Experiments In Cooking

I think I mentioned in a fairly recent post that I've been experimenting with some new recipes. Specifically, I got a vegetarian cookbook a couple of weeks ago and usually, when I get a new cookbook, I look through the recipes, find two or three that sound appealing, and only cook those two or three. Which is kind of a waste of the other 100 pages of the book. So this time, the goal is to go through the entire book, from start to finish, cooking one meal from it a week.

Which means, of course, that it's going to take me roughly three years to get through this experiment. It would make far more sense to cook two or three or hell, eleven meals from the book per week, but (a) the recipes are all pretty fancy and involve ingredients that are hard to find and expensive to buy and (b) did I mention it's vegetarian? And McMoose is an unrepentant carnivore? (Aside: I always mix up carnivore and cannibal. It makes for some awkward conversations.) So. One recipe per week.

This week's recipe (which was delicious, by the way...even my unrepentant carnivore of a husband has agreed to add this to our list of "Meals We Like") was haloumi cheese and fried tomatoes on wheat bread. Haloumi cheese, for those of you who, like me, have no knowledge of cheese beyond mozzarella and cheddar, is made of goat and sheep milk. And since I have the kind of toddler who turns up his nose at a french fry, I was skeptical about how well this whole haloumi thing would be received.

As it turns out, the same kid who gags at the very sight of a scrambled egg loves sheep cheese. Go figure. So he gobbled down his share and due to the delicious nature of the dish, McMoose and I gobbled down our shares, which is what led to the meltdown the next day. The meltdown that started like this:

Luke: Cheese?
Me: You want some cheese?
Luke: Yes.
Me: Okay. [Go get him some cheddar]
Luke: Noooooo!
Me: Um...I thought you wanted cheese.
Luke: More cheeeeese!!!
Me: Well, here! [Offer cheddar again]
Luke: NOOOOOOO!!!!!
Me: Dude, seriously? What? Do? You? Want?
Luke: MOOOORE CHEEEEEEEEESE!!!!
Me: This IS cheeeeeeeese!!!!
Luke: LU-LU CHEESE!

Ah. Well. Of COURSE his favorite cheese would be the expensive kind that's not sold at the regular supermarket.

Mamas Have Their Moments, Too

A perfect person would take criticism well. A perfect person would know how to say the right thing at the right time. A perfect person would always assume the best of others, always be tactful and wise, and always see through other people's snippiness to the message they're trying to communicate.

I'm not a perfect person. Not even close. Ideally, when the woman at the bookstore told me that Luke (or "this child," as she referred to him) was "repeatedly" pushing her child/grandchild (during the less-than-15 seconds that my eyes were off him, when he was standing about 18 inches away from me,) I would have apologized on his behalf, talked to him about the pushing, and said something to put us all at ease. I would have ignored the you're-not-keeping-an-eye-on-your-kid implication, I would have looked past the snotty tone of voice, and I would have addressed the heart of the matter.

In reality? I, uh, picked him up and hugged him and rolled my eyes at my friend. Graceless, I know. Setting a bad example. I know. All day long, I talk to Luke and Other Baby about pushing and hitting and biting and taking toys from each other. I tell them what they shouldn't do, I model what they should, and of course, of course, that's what I should have done in this situation. But the truth is, the old playground adage is true: nobody likes a tattletale.

(It helped me feel better that as we were leaving the area, the woman was taking another parent to task about something. I might not be perfect, but apparently, I'm in good company.)

Word Power

McMoose and I have been having great fun listening to Luke as he becomes more verbal, so I wanted to share some of the recent pearls:

• I've been experimenting with some new recipes lately, some of which have been successful and others that have been found lacking in some way. Last night, for instance, I made the most labor intensive omelet ever. Now, omelets aren't that unusual, right? So I thought that maybe Luke would like to try a piece. Ha! His comment when he saw what was on McMoose's plate was, "Eww, a bug!" Thanks, kid.
• We go to story time at the bookstore every week and of course, the highlight of the trip is not so much the books or the songs, but the trains. This morning, when I asked Luke if he wanted to go listen to stories, he perked up and said, "Yes! Choo-choo!"
• He now calls himself "Guk." Actually, he calls himself "Biiiig Guk."
• As parents go, we must be pretty lazy because there are many times when he asks for a particular toy or object and we reply with, "I don't know where the ____ is." As a result, his first quasi-sentence was "No-know ___ is." And oh, is he proud of this one because he says it all. day. long.
• But my very favorite? "Bye." That's right. That one, simple little word has made my life eight-hundred times easier, at least. Why, you ask? Because now, when it's time to leave the book store trains or the playground or the rocks and sticks outside our apartment, I can tell him it's time to say bye-bye to them, AND HE DOES. And then, he walks away. No screaming. No tantrums. Just a quick little "bye" and off we go. To steal a catch phrase from McDonald's, I'm lovin' it.
  

Ni-Hao, Kailan

A couple of weeks ago, I needed to make a quick trip to the mall (quick...ha!) and of course, OF COURSE we went through the entrance with the kiddie play area. Note to self: remember where that entrance is so you can avoid it for the next 18 years. After a little side trek to Sears, where they did not have what I needed, we went back to the play area. And when I say "play area," I mean "money trap" because almost all the attractions require a minimum of three quarters. (Luckily, Luke had not yet realized that the trucks and buses moved, so I was able to get away with just letting him sit in them, minus the quarters.)

So there we were, in the middle of this toddler wonderland, when I noticed a distinct lack of...toddlers. And I knew I heard their voices somewhere, so I decided to poke around a little bit. Guess where I found the toddlers. IN FRONT OF THE TV. I mean, there was a slide and a tunnel and a climbing structure and a ride-on bus and car and boat. For goodness sake, there was a CAROUSEL. And the three kids who were there were clustered around, learning how to speak Mandarin from Kailan.

Of course, this just meant the play stuff was all free for us to use, so hey, I'm not complaining!

Quick Catch-Up

Have you ever noticed that when you have a lot going on in your life, you have very little to talk or write about? I'm in that place right now. We've had a ridiculously busy month-or-so and even I, who cannot stand to sit still for longer than 3 minutes, feel the need for some time to just sit and breathe. There have been times during the past month when I've actually gotten light-headed because I forgot to take a breath. (You'd think that after 26 years of practice, that wouldn't be an issue anymore.)

So. We've been busy. And just the thought of sitting down to write about all the things that have kept us busy is...daunting. So here's a very stream-of-consciousness-like synopsis: beach, birthday, restaurants, de-cluttering, de-cluttering, de-cluttering, new hobbies, new possibilities, new activities, old friends (and some new ones, too), cooking, baking, oh-did-I-mention-de-cluttering, 4 plane rides to get to and from McMoose's dad's lovely beach wedding, and an exhausted but happy Us.

Toddler Crack

I'm not a big fan of most of the kid's TV characters. I really could live without my apartment being invaded by Elmo or Dora or Blue or whoever. And since Luke doesn't watch TV yet, he doesn't know about them, so I don't really HAVE to deal with these characters and life was good.

But then, I made a mistake. I introduced him to Thomas. At the time, my thinking was, "Oh, they're just little trains. At least they have a PURPOSE, other than just being annoying money and space traps." As it turns out, their purpose? Is to lure small children and turn them into crazy, jabbering little addicts.

We started with the gateway drug: the train table at the bookstore. And then, we listened for trains at railroad crossings. And then, he got really, really interested in his big, wooden trains. So a few weeks ago, we found a really good deal on the little Thomas & Friends trains, so we ordered a few and they got here a couple of days ago.

People, the atmosphere in this apartment recently has been TORTUROUS. All day long, Luke and Other Baby are talking about trains, yelling about trains, grabbing trains from each other, pushing, hitting, throwing, scratching, BITING over these damn trains! And? We have seven of them. They can each hold one in each hand. So 3rd grade math would tell you that each kid should hold two and there are only two kids, so there should be three trains left over. Right? WRONG. They each want to hold ALL SEVEN, which is a physical impossibility, so they hoard them. They sit on them. They lie down on them. They hide them in cracks and crevices. Or they leave six of them lying on the ground and then proceed to fight over THE SAME ONE.

I'm strongly considering selling the trains. Or maybe the toddlers.

New Developments

• The weather has apparently been paying close attention to the calendar recently because all through September, it was hot and hot and then hot some more. And then, October came around and it's positively Autumn-like. I'm liking it!
• Luke understands way more than I give him credit for sometimes. This morning, at the park, he wanted to swing a giant stick around, so I told him he'd have to take it away from where the people were. He responded by running out to a grassy patch, doing his ninja tricks for a few minutes, and then putting the stick down and saying "Bye-bye" to it before rejoining Other Baby in the sandbox. I was left scratching my head because how come he can understand all that, but he STILL doesn't understand not to throw food off the high chair?
• We've been attacked by a deluge of moths. Yes, a deluge. They. Are. Everywhere. And apparently, their favorite hiding place is between the wooden boards on our stairs, probably because they can fly up at you when you step near them and scare you to death. Luke has been loving this development and every time we go down the stairs, he stops every few steps, bends down, says "Hi, Moth!" and waits for them to attack his face. This game is not one of my favorites.
  

Baby Steps

We've been trying to be more conscious of how we live recently. We try to buy organic and/or locally grown produce whenever we can. We buy milk in re-usable, glass bottles (which, by the way, tastes a million times better, too--bonus!) We recycle whatever we can. We bought some re-usable, cloth grocery bags so that we don't waste plastic or paper bags.

The problem is that all of this consciousness? It requires you to actually be, you know, CONSCIOUS of what you're doing. In other words, you have to PLAN AHEAD. I'm very much a stop-by-the-store-on-the-way-home-from-wherever kind of person and between needing to return the milk bottles and remember the grocery bags, I've had to do all manner of planning just for a quick trip to the supermarket.

It's taken a lot of work, but we're finally at the point where I remember to take everything with me about 80% of the time. (I know. 80% sounds low, but two weeks ago, it was 0%. Progress is being made.) This evening, I went to the store by myself. I remembered the bags. I remembered the milk bottles. I remembered the shopping list and the car keys and the cell phone. I was feeling oh-so-proud of myself.

Until I got to the checkout counter and realized I had left my wallet at home.