I Ain't Mad

Usually December rolls around and I'm crying and screaming about how G-D busy I am and how it's non-stop stressball city, but strangely, these past few weekends in December have been surprisingly low-key.  Yeah, we've had stuff to do, but it's never been like, two days of 3 solid outings each day, which makes for a pretty relaxed December, I must say.  

Making the decision to scale back on the gift buying has also been a godsend.  If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

I've had SO MUCH TO SAY lately, and such a backlog of book/movie reviews, but the past three days straight I've been in training to be certified for the Joint Health and Safety Committee at work.  I'd rate this training a solid 8/10.  Extra marks for lots of gratuitous stories about manufacturing accidents.  Extra marks for the emergency preparedness/Boy Scouts dimension of being on the Joint Health and Safety Committee.  The training culminates in a 40 question multiple choice, open book test.  They expect you to get 26/40 correct in order to pass.  If you DON'T pass, they mail back the test with the incorrect questions circled and you get another go.  I'm vaguely worried that I might not pass and then I'll be mighty embarrassed.  I have a history of not doing well at easy tests (see: my G1 driving test experience).  

So yeah, the weekend.  On Friday night we had Indian food.  On Saturday, we had Chinese School (winter term, yo!  Seasonally appropriate vocabulary - "snowman"!) then we went for lunch with Momma D at Great Nany's condo.  Ummmm...they don't build condos like they used to.  This condo is granted, in Etobicoke, but it's FREAKIN' HUGE!  Two bedrooms, giant living area, dining room, eat-in kitchen, two bedrooms, balcony.  Look at how cute Nany is - this is how she did the table:

By the way, this woman is 90.  And she made us caesar salad (Nany DOES NOT skimp on the dressing, it's mad saucy, as Dr. Rei would say) and chili and is working on her 9 millionth crocheted afghan.  We also got mad gossip about her life!  Like the fact that Poppa's mom (who was Catholic) refused to go to Nany and Poppa's wedding on account of the whole Catholic marrying a Protestant thing.  Plus you get to hear lines like this: "Nany (Nany's mother in law) was always saying how beautiful Honey is.  Now, I mean, Honey is pretty, but I would never say she was beautiful."  She's just a firecracker of a woman.  Love her to bits. 

On Sunday, I went a little buck and cranked out mad stuff.  First, I did all the cookie boxes for the neighbours and their cards and delivered them.  Then I made chocolate babka, the Smitten Kitchen by way of Martha Stewart's mom's recipe.  It's supposed to make 3 babkas, but I followed what Deb did and made two biggies and three mini loaves.  I'm liking this recipe more than my usual, Gourmet Magazine one, because it's chocolatier and the yield is more.  Plus, the loaves puffed out a tonne more than the Gourmet version.  However, I'm on the fence about the streusel topping from Deb's recipe.  First of all, it made TOO MUCH streusel topping.  Secondly, the streusel topping was really dry (I've never heard of confectioner's sugar in a streusel).  I like the idea of streusel, but I might do my own and do less (I ended up chucking a lot of streusel).  Do you think I've hit my mentions-of-streusel-in-a-single-paragraph quota yet?  If not, I'm definitely almost there.  I haven't cut into a babka yet (they were lovingly wrapped and frozen), but I'll report back when I do.

Then, I went on a Chicago deep-dish pizza mission, inspired by my Discerning Coyote friend's contribution to Pie Party a few weeks back.  This was very successful.  I made some tweaks to his version (using corn oil instead of olive oil and then substituting a 1/3 of the amount of oil with melted butter) which resulted in something pretty close to what I had in Chicago.  NOW WE CAN EAT DEEP DISH AT HOME WHENEVER THE F**K WE WANT!  Like, for instance, on Friday I'm having some of the gyals dem from my Canoe cooking days over and I'm going to make it again.  It's pretty easy!  The whole recipe (reproduced below) is predicated on a no-knead (you don't want to develop the gluten) dough and like, a raw tomato sauce topping.  Cinchy!

Last night I met up with Dr. Rei and we went to the mall and split an Orange Julius and basically had the best time ever.  I love that girl so much.  Then we met up with Bwong at Santouka Ramen but the line-up was super long and we got kinda spooked by the size of the bowls of plastic restaurant food they had in the front window.  You know that thing Japanese restaurants do where they show you what they got with the plastic food?  Anyway, the bowls looked MAD SMALL!  So we basically left in a huff (after inching forward a bit in the line) and left guns blazing about how everyone else in line was a chump because of the small bowls, and about how they didn't have gyoza OR karaage.   We ended up at Raijin Ramen, which doesn't get as good reviews as Santouka, but is huge and had no line and was a quite, calm experience.  Also: they have gyoza AND karaage.  Look:

See?

The karaage was boss.  Super-juicy, crispy chunks of boneless chicken thigh.  So good.  They also do this Japanese poutine thing, which is fries, teriyaki, mayo, scallions and cheese curds.  This was tasty, although I would have liked the fries to be more crispy.  The flavours were great - with an interplay between chewy, gooey, salty, sweet, and creamy:

Finally, the ramen.  I got the tonkotsu shio (they do tonkotsu shio or shoyo, but no straight up tonkotsu?) which comes with pork shoulder, half an egg, some fungus, and chunks of cabbage (?).  The broth was nice and milky, though a touch bland.  Not oversalted, which was good.  The noodles weren't al dente and the pork shoulder wasn't fatty!!!  It was kind of dry and chewy and I was pissed about the cheapness on the egg.  HALF AN EGG?!  The cabbage was a weird touch and I wasn't completely on board.  But I wasn't OFF-board either.  At any rate, I'd come back for a quick, affordable, meal with good appetizers and a quite, calm atmosphere with no lineup.  Either way, it's a better bowl of ramen than at Kenzo or Ajisen, but not as good as Kinton (lineup) or Sansotei (my favorite):

So the Big Yam is the best and keeps getting better!  He's so funny.  As he learns to string more and more words together, it's amazing what comes out of his mouth.  So on the heart-melty side you have him saying, "I lofves you, Mama."  On the conceptually-funny side you have him saying, "Maybe" as in, "Maybe...Auntie Rei coming..." last night to the Dotytron when the Dotytron told him where I was and why I wasn't at home.  Then on the hard-to-maintain-a-straight-face side, you have him in time out on the stairs, reciting his version of this book:

We had him in time out, and then from the stairs, he was talking to himself going: "It's my hot dog!  MINE!  That's it! Tastes like chicken.  Needs mustard." all disjointed and doing this funny little hoarse voice (when the Dotytron reads the book he does a broad, New Yawk, Brooklyn-type accent for the pigeon).  The Dotytron and I were almost crying trying to hold in the laughs on the couch.  It was awesome.  Those moments when you're supposed to be stern but he's making you laugh are so good.  I'm going to try to get it on video.

Then the other night we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas for the first time.  I fell asleep, but the Dotytron said that the Big Yam started spontaneously slow-clapping when the Grinch has the change of heart and zooms down the hill to return the presents...AND THE DOTYTRON STARTED CRYING.  LOL!!! So good.

Also, he does this fake Chinese which would be completely racist if a white person was doing it.  I'll try to get video of that, too.  

Anyway, I love him and last night I almost snatched him out of bed for an impromptu Sleep Away Camp because I didn't get to see him all day.  But I left him alone in the end.

Fin.

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Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

makes enough to fill a 12" 2" deep cast-iron skillet, which is enough for about 6 hungry people, with salad

2 1/4 t. yeast

1 1/2 t. sugar

1 c. (approx) tepid water

3 c. all purpose flour

1 1/2 t. salt

6 T. corn oil

3 T. melted unsalted butter

4-5 links Italian sausage, casings removed

1 small onion, thinly sliced

garlic

1.5 balls of mozzarella cheese, sliced into 1/4" slices (not the fresh mozzarrella, which is too wet)

1 28oz can San Marzano tomatoes, whole

a few sprigs of fresh thyme

1 t. dried oregano

- proof the yeast with the sugar in the tepid water for 10 minutes or until the yeast starts to activate.

- in the bowl of your stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, add the flour and the yeast mixture.  Mix for 1 minute.  Add the salt and the oil and butter, mix for another 2 minutes maximum.  The resulting dough will look kind of shaggy...almost like a firm biscuit dough.

- what gives the dough the texture you're looking for is the LACK of gluten development, kneading.

- scrape the dough into an oiled bowl and let rest, covered in a warm, dry place for about an hour.

- when it's proofed and doubled in bulk, gently punch it down and then press it along the bottom and up sides of your cast-iron skillet.  The dough should be pretty relaxed and easy to work with.

- while the dough is proofing, take the sausage out of the casings and cook, breaking up the large chunks with a spoon with the onion and garlic until the onion is really soft and sausage is cooked through.  Use a slotted spoon to remove sausage and onions and leave the liquid in the pan (the extra liquid would make the pizza too wet).

To assemble:

- preheat the oven to 400F

- spread the cooked sausage/onion mixture along the bottom of the prepared pie crust

- add the slices of mozzarella evenly on top

- take the San Marzano tomatoes out of the juice in the can (discard the juice) and crush with your fingers over top of the cheese, spreading the tomatoes all over the top.

- sprinkle with the thyme (off the stalk) and the dried oregano and some cracked black pepper.

- bake until crust is golden brown (approximately 30-40 minutes in my oven).

Weekend photo recap

Busy, but enriching weekend.  On Friday night we took Momma D and Ehmdo to dinner at Pizzeria Libretto on the Danforth for Momma D's birthday.  I really love Libretto, especially the Danforth iteration, which takes reservations.  The food is consistent, the menu is appetizing, the food is well-executed, and the price is fair.  You can have a really nice meal for two with booze, all-in for under $100.  

The gnocchi fritti.  Little crispy balls of fried semolina (I think) gnocchi, with rosemary and a lemon cream smear on the bottom.

Siblings!

The porchetta appetizer.  I love this.  Pork belly, atop a square of their pizza dough, with chinotto (!!!) barbecue sauce, a tangle of arugala, cippolini onions, and best of all, thin slices of thai bird chilies.  Soooo good.

The Dotyron's salad of pancetta, arugala, pear, walnuts, brussels sprouts and a deep fried poached egg.

The Big Yam wearing Ehmdo's glasses.  He picked his own shirt to wear to daycare that day.  I figured that since I control every aspect of his life and tell him no so often, it's important to give him moments to have some agency.

We went to Riverdale Farm on Saturday and visited Poppa D at the Necropolis.  We saw all the animals running around.  The Big Yam was afraid of the chickens, which was kind of cute.  We also asked him what a cow says and he said, slowly and all sing-songy, "cooooooooooowww" and then followed it up with "mooo."  So cute!

On Saturday night we had S-Dawg over for dinner.  I made us a Passover-like meal of braised brisket with carrots and mushrooms.  Steamed green beans and a poppyseed kugel.  I made David Lebovitz's Chocolate Idiot Cake, which is flourless, rich, decadent, and dead easy.  It's embarrassingly easy and the results are to die for.  Served it with a dollop of crème fraîche to cut the richness a bit.  I can't stress enough what fantastic results this cake produces...it's definitely a recipe keeper.

Sunday morning brought a visit from this lil' lady with the cheeks that launched a thousand ships and the happiest, sweetest, open mouthed, sweet-lipped smile I've ever seen.

Coincidentally, it was National Eggs Benedict Day and I happened to make us tater tots eggs benny with crisped pancetta, avocado, and a lemony hollandaise.

Also, this happened.  All together now: awwwwwww!  

Sunday night we had dinner with K-Town and Bwonger and Dr. Rei at Banjara on Bloor West.  It was meh.  The food wasn't super-tasty, it was kind of expensive, and we got hosed into ordering too many parathas which were dry, wheaty, not that flaky, and not buttery enough.  We followed it up by heading to Menchie's for dessert.  Menchie's is a s**tshow.  Too many flavours, too many add-ins and the yogurt tastes really artificial.  I much prefer the fro-yo at Yutopia instead.  The taro flavour there is sooo good!  However, the trip to Menchie's did result in a lot of Dr. Rei lines about "Menchiewood" and how Menchie was way too into Menchiewood for his own good.

The Big Yam, as I've already mentioned, has a super-cute relationship with his Tai Poh (my Poh Poh).  They're basically like, best buds.  The last time we took her out for dinner with us, we dropped her off at home, I walked her to the door, and when I got back in the car, the Boobla lost his s**t.  He started crying and crying and calling out "Poh Poh! Poh Poh!" and was inconsolable for most of the ride home.  I think he thought we were getting out with her.  It was adorable slash heartbreaking.  Anyway, the Dotytron drew it to my attention the other day that the Big Yam has taken to kissing the photo of my grandma and grandpa that we keep in the living room.  So f**king cute, guys!

Fin.

Squeee!

Oh gosh, it's a gorgeous spring day out there and I've been listening to dancehall and feel virtuous because I went for a run (to mitigate the copious amounts of food I ate last night - more to be revealed!) and I am in love with the world!

Let's get rid of some outstanding business - this was Thursday night's dinner - the asparagus tartine with proscuitto, poached eggs, and shaved parm on top:

Last night we dropped off the Big Yam at Dr. Rei and Hanbo's for some babysitting while we went to see a documentary and apparently he gave them a REALLY hard time - which is making me stew with guilt. I feel so bad already imposing on people's generosity of spirit and then when he acts like a jerk it makes it even worse! I have to keep repeating my: "it takes a village" mantra silently in my head and know that when the time comes, the Dotytron and I will reciprocate like crazy (as if you could keep my grubby mitts away from baby Barksdale! I'm going to steal that baby!) The only thing that ended up calming him down was a ridiculous three person effort (Bwong showed up too!) where they ran the faucet, someone held him, and someone did a dance with his Sophie the giraffe. LOL!

We saw a documentary called Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo which is a lyrical piece in the "new filmmaking" tradition (according to the introductory preamble from one of the Hot Docs programmers) which talks about Japan's fixation with insects. Unlike us, in the Western world, who mostly fear and revile these tiny denizens of planet earth, it seems like in Japan, as part of the continuation of the Shinto and Buddhist beliefs and because of the tenuous nature of the environment (the statistic quoted in the film that Japan is 1/400th of the world's land mass but is home to 10% of the natural disasters elicited a respectful, almost awkward held breath amongst the screening audience - the film was made in 2009), that Japan has a long-held culturally ingrained relationship with nature that respects the circularity and interconnectedness of all things (the universe in an ant, bonsai, Zen gardens, etc.) so that they can see the entire beauty of the world in something minute. The problem with the film was that the "new filmmaking" apparently means the film goes on for 45 minutes longer than it has to, and that the director ignores several places where ending the film on a firm note of resolution would have been appropriate and sound. It also means that the filmmaker likes to bludgeon you over the head with images from people crossing Shibuya in Tokyo so that you know that people are like bugs!!!

This is what we ordered from Banjara Indian Cuisine in Christie Pitts. From left to right: bhendi masala (fried okra), andra chicken fry, butter chicken, dhal makhani, lamb vindaloo, and muttar paneer, onion bhajia. We also got parathas and naan and Dr. Rei made a million cups of rice and also yelled at Hanbo for rinsing the brown rice instead of white. The food here is really good - some of the dishes taste a little bit same-y (like the base for the butter chicken, muttar paneer, and dhal makhani), but the portions are pretty generous and they load it up with chunks of meat/cheese:

I made us pavlovas with rhubarb-blackberry compote for dessert:

Doesn't it look delicious? I nailed the meringue - crisp on the outside, chewy-marshmallowy-fluffy on the inside...so good.

Fin.

Weekend shenanigans

I'm realizing that being a parent means living your days measured by how many times your love for your child is re-set. One minute I'm wrestling a baby energetically playing bucking bronco in my arms and letting forth a ululating howl of unearthly volume directly in my ear; his tongue, vibrating in tandem with his screams, made visible by the open-mouthed, downturned lip of the dramatically, pathetically distressed. I'm letting out a stream of steady shushing noises the tenor of which has rapidly degraded from soothing to a furious seethe. Finally, blessedly, the baby sleeps. And sleeps. Napping for such an unprecedented jag that I managed to finish my readings for class tomorrow, prep dinner, do the dishes, AND shower uninterrupted. I peek in on him and he looks like this:

and at that point, you realize the wisdom of his being and clamber into bed beside him, your heart swelling, your previous anxiety seeming like a distant hallucination carried away by the regularity of his steady breaths and the wonder of his little fingers curled up into tiny fists.

My friend G gave me some sage advice this week - she reminded me to ENJOY EVERY MINUTE that I get with this bundle of sweetness. That while the urge to finish projects, clean the house, and all the other sundry noise pulling at my attention can be strong, that those things will wait and that I have a very limited window when he will be so focused on me, his mother. So I'm going to try to go against my essential being and relax a bit and rejoice in the fact that when the Dotytron and I are both vying for his attention, his gaze finds and fixes on me. That he reserves his most special smiles and happiest squawks for me. Because it's not going to be like this forever and when it's time to go over the ledger of my life, I'm going to be very willing to have my dishes-and-laundry-done column in the red if it means my nose-to-nose time with the Boobla is in the black.

He is so very, very, very sweet.

Friday night we had an early dinner - I made a lamb, eggplant, and chickpea stew flavoured with vaguely Middle Eastern spices and a rice pilaf with a crunchy layer of tadiq (the Persian - I think - name for the crunchy layer at the bottom of the rice), which I have been craving since I ate it for the first time when Dr. Rei's mom made it for me, like, 4 years ago. It's THE BEST. There are a lot of tricks to making it, the most important being that you have to use high quality, WHITE basmati rice (in a nod to the Dotytron's long-held preference for white rice over brown). I added some grated carrot and saffron, but next time I might do a proper pilau and add sultanas and pistachios and caramelized onions as well. Fluffy white basmati rice IS addictive, especially when it's accompanied by the textural contrast of a butter-browned, slowly crisped, crunchy pita hat:

We narrowly lost our dodgeball game on Friday. We have a lot of new people on the team this year and we seem to have a pretty strong divide between people who are playing to win and who want to play "for fun." Now, as I've mentioned before, I have a REALLY hard time playing "for fun." I also have a REALLY hard time listening to strategies from players on my team whose understanding of the game is shaky at best. But ultimately, I'm just grateful to be playing again, so I'm trying to curb less sportsmanlike impulses. It is exceedingly frustrating when your team doesn't heed your hard-earned nuggets of dodgeball wisdom though.

On Sunday we went to Momma & Poppa D's house for a birthday brunch for Ehmdo. Momma D made us "daisies" which are eggs cooked in a cream sauce made to look like a daisy. They were most delicious. We also had fruit and I contributed monkey bread. Nany was there too and was totally taken with the monkey bread (as is everyone I've ever made it for):

Then we came home and hung out until the Goosetang clan came over to watch the Super Bowl. We pooled our resources and made a random assortment of foods: crockpot meatballs in bbq sauce, baked brie with pepper jelly, chips & Helluva Good dip, corn chips with guacamole and salsa, baba ghanouj and pita, and these homemade "kit kat" bars that are a Paula Deen recipe - they're freaking amazing...I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Watching the Super Bowl was jokes. We didn't really pay attention to it and instead had a hilarious time consisting of many soon-to-be classic gems, among them:

- trying to come up with a working definition of constipation

- a lengthy discussion about how after I tricked the Dotytron into singing the Beach Boys' Kokomo with me, we decided that our life's mission was to go to all the Kokomo places in Kokomo order (Kokomo itself will be the hardest to execute). This then segued into a conversation about the Kokomo state of mind and how difficult it is to maintain.

- a rousing game of Bananagrams

- Hanbo turning to me and saying, semi-sarcastically, "so, are you excited for the Black Eyed Peas half-time show?" fully expecting me to say "no!" and being somewhat taken aback by my wide-eyed enthusiasm when I said, with the utmost sincerity, "YES!!!" (my logic is that it's better than Bruce Springsteen, or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers).

- During said half-time show, watching Will.I.Am's antics, I uttered the phrase, "I can't believe Will.I.Am wanted to be the mayor of Haiti"

- A prolonged discussion about the ethnicity of the fourth, oft-overlooked member of BEP (ie. not Will.I.Am, not Fergie, not the Vampire guy - the black-ish [me]/possibly Filipino [the Dotytron] dude who never gets featured).

Today is all about eating vegetables and fruit and getting our cholesterol count back in order. For dinner tonight we're having a curried sweet potato soup with a big spinach salad with all kinds of goodness chopped up in there.

Fin.

maternity leave diaries

so far, so good. it takes me a billion years longer to do everything, but i'm finding the days are FLYING past, which wasn't what i was expecting at all. i think it's because the non stop schedule of the boob show (every 3 hours, on the hour) and the duration of the feedings (anywhere from 10-30 minutes if he's being a greedy goompa) means that you do one task and then it's time to feed. it's like, put on the laundry, feed. do the dishes, feed. answer emails, feed. and then before you know it, the dotytron is home from work and it's dinner time and since we go to bed at like, 9:30pm now, the day is done. the one thing i'm having trouble fitting in is my readings for school - i basically front-loaded all my public admin readings so that i'm caught up through to the midterm on november 3rd, but i haven't done a lick of my constitutional law readings. whoops. i'm tempted to take this week off. anyway, i'm slowly finding a schedule that's working for me and the little chicken.

all that being said, two nights ago he was up from 11-3pm every 40 minutes wanting to feed for 7 or 10 minutes at a time. i broke down into tears and totally understood why sometimes people shake babies. I'M NOT GONNA, i'm just SAYIN', aight? no need to call CAS just yet.

our first outing yesterday was exciting (not). library and then ceili cottage for the CSA. whooooooo. today we're going to extend our scope and try to hit shopper's. we basically LIVE at shopper's now. although my friends G and Mhui hepped me to this online drugstore, well.ca which is an online drugstore with FREE DELIVERY, NO MINIMUM. wtf?!? talk about BEST! apparently it's Mhui's hubby's cousin's company and the kid is a real go-getter. he made brickbreaker - the one that's on the blackberry. these kinds of "celebrity" sightings seriously make my day. it's like when i met the guy whose cousin made the popeye's biscuit recipe. it's like standing in the shadow of giants, for me. lol!

i've been doing a little bit of cooking here and there, even though people have been amazing about bringing us delicious food - this is what we've had lately:

the dotytron made us turkey noodle casserole - total old skool styles. we're talking cream of mushroom soup in there, egg noodles, mayonnaise, celery, mushrooms. so good!

i made cornbread to go with a chili i made (not pictured) so the next morning we had a real french canadian breakfast - toasted corn bread with butter and maple syrup and peameal bacon.

dr. rei was a true bff and made us a delicious borscht with chunks of beef. it was soo good!

to go with we had a mesclun salad with gorgonzola-stuffed, pancetta wrapped figs

this is an awesome breakfast. you take leftover stuffing, pat it into cakes, brown the cakes on both sides in olive oil and butter, and topped with a (preferably) runny fried egg. so so so good.

fall/winter = prime time cookie baking time for me. i made us snickerdoodles.

this is almond frangipane stuffed, challah french toast with maple syrup poached apples. it's based on something i saw popping up on food blogs just before thanksgiving weekend, which was brioche smeared with frangipane and baked in the oven. the sandwiching method didn't work out so well, truth be told. i think this will work better as a baked french toast - next time.

sunday was a goosetang dinner. we had takeout from bamiyan kabob which is fast becoming one of my favorite restos. i had the sultani combo, which features kofta (ground beef kabob) and a skewer of barg (filet mignon kabob) and we also got this potato-herb stuffed flatbread which was divine.

for dessert on sunday i made us fried apple fritters. i used macintosh apples in the filling which was a mistake - they cook down to mush and made the batter overly wet. next time i'll know better. i slathered the thing in toffee bourbon sauce and ice cream, so at that point, you'd eat a dirty diaper and think it was delicious.

here's your chicken photo of the day:

he's starting to smile!

the dotytron is making my heart explode every day. last night, i left him with a crying chicken while i heated up my dinner. i come back, and the dotytron announces to me proudly, "my new technique for quieting him down is to assault him with kisses." me: "does it work?" the dotytron, "not really, but it definitely confuses him for a little bit." *demonstrates by showering the boobla with kisses all over his face and torso* *rainbow daggers in my heart*

fin.

visa revoked

we're back. with 9 weeks to go until the fatburger's birthday, i don't think we'll be undertaking any additional travelling out of town for the time being, especially because i'm a frugal little parker and the idea of getting jacked by the u.s. of a. should i give birth there doesn't sit right with me.

it was a very fruitful mission though! what fun! i'm so glad my family family and my friends family get along so well. with travelling companions like dr. rei and hanbo, you can't really go wrong.

thursday night the four of us plus rico went to see rush, who were playing the grandstand at the NYSF. this is us en route:

pretty cute pic, huh? that night was pure hilarity. some notable events that transpired:


- my first gianelli sausage on a bun (pictured above)
- the dotytron, upon seeing the gianelli sausage mascot, exclaiming, "that pig looks like lagerfeld!"


- rico, overcome with joy, exclaiming, "you know what i love about this place? there's just, so much, beer!"
- deep fried oreos which went down EASY - seriously guys, those things are murderation:


- when rush was playing new material off their "forthcoming album", rico: "THEY'RE BORING EVERYONE"
- dr. rei, when rush was showing some really sub-par CGI to accompany one of their lesser-known numbers: "where did they get that from, REBOOT?!?"

we hung in there long enough to hear all the tunes we wanted, but not so long that we would end up getting caught in the post-second-encore traffic clusterf**k.

the drive home was EPIC. in so many ways. first of all, on the way out, the dotytron was pretty drunken and i was sober and tired so a little fed up with his his tipsy antics. he scattered off at one point to go into the bovine barn and pet a cow, and i had to go grab him because everyone was waiting for him so that we could find our car and leave. when i hissed at him that he shouldn't be petting a prize cow, he said to me, "this cow. understands me." and kept repeating it pretty much all the way to the car.

lol! then we started the drive home. the NYSF is in syracuse, which is about 1 1/2 hours away from geneseo. dr. rei offered to drive since she wasn't drunk. the dotytron basically passed out about 10 minutes into the drive, waking up only every now and then to open the window on the interstate (which totally stresses me out). so the whole ride home consisted of me, stressing out that the dotytron was going to puke in the car, and then hissing over hanbo (who was a gentleman and offered to ride the hump in the backseat) for ian to close the window. the dotytron also got a bad case of the hiccups and would occasionally be mumbling incoherent nonsense to himself, which only made me and hanbo all the more worried that the drunken mumbling and hiccups were a precursor to imminent ralphing.

then rico fell asleep in the front seat and i told dr. rei to take the next exit, but then we started gossiping, and then dr. rei missed the exit, which resulted in us taking an HOUR LONG detour to get back home. rico woke up almost immediately as dr. rei said, "uh, is that the exit i should be taking?" and then felt really bad for falling asleep. then dr. rei told us that her contacts were actually the wrong prescription and that it's really hard for her to see the signs at night, in other words, that she was basically driving as blind as a naked mole rat. so we took this MASSIVE detour to get home through these back road streets that culminated in everyone apologizing for the extra travel time. everyone, that is, except for the dotytron, who conveniently woke up in time to complain about how long the trip was taking. the rotten thing about missing that one exit, is that the next one is a billion miles away. it's the worst.

so we're driving down this country road, and then rico says, "whoa!" and we put the brakes on to see a FAMILY OF DEER crossing in front of our car, with a little wee baby deer as the caboose. then the outlaw bro (aka rico) rolls down the windown and screams: "CA-CAW!" to make sure that any additional deer keep a wide berth.

at this point it's like, 1 am and we're about 5 minutes away from home. rico directs dr. rei to turn left, the dotytron pipes up: "there's no way to make a left here" and then dr. rei TURNS RIGHT. lol!!! it was hilarious. the look rico gave her when she turned right INSTEAD of turning left, accompanied by the commentary, "i'm pretty sure i couldn't have been clearer to TURN LEFT" had us all howling. so then she did a million point turn and got us home and we're never going to speak of that drive again. so good.



on friday goosetang was left to their own devices during the day, which meant that we met up with dr. rei and hanbo and initiated them into the glories of aunt cookie's subs. this was after going on a field trip to wegman's where we loaded up on lil' debbie snack cakes and deli salads (i've been all about the deli salads lately). the combination of aunt cookie's, a late night, and oatmeal cream pies then resulted in us snoozing on my sis' couches watching the latter half of "mallrats" and most of "teen wolf" before venturing into town to do some shopping at target and the like.

my sis is the cutest. she got dr. rei a wegman's cake to celebrate her becoming a doctor.





saturday was NYSF day. these pictures basically sum it up. we ate a billion deep fried things...i personally tasted: deep fried pickles (thumbs up!); deep fried veggie combo (thumbs up!); deep fried pb&j sammy (thumbs up!); deep fried twinkie (okay); deep fried nutter butter (thumbs up!); deep fried cheese curds (thumbs up!); deep fried reese's peanut butter cup (thumbs up!); deep fried grilled cheese sandwich (not my favorite but other people liked it); a corn dog; skinny fries; a clam boat (deep fried clams in a soft roll w/ tartar sauce); funnel cake.

then we drove home and ate at the CHEESECAKE FACTORY. zomg. it was insane. i had an appetizer order of crab cakes and split the dotytron's salad, but STILL guzzled a vanilla cheese cake slice because i'm mental like that. the cheesecake factory cheesecake is damned near irresistible.

sunday we had breakkie at brian's and then rico got his revenge on dr. rei by sending them off with the wrong directions for a scenic route out of town. lol! they managed to chase them down and right the wrong though.

usually we stay til the bitter end in geneseo because we love it so, but we couldn't because the dotytron wanted monday to prep for school and get our lives back in order. we stopped at ikea on the way home to pick up the shelving for the fatburger's room, that i'm also using to make up for my reduced lack of desk space. it looks good! things are totally coming together. i also bought the ikea komplement drawer organizers and i'm practically swooning with joy. who knew that something so unassuming could make me so happy?

i originally had them in the fatburger's dresser, so that little wee socks wouldn't get muddled up with onesies and sleepers and washcloths and cloth diaper covers...but today has been a swoony day of reorganizing, vacuuming, and cleaning, and i ended up using them to organize my work socks (so mundane, but for me, utterly thrilling). i'm totally going to snag some more. they're kind of miraculous.

it's been nice getting our lives back in order. i love a clean house and fresh sheets on the bed and my fall clothes switched with my summer clothes and all the other stupid things that other people mightily resent having to do on a statutory holiday that i perversely go apes**t for.


it's also been nice getting our diet back in order. this morning i had whole grain toast with boiled eggs and for a snack a multigrain pita with baba ghanouj and a banana strawberry and blueberry smoothie with flax oil. for dinner tonight i made us a caponata pasta with whole wheat penne: fried eggplant, grape tomatoes, olives, garlic, and basil.

the dotytron is all excited about bringing "big salads" to work for lunch so we prepped the stuff for this week's iteration - black beans, corn, tomatoes, green onions, mixed greens, shredded oaxaca cheese, and boiled eggs, dressed in a cumin-chimichurri dressing. i think it's going to be pretty damn tasty - i might start hopping on board that train.

goodbye summer! hello fall!

fin.