Charles in charge.

It's very non chill being misrepresented in a professional capacity because, in part, I suspect that guys have the tendency to focus all their aggression on a woman, even if a woman and a man are saying the EXACT SAME THING.  

Am I loud?  Yes.  Am I outspoken?  Yes.  Have I been that way since pretty much birth?  Yes.  Am I confident in my brains and my professional judgment?  Yes.  Do I feel this is something I should apologize for, or curb?  AW HELL NO.  

I've had a very trying time, the past week and a half.  But there have been bright spots.  

Like: Dr. Rei and I hatching a plan for an awesome project together, and by extension, me being continuously nourished and sustained by this beautiful, strong, funny, smart woman's counsel, commiseration, and support.

 Like: we had my mum over for a birthday celebration for her and ate Sukho Thai takeout and I presented her with a coconut bundt cake that she didn't care for.  

Like: we took the kids to the Zoo on Friday.  We had a really fun time and it was all around splendid. At the gorilla enclosure one of the male gorillas, Sadiki, was standing right at the glass and I met his eyes for a solid 30 seconds, and I don't know what happened...but I started welling up.  He just held my gaze and the meaning behind his eyes was so primordial, still, and all-knowing...it triggered the Romantic sublime in me, and I just felt overcome.  It's like that scene in Mulholland Drive where the women are are sitting in the theatre and listening to a woman singing a Spanish (?) version of Roy Orbison's "Crying" and one of the women watching just starts to cry and cry, tears spilling silently down her face.  It was such a deep moment, and after, I felt so calm, and centred.  

The other night we were watching Broad City and I had one of my mortality moments and I felt my blood pressure skyrocket and that panicky, IDON'TWANTTODIEEVER feeling in the pit of my chest, which is usually how it goes when I think about dying.  After staring into the eyes of the gorilla though, I was acutely aware that the feeling I had when he assessed my soul, were I to think about my own mortality and death (which I did, immediately thereafter - Romantic sublime again), would carry over and I would feel peace and that maybe this is what people feel like when they're about to die.  Maybe if the conditions are right, you're not filled with panic and dread, but you tap into the ancient gorilla-gaze that lies dormant in the deepest recesses of your brain and soul.

Carrying on.

Like: we went to Barque for brunch with the kids on Sunday morning and hit the Jamie Bell adventure playground to burn off some kid steam right before.  It was such a nice morning and Barque is so kid friendly.  Like, I knew they were kid friendly because we had gone there when the Big Yam was young, but kid-friendly enough to handle a table of 5 featuring three kids to two adults is like, next level kid friendly.  They have little mini packs of play-doh for each kid!    Anyway, the kid's menu had scrambled eggs or pancakes (and some other stuff that were non-options for my guys).  I ordered pancakes for the Twins, and I asked the Big Yam what he wanted.  "Scrambled eggs."  "Are you sure?  You don't usually like scrambled eggs when I make them at home."  "Scrambled eggs."  "You're sure you don't want pancakes?" "Yes, I want scrambled eggs."  

Scrambled eggs are placed in front of him.  He glances at his brothers' pancake plates and his face crumples in abject dejection and he wails, "Awww...I should've ordered pancakes!" and then he buries his face in the Dotytron's chest and cries, "Now I wish I didn't order scrambled eggs!" and maybe there's something wrong with me, but the crushing realization of his own error in judgment was very hilarious.

Like: Twin A's new deep-throated belly laugh.

Like: Twin A's singing along to his auntie's song in his little wispy voice.

Like: Twin B's standard greeting of "Hell-lo" when you enter the room.  As well as his new thing of saying, "aww" in this funny, aggressive kind of way.  And also saying, "alright" to agree with you.

Like: the Dotytron and I getting a night out for ourselves, midweek, thanks to the babysitting services of one Momma D.  We went to Imanishi Japanese Kitchen, a new Japanese izakaya-type place.  The space is really pretty - kind of serene Japanese-rustic...like we were in a tavern in the Japanese countryside.  I think it's run by ex Kinka (née Guu) dudes.  The food was good, but not great, and while I liked eating izakaya-type food in a quiet, adult space, I thought the execution at Kinka is much better - the fish carpaccios are more inventive and the flavours make more sense at Kinka.  The standout dish at Imanishi was the corn tempura, and everything else was okay, but not as satisfying as the Kinka experience.

This was grilled sting ray fin with a dipping sauce.  This dish was a flop.  It was chewy and lightly charred but the texture was off and the flavour was vaguely funky, but not in a good way.  

You can't go wrong with fried oysters.

I didn't take a picture of every dish, but we got the beef carpaccio, and the whitefish crudo, the aforementioned corn tempura (so lacy and salty and addictive), and perfectly cooked octopus balanced against the crunchy brightness of celery.  

That's a good summary of my bright spots.  Friends, family, and food.  Pretty on-brand, I'd say.

Fin.

In Like A Lion

I have many, many back posts either half or three-quarters drafted, or spooling around in my head, and yet, only 5 posts in 2015 to speak of.  Time is a bit precious around here, as you can imagine, and March has been a bit of a doozy.

I started a new job.  The process of getting this job was a bit fraught (I'll explain later).  I'm on loan from my regular job for a 9 month secondment with the Ministry of Magic, doing policy work, for which I had to take a pay cut (which smarts).  On the plus side, I've already stretched myself and learned how to do new things (hello, finessing a cost-sharing model in Excel, when you don't have access to Youtube tutorials or the data sets on which the model was based? All the fun!).  I've also felt stupid almost every day that I've been there and there has been more than one occasion where I've been left squirming under the steely gaze of my director, giving me feedback on a briefing note I produced that's been marked up beyond all recognition, as she waits for me to explain why something is "germane" to the paper.  All the fun!  Starting a new job, it's not nothing.  New work environment, new colleagues, new administrative and operational processes (where's the lunch room?  What time do people eat?  Is it okay to leave at 5 when I got there at 8:30?) ALL THE FUN!

It's probably a contributing factor to the eczema flare ups on my face?  Just guessing?  After 8 years at one job, it was easy to be a rock star.  My days were predictable, as were expectations, and I was in a comfortable position.  Having to "fight" (in a sense) again - to figure out my position and how to be good at something requiring a whole new skill set is good for me in the long run, which is why I took this job, even with an inopportunely timed pay cut (did I mention that 3 months into 2015, we are on track to spend FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on childcare? All the fun!)

So there's that.  Then, Captain Save-A-Ho finally kicked the bucket.  After saving many hoes, true, but also AFTER we spent $500 putting a new muffler on him.  So now we have to buy a new (used) car.  On the same day we made that fateful decision, I was replacing the windshield wipers on Eddie Van Halen, and cracked the windshield and we had to replace that (did I mention I took a pay cut?  And FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on childcare?)

On that same day (yes, this series of unfortunate events is still going), I took Boddington into the veterinarian because he had been looking unwell, and it turns out we had to put him down. He had lost 7 lbs since his last visit (almost 2 years ago), and the doctor said she would run up a quote for diagnostics (almost $2000), but that there was a likelihood that what she found wasn't going to be treatable.

Imagine how I felt.  Imagine what it feels like that this member of your family (for 12 years!) had gotten so sick and you didn't notice until it was too late.  The vet did her best to make me feel better (cats try to hide illness, it's common for the pet owner not to notice gradual weight loss, etc), but when you're holding that little furry body and they're listless and you're trying to comfort this creature in its last moments, you feel like total hell.

RIP, Boddington.  You were the cat that the Dotytron and I got when we first moved in together.  We called you "Big Nose."  You had already been adopted out and then someone brought you back and for some reason, we decided to take you even knowing that.  You were super affectionate and had a poor sense of boundaries (the Roomie called your signature move "face rape").  You were possibly on the spectrum and you did gross things like obsessively like the back of the toilet, lick the tub scum after a shower, and lick the corner of a window repeatedly until we could hear the squeak of your dry tongue on the dry glass.  You were also endlessly forgiving of the torment of three children over the last years of your life, and you gave Smudge (who loves being a father figure) something to dote over.  You were a greedy goomba who was very particular about how full your food bowl was, and you were riddled with anxiety.  You are missed.

After my second week on the job, we went to Disney World.  With two toddlers.  And a four year old (that's three under 4, if you're keeping track).  Our flight over was direct (from Buffalo).  What I didn't know about flying Southwest is that it's "open seating."  You can't reserve seats and you pay an extra $20/ticket/direction in order to get on in the first grouping to get the best pick of seats.  Families and people who require special assistance are seated between the A group and the B group.  We managed to get all five of us in a 3-seat row (babies were going to be on our laps), but then we found out that we're not allowed to have 5 in a 3 seat row as there's only 4 masks.  Gah!  Our flight attendant was kind enough to occupy the extra seat in the 3 seat row while the Dotytron moved across the aisle with the Quincess.  We ended up having that seat extra so the flight there was pretty smooth, all things considered:

We arrived in the afternoon.  We stayed on-resort (the only way to do it, IMO), and got picked up by the Disney shuttle.  We rented a stroller and picked it up at our hotel and then headed off to our first park, the Animal Kingdom, where we had planned a 1/2 day.  The good thing about staying on-resort is that Disney has special buses to transport you from the hotel, and they'll drop off your luggage at your hotel for you.  All we had to do was pick up our "magic bands" (which is linked to my credit card and has all our itinerary/dining information linked to it) and head off.

The Animal Kingdom is one of the weaker of the various parks within Disney World.  It's pretty much a big zoo.  There's some thrill rides (a roller coaster, a Jurassic-park-type dinosaur experience) that were too intense for our crew, so we went on their wilderness safari, had a Dole whip, and called it a day.  The safari was super fun - The animals are pretty much free to wander around (the docile ones at any point) and we saw cheetahs, wildebeast, giant bull type things (which had Lindsey shouting "PIIIIIIIIIG!" in ecstasy) and lions, zebras, etc.  It's pretty cool and was a nice way to ease into the experience.  

Here's the thing with people who don't stay on resort to save a few bucks - you're honestly better off saving money for a longer period of time, until you can afford to stay on resort.  And get the meal plan!  Paying for food on the park is so expensive!  $12 for a tuna sandwich?!  There are many, many ways to maximize your meal plan credits (and so many blogs from Disney psychos to guide you through the process), that it's well worth it in the end.  Travel from the resorts to the parks, on the Disney buses, can often take 30-45 minutes.  If you had to park your car?!?  And walk to it?  And then had to stay at the park ALL DAY (without a hotel break) to maximize your dollars?!?  Why would you do that to yourself?  YOLO.  

Day 2 was a day at the Magic Kingdom.  Going into this trip, the Dotytron and I made a solemn pact that we WEREN'T GOING TO BE CRAZY.  That meant that we would be chill - whatever happened, happened.  The money was spent - there was no going back, so there was no point stressing about the trip.  Knowing the Big Yam and knowing that he's a bit of a scaredy cat, and also is not into meeting characters, allowed us to book our "fast passes" (which allow you to jump the queue at particular attractions during hour-long blocks of time) in advance, knowing what would give us the best ROI.  We would eat a snack at our hotel, go to the parks as close to opening time as possible, then either go on rides we already had later fast passes for (but that we knew would have a big pay-off for the Big Yam, so he would want to ride it twice, and would be able to with the fast pass) or would have epic line-ups later.  Then we would do our fast pass schedule and hit some things that were more low key, then eat lunch at the park.  We would return back to the hotel for a mid-day swim (when Orlando is at it's most blistering), a nap, and then back out for dinner and a walk before a late bedtime.  It was the best possible way we could have managed things.

We discovered a place that had LOBSTER ROLLS as a counter service meal on our meal plan, and we hit that up (twice).  Other people were using their meal credits for the aforementioned tuna sandwich (why?!).  We obviously had Dole pineapple whips (twice!)

Despite making the best of the trip, it was challenging travelling with this many kids and in this age range.  It is an incredibly overstimulating environment - for them and us.  Then you add the heat, and the disruption of the routine, and the fact that the Dotytron and I hadn't been full-time parents to all three for this duration in months, and it was exhausting.  You don't go to Disney for a break, that's for sure.  I saw parents who seemed to be having a wonderful time and I'd ask how old their kids were and they'd say "12 and 9" - which makes sense.  Two toddlers and a 4 year old?  It's insanity.  We were getting side-eye from like, Mormon families with 12 kids, because all their kids were older.  

Orlando department of transportation says you have to fold up strollers on the buses, which meant every time we went to a park, we would stroll over to the bus stop, then I'd wear a baby, hold another baby while the Dotytron folded up the stroller and grabbed all the crap we had stowed underneath, and I would hustle the Big Yam onto the bus while the Dotytron tried to find a place to put the stroller.  I'd say that 60% of the time, people were kind enough to give up a seat for us or the Big Yam.  The overwhelming obesity problem in the US means that very often, people weren't giving up their seats because they actually needed it more than us (sorta).  I met another woman who was saying that they'd been to Disney about 5 or 6 times and they loved it.  It had apparently gotten to the point where her kids were old enough so that she and her husband went out and had a "nice dinner and a glass of wine" and she was saying how wonderful it was.  I just thought to myself, if you're idea of living it up is a nice dinner and glass of wine at Disney, then lady, you need to expand your definition of travel.

The food is good, FOR DISNEY.  As far as theme parks go, I can say unequivocally that it's the best.  It's so family friendly, and they set up all these smart things to make your trip as nice as possible.  The people they hire are very nice and have the patience of saints, even when they're treated abysmally by the guests.  But would I go there if I didn't have kids?  Hells, no.  We've been there, done that.  It is ONLY worth it for the kids.  Even at that, when the Dotytron and I were tallying things up at the end of the trip, it was only reasonably affordable because we didn't have to pay for the babies' flights/park tickets/most meals.  If we factored that in, we would have spend almost 10K, at which point, I would rather go someplace that's more stimulating for ME.  Picturing Disney as an adult escape is very, very odd to me, even if I did get to eat a cronut!  

Big Yam had no interest in meeting characters, but for some reason, the Dotytron was so enthralled at the fact that we were positioned so close to Belle from Beauty and the Beast that I came back to a camera with more than a few Belle back-side shots.

Look at how haggard having kids has made the Dotytron! 

Sunglasses hide everything!

Quincess turning it on at 10pm for the money shot.

 

Our flight home was a nightmare.  We flew out of Orlando at 6pm to Baltimore.  We'd already had a full day of the Magic Kingdom and the flight straddled baby bed time.  The Quincess dropped a deuce around 7pm and then we hit turbulence so the fasten seatbelt light was on and I couldn't go anywhere and he wailed for a solid hour.  I got some nasty looks from this lady in front of us.  Listen - if you're on a flight with someone with a crying baby, THEY ALREADY FEEL BAD ENOUGH.  Glaring doesn't help!  Also, WE PAID THE EXACT SAME FOR OUR SEATS, YOUR HIGHNESS, so can it.  Then, our connecting flight from Baltimore to Buffalo was delayed by 2+ hours.  We didn't end up arriving in Buffalo until close to 2 in the morning, and we didn't get home to Toronto until around 4am.  It was brutal and made the Dotytron swear off flying anywhere for the next 10 years.

That was my March in a nutshell.  I'm waiting for some out like a lamb action any time soon.

Fin.

March Broke

March Break started officially last Friday with a PA Day that I had been anxiously longing for with all the fervour of a Jehovah's Witness awaiting the Rapture.  What I had pictured was: me sitting with my feet up while the Dotytron took on the daily gamut of changing, feeding, clothing, and the Big Yam ablutions/wrestling that passes for mornings around here.  Trips downtown with the Dotytron to try some new restaurants with only 2 of our 3 children in tow.  Working on my long-in-the-waiting quilt.  Catching up on our current TV addiction, The Good Wife (WHY ARE WE SO HOOKED ON The Good Wife?!  It is a question for the ages.  We don't particularly like any of the characters, and yet, it goes down SO EASY.  It's like our nightly glass of warm milk.  We can't stay away, even as we know that we don't exactly fit the target demographic of like, 40-50 year old women who have outgrown Grey's Anatomy)

After a rough few days with me playing single mom (not very graciously mind) to four babies, everyone was officially on the mend as of Monday and we got back on track.  The weekend wasn't a complete write off - despite the fact that I was a cranky grump and kept accusing the Dotytron of having weak genetic material (he does!  He gets sick ALL THE TIME!) - I took the babies with me to dinner at our friend B & G's house on Saturday night and had a lovely time.  I spent a morning doing some home science experiments with the Big Yam.  Standard stuff - celery in food colouring water, coloured water moving up a paper towel, etc.  It was a big hit.  But the biggest hit by far was making "clouds" make rain.  I filled up a glass trifle bowl with water and filled the top with shaving cream.  Then I had him put drip dropperfuls of coloured water on top until the shaving cream "rained" the water.  It was pretty awesome.  A solid half hour of quiet time.  We went to see the Big Yam's final dance recital with his completed hip hop routine.  I cooked a giant batch of bolognese Sunday night (never unerdestimate the restorative powers of bolognese and pappardelle).  When I told the Big Yam that we had re-enrolled him in ballet and hip hop for next session, we were talking about his dance class in general and mentioned something about him getting to wear his ballet shoes again.  Then he says, "But what about...about...the...shirts the other girls wear?"  Me: "Do you want one of the skirts that the other girls wear?"  Him: "Yes."  Awww, what a sweetie!  I'm going to make him one.  He just wants to be like the other kids in the class, and why not?  I like that he's so innocent of gender conventions at the moment and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.  It's going to be taken from him all too soon, so why not let him live in this blissful little bubble for a while longer?

Monday evening we took the Big Yam to the aquarium again.  He was sooo excited.  It was the Dotytron's first time there.  I'm not sure if we're going to be regulars there.  Zoos and aquariums make us feel really conflicted, from an ethics standpoint, more now that we recently watched that documentary Blackfish on Netflix.  THE NAME TILIKUM WILL HAUNT YOU ALL.  At it's heart, Blackfish is about how orcas, or other marine mammals shouldn't be in captivity, that it stresses them out, and that it leads to them attacking their trainers.  The doc follows the life of an orca male named Tilikum, who has caused the deaths of a few people and how basically SeaWorld is completely unethical and unscrupulous in terms of warning their trainers of the whales' history and taking adequate safety precautions.  We watched it with SMckay who came over on Wednesday night.  It made the Dotytron super-upset.  SMckay: "I hope someone gets a gun and just shoots Tilikum."  Dotytron: "I HOPE TILIKUM GETS THE GUN AND STARTS SHOOTING PEOPLE!"  LOL!  The image of the orca, holding a gun and mowing down his oppressors is so funny to me.

The Toronto Aquarium doesn't have any marine mammals, but there are some questions about how they procured some sand sharks in their stable that are listed as "endangered."  Basically, peeps are like, "if they're so 'endangered' why you be grabbing them from the ocean, sons?"  Which seems legit.  The whole existence of zoos and aquariums is problematic.  On the one hand, is it better to let these species die off in the wild due to overfishing, hunting, habitat degradation and express their innate animal natures?  Or, is it better to put a few of them in zoos so that people can see them, empathize, be exposed, and hopefully participate in conservation efforts?

The Wonder Twins have been hitting mad milestones lately.  They both can sit up.  Lindsay Lou-Lou is crawling.  Quincess does this reverse inchworm manoeuvre where he arches his back and slides along the floor using his helmet as an anchoring point.  It's not exactly kosher according to his physiotherapist.  Both of them have their bottom two teeth poking out.

Two weeks ago, we hit Ryoji Ramen & Izakaya with my mum and her posse.  Those ladies are a hoot.  It was our first time there.  It's a very spacious izakaya, as far as a baby-friendly option goes, and they do Okinawa-style ramen.  One of my mum's friends is Japanese and spoke highly of the food there.  They do a lot of dishes that you don't see at the other izakayas in Toronto, and it's good to have a family(ish) friendly option.  It was pretty empty on the Monday night that we went, and I figured it'd be safe to roll up with a large-ish group as long as you avoided Thursday through Saturday.

Their in-house made cold tofu.  A texture like bouncy custard, topped with a delicious sweet soy.  So good.

Stir-fried bitter melon with egg and bonito.  Also delicious and wonderfully balanced between bitter and sweet.

The shio ramen - the broth at Ryoji is by far the most delicate and subtle of the Toronto ramen restaurants broths.  It's really nice and not overly salted, unlike a lot of other places.  I liked the lightness of the broth, but I do like the full, meaty flavour of the Sansotei's best, still.

Yesterday was a day of FUN.  We took the Big Yam to daycare and had brunch at Bar Buca.  Faithful readers of my blog know that I wasn't the biggest fan of Buca.  But Bar Buca really dials it in.  It's an all day spot - open from 7am until 2am, with food meant for snacking and sharing, to be paired with espresso-based drinks in the morning and wine in the evening.  The dishes we really liked at Buca were the small plates of appetizers and fried things, and at Bar Buca, the entire menu is made up of these.  I'd definitely go back.

Fried artichokes with a lemon zabaglione

They serve a bunch of spiedini (skewers).  This was octopus (so tender!) and soppressata, on top of a potato puree

Stuffed foccacias also make up a section of the menu.  These were both outstanding.  So tasty.  The bread was nice and crisped from a time in the oven, lightly salted (and consequently a big hit with the Wonder Twins), and a perfectly neutral vehicle for the satisfying fillings.  One had bresaola, pickled eggplant, and buffalo ricotta, and the other had thinly shaved porchetta, mascarpone, mayonnaise, and apple mostarda.  So good!  

We also stopped by Forno Cultura and got some of their pastries.  I love Italian pastries.  Not too sweet, lots of cream fillings.  Divine.  That being said, I don't like this place as much as I liked the Terroni offshoot, Sud Forno.  Mainly because Sud Forno has bombolone.  

Dinner/baking catch-up:

Shrimp, crab, and andouille gumbo for Mardi Gras!  Served with brown rice.  Didn't get a chance to get filé powder, but it was still delicious.

Made churros for Mardi Gras as well.

And funnel cakes the next day?  Why not?

This is the gluten free almond, lemon, ricotta cake, the recipe for which I've posted below.  One of the best gluten-free desserts I've ever had.

Dinner we had when SMckay visited - devilled chicken thighs (oven baked, boneless skinless chicken thighs dipped in a mixture of melted butter, minced garlic, and a boatload of dijon mustard, then dredged in panko mixed with grated parmesan cheese).  Creamed spinach, freezer stuffing, green beans.

Tonight is takeout night so we're trying the new Mother's Dumplings that opened on the Danforth.  I will say that the prices at Mother's Dumplings are kinda high, for dumplings.  But I'm glad that it's close.

Fin.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Gluten Free Lemon, Almond, Ricotta Cake

serves 8-10

1/2 c. (or 1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/4 c. lemon zest

4 eggs, separated and at room temperature (but it's not going to kill you if you pull them from the fridge)

2 1/2 c. ground almonds

300 g. ricotta (or 10.5 oz).  I used light ricotta with no ill effects

flaked almonds & powdered sugar for topping

- line the bottom of an 8" cake pan with a parchment round.  I also lined the sides, but I don't think that'd be necessary in the future

- cream the butter and sugar together on high until light and fluffy.  Add the lemon zest.  Add the egg yolks one at a time, then the almond meal.  Add the ricotta and mix until just combined.

- meanwhile, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  Fold in 3 batches into the almond mixture.

- pour into your prepared pan, and top with flaked almonds.  

- bake in a preheated 325F oven for about 45 minutes - 1 hour.  The original recipe called for 40-45 minutes but I found that it took almost 1 hour 15 minutes in my oven.  You're looking for nice golden browning on the top (without burning the almonds) and for the cake to be firm all the way through to the centre.  

- Cool on rack and serve from the pan dusted with powdered sugar, or you can do what I do and invert it so that you can put the cake on a pretty plate.