I'm totally dancing around the living room, too
It's Saturday night, and I'm home alone for a change. (This week alone I've been out for dinner three times, seen a movie and a concert, been to both a yoga class and a mediation class, and still have a trip to the theatre and an all day cross country ski trip left in the long week.) I made an excellent dinner - a chicken (bacon) tomato wine stew over a handful of overpriced coloured pasta. I've finishing the bottle of wine that was opened to go into the stew. I've read pretty much the entire
Offbeat Bride book and Winamp is playing good music. I had a massage this morning followed by several enjoyable hours spent hanging out with John's English grandma, and I got a bunch of cleaning done. (Draino!).
I'm drunk and happy and keep looking up from the book (which is awesome and is one of the things that is making me feel a shitload better about this whole wedding extravaganza thing, along with the therapy I started yesterday) and life is good.
ABout all I am missing is the boy in my bed and life would be pretty much fucking perfect. As it is, I booked my flight on Thursday, and in 6 short weeks I'll be back in the Middle East with the one I love best.
It's not perfect - nothing ever is. But right this second? Life is pretty fucking good.
Labels: drunk, food, solo year, the boy, wedding
Come on - you know you want to eat fried bread
My only comment on this day, which on the whole, had not been great and I really, really have to work on my temper, among other things, is:
Yes, you can use spiced ground beef to fill stuffed and pan fried
parathas (Indian bread) and it is really, really good.
I just wish he'd have been here to share them with.
To make the dough, mix 1 cup of durum flour with 1/2 cup of water. Mix well and then knead. Put back in the bowl, sprinkle a little water on top, and let sit for half an hour. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. This time, it was leftover fried ground beef with onions. Originally, it was spiced with a home made taco spice mix, but then I added a bunch of Indian spices, like
ajwan seeds, cumin,
garam marsala and some stuffed
paratha seasoning. Plus some roughly chopped cilantro.
When the dough is ready, pinch off a small ball - maybe 2 inches across. Using more durum flour, roll out of the dough as thin as you can. Top with some of the meat mixture - say 4 heaping teaspoons. Carefully fold the dough closed, so that the meat is totally sealed inside. Sprinkle with more flour and roll is out as thin as you can, trying to stop before the meat pierces the dough. (If it does, it's not a big deal.) Heat some canola oil in a frying pan. When hot, add a
paratha. With a spoon, smear a little oil on the top of the
paratha. After a minute, flip. Keep frying and
flipping until the dough is crispy and browning - the meat will be hot. Consume with yogurt and
coriander chutney. Eat too many of them.
The
original recipe I
have calls for a delicious
potato filling - it's a
carb explosion, and so good. This is a little more of a meal. I made it with
bharta (eggplant) and a small bit of tandoori fish, because I wanted plenty of leftovers. Yum.
Labels: food, holidailies, solo year
Lookback at the 25 in 25 list
Time for a lookback at my 25 in 25 list. (Ah, corporate lingo.) I did much of it, but let's start with the failures, shall we?Read a classic novel - I read about 200 book and yet didn't read a single one that counts as a classic to be. That's really, really embarrassing.
Make a crazy fancy dessert, just for fun - Wow. That's also a shame. Sure, I made really crazy fancy dinners regularly, but didn't cook much in the way of desserts, period.
Work out at least once every two weeks at home, one way or another - I am ready to take fully half points for this. Since I posted this list, I've been doing dance classes once a week, yoga at the studio once a week, and joined a gym. So for the first part of the year, I was working out at home more, but for the latter, I had no more time. So - half points.
Contact at least 2 friends I have let drift, and meet up with them (Lunch with Ami, Feb) - Yeah, I'm not a good friend. Sorry.
Do a really, really obscene cross stitch - I started it in early November, and am about a quarter finished. It is so, so awesome. Again, half points.
Sent at least one postcard or real letter every month (Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Jun, July, Oct) - Okay, I didn't make it. I got a fair number of letters and cards sent, but not one a month for sure. I did right 14 in October for John, but that doesn't totally count.
And then there is all the shit I did manage to do!
Can or preserve something (two types of pickled beets, a jar of rhubarb chutney and a couple of jars of home made tomato sauce) - I've almost never eaten pickled beets before I made them. (I made them for my boss for Christmas.) They are GOOD! The rhubarb is because John was making cordial, and I stole some of the 20 pounds he had collected (which was in addition to the 15 pounds that went in to making wine earlier in the season. It's only the first full year since the plants were transported. Uh, anyone want some rhubarb next year?). The tomato sauce was after getting some tired
romas from a grocery store, and made sauce on a whim. Canning is easy!
Donate money to charity (I am my company's Heart and Stoke Big Bike Coordinator, so I had to donate money. Aug 30; Food Bank via Corporate Challenge. Oct 25; donation for Corporate Matching, Oct 15) - Yeah, I totally did this one.
Do a whole routine for John without talking, forgetting or stopping (Feb 3, baby!) - He giggled the whole time.
Flip upside down on the pole (April 4) - now it's easy.
Stay in
shoulderstand for 5 minutes (April 12) - This will never be easy, I don't think.
Stay in headstand comfortably for 5 minutes (April 12, for a relative value of comfort) - Relative is so the right word.
Read an interesting non-fiction, non-biography book (Ghost in the House: Motherhood, Raising Children, and Struggling with Depression by Tracy Thompson; Real Food: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck; Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth about Reality by Brad Warner; The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order edited by Marcelle
Karp and Debbie
Stoller; The End of Food: How the Food Industry is Destroying our Food Supply - and What You Can Do About It by Thomas F.
Pawlick) - There were a few more after this point, but I stopped being bothered to record them here. So clearly - love fiction, can happily read biographies and memories and essays, and will read the right non-fiction. Just doesn't like Classic Novels with Value. Sigh.
Take a non-fitness class (maybe bookbinding?) (Collapse! Sept - Dec 07) - A fascinating university course. It's all the fun of university learning with none of the hard work!
Make at least three new journals (Jan 2, one book bound, Apr 30, one chocolate log book made, Christmas list book, Nov 15) - Not my best work, perhaps, but done none the less.
Finish writing and get my cookbook printed through Lulu (before Christmas!!) (Dec 7, but won't get it in time for Christmas. Oh well, close enough.) - Amusingly, in November coordinated a cookbook for a family friend, doing pretty much the exact same thing. And it was late too! Not my fault though.
Do the rude Chinese cross stitch (1st one done April, 2
nd one done October.) - Now, to frame it.
Pay off Cathy and Vince (May 27, and thank GOD!) - Best thing ever.
Take my parents out for dinner (Dec 8, after Handel’s Messiah, August - Chinese restaurant before the fireworks) - Not really nice dinners, but dinner and entertainment none the less.
Try a new craft (beading?) (Embroidery - I'm doing cute sushi napkins) - I put it down to go back to cross stitching, which I like better. Will finish them eventually.
Suck it up and have Polish Grandmother over for dinner (Mar 29, September 29) - I AM a good person.
Grow a garden - and actually water it this year (Peas and tomatoes and carrots and lettuce and potatoes and strawberries all good things.) - It did... lousy. It wasn't a great summer - too hot in July, too wet in August. I did get fabulous tomatoes though, and the late carrots weren't bad. The potatoes in the pots worked better than in the ground. The wild strawberries in the spring were fabulous. The peas were a weather induced write-off, ditto the beets and Swiss chard. The herbs did well though - especially the
4 foot tall lemon tarragon bush. Next year? I'm thinking tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries and beets again. Plus more tomatoes.
Paint another room of the house (the laundry room, July 07) - With John "about to leave" every week for months, I didn't get any other
renos done.
Go to plays, beyond our Theatre Junction subscription (Chicago, Jan 25
FRC company; Famous Puppet Death Scenes, Feb 2, Theatre Junction; The Retreat from Moscow, Feb 7 ATP; Solo: The Doubt within Me, Feb 23 Theatre Junction; Show No. 2, Mar 16 Theatre Junction;
Nunsence, Apr 13 Stage West; Unbound, Apr 14 Theatre Junction; The Movement Cabaret, Apr 20 Theatre Junction (outside of subscription); The Underpants, May 16, Workshop Theatre; Twelfth Night, July 17 The Shakespeare Company; Dads, XX, Storybook Theatre; The Full Monty, October 5 Theatre Junction;
Cocktales, Nov 9) - I LOVE like theatre.
Have someone over (for dinner?) every month (Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, July, Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov) - Look! I'm practically overcoming my social phobias!
I totally did not manage 4 things, I half managed 1, and I started another. Still, I accomplished 19, and with the half points I just decided to give myself, that's 20 out of 25. And of the 4 I missed, I half did 2 of them. So all in all, I think I did pretty good. I'm really glad I wrote this list - it's really made me feel much more accomplished. Now, of course, I have to think of the 26 in 26 list...Labels: 25 in 25, family, food, garden, holidailies, life, solo year
Rhubarb
Welcome To Calgary. In May.
I know, right? That mess of tarps and ripped up deck carpeting (never carpet your deck - what were they thinking...) is covering the garden, and did a good job of keeping *fingers crossed* everything alive.
This is what one of the rhubarb patches looked like when we woke up on Thursday:
And this is what 14 POUNDS of rhubarb looks like:
Those are the two biggest bowls we own, along side the biggest knife. And there is still enough rhubarb in the garden for like, half a dozen crisp recipes.
When I read about how to
take care of rhubarb, I just laugh. You can't kill this stuff up here if you try.
John is making rhubarb wine. Lots and lots of rhubarb wine... What else can you do with that much rhubarb, when you know you're going to be getting at least another 14 pounds by fall, if not double that?
Labels: boredom, food, garden, house, the boy
Weeks later and I'm still affronted.
So a few weeks ago we had the Other Grandmother and mildly
gropey grandfather over for dinner, along with John's parents. It was only the second time the grandparents have seen the house, the first been the month we moved in, so we had to give them the house tour, of course. Now, I'll admit it's a large house, and the 'tour' often gets derailed by games of
foosball, because dude, that's way more fun than checking out the scary unused bathroom in the basement. At any rate, it may be a large house, at least by the standard of say,
yuppies our age in this city. But even still, it's no mansion - it's a late 60s suburban house. Well. The tour managed to take an entire HOUR AND A HALF to go through, in part because we had to stop and explain the origin or every single bit of John's wall collections (which include sticks and similar shaped objects from his travels and another corner with coral and fish skeletons from his travel). Every. Single. Piece. Every single goddamn rock had to have it's origin explained. I kid you not. Oh, sure, they didn't ask about the dozen oil paintings my grandfather did hanging around the house, but had to be told the origin and collection history of each small shiny rock. God. SO BORING.
But fine, we eventually get to the storage room in the basement. Technically, it's an illegal basement (the window's too small) but we use it as a storage room. Other Grandma, who for the record complained about every single thing served that night - the water was from the tap, she didn't want to drink the bottled water, the cabbage salad was too spicy, there were potatoes roasted with the veggies, the chicken had skin, the meringues were much sugar, there was something wrong with the strawberries I put on top, you get the idea. Other Grandma takes one look at our storage room, a room I take a fair amount of pride in (check out the canning!) and snipes, "you cook from cans all time!" in the most rude, judgemental voice possible. (On an evening I served homemade bread, hummus made with beans from a can, cabbage carrot salad with homemade dressing, two roast chicken with roasted potatoes, celery root, and carrots, and meringue nests with strawberry mixed with sugar to form their own syrup. All this on a weeknight. Not exactly processed canned food.)
Now, look at those pictures, keeping in mind that this is the basement storage room, a repository for Costco runs of tomatoes, and giant bags of rice. Now, sure, there are a lot of canned tomatoes. Tomatoes are very bad and very expensive in February in the white north, and I am happy to use canned at those times in pasta sauce. I mean, of course! I used canned beans on weekdays for quick meals. I also have lots of dried beans for times when I have more time and energy. Again, I feel no shame in using canned beans to cook meals with. I mean, they're beans. In liquid. Not exactly Evil Processed Food, you know? There are still dozens of jars of jam we made, pickles I made, two types of relish I made, garlic jelly I made... There are multiple types of flour, and rice, and pasta. Sure, there are also some boxes of cereal (mainly used for nuts and bolts) and a fair amount of pop, but that stuff is for parties - we buy when it's on sale.
I am a good cook and I pride myself on cooking stuff from scratch. Yeah, sure, I know I don't grind my own flour or make my own vinegar, but come on. This is NOT the storage room of a packaged food eater. Hell, do those people even have giant food storage rooms? Sure, I have a weakness for those Asian noodle soup bowls, and I use canned tomatoes and I only make my own coriander chutney sometimes. The fact that I have more than one option for coriander chutney, however, is a sign that I am not what she implied of me, that old bitch. John didn't get the slur, didn't see the hostility. But trust me, it was there.
At any rate, check out my storage room. The pictures are
simply covered in notes - I love that feature. As a bonus, check out the bar photo - can you guess what else John collects? *grin*
Labels: family, food, life, the boy
