Today Venice and I drove up to visit Marie in the hospital (currently residing there due to general unpleasantness of the pancreas). We brought her a huge gift basket we made thanks to a major geek-out in Target where we bought anything pink, Liberty of London, or necessary to a fine lady incarcerated against her will that we could find. After that we headed into the city. We shopped J. Crew and Loft, scored major finds on the sale racks, and ate a luxurious lunch (free drinks from the waiter!). Afterwards I met up with J. at his parents house where he was studying for exams and fell asleep for two glorious hours on a comfy sofa.
In other words, exactly what I needed.
There's family you're born into, family you marry into and family you make. All are important. My Ladies Who Lunch friends (Venice, Marie, Peregrine, Ariosa, Margot, Angel, Fairy, GS, etc.) will someday be the surrogate Aunts of my children. Who will be awfully confused when they get a school assignment to make a family tree.
“Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about Rock’n’Roll.”
– Shigeru Miyamoto
Last Friday, J. and I headed north to the city to play with Angel and her husband Hotty. Both of the men lived/worked in Korea at some point and converted their respective wives to the cuisine so we went to Angel’s favorite restaurant, got ice cream, and retired to their basement flat to play Rock Band.
In retrospect, I think I liked him because he was (also) touchy about his height.
Growing up we didn’t have gaming systems and to this day they remain verboten at Chez Parents, so I have never developed the necessary finger-eye coordination and thumb dexterity required by video games. My gaming experience was limited to watching Peregrine playing Final Fantasy back in the day, and trying Spyro The Dragon (exactly two times) while babysitting. And since I didn’t know what the point of the game was or how to achieve it, I mostly just scampered around whatever level I was on blowing fire and falling off things into oblivion while evil signs flashed “GAME OVER,” or something of the sort.
Pictured: Angel, Hotty, C. (with mustache), and J.
So, Beatles Rock Band went about as I expected. They started me on the drums which was manageable on the easiest level, but still confusing as I couldn’t get the timing of my whacks on the drum set vs. the scrolling instructions right until J. told me to ignore it and go along with the beat instead (oOOOoohhhh. Rhythm. Right).
At some point I graduated to guitar and luckily we set it to “impossible to fail” because I proceeded to slaughter the music. Then I got really ambitious and went from “Easy” to “Medium” and discovered my lack of hand-eye coordination is not just limited to sports. And I must be mildly dyslexic because for the life of me I couldn’t manage to match my fingers with their assigned keys, much less with the dots of color that wouldn’t stop rolling towards me. And chords! Impossible!
I think I’ll be settling back into video game retirement now, thanks.
“At least she’s eating better things than macaroni and cheese.”
– Heidi Klum
Translation of fragment: "Mac and Cheese is food fit for dogs. And Gauls. Go Rome!"
Throughout my life my mother has been in school, in some capacity or another. When I was about three or four, she had to leave Dad and I for a few weeks to finish up something or other with one of her degrees (I misremember which. Which isn’t me being a bad daughter, it’s her having one in Asian Studies, one in American History, and now another in Classical Studies from Cambridge because she decided to learn Greek and Latin. In other words, my mother is exceptionally awesome). Time has blurred the details a bit but as I recall, this was an absolute highlight of my short life because Dad and I subsisted on mainly pizza.
I didn’t realize this during the Great Pizza Blitz, but it turned out that my Dad hated cooking. Really hated it. He encouraged my Mum to go to school, continue her education throughout her life, and work if she wanted, but by golly the one thing he wanted was dinner to be on the table, because left up to him, dinner would come grudgingly from a frozen package.
So, a few years down the road when she decided to teach for a semester or two at a local university, I thought the Pizza Affair would be reborn. I was sadly, terrifyingly mistaken.
This is NOT food.
Mac and Cheese. From a box. Every night. Some days even for lunch. Sometimes we varied it up with chunks of hotdog, but mostly not. Again, I’m sure both time and horror have worked their magic on me and the vile orange sludge was not as prolific as I remember, but it sure seemed like it at the time. When my mother’s teaching finished, I refused to eat another disgusting, processed bite, and I’ve never touched it since. Once when shopping J. picked up a box for himself on days when I’d be at school late or he needed a lunch, I had to swallow escaping bile.
However, watching Food Network the other day, I saw a recipe for ‘Grown Up Mac And Cheese’ and thought suddenly to myself, “That doesn’t look so bad.” It sounded pretentious enough that I could assure myself that it would be as un-Kraft-like as possible, but looked really easy to make. So, on Sunday I girded my loins and made Mac and Cheese for the first time in years.
And you know what? It was pretty darned tasty!
**I’ll still never make the packaged stuff again. My children will not be subjected to this powdered cheese monstrosity, except to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. And even then, I might choose death.
“That’s a bingo! …Is that the way you say it? ‘That’s a bingo?'”
“You just say bingo.”
“Ah! Bingo! How fun! But I digress. Where were we?”
– Inglorious Basterds
Today has been a lovely Sunday, it’s sunny and gorgeous outside, you can smell Spring in the air in spite of the snow on the mountains, J. and I made a to-die-for mac and cheese recipe that had pretentious enough ingredients to make it seem much more difficult than it actually was, and I’m whipping up cookies (plus snacking on kettlecorn as I dash back and forth between the kitchen and the red-carpet interviews, my dedication is being tested…).
If Christoph Waltz doesn’t win best supporting actor, I shall be extremely vexed. And if Avatar wins Best Picture I will lose all faith in Hollywood. J. wants The Cove to win best documentary. I want the fabulous Carey Mulligan or divine Sandra Bullock to win best actress but Helen Miren (aka The Queen), the precious Gabourey Sidibe, and the goddess that is Meryl Streep will give them stiff competition. I think Mo’nique will win best supporting actress (indeed that seems to be the real story of this Oscar Award Season). I pick Up for best animated feature, The Young Victoria for costume design (might be wistful thinking, I wouldn’t mind Coco Avant Chanel either again based on personal prejudice for Chanel and Audrey Tautou), I pick Katheryn Bigelow for best director for The Hurt Locker (go women!). The Hurt Locker seems to be the frontrunner for Best Picture. And I can’t pick a best actor, I’d love to see Morgan Freeman win in this category after a career of famous supporting rolls, and who doesn’t have a soft spot for Mr. Darcy…er…Colin Firth. And again, not to harp, but GO CHRISTOPH WALTZ!
Any last minute pics out there? Raging debate? Big bets? Do share!
Remember this scene? Better than that whole "plot" of Avatar's.
Yesterday after heading home an hour early from work (sick + tired + nausea + cramps + no lunch break + 2-3 hour long meeting = blech) I recovered enough to, or rather the drugs kicked in and I was able to, cook. I put in one of my new movies and got to work marinating steak (to be used tonight) and then whipping up a spinach quiche…
…sort of.
See, I got all the cream cheese, egg, and spinach into the crust (which I bought at the store, not trusting myself – rightly it turns out – to make pastry) and popped it in the oven. But then two minutes later, glancing through the recipe to see how long it should cook, I realized I’d forgotten the parmesan cheese! Quick as you’d like, I dragged it out and mixed in the parmesan and tossed it back into the furnace.
Then I realized that if I had forgotten the parmesan, I might have forgotten the cheddar as well…and I had. Back to the oven, quick quick! The crust was turning a lovely golden color by this time, and I couldn’t have been more ticked at it for looking yummy when I’d apparently left out half the ingredients.
"Did you remember the onions, my dear?" "GAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" "Now, now, there's no need to fret."
And THEN, after I put it back in the oven, I banged my head (metaphorically) against the counter when I saw the green onions sitting in smug little rows on the other cutting board, taunting me with their not-in-the-quiche-ness.
Finally I got everything mixed in (at various stages of baking) but THEN I forgot about it after I collapsed on the sofa in defeat. All in all, the crust has come out a fearsome black…but the inside still tastes pretty good.
“Thanksgiving is, after all, a word of action.”
– W. J. Cameron
Small Dog's first married Thanksgiving. Aw...
My immediate family has always been rather insular, we live far away from my extended family and haven’t always had the best relationship with them anyway. So holidays have mostly been just us and I’ve always liked them that way: smaller, inundated with our own bizarre traditions (I think I’ll discuss some of our more quirky holiday habits at length later), and just plain cozy.
And then I married the youngest of five children (three others of whom are married with kids of their own) whose parents live nearby and who like to get everyone together on holidays.
So yesterday when we had our first faux-Thanksgiving (another one with godfamily may or may not be forthcoming…they haven’t celebrated a holiday on its designated day for some years now, thanks to Drill’s work schedule. Who knows? Maybe we’ll just eat pie and go to a movie!) because Darling and Atticus are going out of town this week, it was quite the event! Four kids, two babies, eight adults, three ovens, two dozen rolls (not enough!), four pounds of yams (barely enough), one turkey, approximately four million toys all over the kitchen floor, and one minor blizzard.
Do not stand in the way of hungry nieces and nephews.
Absolute madness! In a fun way. I met J.’s oldest brother and sister-in-law for the second time (first time was at the wedding) and tricked their baby into liking me. My brother-in-law misunderstood instructions and dumped a bunch of boiled potatoes onto the counter instead of mashing them up and then took a picture of his baby’s new trick of grabbing onto things (I taught him!). Unfortunately, baby was grabbing onto my necklace and the camera was perfectly angled down my shirt. The kids had already eaten a bunch of the rolls before dinner even started and then spent a good chunk of the time crawling around under the table as we adults tucked into turkey. Afterwards they disappeared upstairs for a while only to return shrieking and pasting post-it notes over everything and everyone in reach and one of the boys punched the other in the face.
“No look, I’ll show you.”
Pause.
“Wow. I was just about to lift up my shirt and then I thought, ‘No, there’s got to be a better way…'”
– Kay
I love my husband. I do. But I am more convinced than ever that he married me purely for the entertainment. Last night, we both collapsed in the door feeling generally beaten about by the world (him from mid-terms, me from work), and dove straight into pajamas. I was freezing so, against my will, I grudgingly pulled on my only long sleeve pajama top: a gray one with the words, “You, Me, and the Mistletoe” emblazoned across it that’s been in storage for a year. (I’m breaking one of my cardinal holiday rules: one at a time!) However, feeling toasty I forgave myself my Thanksgiving-overlooking indiscretion and happily relaxed, allowing J. to eat macaroni and cheese to his heart’s content while I finished off leftovers…until after we had cleaned up and I snuggled up against him for a hug…he leaned into my neck and smelled me.
Not adorable “I love your perfume” smelling, or even “I’m just trying to annoy you by doing weird things” smelling. Full on, “There’s something wrong here” smelling.
“What?” I demanded, pulling away.
“No! Come back!” he yanked me back against him, leaning down to bury his nose in my shoulder.
“What on earth is wrong with you!”
“You smell funny.” Deep inhale again.
“Hey!”
“No, I mean you smell…” he sucked another sniff down before declaring, “like seasoned salt, or spices.” A pause. “Why?”
“You’re just picking on me.”
“No I’m not, take of your shirt and smell.”
“Of all the stupid-”
“I’m serious!”
Not only did I get my shirt ridiculously caught on my elbow (and therefore stuck), I didn’t even need to get it over my head before the unmistakable whiff of Cajun seasonings hit me full in the face.
The great question for me is not J.’s “Why?” …but “How?!”
“Is it bad that I want Thai food for every meal of my life?”
“No, Thai is the food of the gods, although we should probably shake it up with Italian just to keep our carb quotas up.”
-Venice and C.
Not only did we take my younger brother Gio and his friend to Tucanos (amazing and amazingly expensive Brazillian food place) this weekend, J. and I also cooked up a storm in our tiny little kitchen. After perusing some of the (millions of) cookbooks people heaped upon us for our wedding, I created a rather ambitious list of new recipes to try. I kicked off my experiment sunday with pan seared salmon with a mango salsa topping. And it was rather impressive, or so I think. J. was ordered to be ultra-enthusiastic whatever the outcome so I may not have had an entirely accurate reading…
We also stocked up on cookies and banana bread so I have a new found reason to recommit to the gym. Gym psychology is fickle. I spent six months busting my bum five days a week, and then six days doing wedding and honeymoon stuff and poof! My gym motivation evaporated. Forcing myself there everyday has been a horrid, horrid chore. Eating all my delicious (or maybe not so delicious, but if it isn’t don’t tell me!) food seems much easier than working it off!
“What?” I demanded, pulling away.
We also stocked up on cookies and banana bread so I have a new found reason to recommit to the gym. Gym psychology is fickle. I spent six months busting my bum five days a week, and then six days doing wedding and honeymoon stuff and poof! My gym motivation evaporated. Forcing myself there everyday has been a horrid, horrid chore. Eating all my delicious (or maybe not so delicious, but if it isn’t don’t tell me!) food seems much easier than working it off!
Small Dog Syndrome 