Oh Hai

Remember me?  What's been going on with you?

I have a kitchen reno post all spooled up, an epic book review post, and now this general catch-up post.

I lost track of time and then all of a sudden December was upon us, with all that "December" entails - frantic gift buying, cookie baking, friend visiting, and memory-making - made all the more challenging by the fact that all our stuff is currently in Momma D's basement/garage.  Compounded by the fact that we just spent an ungodly amount of money (that we don't have, per se) making a giant litterbox for our cats in our basement (at least, that's how they're thinking of it) and it was only going to be sealed up with concrete yesterday.

All that being said, here is the latest from my renovation diaries:  I can't recommend my Underpinners enough.  They BLASTED through the job.  What usually takes them 6 weeks took them 4.  Yesterday we got our concrete pad poured which means we'll be able to walk on the floor today.  As of right now, the staircase is short about 4 steps and we've been going up and down on it into the basement, using a pallet leaned up against the wall as the last 4 "stairs."  I'm a little confused how a staircase minus the bottom third can even support any weight, but I guess wood is a magical substance?  That's how I'm rationalizing it anyway.  I basically HAVE to believe that wood is a magical substance after seeing the state of the 100+ year old joists in my home.  Bonus points to this text exchange from one of the guys on my underpinning team:

Steven: "...the concrete pour went smoothly."
Me: "Is that a pun? Cuz if so, I like it."
Steven: "I was hoping you'd catch that."  

Obviously, the sexual tension is unbearable.  J/K J/K J/K.

We've had a contractor in to quote us on HVAC and framing, drywall, and finishing.  As I've mentioned, I'm acting as the general contractor on this job so I'm scheduling my own drains guy, a plumber (who is different from a drains guy, as it turns out), and an electrician.  I'm learning a LOT about building code and permits and I'm feeling pretty good about the contractor we've hired.  He's worked for a friend of ours and according to my friend, the contractor and I will be a match made in heaven.  He's VERY cheap and I basically just need him to be my hands.  With my design vision and his labour, we should be able to make a beautiful space together.

We bought our Xmas tree this weekend.  Even though the Dotytron is 6'4" and WE KNOW THIS, we saw that the tree was towering over him and still convinced ourselves we could get it into the house?  I don't know why.  We ended up lopping off about 2 feet and the point is scratching the ceiling.  The Dotytron gets super-angsty about the tree every year.  He has very specific tastes and they are never appeased.  This year, we bought off some dude who owns a farm, sets up shop in the Canadian Tire parking lot, and lives in a trailer for the month of December, probably subsisting on the Canadian Tire chip truck fries, which isn't a bad life, if you ask me (they are hands-down the best chip truck fries I've ever encountered).  We bought a white fir, which has a lot of breathing room between the levels of boughs.  This is good for decorating - lots of boughs for hanging decorations on.  However, the bark seems soft and I think the tree is leaning.  The memory of our tree falling over last year is still fresh in my mind, so I feel like I'm walking around with a nervous weight in my chest as I await the call from our caregiver that the tree fell on one/both of the babies and (even worse) all my vintage ornaments got smashed to pieces.

In preparation for the furniture rejigging that's going to occur once the basement is done and our official family recreation room goes subterranean, I've been trawling Craigslist and Kijiji for furniture deals.  I found a Thonet-style chrome rocker for $40.  FORTY!!!  I'm probably going to end up re-selling it for more.  Another find was two Bertoia style diamond chairs (even the knock-offs go for $450 EACH!) for $260 (total for both).  I bought two sheepskins to throw on there and I finally unpacked them the other night and let's just say, the bliss of lying on a fluffy sheepskin was so nice that it resulted in me and the Dotytron looking up queen-sized sheepskin blankets, which obviously spiralled into looking into fur blankets.  I was so taken with my sheepskin that $3000 for a red fox comforter suddenly seemed like a sound idea (within the YOLO framework).  Anyway, get a sheepskin.  They are AMAZING!  I laid on one and put the other one upside down (so that the fleece was touching me) so I was in a sheepskin cocoon and basically had the best nap of my life.  I bought them online - they were $60 each, which I think is a pretty good price.

Both Wonder Twins are now walking, with the Quincess having made up for his earlier deficit.  He now walks more often and confidently than Lindsay Lou-Lou, and is a big fan of giving himself a round of applause after a display of upright prowess.

This video is long and only appeals to people related by blood to the Wonder Twins.  I no longer have time to edit the videos I'm throwing up on here.  However, video footage of kids is the best.  We went down memory lane and checked out video footage of the Big Yam from two years' ago, this time and it was heart-rending.  Also, if you stick around to the 2:20 mark you see Lenny's crip-crawl and at the 3:19 mark you can hear the disgustingly adorable way Quincess says "peeakaboo."

Here is what I've been cooking lately:

Homemade sticky buns!  I subbed out 1/2 the flour called for in the recipe with whole wheat flour.  The sticky sauce is delightful - a bit of honey adds some depth and acidity to the sweetness.  I only used half the amount of the sticky sauce called for, but drizzled a bit on each bun as they were warmed and eaten.  Recipe here.

Brisket!  I love making brisket because it means we have brisket braising liquid in the house, which means that our shepherd's pies, mushroom pastas and the like are considerably enriched.

This was freezer pozole I warmed up one night when I was manning the dinner mayhem solo.  This was a lifesaver.

Biscuits!  I'll also post my go-to biscuits recipe below.  It's a little fussier than most, but I do love it - the results are tender and flaky, with a good burnished crust.  Sturdy enough to take being sandwiched around eggs and bacon, and delicious on their own with butter and jam.

I don't think I've made a double-crust apple pie in over a decade.  I made this one and instantly questioned why I had avoided for so long.  Based on this recipe from Joy the Baker.  Overall, I was happy with all elements of the recipe except I would dial back or omit the nutmeg entirely, and my apples shrunk down a lot so there was huge gap between the top lid and the filling.  Possibly due to my choice of apples (granny smith).  I might try golden delicious next time and see if it yields better results.

Rice cooker one-pot meals!  Soy sauce chicken rice with Chinese sausage (lap cheong), chicken thighs, dried shitake mushrooms, brown basmati rice, and some stir baby bok choy added at the last minute.  I used low sodium soy sauce and this was a HUGE hit.  

I feel like I eat a variation on this meal about once every two weeks.  "Slop on a plate topped with a fried egg and served with guacamole."  In this case, we have black bean and sweet potato migas.  Traditional migas has you stirring scrambled eggs into the mixtures along with the crumbled tortillas chips.  I wasn't sure how that would be received by the younger folk, so I added the eggs on the side.  

Last night we had my mom over for dinner so we had a classic Sunday night lasagna with caesar salad. I made two, so we have one for the freezer.  Each lasagne got a layer of 1lb of frozen chopped spinach incorporated, which means the kids got some vegetables in there as well.

In terms of kid eating habits, I can say that one of the good points of having a nanny is that the babies pretty much only eat my food, and are thus maintaining their ability to be good eaters.  They obviously have their favorites - yogurt, hot dogs, and sweets - and we have definitely been more lax about letting them have the odd treat than we ever were with the Big Yam.  They also have their preferences - they will rarely touch raw vegetables (save avocado, and the odd grape tomato), but they eat cooked ones fine.  The Quincess loves his carbs, hard.  We have been referring to him as the "rice queen" (tongue in cheek, of course) because he loves rice so much.  They will also eat anything in a pie shell - so a spinach and ricotta pie or a quiche loaded with vegetables goes down the hatch easy, to the point where one 9" pie isn't enough for the whole family.  This is frightening.  The Big Yam is a bit more resistant.  He eats baby carrots, and loves cooked beans and peas.  Other vegetables are a bit of a crap-shoot, but we can make him try, with reasonable success.  One of the things working in our favour is his lack of numeracy skills.  When we're negotiating the number of bites he has to eat, he frequently overshoots.  "How many bites do you think?" "TWENTY TWELVE!"  

As we enter the holiday season, here are some fun gift suggestions for kids the Big Yam's age.  This is all spurred by this awesome birthday present my sister got him, which is a logic/reasoning game called "Rush Hour Jr.":  

Different levels require you to block the ice cream truck in with other vehicles and the kid has to figure out how to get the ice cream truck out  the opening, while only moving the other vehicles as their orientation/path dictate.  It's super-fun, and the Big Yam has a great time playing it.  This lead me to other games made by the same company, Thinkfun.  They're all kind of nerdy, fun, logic/reasoning games.

This game allegedly teaches kids coding and programming and is "the most backed boardgame in Kickstarter history." It's won a tonne of awards.  

Bug Trails is a colour-based dominoes-type game.  I tried to find it for a stocking stuffer, but no luck.  

Mighty Mind is a classic, Montessori-type "toy".  It allows kids to make the shapes/figures outlines on the cards using shapes.  Kids learn dexterity and geometry and develop their spatial reasoning.  This was a component on the gifted test, and I have always nerdily been into IQ test type "games" - so this is right up my alley.  They make a magnetic version which would be good for travelling/road trips. I bought this as a stocking stuffer on the pricier side of things.

Magformers are a magnet-based building system that allows kids to do non-directed building and construction of three dimensional objects.  The fact that the sides of the shapes are magnetized is a big plus for me - not only is it cool, it's also handy for clean-up purposes.  For reasons I can't quite fathom, Magformers are RIDICULOUSLY expensive.  Like, the standard set is $100.  That's crazytown.  This reminds me that I should start looking online on Craigslist or Kijiji to see if I can find anything used.

For kids who like BopIt! (which my kid does), then Simon is the classic.  It's a pattern matching game - Simon shows you an increasingly complicated sequence that you have to match.  They apparently make a pocket-sized one (again, this would be good for travel) that I've heard retails for $9.99 but for some reason Amazon.ca is listing it for SIXTY FIVE DOLLARS, which is bananas.  I'm not sure why it's so expensive, unless there's been a run on them?

We kept it fairly simple (?) for the Big Yam this year.  We got him a robe, because our house is always cold, a fact that should be ameliorated once we get all our ducts connected.  One of the good things about the basement reno is that pulling everything open and apart revealed that  we have entire sections of HVAC that aren't connected properly, which we will have rectified and then maybe our house won't be an icebox all the time.   I bought him some books.  We got him the magnetic Mighty Mind and my mom bought him the Robot Turtle game.  I also got this Thinkfun dice game as a stocking stuffer, alongside some boxes of Smarties (which he loves), a magnifying glass, and some cheap wind-up toys.  The babies are being given the gift of life, in addition to a set of jammies that matches a set we got for the Big Yam.  I also bought a set of second hand gears for them, which should go along with a hand-me-down gear set that I gave my nephew ages ago.  

What are all you parents getting for your wee ones this Xmas?

Fin.

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Buttermilk Biscuits

4 2/3 c. all purpose flour

1 1/2 t. cream of tartar

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. cold vegetable shortening

approx 2 c. buttermilk

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened at room temperature

1 T. unsalted butter, melted.

- stir together dry ingredients, then blend in shortening with your fingertips or a pastry cutter until no big chunks of shortening remain.  The mixture should look like a crumbly streusel.

- add 1 3/4 c. buttermilk and stir, adding the remaining buttermilk a bit at a time if the dough seems dry.  You want a soft, sticky dough.  Dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a flat rectangle, about 1" thick.

- Take 1/2 of the butter and spread it on the top 2/3 of the dough.  Fold the dough in thirds like a letter, and then turn the dough letter 90 degrees.  Pat it out again into a 1" thickness and repeat with the remaining butter.

- Pat out the dough 3/4" thick and then use a circle cutter to cut out the biscuits.  Brush with the melted butter and bake in a preheated 450F oven until golden brown, about 20-25 minutes.

Kitchen Reno Times

We are approaching the finish line (she jinxes herself) on the basement renovation, so what better time than now to take you through our kitchen renovation?  Our new kitchen is nearing the 9 month old mark, and we are starting to take its beauty and organization and blessed, blessed dishwasher for granted.  It feels like we've always had it, and so a Lil' Ugmo kitchen retrospective is in order, lest we forget.

NEVER FORGET:

This is what we bought.  Laminate counter in a weird burgundy/blood/black marble patina, faux wood laminate cabinets over solid wood frames (talk about BUILT IN!  Those cabinet frames were basically fashioned from 2x4s), a disgusting, cracked mirror held together with packing tape hiding lord-knows-what.  Outlet covers yellowed with age and cooking, congealed oil taunting us from the oil wells of the ventilation hood that didn't work in the five years we lived pre-kitchen reno.  It was a bit much.

We went in there, and took all the cabinets down, and painted them in the backyard of our old rental.  The Dotytron went to TOWN that summer while he was looking for a gig in the school board and cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom.  He found a rotting mouse carcass in one cabinet and we found cockroaches INSIDE our fridge.  We hired an exterminator, and then in the most cost-effective way imaginable, built a kitchen WITHIN the kitchen, by lining all the shelves with adhesive shelf paper and putting storage containers inside so our stuff wasn't touching anything.  

Even at that, before moving in, I vowed that I would never cook in there.  I tried to think of ways that I could avoid the stove and oven entirely and just fashion meals out of the slow cooker, a toaster oven, the panini press, and the microwave.  Five years of lovingly documented dinners on this blog belie my conviction to the cause.  This is how the kitchen looked a few months after we moved in:

And that's how it remained for five years, and the birth of our first son.  We washed countless baby bottles, so many dinner parties worth of dishes, and so very many pots and pans by hand.  I used to say that when the oil in the hood overflowed, then I would reno the kitchen.  We made do, and it wasn't so bad.  It's never so bad when you're living in it.  It's your home, you know?  You see that aluminum, patio door that's frozen shut and is the colour of dried blood?  That's our patio door, dammit!  I also miss the sight of all my mason jars lined up like little soldiers, out in the open.  It's so orderly and pleasing to my pioneer/faux homesteading soul.

When the time came that a kitchen reno was looking like a possibility, I spent countless hours on the Ikea kitchen planner site.  I'm not kidding you: HOURS.  So, when I tell the Dotytron in no uncertain terms that this is MY house, I mean it.  Technically, yadda yadda, his name is on the title, blah blah blah.  Details!  When it comes down to it, this house is MINE.  My decisions, my thought, my hours and hours of MY precious time went into thinking things through so that it everything has a place.  So that the tone of the backsplash tile goes with the floor tile and the cabinet finish.  So that our edge pulls on the cabinets were NOT placed vertically on cabinet uppers as my then-contractor thought.  Things I never pay a contractor for: telling me how things should look.  I just need you to be my hands, man.  If I had the time, I wouldn't even need you to do that.

This is how our kitchen looks now (or it did, 5 months ago, when there weren't a million fruits and boxes of Cheerios piled on the counter).  Ikea Akurum (now discontinued, thanks Ikea!) kitchen with Applad fronts and Berenson edge pulls.  Wolf 36" range (my precioussss).  KitchenAid fridge and dishwasher.  Vent-a-hood range hood.  

EFF Yeah, pull out pantry times!

Our fridge remained carefully curated for about 1 week.  Now you can barely find the fridge handle through the cover of letters from school and random photos.

I bought some reclaimed barnboard and my contractor made floating shelves out of them.  I love these.  They really warm up all the white.  Faucet is a Grohe, sink is a Blanco, divided sink.

New patio doors!  These have built-in blinds that are sandwiched between the glass - they never get dusty, huzzah!  You control the tilt and bring the blinds up and down with a sliding magnetized pull on the side.

I love my backsplash tile.  It has an off-set raised three dimensional pattern.  I had the tiler alternate the orientation so the pattern is more pronounced and you get some new planes and lines.  

There are some people who advocate the "save your pennies and then do the renovation/trip/whathaveyou when you can pay for it with your savings" approach.  I say, boo to that shiz!  Then you end up like the first 10 minutes of the movie Up.  You keep smashing that jar for all the little stuff and you never get to Paradise Falls.  This kitchen is our Paradise Falls.  It has made SUCH a difference in our lives.  Also, with the way house prices are going in downtown TO, we're never, ever leaving.  Unless we happen to luck out and capitalize on the 3 months of the only downtown in Toronto history, like we did when we bought Lil' Ugmo.  At this rate, semi detached houses our size, in our location, that already have the basement underpinned (full height) and have the second bathroom (check!) are going in the eight hundred thousand range.  EIGHT HUNDRED.  That is the definition of unsustainable, folks, unless our real estate market/transit infrastructure starts to change muy rapido.  

To be honest, I'm up for doing a size upgrade and doing the renos.  The Dotytron very much is not.  He thinks I'm sick in the head for even contemplating it.  I may very well be.  I should have been a general contractor.

Fin.

Pro Tips

#1 It undermines your ability to complain about how busy you are, when you willingly take on joining Parent Council at your kid's school (despite the fact that forced to give a Gladiator review of the school's performance thus far, it would get a resounding thumbs-down), and you sign up for the fundraising committee for a local community service provider.

#2 Deciding to be a general contractor for the finishing of your basement reno ALSO undermines your ability to complain about how busy you are (BUT I LOVE DOING THIS SO G-D MUCH!)  Why couldn't I just be a GC?!

#3 When you're doing a massive job, like underpinning your basement, it makes the job infinitely better when you hire amazing contractors to do the job and they have the good sense to hire a team of 20-25 year old hunks to do the work.

Further to Pro Tip #3, guys, this team is SO HOT.  They are tall (at least 6'2").  They are tattoo'd and hunky (think slightly scruffier Abercrombie models) and polite and respectful.  I can't recommend our underpinners enough.  I wish I could hire them AGAIN, and that's saying something, because generally we burn through a trade (like, to the point of me withholding a significant percentage of cash, no longer on speaking terms, salt-the-earth style of burning through) with each reno.  The main dudes are cautious, respectful, very conscientious and they don't pass on extra costs to us.  The team is a bunch of sweethearts - they come in every morning, prep the area, say good morning to everyone, remember the kids' names - I'm so impressed so far.

They are also BLOWING through the job.  They started November 11th, and by Friday, my basement looked like this:

The electrical panel on the top left of this photo (next to the conveyor belt they use to get the dirt out of the house and into the bin), used to be at my HEAD HEIGHT.  And now I can't even reach it.  Unbelievable.

The white pipe is our drain, being supported by strapping.

The job is done in stages.  You can see the spray-painted areas of the wall marked 1, 2, and 3 in the pictures above.  They dig out all the section 1s, then pour, then start on the section 2s, and so on, so that your house is never at any point more than 1/3 unsupported.  They let the concrete cure for the full 48 hours.  Then they start the next stage.  They will likely be done by the first week of December. WHAAAAAAT.

Then I've got to figure out a way to get my furnace reconnected (it's supported right now, but the last thing they'll do is hang the furnace while they dig underneath it and pour the slab) and my laundry reconnected.  A WHOLE NEW FLOOR OF THE HOUSE, GUYS!

This job hasn't been without its headaches.  THE JOYS OF LIVING IN A SEMI, PEOPLE!


At the end of this though, I will have an 8'2" basement.  EEEKS!!!  When the Dotytron and I stand down there now, it's amazing how spacious it feels.  It's not a tonne of space, granted, not by normal, non-downtown dwellers standards.  We are going to try to maximize it too, by getting an office/bedroom, a laundry/bathroom and a living room (in addition to the furnace room) under there, but still!  A WHOLE OTHER USABLE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE?  Nothing to sneeze at, basement haters (i.e. all those people who told us that it wasn't worth it).

My reaction to the Underpinners team of hotties put me in mind of that Hollaback video that made the rounds on the internet in late October.

I watched the video, but then questioned myself as a feminist.  While the majority of the exchanges were gross and would definitely make me feel uncomfortable (hate being told to "smile" like a trained dog), some of them seemed benign (to me), which is what sent me spiralling.  When is it okay to say hi to a stranger?  Is there any context?  Commentary on the video seemed to indicate no.  That a woman has the inherent right to walk around without being encroached upon by men who only see her as an object.  I get that, I do.  But then, how are you supposed to meet people?  Is it okay in a bar/club setting?  When I see someone that I find "interesting" and approach them in a public space, am I similarly objectifying them?  It was really hard for me to wrap my head around.  Saying hi isn't okay?  I was confused by that as a general mode of practice.  That being said, there is a house around the corner from us, on the main street, that's clearly a rooming house and the dudes there (who don't work and when the weather is nice seemingly sit outside drinking all day) have verbally harassed my nanny, the neighbour's nanny, and when I walk by them, they don't dare say anything, but you can feel the predatory colour to their gaze.  It was gross and discomfiting and enraged me before I knew they said stuff to our nanny, and now that I know, if they so much as do it again, I'm going to tear a strip off of them.

This leads me to another issue that had me very confused in the month of October.  The hashtag #rapedneverreported started appearing, as a (very positive) offshoot of the Jian Ghomeshi thing.  Someone I know was sharing her story on Twitter and as part of that conversation, she tweeted that a thing we could do is to model consensual behaviour when we tickle our kids.  The whole POINT of tickling is that the kid is laughing and saying no!  I was so conflicted about that!  I brought it up at Academic Book Club and they reminded me of that experience most of us have had, where we've been tickled by a weird uncle until we almost barfed.  THAT'S the kind of tickling we're supposed to stay away from.  The tickling "game" where the kid is obviously enjoying it is okay (I think.)  Just trying to avoid irrevocably contributing to rape culture, thanks!  UGH.  I know I sometimes purposefully push past the line of the Big Yam's comfort zone for the sake of my own sadistic pleasure.  Not with tickling, but sometimes I'll be fake-scary and then verge into real scary and I can tell that he's wavering and I'll put it justthatlittlebit past the point where he's okay and into starting to feel real fear.  I'm a monster.

We've had ourselves some proper good weekends.  We were in our favorite USA small town last weekend, eating copious amounts of food and lying around until we atrophied and lining up the cousins on a couch for cute photos like this:

The weekend before was a doozy - my mum came over and was being super-cute with the babies and SMckay was over and I had my eyelashes filled (oh, I didn't mention that I'm an eyelash extension ADDICT?!  Cuz I am), and we went with my mum to T&T and I made dinner and then SMckay took the Big Yam out for his birthday present excursion (a TTC ride and hot dogs) and then my mum went home and SMckay and I went to see Gone Girl while the Dotytron hosted record club.

The following day involved some weird March Break trip investigation that suddenly through Disneyworld into the mix (?!) and then dinner at our friend's JJ & S's house.  Busy!  But I love all the people I saw so it's a good kind of busy.  The kind of busy that means you never get around to raking leaves or tarping up the outdoor furniture and then all of a sudden you have to do it when it's premature polar vortex winter and there's snow and then the job is a million times worse.  That kind of busy.  That's what's on our agenda this weekend.  Tarping and raking and bagging, etc., etc.

There was also a 13 (!!!!!) year anniversary dinner at Bar Isabel for me and the Dotytron.  He did the math: apparently when we're 43 we will have been together longer than we were apart.  There's nothing to say about that, other than the obvious: I like the guy.

We were advised to order 5 dishes but ended up closer to 10.  Even at that, this left us satisfied, but not hating ourselves.  If we wanted to hate ourselves we could have ordered 5 more plates of the croquettas alone.  My pics are dark but I'm an Asian girl so will take pics of my food until I die, bae:

Raw bay scallop with honey crisp apple, cucumber and dill.  I  enjoyed eating this dish (because I love raw scallops like nothing else) and understood the textural inclusion of the apple and cucumber, but the cucumber fell flat for me.  The watery vague bitterness of the rind didn't match with the cool, crisp sweetness of the other elements.  Also, the cucumber wasn't chilled enough, which I think was a problem with the palatability.

Pintxos!  Who doesn't love pintxos?  Not me!  On the left we have bacalao (salt cod spread), a pickled egg and a little wee sausage and on the right we have sobrassada, shaved foie (must have been frozen and shaved) and honey.  I would have taken about 10 more each of these two bites.  SO GOOD.  So balanced between smooth, rich, sweet, briny.  

These croquettas ruined my life.  All I want is more of them in my mouth all the time.  Gooey and molted on the inside with a sobrassada spiked mayo for dipping.  

Obligatory bone marrow with salsa verde.  Why don't I just make bone marrow all the time?  Good Q.  I should do that and sweetbreads and foie more.  YOLO.

Patatas bravas is something I really miss having.  Those Spaniards (Catalans?) are really good at getting a chunk of potato blisteringly crisp on the outside, only to have your teeth then meet a puffball explosion of fluffy starchy innards.  We got the supreme version, which came with boquerones, blood sausage, slices of jalepeno, and some other stuff.  On the left you have crispy fried sweetbreads served with tuna.  

I have parent council stories to regale you with, but those are tales for another day.  In the meantime, here's a photo of Lenny as an environmental activist, and the Quincess as a tiny, shrunken, old man:

Fin.

Too Many Interests...Too Little Time

Squeezing out a little bit of time to update this dusty corner of ye olde interwebs, in between weighing in on, among other things: Jian Ghomeshi, the municipal election here in Toronto, and Cyrus Beene's hair situation on Scandal.  I wish I had more time to spend here, because I HAVE ALL THE THOUGHTS AND ALL THE FEELINGS.  I haven't even had a chance to record for posterity how I feel about the whole, "Hello Kitty is not a cat" Sanrio bombshell.  WHAT HAS MY LIFE BECOME?!

Guys, I am STRETCHED.  I wake up at 5:30am so I can put a proper breakfast out for my goon squad and have a proper dinner to come home to.  I want to knit, and see movies, and catch-up on the news, and have time to read, and work on crafts, and think about FREAKIN' XMAS (which I hate with the fieriness of a million suns), and make quilts, and keep a clean house, and figure out all the stupid renovation stuff, and see my friends, and make sure the Big Yam sees HIS friends, and make sure that the babies see enough of my face full-on (as in, I'm looking at them and they're not just getting the weird side-angle of my face with the computer screen/my phone casting its pall on my complexion), that they don't imprint on our caregiver or, the cats.  I fall asleep at 10pm and it is the exhausted sleep of the damned, filled with mundane dreams where I "escape" to such flights of subconscious as, "my family is coming over for dinner and my brother brings nothing to contribute" or "the basement underpin has started and the shared driveway has a giant pile of dirt in it" (real, actual dreams I've had lately.  I'm the worst).  This basically says to me that I'm not nurturing my interior life enough.

First things first: the whole Jian thing.  I am SHOCKED at how many defenders he has/had!  In the grand tradition of me being right about stuff without knowing anything detailed about them and going only on my superficial assumptions (which I could teach a graduate-level course in, quite frankly), I WAS SO RIGHT ABOUT JIAN.  I've thought he was so gross from even BEFORE Dr. Rei hipped me to the XO Jane "blind" item.  Then, while on maternity leave and driving the babies around to their various medical appointments, I actually heard his show.  HE'S NOT THAT GOOD, GUYS.  After an event of particular cultural import, he would always do these little op-ed monologue "essays" over washy, synth pads and his thoughts were SO BANAL.  SO TRITE.  Like, more banal than Stuart McLean (aka Garrison Keillor for all my American readers).  Did you ever think such a thing was possible?  To my mind, Jian became famous because of the Billy Bob Thornton thing, and really, that's basically becoming famous and well-known because you were on the receiving end of a notable jerk being a notable jerk.  La-di-dah.

Anyway, there's nothing about Jian that doesn't scream "I'm a gross pig."  The hair!  The look!  The general douchebaggy way he presents himself (I totally feel like Jian is a douchebag, which refutes the contention of this widely-circulated article, that "douchebag" always refers to a white person.  Tiger Woods?  Total douchebag).   Even if, as the Dotytron contends, I consider "Eeks. Totes diff vibes from yest" an indictable offense and would support locking someone behind bars for that alone, I think the way he's handled this whole thing shows that painting him with broad "disgusting pig-dog" strokes wasn't off base in the least.  Let's also talk about the PR firm he hired, Navigator.  They took him as a client, they must have signed off on that sad, pathetic, and TMI Facebook post Jian wrote, and then, when more and more women started coming forward, they dropped him.  Way to do your due diligence, you idiots.  I should charge them as a consultant to sit in a room when they're entertaining new clients so they don't have to be in the position of taking on and then subsequently dropping sick f**kwads.  HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW, NAVIGATOR?!?

I sometimes wish I could just apply for jobs with a CV that states all the times I was right about stuff ahead of the curve.  Granted, most of the times it has to do with pop culture, but still!  That's got to count for something, somewhere, right?

We need a palate cleanser after the unpleasantness of talking about Jian.  This photo has been making my heart sing, lately:

I love everyone's face in this photo - from the Big Yam's cheesy smile to Lenny's wide-faced muppet-mouthed grin.  

The above photo was taken on a Don Valley nature walk we did to take in the fall colours.  It was one of those perfect Sundays that happens about twice a year for us - a leisurely, laid back Sunday where we had an attainable amount of household chores on the docket, but we got to go out and do something outside that was enjoyable for all members of the family, and still had enough time left that I got to lie on the couch under a blanket and read for a good chunk of the afternoon and tuck into a giant bowl of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.  Like seriously, could you imagine a more perfect fall Sunday?  I need more of those in my life, to center me and make me a reasonable person again.

This past weekend was the antithesis of that halcyon one.  Here's something no one tells you about Halloween before you become a parent: IT IS THE LONGEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE.  I always take Halloween off from work to mitigate how much of a frenzied dash it is when kids are knocking on your door and you're trying to get the pumpkin carved/lit/out and finishing up dinner and bundling up your kids (because inevitably, Halloween is on the rainiest, coldest day in a week otherwise filled with temperate, sun-filled fall days) for the trek.  

It's always worth it, in the end.  For this:

and this:

This year everyone asked me what I did about limiting the Big Yam's candy consumption and if I had ever heard about the "Switch Witch" which is yet another new newfangled parenting thing n00b parents do because they can't tell their kids no?  The Switch Witch comes and takes all your Halloween candy in the night and leaves a book or something instead.  I've found we don't have to do anything that requires me to go out and get ANOTHER thing in addition to all the regular Halloween crap.  I made him sort his candy (what you see above) and then because he's 4, I told him he could have 4 pieces of his choosing.  He was fine with that.  He's basically forgotten all about it and I've just been using the Halloween candy as an incentive for him to do his "homework" after school.  I am very, very luck though, that the Big Yam is such a sweet, agreeable little guy.  He's so amenable.  I was able to do drop-off on Friday and ran into another parent who told me that the Big Yam sat with her when she chaperoned the field trip and she wanted to tell me what a good, smart, sweet little boy he is.  Apparently he spent the entire bus ride talking and telling them all kinds of facts and describing/explaining stuff and she kept reiterating how intelligent and well behaved and pleasant he was to be around.  

That kind of unsolicited feedback is the stuff of dreams.  I told the Dotytron and we both teared up.  I felt so proud of the Big Yam for representing himself so well and making us look good.  I don't know what role, if any, we played in how he's developed.  I know we set high expectations and we're very strict, but who knows if that works?  I can tell you that already, Lenny and the Quincess are completely different in their general approach to life.  Lenny is an Evil Knievel, daredevil, classic baby type of baby.  He climbs things, he gets into stuff, he puts food in his mouth.  He's like your textbook baby.  The Quincess is a sweet-faced, observant, cerebral, very funny baby.  I always say that Lenny is baby-funny, but the Quincess is legit, regular person funny.  He has a very wry sense of humour, and I'm continually flabbergasted by the fact that I can ascertain that and he is ONLY SIXTEEN MONTHS OLD.  

The babies have a lot of words right now, relative to their age (based on the feedback I got from their neo-natal follow up appointment).  To date, this is their tally:

- ball (their first word)
- baba
- book
- this
- that
- mama
- dung-dung (Cantonese for light)
- hot
- "moo"
- "woof"
- "down"
- "naai naai" (Cantonese for milk, but Lenny uses it generally for food)
- nana (banana)
- bot (robot)
- "poh poh" (Cantonese for "pick me up")
- elephant sound
- monkey sound
- lion sound
- "brown bear" (we're pretty sure Quincess says it, and he also reads "Brown Bear" to himself with this funny little cadence that I have to make a point of catching on video
- more/please (sign language)
- all done (sign language)

The rest of the weekend was a blur of social engagements.  We had a neighbour Halloween party on Saturday, then saw Dr. Rei and Hanbo and Big Al for dinner that night, then on Sunday we had Friendsgiving.  This all took place under the wider of umbrella of me stressing to the point of a huge eczema flare up (on my face!  OF COURSE!) about the underpinning, which is supposed to start imminently, at which point, our family of 5 will be without laundry for the duration.

Enough of my whinging on that front!  Let's see some basement renovation/finishing mood boards, shall we?  

The colour palette is light neutrals.  White, brass, grey, with blue and orange accents.  Because it's a basement, and doesn't get a lot (any) natural light, I want it to feel as airy as possible.  

  

Definitely some kind of light to medium-toned, possibly variegated laminate flooring.  A graphic, patterend rug, definitely the George Nelson bubble lamp and some brass sconces like this:

This Ikea sectional:

I found a company online that does special legs for Ikea furniture, which is a brilliant idea.  They're called Prettypegs.  We will probably need a round coffee table to offset the blocky, rectangular proportions of the main room.  I love the Ikea fauxdenza hack I've seen everywhere, and we will likely do that as a TV/entertainment centre:

We want to nest our speakers inside the credenza, so I think we'd try to get two cabinet doors with a glass inset, and then replace the glass with aluminum decorative radiator grills, spray-painted white, to allow the sound through, but still protect the speakers from Lenny's tweeter-poking fingers.  There are also plans afoot to upgrade to a king sized bed, since it's a tight fit at the moment when everyone is piled in.  

My top secret crafting project is finally out of the bag.  I made Big Al a quilt:

The back is flannel with a Bay stripe offset down the length because as is the trend when I quilt, the technical aspects of the math almost broke me, and I didn't calculate the right length/width of the batting.  I based the design off something I saw online.  The stripes are made up of 2.5" blocks made up of alternating horizontal and vertical strips of fabric.  Again, the math almost killed me and all the blue blocks and the yellow blocks were about 1/2" too small, so I had to cut a million little 1/2" pieces and sew them on when I thought I was onto the piecing stage.  I love the striped border of the binding (not my idea, again ripped off of the one I saw online) and this is my biggest quilt to date.  I did a big chunk of it when we were at my ED's cottage this summer.  It was overall a very pleasurable experience making it and I can't wait for Big Al to be big enough so that I can tell him about it, or that I can read him stories with it tucked up around our legs.  

Here's what our dinners have been like, lately:

Teriyaki salmon, with steamed brown rice and breaded zucchini "fries" I made using this recipe as a base (pretty standard, flour, egg wash, panko/parmesan crust, baked on a rack in the oven.  My notes: DON'T FORGET TO SPRAY/OIL THE RACK!  Otherwise, you end up with the crust sticking to the rack and not in your belly.  Sadface).  I feel like teriyaki salmon is SUCH a mom dish, in the "Good Housekeeping" sense of the word mom.  

Salted caramel swirl pumpkin cheesecake bars.  I based these on this recipe, but made quite a few changes (recipe below).  The best part of these bars was the crust, which was all chewy and caramely from the brown sugar.

The aforementioned spaghetti and meatballs

I made a lentil soup but followed Serious Eats' suggestion and added some gremolata, which elevated the dish considerably.  We had this with cheddar-apple melted toasts on Tiller's bread.

I can (and did) eat an ungodly amount of this shepherd's pie that night.  Alongside roasted cauliflower - cauliflower, cut into thick steaks, tossed with oil and za'atar and salt and pepper and roasted at high heat until it's covered in crisp edges.

Kale and kimchi fried rice topped with fried eggs.  Eaten at 8pm, while I was frantically making salted browned butter rice krispie ghosts to take to the Big Yam's classroom Halloween party.  I also made (assembled) a dip for the drop-in centre Halloween party and honestly guys, next year, tell me to save myself the trouble.  NO ONE CARES.  NO ONE.  

Last week I hung out with Dr. Rei and we went to The Federal.  It's a cute, cozy, tiny little brunch spot.  I had a breakfast sandwich there that immediately consumed me.  It featured: scrambled eggs, bacon, mayo, cheddar cheese, and the kicker, sliced pickle, on an English muffin. It's like a breakfast Big Mac.  Amazing.  I recreated it on the weekend, and made a roasted garlic mayo and it was divine.

New chocolate babka rolled out!  I used Smitten's revamped recipe and did find it relatively easy to execute and more restrained, without any diminished flavour/indulgence returns.  Y'all know I loves me some chocolate babka.  I'm going to make more this weekend.  The only tweak I did was to add some chopped chocolate to the melted chocolate smear.  Mine might actually be *too* chocolatey, but honestly, I haven't been mad at it when I eat my obligatory slice in front of the TV before bed.

Last night's dinner was arroz con pollo with a wackload of steamed green beans.

Fin.


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Salted Caramel Swirl Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
makes 12 bars

Crust:

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted
2 c. graham cracker crumbs
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 T cornstarch
pinch salt

Filling

2  egg
12 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 c. pumpkin puree
2 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice (I just do my own version with 3 parts cinnamon to 2 parts ginger and 1 part clove, allspice, nutmeg)
2 T. flour
1/4 c. salted caramel sauce

- mix all the crust ingredients together and press onto the bottom of a 9" square baking pan (bottom lined with parchment, helps)
- bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 10 minutes.  Take the pan out and leave the oven on.
- beat all the filling ingredients together (minus the salted caramel sauce) until smooth.  Pour into the pan and drop the salted caramel sauce on top of the filling and swirl with a knife.  Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until the filling is set with just a slight wobbliness in the very middle.  A knife inserted into the centre should come out dry and not wet and streaky.  Let cool in the fridge, slice into bars and serve.