'm softening my stance a bit?  Dr. Rei basically curated a list of (two) recent Drake tunes that she said I should listen to and the ones she recommended ARE the ones I'm the most likely to be into...but I didn't think it was enough to send me headlong into Drake apologist mode.

Whereas, listening to The Life of Pablo put me right back into Kanye apologist mode and I was ready to fight anyone who says he's not a musical genius.  The Life of Pablo is so so so good, you guys.  So good.  Singing 'Ye is the best 'Ye.

I've seen two great documentaries this week.

On Monday the Dotytron and I went to see When Two Worlds Collide.  This was a documentary that took 9 years to make.  It follows indigenous Peruvian people living in the Peruvian Amazon who call for the repeal of laws that threaten the land they have traditionally used and occupied.  The laws were introduced by a government that is courting progress in the form of allowing transnational oil and gas interests to set up camp in the Amazon rainforest.  The indigenous people form a coalition and their coalition has a president, Alberto Pizango who is their spokesperson and leader.  The indigenous people start a protest that sees them blocking roads and surrounding oil infrastructure.  The protests are peaceful, but after a sham legislative debate that sees the government refuse to consider repealing the laws, the government sends armed police in to break up the protests and things turn violent.  Indigenous people and police die.  I came away from this doc feeling really bad about capitalism and how capitalism is so relentless - forcing people to submit, whether they want to or not.  

It also made me check my own assumptions and terrible biases and ignorance on indigenous Canadian issues and how we're doing the same thing, here.  I sometimes find myself thinking, "well, why do you even want to live in Attiwapiskat anyway?" and then I realize that this has been their home and that part of living in a just and liberal society is allowing people to live how they choose and honoring those agreements and histories.  It's not for us to decide what's the best way for people to live.  And they predate the f**k out of us.  So how can we make this work?  How can we bridge capitalism and indigenous ways of life?  

I also went to see Sour Grapes with JJ.  This was about the rise of wine auctions during the dot-com boom and this mysterious figure, Rudy Kurniawan who becomes a player in the wine scene and is known for his palate.  He ends up making $35 million from auctioning rare wines from his collection and it turns out that he might have been counterfeiting them.  He basically would bid on wines, drive up the price, and then a month later, auction the same wines at an even more inflated price (parallels to Wall Street malfeasance!)  Well, poor Bill Koch (of the Koch brothers) suspects that some of his wine might be counterfeit and hires a private investigator and things start to close in around Rudy.  Rudy ends up going to jail for 10 years, and his defense attorneys are like, this is ridiculous.  We've seen mobsters with bodies in the ground not serve time like that.  After the lights came on, I turned to JJ and said, "I'm on team Rudy!  I like his entrepreneurial spirit! And are we REALLY supposed to feel bad for one of the Koch brothers?"  

Rudy made friends with Hollywood producers and got invited to these exclusive wine parties that were all white and male and super in the dick-measuring vein.  Anyway, there were interesting parallels with class and race that this film illustrated, as well as the corrupting power of money and these types of interests.  Some of Rudy's friends stay loyal to him to this day and the movie talks about the collusion between the grifter and the mark, but I found the loyalty of these doofus Hollywood, Michael Bay-types to be kind of endearing.  This was really good - I highly recommend it.

I've got two more documentaries this week and then Hot Docs 2016 will be done.  There are so many things going on!  Our May calendar is like a solid block of colour but I'm enjoying every minute of it.  I love all the cultural things we're getting to do and the people I'm seeing.  A talk, raving, Hot Docs, dinners out, the Comic Arts Festival all in the same month?!  That's soul satisfying stuff, my friends.

We watched Beyoncé's "visual album" (aka music videos strung together), Lemonade last night and...well...I have thoughts.  I will say that I'm not a member of the Beyhive - BUT! - I know that people are going crazy for it because as she matures in her career, we're seeing Bey start to take ownership and exercise creative control and try stuff in a way she hasn't before.  So yeah, that's cool.  But also, at the end of the day, it's not THAT cool?  I mean, it's a bunch of music videos strung together and there are some arresting images, but it's not like, high art.  Also, the songs are almost all pretty bad, but I just don't like her music, so fine, I get that.  I like that she goes in different directions and there was maybe 2 or 3 songs that I enjoyed. 

The most important element was how she's using her platform to shine a spotlight on black women artists and black artists in general.  That's incredible and that in an of itself is laudable.  I'm so glad that Warsan Shire is in my life now.  I wish I had watched Lemonade first, in a way.  But Bey is NO Warsan Shire and once you hear Warsan Shire recite her own poetry, then Beyoncé's affected, almost Miss Universe delivery just falls real short.  You can see how hard Bey is trying to be something great and I applaud her, but you can also see the effort and true greatness - you don't see the effort, mang.  So yeah, it did the thing it was supposed to do, which is cause a big hubub on the internet, inspire a lot of gossipy speculation, result in lots of think pieces, and then made Bey and Jigga s boatload of money.  Cool story, bruh.  

I almost think the brouhaha about the who "Becky with the good hair" is was a misstep and a silly distraction.  If Bey wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, fanning those flames was unnecessary and really takes away from her central message - which is that she's too awesome to be trifled with.  Ultimately, that's a message I can get behind, but it's delivered in a forgettable manner.  This ain't no Purple Rain, sons.

Last weekend we went on this amazing nature walk that really made you feel removed from the city.  I loved it.

We also went out dancing and it was incredible, though we barely made it through Sunday by the skin of our teeth.  We were cranky AF and the poor kids suffered.  It was worth the one day's aftermath of hell for the pleasure of feeling like a person again.

Of course our recovery day was rainy and miserable so we took the kids to Pacific Mall and ate a million of those puffy pancake things and some overcooked, hand-pulled noodles.  

Here are things we've eaten lately:

The aforementioned hand-pulled, overcooked noodles

Quickie weeknight freezer meal: meatballs from the freezer, tomato sauce from the freezer, garlic bread and green beans.  Basically the Dotytron-Lagerfeld tots' Platonic ideal.

A rhubarb browned butter pie that I pretty much ended up eating all to myself?  

Squash soup and cheddar sage biscuits

Bacon, squash, and kale risotto with a poached egg

Leftover risotto turned into fresh mozzarella stuffed arancini with tomato sauce, German onion sausages, and zucchini fritters

Banana chocolate chip pancakes and English bacon for a Sunday breakkie

This AMAZING poundcake with the most delectable browned butter glaze.  From this recipe here: Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Browned Butter Glaze. The only thing I think I would change is to omit the cinnamon swirl.  I thought it detracted from the overall butteriness.  I think what I"m after is a basic, bundt or pound cake and that delicious glaze.

Orzo made Spanish rice style with chicken thighs and peas.

Chai-spiced creme brulee.  A throwback dessert.  It's so delicious though!  Why don't people make creme brulee anymore?

Fin.

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Peanut Butter Mousse Pie

Serves 10-12

Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, or chocolate wafer crumbs, or pretzel crumbs

3 T. sugar

1/2 cup of melted butter

- mix all together, press onto bottom and slightly up sides of a 9" springform pan.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10-12 minutes until lightly golden.

Filling:

3/4 cup sugar 

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups of creamy peanut butter

2 1/2 cups of heavy cream, whipped

- mix the egg yolks with 1/2 cup of  sugar on top of a double boiler until warm to the touch (keep whisking so the eggs don't cook)

- remove from heat and stir in the peanut butter until smooth.  Set aside to cool.

- meanwhile, whisk the egg whites with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar until it forms stiff peaks.  Fold into peanut mixture.

- fold whipped cream into the peanut mixture and pour into prepared crust.  Refrigerate at least overnight. 

- serve with hot fudge sauce.

Germane

Germane is the bane of my existence lately, but I will say that getting my work edited is definitely making me a better government writer.  I'm not known for my brevity.  I'm an over-explainer to the max (she says, stating the obvious, in a blog that's been running for almost 8 years, brimming with posts that are decidedly NOT on the short side).  

What follows is the kind of kitchen-sink blog post that is filled with the non-germane.  Jermaine Jackson did NOT sign off on this.  Nor did Jermaine Dupri.  I need another Jermaine to fulfill the rules of 3, but I'm coming up empty.

1) I don't care about Lip Sync Battles.  I find them funny for about .001 second and then I'm over it.  I don't get it.  It's a made-up thing.

2) Shad (the person, not the fish) is another made-up thing.  Like, when the internet and quasi-hipsters (for lack of a better word) on my social media started freaking because he (?) was named the new host of Q, I was like, "...da f**k?"  Shad the fish is legit.  I can get behind that.  Shad the person?  Total made-up thing.

3) When we were in Geneseo, before the Mouse Always Wins Disney Tour 2015 started, the Dotytron was party to a hilarious convo between the Big Yam and Little Little Cuz.

Big Yam: "Baba, how many people have died since people existed?"

Dotytron: "Ummm, I don't know.  A lot.  Like, more than a billion."

Little Little Cuz: "And a police officer at my mom's work.  He died."

Dotytron: "That's sad."

Little Little Cuz: "I was like, whatever." 

LOL!!!  Little Little Cuz is FOUR by the way, and apparently already shows a callous disregard for human life.  

4) This was my Easter:

That smattering of snow (seems so long ago now, after the recent run of two - TWO! - warm, sun-filled spring-like days in a row) really put a damper on the street Easter egg hunt, which usually heralds the beginning of "Norman Rockwell Season" on Lil' Ugmo Avenue.  The Easter egg hunt marks the turning point when the denizens of Lil' Ugmo Avenue emerge from winter hibernation with kids that have suddenly grown a foot taller over the winter.  It's when we start to spend the bulk of our pre-and-post-dinner time outside, chatting while our kids roam between houses like a roving pack of semi-feral beasts.  It's the best.

5)  The other day the Big Yam turned to me and asked, "When I grow up, are you going to marry me and Baba?" We've hit a rather sweet age - 4 is wonderful.  The tumult inside their little bodies seems to quiet a little, and their language acquisition seems to keep pace with the rush of thoughts inside their brains.  We get a lot of unprompted "I love yous" and out of nowhere, I'll turn around and find him planting a soft kiss on my arm.  It's very sweet.  We had to explain to him that the love you feel for your parents (and that we feel for him) is different from the kind of love you feel for the person you marry.  He seemed concerned about wanting to stay a part of our family, so we pitched it as finding someone you want to start a new branch of the family with.

I was kicking around this working thesis that the love you have for your children is beast of a different stripe than the love you have for your partner.  "OBVI" I can hear you muttering.  I had this whole riff on how you don't bring any baggage to the love you have for your kids, and then I realized that was a load of hooey.  Does anyone ever travel without baggage?  I don't think so.  Highly unlikely.  It's different baggage, but the love I have for my kids is coloured by my own upbringing, the way I relate to my parents, my siblings, my sense of self as it was forged in fiery pits of Mordor, I mean, Markham.  

Last weekend we threw a birthday party for Momma D.  The Dotytron and EhmDo put in so much work making the party a success for their mum.  There was a Coronation Street-themed cake and a photo album that had everyone welling up, and they performed a number of Momma D personal favorites.  

Big Yellow Taxi

Landslide

They changed the words to the Beatles' song "You Never Give Me Your Money" to "You Always Give Me Your Money"  - it was a huge hit!

As I sat with Lindsay on my lap, listening to the joy and love elicited by these talented, beautiful people in my life, I had a minor epiphany.  Maybe epiphany is too strong a word.  I was filled with gratitude and inwardly chided myself for taking the musical gifts of my outlaw family for granted sometimes.  I've been known to vocally discourage a career in the arts for my children.  Is it so wrong that I would like some kind of silicon valley venture capitalist?  Fine, maybe not a venture capitalist, but more like a Warren Buffet Berkshire-type.  Someone who will treat their parents right, ya know? Actually, if I really want a career for my kids that will result in them venerating their ma', then I should wish that they become like, Asian-Canadian Drakes or Kanye-types.   I realized as I listened, and as my kids (mainly Lindsay and the Big Yam) have requested Big Yellow Taxi every night a billion times, that I don't want to rob them of this particular form of aesthetic creation/appreciation.    They are so lucky to be steeped in this love for musical expression.  I only hope they can do that and do stupid abstract Singaporean math problems.

I had another thought, as I watched Momma D beaming with pride for her kids' prodigious talent.  I'm always vaguely discomfited by seeing parents demonstrably proud of their children.  It's just not something Chinese people do.  The concept of beaming with pride over your children is pretty foreign to me.  The Chinese way is to talk about your children's accomplishments "Ai ya!  Melody only got into Stanford-ah!  But not Harvard!  It's terrible-ah!  I told her to work harder!" where you're bragging but only in so far as their academic/professional achievements reflect on the parent.  Being proud of your kid's talents in the arts?  Not a thing.  Like, maybe if they're playing Carnegie Hall, but anything less just doesn't compute.  

I'd like to strike some kind of middle ground and break out of my cultural conditioning.  The babies are signed up for a toddler & caregiver art class that our caregiver brings them to.  I'm not proud of them for the work that they do, per se...more I find it hilarious and kind of "Awwwwww" when I see all their "art" and when our caregiver sends us photos of them in their class.  Less overflowing with pride than "what little cute weird butts."  

What we've eaten, lately:

Spicy grain soup and Smitten Kitchen's gruyere and caramelized onion biscuits.  The biscuits were pretty tasty, but not as tasty as the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits I made from the Red Lobster-sanctioned box mix.

A porchetta sandwich and a shrimp sandwich from a new sandwich shop in the 'hood.  I enjoyed these, but found the service incredibly slow, and they were good, but not great.  Unlike Porchetta & Co, where I've been dreaming about their buffalo fried chicken parmesan and porchetta sandwiches for weeks. 

Last time I was in the States, I bought a pack of scrapple, which we pan fried and ate with eggs.

The Texas sheet cake from Baked: Celebrations cook book.  I've had success with 3 of the 4 recipes I've tried.  This is a moist chocolate cake topped with a salted-peanut topped peanut butter and icing sugar frosting.  Deadly tasty.  

Braised veal breast with gremolata and my new favorite side, kung pao brussel sprouts (recipe below).  

Leftover bacon, kale, and squash risotto turned into arancini.  Anything fried topped with aioli = magic.

Freezer chili and cornbread.

Carnitas

A pear and almond tart.  This was delicious.  From Dorie Greenspan's book.  A very simple recipe of sauteed pears baked in a sweet, short crust, topped with a crispy almond-meringue.  I didn't take down the recipe, but it's pretty easy.  I think the topping was just a few egg whites, mixed with confectioner's sugar (I think about 1/2 cup?) and a cup of sliced almonds.

Freezer meatloaf with freezer broccoli cheddar rice casserole.  I love me a broccoli cheddar rice casserole.  I wish I had two more in the freezer.

Bouillabaisse with rouille

Spaghetti and meatballs

Tourtiere with tomato jam and braised red cabbage and appales

The Red Lobster biscuits.  Basically grated cheddar dumped into some kind of biscuit mix, and then brushed with butter mixed with garlic-salt.  So good.

I made my family a porchetta for Easter dinner.  I bought it from my go-to Italian butcher, who gave the Dotytron my pre-ordered meat with the not-so-encouraging, "I've never done this before!" (Really?  A porchetta?  From an Italian butcher that's been in business for 60 years?)  It turned out AMAZING.  So easy!  You just let it go.  I ate leftovers for weeks and weeks.

Trying very hard to resume a more regular posting schedule.  I have so many thoughts and all the feels (as per usual).

Fin.

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Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts

Not adapted at all, really from Bon Appetit

Allegedly serves 6 as a side, but we eat a LOT of brussels sprouts

2 lbs brussels sprouts , stems trimmed and halved 

4 T olive oil

1 T. cornstarch

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 T. peeled ginger, minced

2 T. sambal oelek

1/2 c. soy sauce

1 1/2 T. sugar

2 t. unseasoned rice vinegar

1/2 c. chopped salted peanuts or cashews

- toss the brussels sprouts in 3 T. of the oil and season with salt and pepper.  Roast in a 425F oven until dark and crispy and soft
- meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 T. of oil in a small pan.  Add the minced ginger and garlic to the cold oil and slowly heat.  When the ginger and garlic are fragrant and starting to brown just a bit, add the soy, the sugar, the sambal, the rice vinegar, and 1/2 c. of cold water.  Stir and taste for seasoning (I reduced the sugar from the original recipe, so you might want to add more).
- Take the 1 T. of cornstarch and stir with a 1-2 T. of water to make a thin slurry.  Stir this slurry into your soy mixture and heat to boiling.  When the sauce is thickened, pour over your roasted brussels sprouts and top with the chopped nuts.

*Note: I find this recipe made twice as much sauce as I needed, so I tend to reduce all ingredients by half, but obviously this is a moving target based on your amount of brussels sprouts.

Frankie Says Relax

Soooooooo, I scraped up Eddie VAN Halen on Monday.  With the babies in the car.  No one got hurt, thankfully, and it was entirely my own stupid spatial-relations-challenged fault.  I was parked (illegally) just ahead of a curb and behind a big excavator/commerical construction vehicle on the main thoroughfare in my 'hood.  I usually back up to get around things (usually too much) but I was nervous about not being able to see cars coming north on the cross street behind me and I was also nervous about getting plowed by an oncoming streetcar, so I came out without enough room to get around the excavator and basically scraped the passenger side of the van pretty bad.  It looks ghetto.  Then I promptly pulled over, burst into tears, and left a sad, scared message on the Dotytron's phone because I thought he was going to kill me.

I then took it to an auto body shop close by and got a quote on the repairs and he said no less than $2500, maybe $2000 and then I nearly threw up.  Cue another sad, scared, teary message on the Dotytron's phone apprising him of this latest development.

In a testament to what a good person he is, the Dotytron, when he finally called me back, wasn't mad at all (or at least, I don't think he was, I couldn't quite hear him over the sound of my own, hiccuping wailing, "YOU'RE MAD AT MEEEEEEEE!!!" and because he is a better person than I, was more concerned that we weren't hurt.  Because he is more concerned about appearances than I, he is insisting that we get it fixed, ASAP.  I took it to another body shop today and he said we were looking at $1300, and I'm hoping I can negotiate a cash deal.  I'm going to ask around a few more places though.  So we're out $1300, worst case scenario, because I am a horrible driver.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS REAL, FOLKS.

I joined the Facebook page for our neighbourhood, hoping that I'd find out about nannies and the like or get some tips on stuff there.  It's pandemonium on that page.  Basically a bunch of people who barely know how to be online going buck.  This one guy posted this thing about how his brother saw people from one of the Pakistani restaurants in Little India luring pigeons into the kitchen and how he was calling the Toronto Board of Health.  Now to me, that smacks of racism, so I posted this little gem:

which obviously got me mad props from people who aren't neurotic gentrification-obsessed weirdos.  Then I  had second thoughts and told the Dotytron that if I actually have School Board Trustee ambitions (which I kinda do?) that maybe it wasn't a good idea to troll the neighbourhood Facebook page.  But then he said that I could probably campaign on a "Frankie Says Relax" platform, and when I gave it a thought I realized he was absolutely right.  LOL!  Karl Lagerfeld: Frankie Says Relax in 2020.  So good.

Last weekend ended up being surprisingly chill.  We had all of Saturday completely off, which was so, so, so nice.  I don't know why I don't do that more often.  We got our Xmas tree and decorated it on Friday night, we watched some Xmas movies on Saturday, and then had a visit with a friend and her kid at Sprouts on Sunday, followed by a lasagna dinner care of Momma D in the evening.  It was nice to just putter and do house stuff.  

Now we're on the heels of a new weekend and it's Thursday night and I am spent.  Done.  Tapped out.  All out of love, patience, everything.  Yesterday almost broke me.  It started all regular-like.  Loaded up the boys in the bitter cold, dropped the Big Yam at daycare, took the Wonder Twins to the grocery store.  Came inside the house, and our Christmas tree had fallen over.  I had a 1:45pm massage scheduled that I already knew I was going have to cut short to get the Wonder Twins to their 3:00pm 6 month doctor's appointment on time.  To top it all off, I had to pick up the Big Yam from daycare, get dinner on the table, bath all 3 boys, and get them to bed while the Dotytron was attending to winter concert duties that evening.   Dr. Rei was coming over to help, but wasn't going to be at our place until 6:30pm or so.  I took one look at the tree, sighed, girded my loins, picked up the tree and repositioned it, packed up the boys, and went to Canadian Tire, AFTER stopping at yet another auto body place to get another quote.  Yesterday was a rough go.  It doesn't help that every time I show up at a medical office with the Wonder Twins I get a pitying/surprised, "Oh, you're here by yourself?"  Because apparently it's not normal to be a beast and handle EVERY medical appointment on your own, with two infants in tow.

I try to stay positive and upbeat and can-do, but tonight I reached my limit.  Ehmdo and I went with the kids to the new aquarium downtown.  The good news is that the aquarium is amazing.  Beautiful, clean, well designed, and expensive, but what the hell.  It was worth it for the look of wonder on all the boys' faces, but after my Wednesday, by the time we got home and I had to wrassle with an over-stimulated, under-napped Big Yam and two babies whose general routine had been upended, it was too much.  My patience reserves were spent and I could feel myself getting snappy and short-tempered.  We've been having such positive results with the Big Yam now that we've backed off from being reactionary in our discipline methods that I had to tell the Dotytron to basically take care of everything tonight, or else I was going to lose my s**t.  I've said it before, but three under three (or thereabouts) is no joke.  Those looks of sympathy I get from mums of singletons when I'm out and about (and this is before they find out that I have another preschooler), is warranted.  Momma knows, child!  

 Wonder Twins at 6 months

The Great Gazoo's been all about playing with his little tongue lately.

Look at this little daydream believer.

Our crooked tree when it was still standing and therefore still in my good graces.  The Dotytron always likes to under-light the tree so I strung about 500 lights myself and I still think we could have more.  

What I've been eating lately:

Leftover brisket from JJ & S's Hanukkah, warmed and served on buttered challah with roasted garlic mayo and caramelized onions, with baked cauliflower casserole with cheddar-broccoli sauce, and slaw

Low carb hell: shrimp, chickpeas with feta, and leftover cauliflower

Beef kofta, fried haloumi, tomato cucumber salad

Taco salad

Osso buco, polenta, roasted Brussels sprouts, gremolata, and extra marrow bones

Salted caramel apple pie

Fin.