Bad news cycle.

Catching up on the news post-weekend is depressing stuff. Anne Hathaway survived on dried oatmeal cakes to lose 25 lbs for Les Misérables? Worst.  Petraeus carrying on an affair like a n00b?  So dumb.  The fiscal cliff? Depressing.  The on-going miasma of misinformation surrounding teacher negotiations in Ontario? Grim.    The spate of sexual assaults in the GTA? Appalling.

I got into a Twitter convo with L'Armi about the Petraeus thing.  He's all like, "who cares if he had an affair?" and I'm like, yeah, I get that.  I certainly never care who is panking who and when.  That's private business, yo.  What I do have problems with are people who carry a great deal of responsibility acting like n00bs.  In this case, they were both giant dum-dums about it.  It's like Adam Giambrone with the affair that cost him his mayoral candidacy.

Dr. Rei and Hanbo hangs last night meant that we had several depressing conversations about microfinance, charity work, the province, cronyism, and how to solve everything, punctuated by interruptions from the Big Yam screaming and doing the thing he does when people come over, which is to run from couch to couch and slam himself face down, while yelling, "HUPPAH!" (or something like it.)  We had dinner courtesy of the Burger's Priest and it was a nice end to what had been a little bit of a trying day with a sick Big Yam.  There was lots of whining and indecisiveness and clinging to my pants' legs (I hate hate hate the feel of hands tugging on my pants' legs!) resulting in me finally throwing up my hands and deciding that 2 episodes of My Big Big Friend is what the doctor ordered, followed by a long, cozy couch nap for the two of us.  I did manage to get a few things done - laundry (I'm engaged in the fruitless and self-defeating pursuit of a house of empty hampers), fig pinwheel cookies, Mona's Mother's Mother's Favorite cookies, some knitting, a curried acorn squash soup for tomorrow and...

...a completed Advent Calendar!  Here it is, after the first of what will probably be many, many trips to the iron, hanging on our downstairs bannister.  Ta-da!  In my folly, I opted for linen, so it has beautiful drape but will wrinkle if you look at it funny.  I stencilled the numbers on the pockets with a Marta Stewart-by-way-of-Michael's typewriter stencil kit and black acrylic paint, and then sewed the pockets and the velcro straps with red thread.  It wasn't the hardest project, but not the easiest, especially since I was doing everything off an Excel spreadsheet-for-graph-paper and crayon-on-sketchpad schematic.  But it's done and it's ready to go for December 1st and I am happy about it.  It will have pride of place alongside my other holiday crafts like the GIANT QUILTED TREE SKIRT OF DOOM.

Here is a shot of my chocolate babka.  As you know, I am a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the culinary and restorative wisdom of Jewish grandmothers, and I'm considering adding chocolate babka, toasted and buttered with salted butter, to my arsenal of sickness or sucky baby fighters.  Let me tell you: there is no better snack in the world than toasted, buttered, babka.  Sweet, rich, tender dough folded around layers of bittersweet chocolate.  This recipe has been my go-to, but I'm dying to have a crack at this one.  A freezer full of babka is good insurance, I think, for most if not all of life's ills.

On Saturday we went to R & R's baby shower, which was held at the Mandarin.  Smartest move, ever.  Best shower location, ever.  I haven't been to a Mandarin in about 20 years.  It's like I never left.  So, so good!!!  I had the misfortune to sit next to a female body builder.  I'll let you guess whose plate belongs to who up there.  

Sunday night we had our 11 year (!!!!!) anniversary dinner at Guu Saka bar and brought along my sis and outlaw bro for the ride (outlaw bro has never been to Guu).  For the record: I had made us reservations at Woodlot, less you accuse me of never wanting to eat at a non-Guu establishment.  

 Friday night's dinner - latkes, panko-breaded chicken thighs with sweet chili dipping sauce, and sauteed sprouts.

Tonight for dinner we had spaghetti with a spicy shrimp scampi sauce and a salad of baby dancine lettuce, radicchio, and roasted beets tossed with buttermilk chive dressing jumped up with fresh grated horseradish.

I spent about 2 hours tonight putting up that shelf up there and my $10 junk store mirror.  THAT MIRROR ONLY COST TEN DOLLARS, Y'ALL (that was a Tami Taylor "y'all" in case you were wondering).  BEST!  I'm sooo happy and all the mucking around with drills and masonry bits and anchors and Tapscon screws was worth it.  I'm not 100% happy with the vignette but that will be a work in progress.  In the meantime: landing strip happiness!!!

I have been reading up a storm lately.  Rebel Angels is the follow up to Libba Bray's New York Times' Bestselling, A Great and Terrible Beauty, which I read ages ago.  At the time, I found it a good enough read but wasn't compelled to follow through.  I'm still on the fence about it.  I like it enough and it is deliciously creepy with it's Victorian setting and covens of witches and the like, but I'm not completely on board with the protagonist and her coterie of friends.  I think that's my problem though.  It's almost like I want the protagonist to smarten up and make the same decisions I would, but that's impossible and unrealistic and while it might be personally validating, doesn't necessarily make for good fiction.  I recommended it heartily to Dr. Rei because she loves 3 things that are well represented in this series: boarding schools, Victorian-era England, and magic/witches.  We'll see how she reports back.

Next up was The Age of Miracles.  This novel has been getting good buzz and good reviews.  It's told from the perspective of a 12 year old girl living in California with her parents.  One day, scientists start to notice that the world is spinning slower on its axis, making days and nights longer and longer.  The book chronicles the first year or so after the "slowing" and the impact this has on the girl, her parents, her community, and the world at large.  The voice of the narrator is perfect - talk about food shortages and the sleep deprivation and blistering UV sun from 72 hour "days" is told with the particularly flat, matter-of-fact, incapable-of-understanding-the-magnitude detachment of a 12 year old.  What is also good about this book is how it shows how rather than dissolving into instant chaos and looting and rioting, the world continues on - there are  boys to crush after and bus stop indignities to endure, yet.  There are the fractures in her parents marriage that either existed before unseen or were brought about by the slowing.  There are the social and economic effects on countries and cities that happen slowly.  And there is the great unknown of the future - the questions that are always with us but are usually kept at bay by our blissful ignorance of the tenuousness of it all, our faith that tomorrow will be like today.  Again, I didn't love this, but being the doomsday prepper/apocalypse obsessed nutjob that I am, it did give me SOMETHING NEW TO WORRY ABOUT.  I contemplated tweeting Neil deGrasse Tyson to find out how likely a similar scenario would be in real life.  I still might.  Again, the detached voice of the narrator made it difficult to feel connected to the text and to her. I'm starting to realize that I like idealized teen narrators.  I want you to be exceptional!!!  

I most recently finished Nell Freudenberger's The Newlyweds.  Another much-lauded recent hardcover.  From Bangladesh, Amina and her doting, complicated parents pin their hopes for their future on the marriage she has arranged with George in Rochester, who she meets on an online dating site geared towards east Asians and their North American suitors.  This is a sweet, quiet little story about two people moving across nations to be together and carrying with them the baggage, desires, and secrets of two people moving across the world to be together.  The title is so deliciously deliberate.  Who are we when we choose to marry another? Is the leap of faith between two high school sweethearts really any different than an online marriage between a Deshi Muslim woman and her engineer husband-to-be?  The writing is top notch - it is evocative without being showy, plain and still but revealing and imminently readable.  I loved the tone that Freudenberger struck and her astute eye for the details - both in Rochester (and how thrilling it was to hear reference to places in the Rochester area that I knew and had even stepped foot in!) and in Bangladesh.  At it's heart, this is a love story, though an unexpected one.  It's also about faith and hope and the disconnection between the developed and developing worlds, who are at once so very far apart and not so different after all.  I quite liked this novel and would recommend it.

Fin.

I'm trying very hard

...to give Veteran's their day, before EXPLODING about how the stress from holidays with my family makes me implode but ARGH, ARGH, A THOUSAND TIMES, ARGH!!!

This year, the Dotytron and I decided that in lieu of buying people the stuff off their "list" (and keep in mind, my family sibling Secret Santa has a limit of SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS, plus what we buy for the parents, grandparents, and nieces, and nephews, and not including what we get for the Dotytron's side of the family), that we would put that money towards sponsoring a less fortunate family.  Any extra money would be donated to Applegrove Community Complex, which hosts a drop-in centre that the Big Yam frequents with his daycare provider and offers lots of great services to new immigrants, etc.  We're still going to buy presents for the little kids because I'm not so monstrous as to believe that Xmas isn't about children.

This accomplishes a few things:  1) it underscores the truly fun part about the holidays, which is really about eating cookies with your family and loved ones and seeing them and spending quality time together; 2) making us mindful of the rampant consumerism of our lives; 3) reducing the amount of misguided gifts that we often end up giving away.  Let's be real: anything that I really really really want costs hundreds of dollars.  I don't expect anyone to get that for me.  I actually feel icky about the need to have a pile of presents on Xmas morning.  It's weird and random to me.  

Anyway, of course (of course!) my family is balking.  Notably, my mum is balking.  And somehow, in all of this, I'M GETTING TURNED INTO THE BAD GUY.  Which is the most laughable part of the whole run down.  Like I'm "ruining" the holidays.  I'm not saying, don't do the family Secret Santa.  I'm just saying, I'm not going to participate.  It would be one thing if my family were also the sort to appreciate handmade presents - but they're not.  I've seen jars of jam and barbecue sauce languishing on shelves in my mum's pantry for years and years.  I've seen hand-knitted goods be worn once or twice and then never to be seen again.  All of these things represent hours and hours of my labour, and they're not appreciated.  No, STUFF is appreciated and that's the part that makes me feel icky.  Because there is no more precious thing on this world than TIME and to not appreciate the time that it takes to make or craft something is truly, truly sad.

The other issue here is family autonomy.  As generations grow, individual family units will start to make their own family traditions - separate and distinct from the previous generation's.  That's okay and an important part of growing.  My family didn't HAVE a holiday tradition growing up.  Invariably, we were on a plane on Xmas.  I think Big D bought us presents one year, and that was the year he first joined the family and was being all "cool stepfather trying to win over the brats he inherited" about things.  My mum has never bought us birthday or Xmas presents growing up (I'd say, from the time I was born til about 23).  It just wasn't our thing.  I'm okay with that.  It doesn't phase me.  It just rankles that a new tradition is being presented as set in stone.  Traditions grow and evolve and morph and change based on the people enacting them.  

Anyway, this is my usual customary holiday rant to say: I'm sticking to my guns.  In the same way that I think kids receiving piles of plastic, branded birthday presents is excessive, I'm saying the same about Xmas.  

You know what I really want for Xmas?  BABYSITTING VOUCHERS.  YES, PLEASE!!!  Or, let's go out to dinner.  Or make a time where you buy me lunch or I buy you lunch.  I want to sit and talk and eat good food and drink wine with you.  That's what I want.  I want to be able to have a night out with the Dotytron and not have it cost us double because we have to pay a babysitter.  Give the gift of time and thoughtfulness.  Give the gift of hanging out and building memories.  

I know, I know.  I'm such a pinko Mama Dread.  I can't help it.  It's even harder being a pinko, lefty, Mama Dread born in a family of POLAR OPPOSITES.  But I will keep fighting the good fight!  Water wears away the stone (although the stone might be me).

Sigh.  I promise not to rant about Xmas any more.  This has been freeing actually.  I might still try to bang out some crafty projects, but we'll see how it goes.  

Tomorrow is my day off! I have a pretty big slate of projects on deck.  Namely:

- make a sweet potato pecan pie
- make baked brie lollipops with my home made quick puff pastry
- make two chocolate babka
- make and freeze rugelach (dough is already prepped)
- make fig pinwheel cookies
- make Little Big Cuz's birthday cake
- get a massage
- grocery shop
- work on my advent calendar

:|

We'll see how it all goes down.

Tonight for dinner we had chickpea & kale falafels with pitas with store-bough bought baba ghanouj and tzatiki.  Kale in falafels = amazing.

Fin.

U.S. Election Day!

Aside from the choices made to elect the next POTUS, I'm extra nervous and on tenterhooks today on account of the fact that my outlaw bro will find out whether he gets elected to be District Attorney.  It's nerve-racking!  I semi-strongly believe that the differences between Obama and Romney are largely negligible and I'm worried about what the Republican party is likely to do in the wake of a loss (whether they're likely to go more far right and abandon the moderate centre), but my investment in this election is mostly from the perspective of wanting Uncle Rico to win.

Go go Uncle Rico!  

At the very least, I'm happy that my lovely sister and her family no longer have to participate in the absurd farce that is US electoral politics and campaigning.

Yesterday I had a terrible, awful, no good very bad day.  I came home and dinner wasn't ready and so we ate late and I was crochety.  As an attempt to re-align the family, I started the "What was your favorite part of the day?" round.  

Me: "Big Yam, what was your favorite part of the day?"

Big Yam: *not missing a beat* "Meatballs."

LOL!  He looked right into my eyes, too.  He believed it.  So funny!  He's a bit of an unreliable witness - I'm not sure that he actually had meatballs or came in contact with meatballs yesterday.  

In other funny news.  I was emailing my sis to find out what I should get for Little Big Cuz's 2nd birthday.  She emailed me back, "I just asked him and, no joke, he said 'Big Yam' and when I asked him if he wanted to SEE the Big Yam, he said yes."  !!!!!  So cute!  I love that the two cousins love each other so darned hard.

This weekend was legit.  Friday night was Ladies' Night on my street.  We went to the Riverside Public House.  It was pretty good!  I ordered the burger but I should have ordered the fried chicken.  You get two drumsticks and a thigh (I tried my neighbour's) and it's perfect, crunchy, juicy fried chicken served with a heap of mashed potatoes and kale with gravy.  All this for $14, which I think is a great price.  I highly recommend it and wished I had ordered it instead of what I did get.  I ordered the burger, which was fine - delicious, juicy, with skinny salty fries, but the fried chicken was much better.  I split some appetizers with my neighbour as well - a mussel and lobster chowder and chanterelles on toast.  I love love love chanterelles - what's not to love about a pile of buttery, rich, gorgeous sautéed mushrooms piled on toast?  Absolutely nothing, that's what.  

Saturday was Lolly's wedding - it was a beautiful affair in a beautiful space with amazing food.  We sat at a table with the full slew of kdubsguelph crew and it was one of the few times we've ever had to sit at a table at a wedding without the (seemingly) obligatory random couple shoe-horned in.  It was great!  Uncle Jesse made this video that they screened during the reception - it's adorable.  He's so talented.  

The Irish Artist - A Wedding Film from Jesse A on Vimeo.

Then SMckay slept over and we woke up the next morning and gave the Big Yam a haircut and she bought us McDonald's and we gossiped.  Maybe it's a by-product of being raised by super-strict Asian parents who were always like, "why would you ever want to sleep somewhere OTHER than your own bed?" but I don't think I'll ever get tired of friend sleepovers.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm particularly well suited to communal living.  I just think it's the funnest to come home to your besties!  I would happily lose the ability to walk around the house naked for living with friends again.  I'm a big proponent of it taking a village.  Which is all to say that I love it when SMckay sleeps over.  

Anyway, I drove her home and picked up Momma D, who had extensive hand surgery last Tuesday, which means that she's not really equipped to be on her own for long stretches until she gets the hang of doing everything one-handed.  She came over and we napped and snoozed and watched movies and ate pizza.  It was lovely.  I banged off another batch of cookies (hazelnut thumbprints) and made hot chocolate and we were cozy on the couch.  I didn't feel like I particularly got the benefit of the extra hour, but we made up for it that night by going to bed at 8:30pm and not waking until 6am the next morning.  Bliss!

Last night's (rescued) dinner: sunchoke soup with bacon, cheddar cheese, and chives.  This was soooo good!  I love Jerusalem artichokes so much.  The flavour is so unique.  I had wanted to smoke the sunchokes but didn't get around to it on Sunday.

Tonight we had the roomie and T over for dinner.  We had a baked pasta with ricotta, mozzarella, and a turkey tomato sauce.  With an arugala & radicchio salad with parm and lemon juice.  I also made us ginger molasses cookies.  That up there is the PERFECT blanket of cheese with the PERFECT amount of browning for chew/goo.

We got our MPAC assessment in the mail today.  Ugh.  It's so bittersweet.  The good news is: according to MPAC, our house has increased 135% in value since we bought it (and actually, the appraised price then was more than we paid for the house).  The bad news is that our property tax rates will go up accordingly.  

Fin.

Dia de los Muertos

We had a really good night.  We told funny stories about Poppa and Kung Kung and Poppa D and Grandpa Reid and we left them food and drink on our little altar:

My posole also kicked about 10 different kinds of culo.  I could eat that shiz all day.  What's not to love about hominy, beans, and pork shoulder simmered for hours and hours?  NOTHING.

I forgot to post these photos yesterday - check out these awesome Day of the Dead masks:

From Scrumdilly's blog.  They put glowsticks in the eye sockets for night.  Brilliant!

Tonight is Ladies' night on my street.  We're going to go out to this restaurant in the 'hood called the Riverside Public House.  It's not getting the most amazing reviews but it's close and the menu is low-key enough for some of the more unadventurous eaters in the group.

Tomorrow is: Lolly's wedding!!!  I've got my outfit all ready and I've been practicing my reading.  Looking forward to partying with all my kubdsguelph crew and SMcKay sleepover, post.

Fin.

Halloween! (And Sansotei Ramen review) (And Dia de los Muertos!)

I took yesterday off of work to prepare for Halloween and I just BARELY MADE IT.  Seriously, pumpkins were being lit, I was yelling at the Dotytron to throw the Big Yam outside and dinner clean-up still had to happen by the time the first kids started knocking on our door.  I don't know how you do it if you don't take a vacation day.  

These are my pumpkins this year:

Golias from My Big Big Friend.  My one Halloween concession for the Big Yam was this pumpkin.  He was so happy when he saw it!  He also insisted on bringing the wet, slimy, pumpkin-smeared paper template I used to the drop-in centre with him.

Prince because I like to keep things thematically sound.

I was pretty crazy productive yesterday, so that made things worth it.  I banged off a batch of snickerdoodles, made a double recipe of pie pastry for the freezer, made yesterday's dinner and tonight's dinner, made a lemon meringue pie, went to the drop-in centre, carved 2 pumpkins, and squeezed in a trip to Kensington market and back for a (fruitless) search for Day of the Dead decor for dinner tonight.  Oh, and I also made a last-minute batch of pumpkin butterscotch blondies because if there's one guarantee in life, it's that rainy evenings make me yearn for something warm and homebaked.

I took the Big Yam out trick-or-treating.  He didn't really get it.  He was just happy to be outside after dinner for a change.  He walked up to people's houses and when I coached him with, "what do you say?" he said, "please!"  It was pretty cute.  But I can tell you that I wasn't about to go traipsing around all night in the wet and cold so we were out for about 20 minutes and then headed home (20 minutes in toddler trick-or-treating time is like, 5 houses).

On Tuesday I went to see Thomas Keller speak with JJ (the Discerning Coyote's big sister).  Thomas Keller was a bit of a robot.  He's not really a cook anymore - he's a restauranteur, and the interviewer was lobbing really soft questions and he was answering them in a really boring way - it was all standard stuff: "learn from your mistakes" "practice" but delivered in a paternalistic, vaguely patronizing style.  I wasn't a fan, but it was fun to go and get the cookbook, and hang with JJ.

Beforehand, I took advantage of the time in between work and the start of the talk to check out this ramen place that's had Toronto ramen aficionados all abuzz, Sansotei Ramen.  The last time I tried to go with Dr. Rei, they ran out of broth and posted a sign on their window (which is pretty hardcore, in my humble opinion).  There are also frequent line-ups.  I got in around 5:20pm and sat down and looked at their slim menu.  I'm a purist (as everyone who knows me is already aware) so I almost always get a tonkotsu ramen or a shio ramen.  I'm not a fan of Kenzo-style "king of kings" or spicy ramen with corn and stuff.  It's just not for me.  Anyway, this place caters to purists.  Your choices are tonkotsu, tonokotsu shoyu, shio, or miso ramen.  There are 3 or 4 other items.  I ordered the zangi (bits of fried chicken thighs) and the tonkotsu and it was without a doubt the best ramen I've ever had in my life.

The ramen noodles were perfectly cooked, still chewy and al dente.  The egg was divine, with a gorgeous, golden runny yolk.  They serve their ramen with fungus and a tasty piece of rolled pork shoulder.  But the broth - the broth was perfection!  Sweet, milky, creamy with all the rendered goodness of pork bones long simmered.  The pork shoulder was juicy, rich, and ever-so-slightly smoky tasting.  The balance of seasoning was on point - unlike so many other places, it wasn't too salty.  At Kinton, they thwack the extra fat on top, but I didn't notice this here, which means that the broth is less rich, but more tasty for it.  The zangi was crisp, juicy, but a bit paltry for the $4.50 price tag.  I couldn't think of a more satisfying meal on a rainy day.  I also can't wait to go back with the Dotytron in tow.  The flavour of that broth and the juicy, fatty pork haunt me.  I loved the chewiness of the fungus.  With ramen places opening up at the rate of one a week in Toronto, that Japanese font (that Guu brought to TO) is really getting a workout!  

Last night's dinner: wild mushroom barley risotto with a poached egg and bacon.  Salad of fried green tomatoes (properly breaded this time) on dancine lettuce with bacon and buttermilk-chive dressing.

Today is the Day of the Dead!  We are observing this year to remember Poppa and Poppa D and my Kung Kung.  I set up a little altar in the living room with photos and candles.  We will eat posole and I made a lemon meringue pie (Poppa D's favorite).  We will hopefully talk about them and remember them and laugh and hope that their spirits come back for a visit and a nosh.  I love Dia de los Muertos.  I think it's such a wonderful idea - to celebrate and laugh and remember the dead fondly instead of being all super-white person repressed about it and burying our feelings.  The dead do walk among us, and just because they're no longer occupying a flesh-based dimension, doesn't mean that we shouldn't invite them into our homes.  I'm going to get on the ball and order some proper decor for next year.  Sugar skulls and skull candle holders and those beautiful tissue paper cut-outs garlands and the like.  If the weather wasn't so rotten we'd be doing something at Poppa D's grave, but we might save that for this weekend instead.  

Here is a photo of those butterscotch pumpkin blondies.  I made them to rid my fridge of a tupperware of leftover pumpkin puree from Thanksgiving pie making.  I tinkered with the recipe a bit and came up with something I really enjoyed.  It's quite light, and not dense like a brownie/blondie is.  I added an extra egg and doubled the amount of pumpkin and changed the chip type from my base recipe.  It's like a soft, mushy (but in a good way!!!) pumpkin square with warm, spicy, toffee notes.  I think my messing with the recipe resulted in a lack of that crackly top that you usually get with blondies/brownies, but I've been getting rave reviews for this, so I've attached the recipe below.

Happy Dia de los Muertos, everyone!

Fin.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies
makes 20 squares

1 stick of unsalted butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. white sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
1 c. pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 c. flour
1 t. salt
3/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. allspice
1/4 t. cloves
1 c. butterscotch chips

- melt the butter in a small saucepan and cook until the milk solids are caramelized and the butter smells nutty and toasty (do not burn!)*
- whisk the butter with the two sugars until well combined.
- stir in the eggs, pumpkin, and vanilla.
- add the dry ingredients.
- fold in the chips.
- pour into an 8" square baking pan lined with two strips of parchment paper laid crosswise with overhang.
- bake in a 350F oven for about 35-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- let the blondies cool for 15 minutes, lift out of the pan with the help of your parchment overhang and cut into 20 squares.

*note: the original recipe called for browning the butter.  I didn't notice that I could taste the browned butter so I think you could easily omit this extra step.  

Parenthood

We were talking with friends recently and the Dotytron said something pretty astute on the topic of parenting.  He was remarking on how it's mind-boggling to him how soon the notion of a double life takes hold in a kid.  The Big Yam just turned two, but he totally leads a double life.  The other day, he started whining when the Dotytron went to pick him up from daycare and J was like, "Master T!" all shocked and surprised and stuff and Dotytron was like, "Um, what. WELCOME TO MY LIFE."  J says the Big Yam never whines at her house.

WHAT MUST THAT BE LIKE?!?

I don't even know.

We've been having major issues with diet and acting up lately.  He's just turned snoopy.  He doesn't want to eat vegetables (but will randomly eat kale chips and sag paneer) and doesn't like to eat anything but meat and carbs.  It's super-frustrating and makes meal times kind of the worst because he starts getting all psycho and throws his plate, placemat and utensils on the floor.  I don't really have any great tips for dealing with this.  We basically just move stuff out of his reach, or tell him that this is what he gets for dinner and that's it, or tell him he can't have the thing he wants (bread or meat) until he has some of the thing he doesn't want.  More often than not, for the past month this has meant that he doesn't eat very much dinner at all and we just treat it really matter-of-factly.  I know the kid's not going to starve.  I'm not going down the path of making two meals or changing our diet to suit his whims.  When he turns into a massive juggalo I turn his high chair around so that we both have a chance to reset and so that I can eat a meal without him being disruptive.

It's a little frustrating but mostly we just try to ignore it.  Last night, he really wanted the biscuit but didn't want the borscht.  So I told him no more biscuit until he had some of the soup.  He pitched his placemat and spoon and then did this monster voice thing.  Then he calmed down and started rooting around in his high chair and somehow found a lump of biscuit that had gotten wedged in there.  He picked it up, examined it and said, "Oh! Little bunny [he was calling the biscuits bunnies for some reason].  This guyyyyy."  We almost died laughing.  Calling the scrap of biscuit "this guy" is so funny.

So yeah, he brings us a lot of happiness.  I know much has been made about the studies that show that people without kids are happier than people with kids (but it's balanced by the fact that people with kids find their lives more rewarding).  I asked the Dotytron a few weeks ago if having the Big Yam in his life made him happier and he gave me the "are you crazy?" look and answered very much in the affirmative.  I don't question my level of happiness with the Big Yam in my life nor do I yearn to go back to my childless state (much).

The other night, I pulled all the pillows off the couch and made a fort/tunnel with blankets and sheets and we made a big mess and acted like idiots and it was profoundly enjoyable.  As was teaching the Big Yam to talk like a robot yesterday.  For every moment of being a psycho there is an equal and opposite moment of being a funny little turd burglar.

I forgot to mention that this weekend will forever go down as the weekend in which my mother in law got mad at me for not liking mincemeat tarts.  We were at her house for a bit and eating these pecan butter tarts she had bought and Momma D was like, "when are you going to learn to make mincemeat tarts?" and I was like, "Uh, I don't like mincemeat."  And she gets all snappy and says, "do you even know what they are? It's beef suet!"  and I'm like, "yeah, but I don't really love dried fruit and I hate raisins" and was given a look of withering incredulousness for my troubles.  I was like, "get one of your own kids to make you mincemeat tarts!" Hahaha, oh outlaw moms.  It's nice to know I'm continuing my streak of striking out with every parental figure I come across.

Tonight I'm going to see Thomas Keller with JJ!  We got the tickets that get us a copy of the Bouchon Bakery cookbook.  I'm excited.

Fin.

Le Petit Prince

I've never laughed harder in my life.  I would say that all-told, I put in about 10-15 hours of work into this costume, between going out and buying the fabric and supplies, cutting and sewing the jacket, applying the trim, and then knitting him the wig-hat and pulling the yarn through to make the "hair."  That's a not-insignificant amount of time.  But when he put on the whole thing...it was worth it for the amount of howling the costume elicited.  I mean really, just LOOK AT HIM:

I'm really dreading the day when he's going to express some opinion as to what he wants to be for Halloween and I won't be able to dictate it based on my whims.  Shouts out to SMckay who either came up outright or who planted the seed and enthusiastically supported the vision.  Thanks to G who lent me a pair of her daughter's black leggings.  He definitely looks more like the David Chappelle version of Prince than the actual Prince, but I feel like this just adds to the general cracked out charm of the costume.

We dressed as members of The Revolution

Our costumes weren't as good as the Big Yam's.  A dearth of Halloween parties this year (my two usual suspects for Halloween parties were both out of commission) meant that I didn't put a tonne of effort in.  So unfortunately, you won't have the opportunity to see the Dotytron in his XL silver Spandex leggings from Forever 21.  Not this year anyway.  They're on standby for next year.

This is one of the only group shots I could get from the Halloween party we went to yesterday at my neighbour's house:

I really really really like my neighbours.  I also consider it a personal affront when a neighbour wants to move off the street.    

The birthday party on Saturday was so sweet.  We didn't know very many people but everyone was so nice and so cute, the time just flew by.  They set up an indoor bouncy castle and the Big Yam was in there at first with the girls (because most of the girls were closer to his age) and then stayed in when the boys went in and I'm telling you, I didn't have the stomach for watching my kid in a bouncy castle.  It's way too Thunderdome for me.  I feel like it's a concussion waiting to happen.  Ha!

I was pretty pooped post party so I stayed home while the Dotytron went out to see A play.  It was a good thing too, because he got to have a night with the boys.  A night of being out til 5am and getting wasted and roaming Chinatown in search of cold tea and almost getting into a fight.  He was a hurting unit yesterday.  I took pity on him so I packed up the Boobla and took him with me erranding - we hit up the Farmer's Market and Canadian Tire where I randomly bought a million LED flash lights.  Which will prove to come in handy when this FRANKENSTORM tears down every tree around and we're without power.  I pride myself on my emergency preparedness preoccupation, but I'm not that big of a prepper, really.  We've never talked about escape routes or whatnot in great detail (although it's on my to-do list).  But I am THRUMMING with excitement at the opportunity to mobilize in preparation for the hurricane.  The book I'm reading right now, The Age of Miracles, is certainly helping to get me in the right frame of mind for apocalypse and food shortages and whatnot (it's about what happens when the earth suddenly starts rotating slower on its axis - leading to days and nights that last for 50 hours or more).  

My friend in Ohio, H is super into emergency preparedness (one more thing that makes us kindred spirits), and he gave us his Bug Out Bag contents list.  This list is a thing of beauty.  Coupled with the Dotytron's reinvigorated love of camping, I see many many hundreds of dollars being spent at Mountain Equipment Co-Op in our future.  UV filters!  Collapsible saws!  Machetes!!  Flints!!

Sunday hangover breakkie - corned beef hash & over-easy eggs.

Sunday dinner: spaghetti and meatballs.  I went balls-out Nonna and made 7lbs of meatball mix.  Half got frozen in 2 separate ziploc bags.  The other half turned into meatballs and cooked off.  Of that, half of those were mixed with sauce and put in the freezer for future sliders/sammies/who knows what, and the remainder got turned into the meal you see above.  

Guys, I started my holiday baking on Sunday.  Sorry, didn't mean to stress you out, but I was looking at the calendar and I started freaking - we're booked up until the weekend of November 24th/25th!  Too crazy.  Anyway, in the past, I've done double batches of cookies and frozen them balled up, so that I just have to make 4 or 5 different kinds and can bake up a mixed box as I need them.  Psychologically, making 100-portion batches of cookie dough can be really intimidating.  So I'm switching it up this year and making one batch of a type on Saturday and Sunday leading up to the holidays.  That way, I get to try a bunch of different recipes and reincorporate old favorites, and then I'm not balling up dough and hating my life for hours because I break it up over a few days.  This tactic will give me more variety.  I'm hoping that this will make the process more fun and less grim/utilitarian/militaristic.  I'll report back.  

I'm mostly freaking because I committed myself (in my head) to making the Big Yam an advent calendar, which means I have to be finished it in a month, if I want to start the activities and treats calendar on December 1st (the whole point of an advent calendar).  I also put out notice to my siblings that I'm NOT doing Christmas presents for them this year.  I'm just not going to do it.  Last year was silly.  There was a gag-gift Yankee swap AND the usual secret Santa and I'm just over the tyranny of buying gifts for grown adults.  I think that the holidays is about CHILDREN and I'm also over getting a pile of crap and more stuff.  I'm not feeling it and I really just want to be able to sit around with my family and the Dotytron's family and talk and be cosy and watch movies and eat cookies.  I'm not into the whole army of presents thing the Dotytron's family does.  It just feels silly now that I'm into my thirties.  And it's so much garbage made so no reason.  Anyway, it's been radio silence from my siblings so I think they're just going to ignore me...but I'm holding firm!  Nothing for anyone but the kiddies!  I don't even know if we're going to get the Big Yam anything other than stuff for his stocking.  Realistically, judging by how thrilled he was by our trip to Canadian Tire, I might just stuff his stocking with like, a pair of slippers, a toque and mitts, and a bunch of Canadian Tire money.  

Dinner tonight was a storm-busting borscht (made with short ribs), with dilled sour cream and cheddar-sage biscuits.

Fin.

Artists

What was supposed to be a week of lions ended up being a week of lambs.  Our dinner plans for this evening cancelled, the host is sick and didn't feel up to making dinner for a dozen people (I don't blame him!)

We skipped dodgeball on Wednesday, I was sick on Tuesday, and missed my FROG meeting on Monday. So it's actually been pretty low-key.

Our friend A is visiting from NYC, so we had him over for dinner last night.  We had shrimp and grits with andouille sausage and okra.  It was KILLER.  We also had a hail-mary assist from a neighbour too.  I forgot to turn the slow cooker on before leaving the house and then sent out a frantic APB to all my neighbours to see who could come into our house and turn it on for us.  Love my neighbours, love my 'hood.

Anyway, through the course of conversation last night A was talking about how his recently released record is akin to his child (in reference to some friends who he'd given a copy to and hadn't given it a listen).  I gotta say, I really really really disagree with this statement.  Obviously, context is everything, A wasn't using it on a one-to-one level the way I've heard it employed elsewhere.  He was just using it as a shorthand to say that the album was really important to him and he wanted his friends to give it a listen.  I get that, I totally do.  But here's the thing: I kind of believe that as an artist, your painting/dance/theatre performance, etc. isn't your child, it's YOUR JOB.  People have children ON TOP of their jobs, not as a replacement for them (for the most part).

I always see all these things on Facebook and on my internet travels that feature pithy little statements about art and the value of art and how artists do it FOR THE LOVE OF IT, blah blah blah as if producing art is more pure or a more difficult path than other career trajectories.  I'm sorry, but I don't buy it.  I'm not saying it's NOT hard.  I'm sure it's very very very hard and challenging and I know there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't as difficult or trying.  BUT IT'S NOT THE ONLY ONE TRUE CHALLENGING JOB.  It just isn't.  Look at my littlest bro and his dentist aspirations.  Look at what the Dotytron does for crissakes.  Look at the expertise you need to do policy research or policy analysis and like, help the province run.  Everyone (for the most part, of people I know and consider peers) has a hard job.  It would be difficult for me to step into the shoes of a lot of people I know and do what they do, the same way it would be difficult for them to do what I do.

Which isn't to say that we don't all have days when we need a boost and need some support or just want to complain and b***h about our lot.  I'm just saying it's not like artists have the exclusive right to that line, ya know?

Also, talk to me when you work a full 40 hour work week, EVERY week.  So few artists I know do that.  Same with my grad student friends.  Talk to me when you put in a consistent 8:30-5:30pm EVERY DAY, and then we can talk.  I used to work consistent 60+ hour work weeks.  Then I got my current job and 40 hours felt like a dream, but my 40 hours is still MILES above what my grad student friends pull.  Grad student friends are like, wake up at 9, leisurely coffee drink, read Salon and Gawker, grocery shop...uh, NONE OF THAT COUNTS AS WORK TIME!

Anyway, this is all to say that I find likening your work product to a child is silly.  Not that children are such precious, special, all-consuming tasks, but more like, very often, people are doing their parenting ON TOP of working full time jobs, so the comparison isn't apt, from a time-investment perspective.  *Insert cringey FB meme about how "I work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  I AM A MOTHER"*  LOL!  Those memes make my insides contract with displaced embarrassment.

My not-so-new-but-has-to-be-reiterated obsession is with the Beckham family and specifically, any photos I see featuring Harper Seven.  I just want Posh and Becks to adopt me.  First of all, that baby is freakin' adorable.  Second of all, I love what good parents Posh and Becks seem to be.  Third of all, I love that despite VB's plussed up fashion sense, she always seems to dress Harper tastefully.  Like, Harper's not always jacked up to the nines the way J-Lo's kids are or like Suri Cruise or Mimi's kids are and a lot of the times Harper is wearing pants and a shirt that are totally normal and suitable for Upper East Side/probably will be sent to boarding school rich kid play.  Not like, the rough and tumble, communal snack play of regular people's kids, but still not approaching the levels of fancy froufrou that rich kids could go.  Fourthly, I want that cape that Harper is wearing up there.

For dinner tonight we had our favorite Afghani takeout from Bamiyan.  So. Good.  

The other night we had freezer tomato basil tart (which the Dotytron over-browned in the oven) alongside a salad of cornmeal-crusted fried green tomatoes, bacon, and greens with a buttermilk-chive dressing.  The salad was so good that I snapped up a bunch more green tomatoes from the CSA to futz around with.

I'm freaking out because we only have 4 more freezer meals left and I'm an emergency preparedness hoarder so only 4 meals seems dangerously low to me.  I'm a headcase.

I have also chosen to embark on the lunacy that is making cake balls.  I'm going to split it up over a few days and hope that this will make the process more bearable.  It was a snap decision that I made when I was trying to think of what I could bring to the kids Halloween party we're going to on Sunday, and to bring into the drop in centre for the annual Halloween potluck next Wednesday.  For some reason, CAKE BALLS seemed logical.  Which is INCREDIBLY stupid, in hindsight.  But, I had already bought the cake mix and the frosting.  As my friend G so sagely suggested - why couldn't I just turn the box cake and frosting into cupcakes?  BECAUSE I'M A PSYCHO, THAT'S WHY.  According to the immutable logic (?) of my me-ness, box cake mix is okay for the purposes of cake balls, but to bring in boxed cake cupcakes to a party as a representation of what I do (even though, at the drop in centre, that table of food is going to be a randomonium smorgasbord of the highest order), is unacceptable.  Because I'm a psycho.  

Here's a pic of the finished product:

Never Again.

We just did a little Big Yam Halloween costume dress rehearsal...and let me tell you - it's pretty awesome.  

Fin.

Home sick

I left work early yesterday sick and stayed home from work today.  Which means I missed the FROG meeting yesterday and I'm feeling guilty.  I want to get more involved in community doings and joining FROG was going to be my entry point.  That crew needs all the help they can get.  They were waiting to meet in person to assign tasks and I was like, "why don't you set up a Google document with the tasks so we can sign ourselves up and get started?" *sound of crickets*  It's basically as bad as some of the teachers in the Dotytron's current school who REFUSE TO USE EMAIL.  Like, don't have accounts, refuse to learn, cannot be contacted that way.  I feel like that's completely unacceptable in this day and age!  Ridiculous.

In between napping on the couch, I've had time to contemplate a few things:

1) I've decided that I want a very dark, deep, matte navy nail polish and it's proving impossible to find.
2) My new fall weekend uniform consists of: boyfriend jeans, New Balance, a t-shirt, thin sweater, or a long-sleeved henley, and a blazer.  I feel like I'm KILLING it in this outfit.
3) The Big Yam reciting a signature SMckay catchphrase:

Last night the Dotytron made us shakshuka eggs for dinner:

I am LOVING our new placemats.  I got them from Modern Twist - they do these silicone placemats that are awesome!  Wipeable, easy to keep clean, great designs.  I got the Kyoto design in lemon, to go with our accent colour.  This design is actually out of print so I had to do some chasing to gather up enough for 8 settings.  Love!!!

Tonight we had freezer chicken tikka masala and eggplant bharta with brown rice and rotis:

This is the Big Yam feeding homemade play dough to Dom:

My friend G hipped me to this 10 minute homemade playdough recipe (available here).  It's AWESOME!  It takes less than 10 minutes...about 30 seconds, really.  I like it because it's less crumbly than regular playdough...it didn't seem to get everywhere, and I like that I'm controlling the ingredients so if the odd piece gets into his mouth, I feel comfortable that it's not going to give him weird horns or anything.

Uhhh...that's it for me.  I'm off to bed again.

Fin.