A London Some'ting

...or the great pork tour of 2016.

The Dotytron and I celebrated 15 years of jungle love this year.  15 years is not nothing. It's kind of a big deal.  We've been through a thing or two, and we wanted to celebrate in some grand, fiscally irresponsible fashion.  Originally the plan was New Orleans, for a extra-long weekend bacchanalia of jazz and beignets and crawfish and brass bands.  Then the Dotytron stumbled upon the 10 year anniversary of Rupture, a promotion company in London that's been pushing the breakbeat heavy sound that we love, that I really pushed when me and C64 were in the promoting game, that has been my heart and home.  For their 10 year anniversary they put together what can only be described as a "punishing" line up (very technical term).  So we did what any other jungle-crazed ex-ravers would do, we looked at each other and calculated the costs, and the time difference, and the fact that with the Dotytron's work schedule we'd only be able to spare like, 3 days in jolly old England, and the ridiculous exchange rate, and we said, "F**K IT, IT'S ABOUT TO GO DOWN."  And we did it.

The logistics of leaving all three at home were not triflin'.  They were something else. We drew up a master schedule, we booked our caregiver to come in on the weekends, we set up contingencies and play dates and made food so it was all ready to go.  We sent emails, we left health cards, and even still, I was a ball of stress and nerves leading up to it.  A neighbour asked me before we left if I was excited and I was just like, "I'm too freaked out that something is going to go horribly wrong. I don't think I'm going to be excited until I get back to Toronto and find out that nothing happened."  (This turned out to be a bald-faced lie, since outside of a quick hello Facetime video shortly after arrival, I didn't worry/think about them once).  The wonderful grandmas (one of whom is effectively deaf and the other one who has major joint issues) conducted themselves admirably and we owe them the world.

We left on a Thursday night red eye.  Arriving at 9am the next day.  Now, I don't know if you lot know this about the Dotytron, but he is a terrible traveler.  His comfort zone consists of a razor thin slice of equilibrium - he can't sleep on planes, he gets sick, he's tall and awkward and uncomfortable.  It wasn't looking good for him, because even despite duping our family doctor into giving him a prescription for sleeping pills, they didn't do squat.  I on the other hand, am an exemplary travel.  Being used to functioning at a high level on little sleep is a point in my favor.

On arrival.

Our crash pad.

We dropped our bags, showered, and then hit Borough Market for a roast pork, applesauce, and crackling sandwich, and a sausage, arugula (sorry, rocket), and stilton sandwich.  The Dotytron also had one of the best cups of coffee of his young life at Monmouth coffee. It's coffee where people wait in line for about 25 minutes for a cup.

Then we did something we've never done before...we split up.  Usually, we're glued to each other, but he wanted to meet up with some Toronto crew to go record shopping, and I would've rather eat a bag of barf than follow around a bunch of DJs on a crate-digging expedition, so I went to the Tate Modern.

I **think** that's St. Paul's Cathedral, but we are always the worst tourists in the world, so I can't be sure.  Pretty picture though, right?

I hoofed it to Ottolenghi Spitalfields and picked up a bunch of goodies to tide us over the next day when we knew we'd be crunked.

After a long, luxurious, deep nap made all the sweeter by the subconscious awareness that there was no way I'd be woken by a little body climbing into bed and kicking me in the head, we posse'd up and headed to the venue, which was conveniently located about 100m from our apartment.  Good planning, us, good planning.  I have to be honest, I slept so deeply that I almost didn't want to go to the party.  It was also hectic because the promoter's had promised the Toronto contingent (about 8 people made the trip to London for the party, including our two buddies who were DJing) paid guestlist tickets available at the door.  Anticipation for the show was so intense (people were selling counterfeits??!  For a rave?!) that the promoters told us to line up by 10pm, or else they'd hit capacity.  It was kind of annoying (like seriously, you're not going to prioritize the people who you promised tickets and who crossed an ocean to be here?), and it was kind of fraught, but we got in around 10pm.

Skanna - aka the love of my life

Ummm...what is there to say about this party, except that it was LIFE AFFIRMING.  I felt like I was home, in a very real way.  Among my tribe of people (aka weirdo junglists).  The party was oversold like crazy...three sweaty, grimey rooms PACKED with a throbbing mass of people...one of those parties where you can't even dance because it's just a constant rotating shift of people squeezing by.  Was I uncomfortably skin-to-skin with some white dreads at some point?  Yes. Was I thoroughly grossed out by the tacky feeling of their sweat-slicked bodies against mine?  YES.  Was I worried that one wrong step and I would be trampled?  YES.  Did I get hit on?  Yes (still got it, Lagerfeld).  Eventually, in the main room, during what was billed as the "Alliance of Science" set (Equinox, BKey, and some other shacker) I was dancing up on top of some benches lining the main room.  This sound...this breakbeat heavy choppage...this tsunami of thunderous, sequenced, programmed amens, this chest-rattling bass...nothing does it for me like that.  I never get to hear it.  I never get to be surrounded by people who love this sound like I do and will brock out.  I never get to be around my people.

The thing is...people still CARE about jungle in the UK.  There's still a scene...and not just that, but a bit of a revival going on.  People were calling out "Insiiiide" and shouting "boh" for rewinds and I was like YES YES YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES!  Dotytron of course came back all fired up to rebuild the scene here but we all know that Toronto is a provincial backwater...a tertiary, staid, conservative town and if it wasn't the case that almost everyone I love in the world was here, I wouldn't stay.  I was like, you're almost better off saving the money you'd spend bringing Equinox here to play to 100 people (MAX), and going to London once a year for a weekend of Rupture.

It was beyond magical.  I danced from about 10pm-5am (jah bless the time change and our arrival working in our favour...it felt like we left the party at midnight).  I was sore and grungy and covered with a thin mist of rave rain and it was like a benediction.  We fell into our usual party rhythms...the Dotytron flitting around, socializing, me eking out a little square of space by the bass bins, throwing elbows to maintain it, reconvening at various points but otherwise, blissfully on our own trajectory, but near enough so that our orbits overlapped.  I want to go back.  I would go back in a heartbeat.

The next day our big outing was the Harry Potter Studios tour, in Leavesden.

We hit Borough Market again the next day for breakfast which was a duck confit butty.

So, you take a hour-long bus ride to the studio lot.  They usher you into a theatre, and they show a video of Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe reminiscing about their time on the studios filming the movies.  At the end of the movie, the three of them turn away from the audience and open the door to the great hall at Hogwarts, and say something to the effect of: "Follow us now," and then the screen of the theatre rises up and the doors to the Great Hall at Hogwarts is there and everyone turned to each other and went, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" and people were like, bursting into tears and screaming, and it was truly, truly, the best.  So funny and dorky and amazing.

It was a big day for us.  For our splashiest meal, I made us a reservation at Fergus Henderson's incredibly influential restaurant, St. John.  When he opened the restaurant, he was one of the only people doing nose-to-tail eating and elevating so-called "humble" cuts of meat and returning to classic British cooking.  The food was a revelation.

Oat crusted mackerel with bacon and brown butter, potted crab toasts, and the iconic bone marrow dish.

The Dotytron had liver and chard and I had lamb's heart with rutabaga mash.  It was heavenly.  The heart had a texture like pork cheeks, but slightly more tender, sapid and blood rare in the middle.

The next morning we had breakfast at Modern Pantry, Clerkenwell.  I had a pecan frangipane croissant, and a shakshuka type thing.  The Dotytron had a benny with a yuzu hollandaise.  

We spent our last full day record shopping, regular shopping, and milling around.  Pretty lowkey and chill.  I had plans to check out a classic Sunday roast dinner, but because the seat of the Empire turns out to be a provincial backwater (is anyone surprised?  Not I!), we found that a lot of restaurants right in the core (Picadilly and the like) closed after a lunch service.  Da hell?  So we wandered around, peckish, Finally, we arrived at a Spanish restaurant with a crowd of people outside, waiting for one of the coveted seats.  There was no order to the crowd, so there was the general sense of unease in the air, subtle jockeying for position, mental headcounts of the people in the mass outside cross-referenced with the number of seats inside.  The Dotytron and I were the last pair to snag a set of bar stools and felt like we'd won the lottery for it.

Croquetas

Tuna Tartare, which our Run Lola Run server insisted was her favorite dish.  It was okay.

Spanish tortilla

Fried baby artichokes with hollandaise

Octopus a la plancha

Fried zucchini blossom served drizzled with honey

Beef cheek stuffed piquillo pepper, fried

Spanish flan and an olive oil cake with some weird trail mix served on the side

Two lovebirds, in love

Two lovebirds, homeward bound

It was such a good, fun, trip.  Although, 2 months later, it seems like a distant memory.  I'm hungry to go back.  

The thing is: 15-odd years ago, I made a choice to spend my life with this Tally McGoo from my high school.  I didn't know what I was choosing at the time.  I mean, how could I?  I was a half-formed lump of clay.  I'm still not even a fully-formed lump of clay.  Yet, every day, for the past 15-odd years, I've gotten up and continued to choose this life we've made together.  I choose this guy, with his big, pure, open heart and his ability to make me gasp with laughter. I choose his sentimentality and sensitivity and empathy.  I choose his silliness and his ability to be a goof around our children and his endless patience as a parent.  I choose our ups and downs, I choose our squabbles, I choose our brocking out in a car together, I choose our shorthand and our finishing each other's sentences.  2001 me, goomba that I was, turned out to be pretty smart, guys.  I don't know what life is going to throw our way.  I don't know what our struggles are going to be.  I don't know how low the capriciousness of fate will bring us.  The only thing I know is that there is an alchemy between we two.  As a team, we are magic.

Fin.

Time Flies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOL at my cautious Big Yam struggling on this thing.

Three amigos

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lindsay talking about his "snow cones."

This guy's morning hair

 

At one of our new favorite playgrounds

Outside all day, erryday.

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

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

So. Much. 'Tude.

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

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY

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

This sweet little butt.

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

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

Dinners around here lately:

Oven roasted kalbi and bi bim bap rice with fried egg

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

Stew oxtail, squash, and spinach with a double

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

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

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

Fin.