The Wong Kitchen

Exorcise and Die(t)

2009-08-25T13:14:00.003-04:00

It was some point between the 5th or 6th hillsprint, in between a set of triceps pushups and dips, when a woman in an oversized t-shirt and yoga pants leaned over with the novel fact that lack of sleep leads your body to store fat. I looked up at Nate, giggling at my peek-a-boo head, bobbing up and down beside his carriage as I launched into sumo squats, and wondered: how many times did we get up last night? Four? Five? And what are we doing here...a pack of huffing, sweating idiots, dripping milk into our sports bras, encircled by the babies that made us - and apparently are now keeping us - fat.

But, as I discovered later in the week thanks to the ever-tepid, info-lite of Time Magazine, it's not just the babies who are against us. Apparently, evolution has it in for us as well. "Fundamentally, humans are not a species that evolved to dispose of many extra calories beyond what we need to live," writes John Cloud in his gloomily titled article Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin (August 17, 2009). Cloud also complains about having a small roll of fat that hangs over his belt when he sits down, despite his Thursday "body wedge" class. I'd like to meet him and give that little roll a nice hard squeeze (either with needle-nose pliers or perhaps with the fangs of a venomous snake).

I invite you to read the article for yourself, but the main thesis, from what I can tell, is that the more you exercise, the hungrier you get, the more you eat. What's worse, you "treat" yourself to eat something yummy like a blueberry muffin or (and I quote) a bottle of Gatorade (oooo, so naughty and delicious) that you actually undo any benefit (in terms of calorie loss, anyway) that you might have gained. The clever editors even included a very helpful diagram showing what a "154-lb, 30-year-old woman" (umm, I am feeling uncomfortably close to their target demographic) would have to do to burn off the calories of a single blueberry muffin. These include: 115 minutes of weight lifting, 66 minutes of gardening, 230 minutes of folding laundry (not the way I do it, sweety), 33 minutes of jogging, or 92 minutes of vacuuming.

First, there's the redonkulous sexism that hides behind these factoids (if we were talking about a 30-year-old man, would they have included statistics for house work or would they have provided times for golfing, car maintenance, and masturbation - since those are clearly male vocations). Secondly, I want numbers for the real stuff I do - like carrying 4 liters of milk in one hand with a 17lb baby on the opposite hip up three flights of steps and then back down again because I forgot the house keys, followed by a series of squats required to pick up said house keys (minimum of 4) each time I drop them on the way back up the stairs. What do I get for that? A chocolate chip? The muffin crumbs I shake out of Loki's t-shirt at the end of the day? Can I at least eat those?

Wait. It gets worse. As it turns out, not even stern, focused, determination will help us overcome. "Self-control is like a muscle," Cloud reports "it weakens each day after you use it." We're not built to deny ourselves. This reminds me of an article I read in Harpers some time ago, about how we all consist of multiple, discrete selves who - while sharing the same body - do not share the same goals and in general have very little empathy for one another. We are all stuck in the worse possible roommate scenario. For example, the Determined Self (Deedee, for short) goes to the gym, does 30 minutes of cardio followed by a 45 minute pilates class. She drinks a skinny-smoothy on the way home, takes a nap, and wakes up as the Hungry Self (Hilda, let's call her). Hilda, ravenous, stumbles into the kitchen and begins chowing down on leftover chinese food right from the container. She's half-way through her third, cold eggroll when Deedee barges in and the shit hits the fan:

Deedee: Do you know how hard I worked this morning to burn off all that crap you ate last night during The Bachelor? And now, you're eating it AGAIN? Are you trying to kill me?

Hilda: No, you're trying to kill me! I'm huuunnnngggrrry! You sweat it out like a maniac all morning and you think some mushed up banana and protein powder is gonna make it okay? Look, just run an extra mile tomorrow. No biggy.

Deedee: No biggy? I hate running, I hate it. And I only do it because of you. Can't you just drink some water and eat an apple for crying outloud?

Hilda: Water is flavourless and sometimes apples taste weird. I want FOOD! Real Food! [crams 4th eggroll into gaping maw]

Deedee: Oh no you don't, fatgirl. I'm gonna beat that hydrogenated-corn-oil out of you...

Hairpulling and girl-slapping ensues.

It's like Jerry Springer in our brains all day long every day. Why aren't more people in therapy? Why aren't there more tv shows like Herman's Head? (Remember that show? It rocked!) But I digress.

The point is, look, John Cloud, if you're out there, stop adding to the noise, will you? It's hard enough. It's hard enough to squeeze two human beings out of your body, store their nutrition in your boobs like an upright camel, figure out how to take care of yourself and meet their needs at the same time. And if I get to squeeze in a 45 minute workout a few times a week - you know what, f*#king cheer for me. Don't tell me it's useless. I don't want to hear it.

Tonight's Dinner:

Herb's having a late night tonight so I will feed Loki something (potentially grilled cheese and fruit) and we will have a private dinner of:

- Steak (Organic. I'm reading Omnivore's Dilemma and I don't think I will ever be able to eat feedlot beef again. I'm not sure if organic is sooo much better, but I'm hoping it is and I'll educate myself on that one next).

- Salad

- Good bread

That's the Way the Vegan Baked Good Crumbles

2009-08-20T19:16:00.002-04:00

This week I was forced to confront a question I never thought to ask: What is a cookie?

Besides being a "sometimes food" (thank you, overly-socially-conscious Sesame Street writers, though I'm fairly certain C is for Cookie cannot be held solely responsible for the youth obesity crisis) - what constitutes the right to wear that yummy label?

A little research gives us this:

"Cookie" is derived from the dutch word "koekie" meaning "little cake" (and you thought the Dutch were only good for windmills and tulips, aren't you closed-minded?). While there are a vast variety of cookie styles and compositions (the drop, the refrigerator, the molded, the computer) what truly, philosophically, empirically separates a cookie from other baked goods is the use of an oil-product (butter, lard, egg yolks, vegetable oil) as a binding agent as opposed to water. Upon reflection I realize that no, I've never added water to a cookie batter except to get the last little bits off the mixing bowl, the better to sup it up with a spoon (that's not yucky, it's deeeeliscious, as Loki likes to say). During the baking process, these oils saturate the carbon dioxide bubbles (resulting from the combination of baking powder and moisture from the eggs) creating the indelible moist-yet-crispy goodness that is a cookie's proper texture. And who says I couldn't have handled organic chemistry?

All of this is to say that, no, I don't think the round, flat hunk-a-somethin' wrapped prettily in cellophane, handed to me by the lovely woman balancing a stack of pink business cards and her 6 month old in her other arm could rightfully be called a "cookie." I could be wrong, but I'll tell you how it went down and you can be the judge.

Picture it. We're in the sweltering ladies auxiliary room of the Runneymeade United Church. Two fans blow around the stale hot air, a dead air conditioner rests in the corner. One wall is covered in collage, celebrating the church's 100 years of parsimony from 1907-2007; no one cares what happened since 2007, it's irrelevant. The circle of mothers and infants is slowly morphing into an amoeba, as crumpled women pull the shorts off their sticky thighs and gather armbags of blankets and diapers and rubber giraffes together letting their babies weeble and drool on the stiff blue carpet. We are the last of four classes our dehydrated music instructor has taught in this room and he is packing away his guitar, letting the pit stains on his graphic t-shirt show without shame or remorse. It was animal day, afterall, and the poor guy wore a pair of bunny ears for the entire damn class. I am looking at Nate and he is looking at me and we are both thinking: "when are you gonna get off your ass and carry me to the car?" Sure, he can't walk and I'm 10 times his weight, but ants do it, bro.

That's when she appears, standing over us in freshly pressed linen - somehow sweatless and crisp as she juggles her wares and her child at once. Her skin looks like soft cocoa powder and I want to touch it, but I don't because that would really be weird. She hands me the object-in-question along with her business card. A caterer specializing in children's foods - healthy but fun. A great idea. I'm all for healthy and fun. I compliment her on the card, which is quite sharp and make some benign quip about how "gee yeah I could use a few tips what with my 2 year old who blablabla..." To which she replied, "Right! Well take this cookie for example. I just took out all the junk and replaced it with healthy stuff." Of course! Why didn't I think of that? And then I caught her definition of junk, namely: eggs, milk, butter, and flour. Are these not, with the addition of sugar, the pillars upon which cookiedom rests? What the eff are in these things?

I don't know all of it, but I can tell you she replaced the eggs with applesauce. Well, that seems random. Why not tomato puree or corn relish? Of course I anticipated that she would have made some substitutions but I was thinking whole-wheat instead of white flour, molasses instead of refined sugar. I didn't think she would replace eggs with apples. And if that wasn't flour, what the heck was it? I'll tell you what it tasted like: sand. Not even good, soft Caribbean sand. Like the dirty muddy grainy sand you find on the banks of Lake Rousseau in Muskoka.

What with the heat and how I like to avoid confrontation and all, I didn't have the nerve to ask her how it is that flour, eggs, and dairy are, in her mind, on par with say cheez-os or chocopuffs. I mean just saying it outloud: eggs, milk, flour - I am overcome with the image of sunshine and white bed sheets and shimmering fields of grass. Was I brainwashed by villainous farmers and breakfast-food hawkers as a child? Probably. But what I don't get is the science.

Look, I have a vegan friend (not that there's anything wrong with that) and I get - believe me I get - the socio-economic-environmental-ethical dilemmas constituted by the agricultural means of production in our post-industrial economy. There are LOTS of good reasons to give up cheese. Not a single one of them has to do - as far as I am concerned - with taste or nutritional value. Sure there are people with viable intolerances: lactards and the such. But unless you fall into one of those unfortunate groups, explain to me why I should be buying gluten-free rice bread in the freezer section. Explain to me how an apple is better than an egg. Explain to me how a lump of sand dotted with carob chips and dried cherries is a cookie.

And here's one more cookie fact, just for fun. Muslims introduced the cookie to Europe during the conquest of Spain around the 8th century. So the next time a racist jerk-off says "we should just bomb'em all" you can tell him who he has to thank for his double-stuffed Hydrox cookies - that's right, Allah.

Tonight's Dinner:
- Leftover Casserole (rice covered with roast chicken, broccoli, bell peppers, and cheese)

Really, this deserves a post all its own as the very concept of this meal goes against every grain in my body. Yet, with Becca's urging I gave it a try. I had to do something with that chicken, right? And Becca's a fantastic cook, she wouldn't lead me a stray. So with her help, we put the whole thing together in about 15 minutes. It smelled surprisingly good in the oven. Guess what it tasted like: leftovers.

Excerpts from My Little Black Book

2009-08-12T08:39:00.003-04:00

On a whim I bought one of those little black moleskine notebooks, the kind (according to the packaging) that Hemingway and Matisse carried around to record lightening strikes of creative genius. Mine contains shopping lists, more or less:

Mummums
Cereal

Rice Crackers

Cheese

Pita

reads one exciting entry.

Bug spray

pillows

bathingsuits

camera

reads another. Heavy stuff. Will certainly feature as a centerpiece in the Jessie Sitnick archives, post-mortem, of course.

While convenient for this purpose, it was not my intended use of the little-black-book (LBB). I was inspired by a shelf title: Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris. It was the "Important Artifacts and Personal Property" bit that appealed to me. I just liked the phrase. I repeated it to myself like 13 times, standing there in the bookstore and then it occurred to me that I wouldn't remember it, of course I wouldn't. I needed to write it down. How handy would a pocket-sized notebook be for such an occasion? And not wanting anything flimsy or covered with unicorns, I opted for the working-man's notebook. The LBB of artists and journalists and fiction-writers (and grocery-list addicts).

Maybe it's charming to keep a record of the clutter of my everyday life. Maybe it's really not. But every once in a while, I do fill the gaps between produce and dry goods with something else. Creative genius, probably not. But something I might want to remember later. Like the phrase "pornography of disability" that I came across while researching the topic of TLC as the modern freakshow. Or the idea of remaking the Jack and The Beanstalk story set in inner-city Baltimore (the beanstalk is a metaphor for escaping the cycle of poverty, don't hold your breath for the trailer).

And then yesterday, I wrote this. I'm transcribing it here as if it's a poem, but really, it's just a bunch of observations I tried to phrase nicely (oh wait, maybe that is a poem).

On the Way to Buy Lamb Stuffed with Apricots

The kind of person who

leaves her umbrella open on the porch after the rain,

who plants plastic roosters in her garden

The kind who

wears purple on purple,

looks back at her car, parked

shades her eyes from the sun, wondering

will I get a ticket

The kind

who wears a yellow sundress, low-cut

fills the block

with the smell of expensive hair products

The kind who looks at me

from her car window

and then looks away

The one who remembers my older child's name

as she weighs mushrooms on the cashier scale

The one who stands in a half-finished doorway.

Last Night's Dinner:

Lamb stuffed with apricots

Risotto with mushrooms

Overcooked broccoli

Tonight's Dinner:

Still a mystery waiting to be solved. A list I haven't written.

What We Did Learn From This

2009-08-06T19:39:00.002-04:00

It is important to me that Loki understands where his food comes from so instead of taking him to the factory where they manufacture goldfish crackers, today I took him to the Children's Garden in High Park. This is an amazing space of beautiful, raised beds filled with vegetables, herbs, and other edible wildlife all planted and maintained by children (like the Garden of Eden sans the opportunity to engage in mortal sinning).

Today's theme was "flowers" (so simple, and yet, so complex). One of the lovely, crunchy program leaders snapped a head off an orange-coloured blossom and passed the pedals around for all of us to taste. "Spicy" she said. "Waxy" I thought. And then I also thought, "shit, I hope Loki doesn't start munching on ragweed as a result of this educational experience." And then I thought of the awesomely gruesome story Herb told us over dinner last night of two teenagers who died after smoking poison sumac in the woods during a camping trip and then about the time Jenny Zeiger and I smoked a maple leaf wrapped in computer paper on my back porch because we couldn't pilfer any real cigarettes off my dad. And then I thought "is Loki really getting anything from all this?"

I herded him from one end of the garden to the other, pointing out bumble bees (of which he has somehow developed a phobia), ladybugs, snails, a "sensitive" plant (it weeps real tears. Not really). We watered stuff, we stuck seeds in the soil, we arranged cut flowers into little bouquets (Flowers, meh. Scissors, wooow). Then Loki said "EAT. HUNGRY." and we left to get some lunch.

After we finished diligently picking all the vegetables off our vegetarian pizza, we swung back by the garden. And, to my horror and joy, Loki went straight to the chives and began munching away on them, just like the hippy instructor had showed us. Was it just luck that he didn't grab a handful of crabgrass or did he actually retain that 15 seconds worth of information for more than an hour with a big exciting vegetable pizza lunch in between? And what will he do with this new knowledge of chives? Where will it take him? Here's my hope: some day, when he's 26 and hasn't called home for a month, he'll eat a baked potato from Swiss Chalet and the smell of the chive-infused sour cream will fill him with an overwhelming love for his mother. Is that the best I can hope for, or am I shooting too low?

Back in the spring, we imposed upon my sister-in-law's parents who live on a pig farm up in Wingham. Loki loves books about farm animals and I thought, well, here's a chance to get real close and personal with some actual barnyard pals and - by the way - that's where bacon comes from, yum. I'd say the two main differences between farm animals in books and real-life farm animals are (1) scale and (2) smell. Also, cows don't actually say "mooo." They bellow something loud and guttural that could make you crap yourself if you're 2 (or 30), especially if you're only about a foot away from the "mooing" end. (Still better than a foot away from the pooing end, which we were as well). I loved it. Loki was terrified. We didn't get anywhere near broaching the subject of bacon.

Still, I have deep philosophical underpinnings for these excursions, derived, naturally, from a pop-foodie book by Michael Ruhlman. In Soul of a Chef he charts the paths of world renowned chefs, one of whom is Thomas Keller of The French Laundry. As it turns out, in his early days as a chef, Thomas had a yen to cook some rabbit. He was living out in the Catskills so he just contacted his local rabbit purveyor who gave him a slap-dash lesson in skinning a hare and then left him with burlap sack full of cute wittle bunny wabbits. His first attempt was gruesome. The rabbit screamed, broke its leg in the process. It was a gory mess. He then went on to slaughter the others with a bit more ease, so the story goes. But what he learned from this god-awful experience is that, as a chef, he has the moral obligation to honour the lives he takes. Waste nothing. Cook everything to perfection.

Okay, so I get that the logic is a little screwed up. As long as the dish is super tasty, it's worth the rabbit's life? Was it served with a nice Chianti and some fava beans? So maybe we're in psychopath territory. But, that aside, I take away something kindof beautiful from this story. After all, we are born takers. We consume life (bacon or brussels sprouts) to maintain life and that's the normal course of things. However, it is exactly that blind and arrogant consumption that has gotten us into the mess we currently find ourselves in (I won't elaborate on it, cause blahblahblah, you know what I mean). I'm not suggesting that we should sit shiva for every carrot we eat, but I think we do have a moral obligation of some kind to at least take some interest, gain some understanding of what carrot-life is all about.

Our kids need to understand this even more than we do because, the way things are going, it'll really all come to a head in their lifetime. While we're shaking our canes in the old folks home, they'll be out there fanning themselves silly in the midst of unavoidable climate change. So Loki needs to get this stuff and damn it, if that means arranging edible flowers and eating fresh chives in the middle of an urban park on a Thursday morning, than that's just what we're gonna do.

Tonight's Dinner:

- Mustard & Brown Sugar Glazed Salmon (fresh, wild from BC; better or worse than farmed, organic from Ireland?)

- Baby Broccoli

- Leftover bean salad (amazingly better the 2nd day)

- 9 Grain bread

Boob Tube

2009-07-31T16:13:00.003-04:00

Man did I just get a good lip slashing from the little Gordon Ramsey in my head. "Come ON, you donkey" he said as I peeled a hard-boiled egg over the sink, then transported the shell across the kitchen to the garbage can, then came back to the sink to peel the next egg, and then back across the (you get it). I am the least efficient person in a kitchen, ever. It is infuriating...I guess. Actually, it doesn't bug me so much but, since Mr. Ramsey moved in, I never hear the end of it. He gives me no peace.

(Interesting side note: a social worker I used to share an office with had an elderly client who was absolutely convinced that Emeril Lagasse lived in her basement. He would yell "BAM" all hours of the day and night. The worst part, according to her, was that he never invited her to try a single one of his dishes.)

Most of my voices are familiar - people I know, people I love, people who love me. They keep me honest. My little mother reminds me to send cards (sometimes she actually does this outside of my brain, but mostly I've internalized it) and frowns at me when I reach for another slice of bread. Jessica gives me a hard time for throwing away recyclables (something she would never do in real life, outloud). Herb looks at me sideways when I buy expensive organic kiwis or tip more than 15%. Lori is constantly telling me to get over myself. My dad scolds me for scolding the dog or forgetting to let him out before bedtime (the dog, not my dad who usually takes himself out before bedtime).

Ah, see. Mostly helpful, generally well-intentioned reminders from the people who care for me most. I sometimes ignore them.

But what's up with all these quasi-celebrity voices who feel so inclined to boss me around in my head all day long. Look, Stacy & Clinton, I have no interest in owning a blazer even if it does emphasize the smallest part of my waist. I don't need Donald Trump's assessment of my professional ambition nor do I crave Oprah's empathetic advice regarding body image. Thanks but no thanks, guys.

I don't know how they all got in there. It's not my fault. I entered tender adulthood at the cross-roads of the self-help book and reality TV. All this schandenfreude is meant to be instructive for the masses. I don't buy it. But apparently I've absorbed it.

That's all time will allow but I have a whole lot more to say on this topic - especially as it relates to TLC and the post-modern freakshow...I'm working on that one. Stay tuned. (And get the frick out of my kitchen, Ramsey!)

Dinner Tonight:

- Good bread
- Good salad
- Meat on sticks

Solipsism

2009-07-28T11:30:00.004-04:00

This happened in an elevator vestibule the size of a large coffin. Level B2. The parking garage across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum.

Through the glass, a woman is running towards me. Arms out, shouting. I don't understand her at first and then the doors close behind me. Damn, she says, pushing into the crowded coffin, now I'll have to wait for the next one. I feel obliged to apologize, like a knee jerk. And then I fix a stare on her.

I am wheeling a two-child buggy, an empty two-child buggy because one of said children is hanging in a harness from my torso and the other is attempting to make a mad dash toward the headlights catching some tracktime around the garage's blind corners. I have one foot propping open the coffin door (through which my new friends steps) and am steering with one hand and a hip.

Clearly and from any angle, I am in no position to catch and hold an elevator door for anyone: the Pope, Jesus, Elvis-incarnate, or the woman with the expensive purse who is now sulking at me as she leans against the vestibule wall. She watches me, unfazed, as I maneuver around her like a haggard Shiva with my tribe of children and gear.

Thanks! I shout sarcastically over my shoulder just before the glass door clicks closed. I see her face and it registers nothing.

This was not today. This was weeks ago. And still I think about it, not because I'm angry (I'm still a little angry) but because I also wonder if I am in the wrong. Or, rather, if I processed these events in the wrong way.

Solipsism, philosophically, is the theory that only the self (myself, not yourself) can be proved to exist. Colloquially, it is complete absorption with one's own needs, feelings, and thoughts to the exclusion of all others' (thank you, dictionary.com).

Did it occur to me that the expensive-purse-lady's need to get to and on the elevator could be equal to my need to get off and out of it? Was her expectation that I might catch and hold the closing doors for her any more imposing than my expectation that she might hold the vestibule door for me as I left?

Well, umm, no. But I have kids. And there it is. That spawners' entitlement. It was all the uproar around fine-dining restaurants and office watercoolers not long ago.

Who do they think they are bringing a 3-year-old here on a Saturday night to sneeze boogers into my cocktail...

I have to work a 12-hour day because Johnny's precious little has a solo performance at his pre-school's African drumming recital...

In fact, a couple years back, there was a big brouhaha here in Toronto around whether or not people should give up their transit seats for pregnant women. "I worked all day, my feet hurt, and I'm smart enough to use a condom, so suck it up preggo," versus "What about compassion and the miracle of life you bleeping bleep-hole." (For the record, I never verbally asked anyone to give up their seat for my pregnant body but shamelessly stared sitters down while rubbing my belly and projecting misery. It was about 75% effective).

Last week my dad jibed me a bit, saying - in effect - that I have matured as a person in so much as my self-centeredness has now expanded to include my children. He was joking. Sort of. I acted quite put off, but the thing is, he's kindof right. I wonder if kids are just a guise or a good excuse for complete ego centrism, constituting a bigger circle of self in which to be absorbed.

Or maybe that lady was just a bitch.

Tonight's Dinner:

- Grilled rack of lamb
- Spinach and Matzoh Pie (try it, you like it.)
- Greek salad

Fringe

2009-07-26T19:11:00.006-04:00

The butcher-shop lady and I agree: a haircut is a powerful thing.

She was blessed (from her father's side, I learned) with beautiful hair: thick and silver with lovely dark undertones and on some days it is a mass of perfect corkscrew curls and other days (like today) blown out soft and straight.

"You've done something different; it quite suits you" she said. I was so pleased. With the compliment, of course. But also with the fact that I live in a neighbourhood where the butcher-shop lady notices when you get your haircut. I was delighted. In fact, all day long I've been delighted with one thing or another. And, while I will admit that I am surely a victim of magical thinking, I believe the haircut is responsible for this change in my weather.

The day itself was overcast and, objectively speaking, quite ordinary. We went to the park in the morning, brunched at the same outdoor cafe as we do everytime, chased Loki across the benches shoving little bites of pancake in his mouth. Made naps. Made coffee. Turned the TV off, turned it back on, turned it off - now this time I mean it. Ate dinner. Baths. Bed.

But there were all these wonderful moments. Like how the man next to us at the cafe was playing this handmade African musical instrument and let Loki try it. And I found this tree in the park that an artist had carved a big bearded face into and Loki and I talked to him, the treeman, for a while and Loki was a little scared of him but touched his beard anyway. And then we found snails all over the leaves and I showed him Queen Anne's Lace, which always reminds me of home for some reason. And we stumbled across a filmset where they had put fake snow all over the ground and so we walked through the snow in the middle of July. Later, at home, when it thunderstormed, we made a fort in the livingroom and read Where the Wild Things Are with a flashlight and then went outside and splashed on the patio and weeded the entire back garden in the rain and found earthworms.

Of course, it all goes back to the haircut (duh.)

Here's what happened. Friday night, Herb was on call and after Lori left to go enjoy childless adulthood, I was on my own with nothing on TV and not sleepy and feeling the dull kindof blueness that I've felt for a while. I was brushing my teeth for bed, having given up on being awake. And then I started to move my hair around a bit. Pushed it over my forehead, held it up here and there. Just before I grabbed the scissors I remember thinking: (1) If I actually pick up the scissors I'll really do it and then I'll be screwed (2) it's only hair, it'll grow back (3) this is really stupid. And then I cut myself a fringe.

In the morning Herb said, "It looks like you just cut a chunk out of your hair over your forehead." Yeah. That's more or less what I did. "You should go get that fixed," he said. So I did. And while the hairdresser explained that this is not how he would have gone about giving me a bang, I must say I am quite pleased with our collaborative effort.

Objectively, I've got the butcher-shop lady and my next door neighbour, Norm, to go on and they both like it. Herb does not. But it doesn't matter. I just needed to look in the mirror and see something different. And that, I think, has helped me see everything else a little differently so that - on an ordinary, rainy Sunday - I found joy all day long.

Tonight's Dinner:

Homemade Pizza (mushrooms, pineapple, Genoa salami, fresh basil)

Oven-baked chicken wings

Salad

Why I Love the CBC

2009-07-23T14:17:00.005-04:00

I like the CBC. I especially like the CBC over my kitchen radio while one of my kids is napping upstairs and I'm mixing something up and maybe there's a glass of wine involved. I don't usually get to listen to a whole segment; maybe just a snitch of an interview or a couple callers commenting about something random like the time they got to touch the Stanley Cup. (Being a quasi-Canadian, I really wish I found that story more interesting but I just can't get all that riled up about a big sweaty metal trophy no matter how I try).

If words were objects, the CBC would be a crazy neighbourhood yardsale that would give you weird and appealing insights into the lives of people you don't know. Today, for example, an old Nubian man said "it's a simple life." His grandchildren were floating and playing games on the river (the Nile, that is) while chickens pecked corn in the yard. Their whole community had been uprooted years back when the Egyptian government decided to flood the land the Nubian people have lived on for centuries. (I missed the part about why the government chose to do this, but having lived in New Orleans I understand that it is sometimes politically and economically advantageous to flood people out of their homes for various reasons. Apparently God is down with that too, Noah's Ark and all). Interestingly (and yet it gets a big fat "well, duh, it would go that way") a great deal of energy was spent preserving and protecting the ancient monuments created by the Nubians of old; zero of which was dedicated to supporting the modern-day Nubians who are now, as the CBC host explained, "scattered like pearls from the necklace of a beautiful girl." Well, that's probably just a nice way to say it. (Dispatches, by Yolande Knell, originally aired April 9, 2009).

I've never thought much about the Nubian people. I'm not sure I was even aware of this distinct ethnic identity. The word conjures long-necked, dark-skinned women with large almond shaped eyes. Two-dimensionally, like a drawing on a wall or a piece of pottery. But somewhere in the world (ummm, Egypt) Nubian children are lallygagging on a river while their grandpa talks to a CBC reporter (and then there's the chickens, pecking away).

It's also nice when you hear something reported on the CBC with which you are familiar. Like yesterday, Sarah Elton did a big story on Buddha Dog, which is a restaurant on Roncesvalles that I used to go to after music class with Loki on an almost weekly basis. To put it simply, they make "gourmet" hotdogs. An oxymoron if ever there was one. But really, they are a political statement. They took a classic fast-food icon - the overly processed, mysteriously stuffed street meat - and turned it into a perfect example of slow-food. Made with locally sourced aged beef and cheeses and featuring gourmet, chef-created sauces that range from sweet to savoury to spicy the Buddha Dog is the conscious eater's answer to the wiener. (Funny aside: why is it called Buddha Dog? In reference to the old joke: "What did the Buddha say to the hotdog vendor? Make me one with everything." ba-dum-dum, chh.). The thing is, most people I've sent to BD end up disappointed. The dogs are tiny (a standard order is 2 or 3 of them) and there's not much else on the menu. Herb wouldn't step foot in there - not when you can get a foot-long polish sausage as thick as Nate's arm, just a couple doors down. And I should admit that maybe I like the idea of Buddha Dog a little bit more than the actual dogs themselves. But hearing it described on the CBC made me feel really cool. Like someone in the know. I don't often feel that way (as evidenced by the fact that I spend so much time listening to the CBC in my kitchen).

And that's just it. I discovered the CBC during my first mat leave with Loki - it was a way to catch glimmers of a world bigger than my house and the 4 streets I walk up and down every day and I could do it while feeding him peas porridge cold or shaking a rattle or bouncing on a big rubber ball. Then, when Herb came home at the end of the day, I would have something to talk about other than the shape and consistency of Loki's poop. The CBC makes me feel interesting and connected when I am in a state that makes me the least of both.

Tonight's Dinner:

Me: Indian with Krish and Olimpia - Yay! Grown Up dinner! Good thing I have that whole Nubian story to talk about. I hope neither of them has read this entry.

Herb & Loki: Chicken sausages, tomato rice & green beans

Nate: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge from the pot currently on the stove.

2009-07-22T19:05:00.005-04:00

Indelible. Diatribe.

Dahlia.

These are some words I like.

Here is something I overheard on my street not long ago: "That's the problem with Gypsies. They never finish what they start." I think, but I can't be sure, that the person who said this is ethnically (?) a Gypsy.

What am I at here? I'm warming up. Sorry, it's been a while and I feel like I've forgotten how to do this. This being: write as if I have something to say.

For me, writing is like exercising. I ought to do it; I need to do it. I start with great gusto and commitment - a determined stick-to-it-tivenes. And then I am undermined by "other things" - life and laziness and then lack of confidence. You know how it goes. We had a couch like this back at 77 Carlton - that's the apartment I shared with Herb and Lori when I first moved to Toronto. We called it the "couch of inertia" - How Herb misses that couch. It was our field of poppies; it just sucked every ambition out of your body until all you could do was lay back helplessly and watch rerun after rerun of Felicity. That is where my brain is and I just need to know, does she end up with Ben or not?

No. I'm fighting it. I am.

We are back from our visit from Baltimore. A trip somewhat like a haj - a physical, emotional and spiritual journey to the homeland which, while deeply important and meaningful, requires a whole lot of energy (not to mention the shlepping). Every fiber of my being before and during was lit with the requirements of this trip and so I kindof slacked off everything else. Also, Nate slept in the same room as the computer. Sure, there's my excuse.

Well, also, I've felt a bit shitty (for lack of a better word) and writing in this way requires something from me that gets lost easily when I am not at my best. My voice, I guess. It's not writers' block, more like writers' laryngitis. What I mean is this: So in university I was big in the creative writing scene. I had this advisor, a wonderful man named Peter Cooley, and I would come to him with all my post-adolescent angst about my worth and value and say things like "I just don't feel like I deserve to call myself a poet." And he would say, "Well, Jessie, if you're going to be a poet, you're going to have to get over that." Guess what - I write funding proposals for a living (not that there isn't some poetry there) but I didn't. Get over it, I mean.

I could not commit to writing in that sense - as a poet writes - because it seemed necessary to know something about life and the world; to have some experience or insight that was unique and worth sharing and as far as I could tell I was the most ordinary of persons with a fairly comfortable and easy life with no great risks or losses and who on earth needs to hear about that? The fact that I was good at it, that it came naturally, that it was a compelling force - maybe the only compelling force - in my life just didn't seem reason enough. Cowardice trumps passion: a tragedy.

Well, not a tragedy really. I'm quite happy with the way my life rolled out and things would certainly have gone differently (not necessarily worse, I guess, but differently) had I taken that other path. And I like what I do...knowing in a concrete way that what I write matters, that it has a purpose larger than and outside of me.

But that's not this. This is indulgent (isn't it?).

I spent a great deal of time in the kitchen today pureeing carrots and listening to the CBC. They were interviewing a writer, Rick Moody, about his work, mostly fiction, but he was talking about the one memoir he wrote: The Black Veil, which is somewhat about his search for his family roots and his struggle with depression, which he prefers to call melancholy (another beautiful word despite its meaning). Between spurts of the deafening hand-mixer buzz, I listened to him explain how difficult and painful it was for him to write about himself, how he hated it, in a way. Now this is a very famous and very talented writer. I am neither but I felt something like kinship to him as he spoke. He said that while he is so deeply uncomfortable writing about himself and his experiences that it is the only way he knows how to process his life and the things that happen to him. And that he doesn't understand anything about what he knows or thinks until he writes about it. I am that way too. I am a constant, silent narrator - explaining myself to myself. Putting it all in words, so I can get it. And maybe it is because that work is so private and intimate, it feels uncomfortable to put it out there.

So there you go, I'm sure I've burned off enough mental calories to have (another) glass of wine guilt-free. I'm back on track. If there's anyone still interested.

Tonight's Dinner:

Flattened Chicken (ask me about this if you don't know. you should know, really).

Mushroom Risotto

Spinach Salad

Pureed carrots & peaches, 1/2 an avocado (That would be Nate. He later threw up a good chunk of that. It was distinctly both orange and green, not brown as you'd think).

Conception

2009-07-04T19:46:00.004-04:00

Nate is hungry.

I know we have covered this territory before but let me say it again: Nate is hungry. For food, yes, but not just that. He is a hungry being and he consumes everything (from pureed pear to Loki's attention to my snuggles and Herb's coos) as if he might never get enough.

We are not supposed to compare our children.

I'm not sure who wrote this rule but we all know it.

We are meant to love them each, individually, in a perfect vacuum. But there is something so fascinating about considering them in juxtaposition. Maybe it is because I am an only child and so, while I have witnessed it, I have never lived the actuality of having a person drawn from the same genetic grab bag who is like me and different from me all at once. This fact of my children - their samenesses and differences - blows my mind. And they are still so young - who they are becoming becoming clearer everyday like a Polaroid sharpening. But it was true from birth and I would argue, perhaps, from conception.

Now that's something we don't generally swap stories about. "Oh, your little Suzie is so sweet. Tell me, how was she conceived?" Don't worry, Lori, I won't gross you out with the gory details. But it seems to me that the circumstances - or maybe better, the contexts - surrounding their conceptions connects to who my children are and how they are different in an interesting way.

I willed Loki into being. Herb was there too. But I feel as though I truly summoned him to be mine. I had had a heartbreaking miscarriage and a number of desolate months trying to get pregnant again. It was July, in fact it was this week in July (Canada Day weekend) and Herb and I had planned to visit an old friend of his who lives in a small, hippy-esq town just on the Quebec border (a place we had never been to before and will probably never go to again). The morning of our trip, I had scheduled an ultrasound just to make sure that everything was okay and back to normal following the D & C. I hated everything about that place - the waiting room filled with beaming round bellies, the distracted receptionists, the cold gel and the bleeping of a screen I couldn't see or make sense of. But the technician was kind. Everything looked okay, she said. "In fact, there's a ripe follicle right there." And that ripe follicle - that pre-egg - was Loki. It is odd to think that I knew him that way - the equivalent of a biological possibility, the potential for potential.

Just before we left that pretty little town in the middle of nowhere, I went skinny-dipping (alone) in the cold lake water near our hosts' house. Maybe it was the brightness of the morning or the coolness of the water, but I was filled with a calmness and a clarity that I had never felt before. In my mind, that communion with the lake marked the moment when Loki's life began. It was the universe responding to my heart's desire.

Nate, on the other hand, I truly believe willed himself into being. If Loki is the child we demanded of the universe, than Nate is the child that the forces of the universe conspired us to have. I had just returned from my first weekend alone since Loki's birth. I had gone to visit college friends in New York and had spent a surreal 48 hours childless, falling into a pre-baby self the way you collapse gleefully into a strange, crisp hotel bed, knowing that your real bed is at home waiting for you. Loki was just over a year old. I was done nursing, had lost the baby-weight, was starting to work again...life was good and balanced. Sure we wanted another but no rush...maybe we'd try in the summer, maybe in the fall. After the amount of energy spent on conceiving Loki, I didn't think it was even possible to get pregnant without really really wanting it, without really trying. Getting pregnant by accident seemed as likely as accidentally winning the lottery (especially if, say, you only buy a ticket maybe twice a month, because generally you're just too damn tired to go all the way to the store when you can just close your eyes and go to sleep...echem, if you know what I mean). In general, we were using the oldest method of birth-control (a toddler) and relying on the fact that probability was on our side.

Maybe there was something about going away and coming home - I seem to remember some odd fact from Psych 101 involving mice couples having higher conception rates after brief periods of separation - did I make that up? But it was more than that. Now, this is as graphic as I'll get...I promise: They say there are food people and then there are sex people. Well, just guess which one I am. I spend all day thinking about what to eat for dinner. My cravings are generally of the wine and chocolate variety. But for some reason that day, the day I was coming home to my husband and child, things were different and I'll leave it at that. A couple months (and six pregnancy tests) later, when the surprise wore off a bit, it occurred to me that we had been chosen by this child for this life.

I read a beautiful excerpt from Clair Bateman's story "Otherwhere" in Harper's that truly captures this feeling and the last line reads:

After a birth does occur, the mother gazes into her infant’s eyes with deep tenderness, knowing that it has chosen to die to countless could-have-beens in order to take the plunge into a particular is.

We are Nate's particular is and he is hungry, hungry, hungry for this life. I am so deeply grateful that the universe chose me to feed him.

Tonight's Dinner:

Nate: 4 cubes of pureed pear & apricot mixed with oatmeal, 6 ounces of formula, 2.5 boobs

Loki: Crunchy fish fillet & carrots

Herb & Me: Cheeseburgers, Potato Salad (Heather's fantastic recipe which involves English Salad Cream and chopped up pickles), neon-green coleslaw (that was all Herb, I won't consume anything that colour).

Losing Dinner (& My Mind)

2009-07-02T21:06:00.004-04:00

Today I almost lost my dinner.

Not in the "praying to the porcelain goddess" sortof way. Literally. Like, lost it. Left it, in a bag, by a bench, on the sidewalk, in front of a busy street. It was the reason Nate and I had left the house, in the threatening rain and distracted by a cup of coffee and the possibility of cut flowers, we were halfway home before it occurred to me that we were missing something.

I am missing something. In my brain. Something is definitely amiss.

I have been fighting a funk for a couple weeks now and, alongside an irrational moodiness, is this pervasive foggy distraction. I am not a forgetful person nor am I disorganized or flighty. Lots of other things, yes, but those things, no. So to leave our dinner on the sidewalk, or my purse in the grocery cart (didn't even realize it was gone until my neighbour - who works at the grocery store - phoned to tell me she'd drop it by), or to double book appointments one after the other all week long - well, these aren't the sorts of things I do. Except I can't stop doing them.

I am tempted to throw the word "hormones" at it but I am tired of that explanation. Between pregnancy, childbirth, nursing and weening I have been a hormonal El nino for the past 3 years and it just feels like a lame, warn-out excuse. But a convenient one. Easy to pull out of the bag when, say: you show up for a pilates class on the wrong night after having rushed to find a babysitter because it's Herb's hockey night after all and why did I book this class on Herb's hockey night-oh well- I guess I forgot- okay got the sitter and we're covered and right - no I didn't book a class tonight - of course I didn't - but here I am anyway and there's a teenager in my livingroom and I can't go home. Exactly.

So I did what the nice instructor told me to do ("You have an entire, free hour!" - she has 3 small children and gets it). I went and bought myself a yummy coffee-type drink and looked at silly magazines in the bookstore. They were "Home Decor" magazines because we are thinking, finally, of putting together our bedroom in a fashion that does not involve curtains hung from untwisted wire hangers or "heirloom" Walmart dressers with a "distressed paint" finish caused by packing tape. As I flipped through the glossy pages trying to identify my so-called style, it occurred to me that what is wrong with our bedroom is also what is wrong with my mind. It is filled with the bad kind of clutter.

Now if you ask Herb, there is only one kind of clutter and it is all bad. But I disagree. I like things, artifacts, objects...of a certain variety. Not surprisingly, I like the kinds of objects that one finds in a kitchen: stubby jars filled with herbs, bowls of lemons, green glass bottles of olive oil and wine, kitschy coffee tins, a stack of blue-rimmed ceramic bowls. In all the magazines I flipped through, it was the pictures of kitchens that appealed to me. The bedrooms were either too stark or too overdone. A kitchen is a real space. A place where people do their real living and working and talking (and eating). Bedrooms are either too private (i.e. strewn with laundry, covered with little piles of coins and ticket stubs and other detritus dumped out of pockets, medicine bottles, old glasses of water) or they are for-show and then they feel forced and false.

In a kitchen you can be yourself and go about your business but still be surrounded by beauty.

Our bedroom is my undone brain. It's filled with all the scraps and leftovers of our life. The things I need to do and haven't done (hang up that shirt, fold that basket of laundry, pack away those baby toys, make the bed, bring that ancient glass of water downstairs). The way our life is - we enter it, drop what we can't hold any more, sleep, wake up, and shut the door behind us. It doesn't get to have a complete thought...it is an interrupted space. My moments of clarity come, of course, in our kitchen where things are timed and ordered. So, perhaps with this little remodeling project, I will try to add some sense and tranquility to my brain. Fill it with things I like to consider (a vase of yellow flowers, a red mixing bowl, an oversized stainless steal pepper grinder) and air out the dirty laundry and distraction- or at least pile it in a rustic wicker basket.

Tonight's (Reclaimed) Dinner:

- Roasted Flattened Chicken

- Stuffing "muffins"

- Steamed broccoli

Money Soup

2009-06-29T21:13:00.007-04:00

When I was about 7 years old I had a chameleon named "Jerry." He died and I got another chameleon, and named him - you guessed it - Jerry. It occurred to me one day that I would like nothing more than to have a little tea party with my reptile friend. I'm not sure where I conjured this image from, maybe a greeting card, but it was a watercolour picture of a little girl and a white tea pot and a lovely little lizard sitting daintily on a leaf and they were all enjoying a wonderful, magical afternoon together. That's what I was shooting for when I took Jerry from his little terrarium and placed him on top of a large house plant next to the coffee table. I quickly learned two things about chameleons (1) they change colour (2) they do not sit daintily on the edge of leaves; they run mad-mad fast. That was the end of the line of Jerrys.

This is a bit of lifelong pattern for me. I imagine clear, lovely images in my mind of how a thing ought to be and then seek to reproduce it in real life, ignoring - say- the laws of physics or biology or just basic common sense.

This is why I taught my two-year-old to push a kitchen chair from the table to the counter and stand on it while I cook dinner. I had a picture. A really nice picture of a cute little boy in a white apron (do we even own an apron?! Yes, it's black and it says "Kitchen Macgyver") gently stirring a wooden spoon around a big ceramic bowl while watching his mother - with awe and wonder - create a delicious home cooked dinner. Amidst lemons and fresh herbs, he would soak in the warmth of maternal love and the smell of garlic sizzling in a pan and would one day tell his children about these treasured, blissful moments (insert sound of record screeching)...

Okay, have you met my kid? There are SO many things wrong with this picture that I don't even know where to start. Oh, I know...how about garlic sizzling in a hot pan spitting hot oil all over both of us. My son throws the wooden spoon against the wall and reaches deftly for the chopping knife, spilling the fresh herbs all over the dirty, dog-hairy floor. He then proceeds to throw a cataclysmic tantrum until I let him suck on the lemon which he mashes in his mouth and then spits back into the ceramic mixing bowl filled with whatever else we were supposed to be eating for dinner. It usually goes something like that. Not exactly the Norman-Rockwell-meets-Food-Network thing I was going for.

I have kicked myself for introducing this little ritual a thousand times. Why can't we go back to him sitting dumbified in front of the tv while I sip a nice glass of wine and quietly destroy my own kitchen in my own way (I'm a really sloppy cook and believe me, I don't need a toddler's help to spill shit on the floor).

But tonight, I must say, we lived the dream. Well, sortof. Okay, so it was after dinner and I wasn't actually trying to cook anything, granted that makes a huge difference. I was doing the clean up, putting things away, rinsing a few dishes, and trying to keep Loki entertained while Herb put the baby down to sleep. As always, Loki pulled his chair up to the counter and began reaching for the most dangerous and/or expensive things in sight - Herb's puffer, the cell phone, my iTouch. I swept each beyond his grasp in turn and then he started playing with a pile of change Herb had dumped on the counter (don't get me started with this habit). I had to stop myself from stopping him. Here's the little internal dialogue that took place in my brain:

"Don't...stop...don't...put it down."

"Wait. It's just change. It can't hurt him."

"It's dirty and he could choke"

"So just don't let him put it in his mouth. He'll be fine."

"Right. Good luck with that lady."

"Stop being such a killjoy. It's just some quarters and pennies. He's having fun."

"Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

Then, this is what I said out loud as Loki caught the corner of my eye and dangled a shiny copper penny just inside his parted lips, "NO NO NO NO NO. Not in your mouth. Here." And I dumped all the change into a big wooden salad bowl and handed him a big wooden spoon (there's the spoon I've been dreaming of...I knew it existed!). "We're making money soup." Just like that, I invented the best game ever. He would yell out "ingredients" and I would get them out of their respective spots, prepare them and dump them in the bowl for him to stir. In case you're wondering, here is how you make Loki's money soup:

Start with a handful of change and add:

1 carrot, chopped

1 slice of hot pizza, cut up

2 crocodiles (wrestle them, throw them on the table, chop them up)

2 "baby-lion" fish (a rare, rare breed that can only be found in our kitchen sink)

3 big scoops of icecream

It's very similar to stone soup except with wild animals and money.

So I accidentally became a really fantastic parent for about 10 minutes, the kind you read about in Dr. Sears books (specifically, like Martha Sears, who I am fairly certain floats around with an umbrella breastfeeding a four-year-old in one arm while leading her houseful of deeply bonded children in a round of the goat-herder song with the other).

In his book, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block," Harvey Karp basically explains that the key to raising kids of this age is a steady mixture of reverse psychology and the ability to turn every task into a romping, gleeful new game. "Let's race to see who can put on their shoes faster?! I bet I can beat you! Look I'm wearing your shoes on my head, is that where they go? Look I'm eating your shoes?! Isn't mommy so silly! I bet you can't put your shoes on if I eat them!" etc. etc....You must be endlessly creative, upbeat, patient, and intuitive. He's right, of course, but that's like saying - look, you want a perfect body, just eat 1500 calories a day and work out 6 days a week. No problem. Oh, except I have other things to do than spend 30 minutes trying to convince Loki that putting your shoes on is fun. It's not fun; it's just one of those things you have to do in life. Put on your shoes. Now.

That being said, it is really amazing when you can squash that voice - the NO NO NO voice - and just go with it and let it be silly or messy or probably not really the best idea. Like saying, what-the-hey, you want to jump in the bathtub with your clothes on? So they get wet...who cares. You want to throw all the couch cushions on the floor and jump on them...well, yeah, that looks like a lot of fun. Run around naked in the backyard and pee on the rosebushes, sure, go wild. That's sortof what the kitchen counter is about...I know it makes cooking dinner harder and messier and I know that it is probably a bad idea to let my child within arms reach of burning elements, but it opens the door for thing like money soup. And that's the good stuff, worth it's weight in gold.

Tonight's Dinner:

Poached Salmon with lemon-dill mayo sauce

Mushroom & Chevre pie (from Max's, not my own, as if there is a "my own" with this sort of thing)

Waste Not, Have Waste

2009-06-25T13:46:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure if it is because the garbage people went on strike this week, or if that's just an unfortunate coincidence, but I am dying to throw everything away. Everything in the cupbords, everything in the fridge, I just want to clear it all out and start over.

We live in a culture of waste and I know this because I am a Class-A-1 waster. Believe me, I'm not proud of this fact, and I do actively try to curb it, but it is deeply a part of my nature and I'm not sure why (wait, culture...right, I'm blaming our culture). I hate the last bit of anything: the crumbled up flakes at the bottom of the cereal bag, the crystalline layer of icecream at the bottom of the carton, the single pickle floating like a specimen inside a jar of murky juice. I'd rather throw it out than eat it.

Part of it, I think, is a fear of eating something gone bad. I'm not sure where this fear comes from...I've never had a serious case of food poisoning and aside from a mouthful of sour milk here and there over the course of my life, I've never encountered truly rank food. Also, I realize that my definition of "bad" doesn't necessarily jive with other people's. Take moldy bread...at what point is it really moldy? One spot, an entire crust edge, or full-green fuzz-front-to-back? Some people (Herb) are content to cut off a bit of mold (it's just a little penicillin! Won't hurt ya!) and pop the slice into the toaster - no harm, now foul. No, foul. If there's the vague idea of mold on one piece of bread in the package, I take it as a sign that it's been around too long and out it all goes. I'm a bit more lenient with fruit...I will pick out the moldy berries and keep the clean ones, I'll cut a yucky bruise out of an apple, but honestly, I don't like to.

Just a minute ago, I threw away what might have been a perfectly good package of chicken thighs, after thawing them overnight in the fridge because when I sniffed really really close, they smelled weird. Or maybe they just smelled like raw chicken. I'm not sure, but they've been in the freezer since January and I just don't know, so out they went.

The truth is, I have no idea how to deal with frozen food in general and I have an illogical repulsion of it. I keep trying to get over it (hence the package of frozen chicken thighs) but I can't. Here's a horrifying confession:

Just before I went back to work fulltime, when Loki was a little over a year old, I went and did that Supper Solved thing where you make all these great meals all at once and then freeze them and you have dinner for the month. It's brilliant...really it is. The meals are tasty and healthy and I fully endorse this concept as a fabulous solution for working families who still want to eat a homecooked meal together every night. I went with the best intentions. And it worked for a little while. But then, you know, I'd forget to thaw it the night before or it would take too long in the oven. Really though, I stopped wanting to make them because I stopped wanting to eat them. Frozen food looks gross, like a dead thing. And it feels gross, like a brick. It doesn't have a scent, which makes me not trust it.

So they sat, these meals (lots of them), in my freezer for months and months and months and finally, just before Nate was born - in my hormone-induced nesting frenzy - I decided that they had to leave; I could not go on another day with them in my freezer.

But I didn't throw them away. No. I didn't. I have a friend, who has a friend, who will eat anything. A single guy who lives alone and works long late hours...the kind who will eat whatever is in the take-out container in the back of the fridge and then ask "I wonder if this is left-over lasagna or curry? Oh well." So, since it was the height of winter, I piled all these wonderful meals into a bag and left them on my front steps and this guy happily swooped them up. "Free food - you guys rock!" Well, he did me a much bigger favour than I did him.

Shame, oh the shame (and guilty relief) at throwing away tubs of leftover noodles, vines full of shrivelled grapes, potatoes building their own ecosystem in the cabinet under the counter. I try to avoid the inevitable by cooking proper portions, buying things in smaller sizes that I know we can finish (like the farmer's loaf of bread - perfect for 4 days!) It means going to market every day or other day for dinner items, but that's something I enjoy. Unfortunately, it is probably an unsustainable lifestyle. Once my mat leave is up and I'm back at work, we'll have to figure out something else. We'll have to figure out a whole mess of something elses, but that's another post.

For now, I eat and cook the way I like best - with fresh ingredients bought today or yesterday or maybe, possibly, the day before. And I am deeply grateful and appreciative that I have this luxury. I realize that it is an unusually privileged life that allows me even to consider the option of throwing food away. I know I am giving into my worst self when I do. Which is why I ate two-thirds of a cup of stale Oatmeal Crisp cereal for breakfast this morning. But now, I have to go buy fresh chicken thighs for dinner. Afterall, my whole family dying of salmonella won't really make the world a better place either.

Tonight's Dinner:

- "Sticky Chicken" - from Annabell's Fussy Eaters book, so far the recipes have been a hit

- Corn on the cob

- Caesar Salad

Fussy Wussy Was An Eater

2009-06-23T21:24:00.007-04:00

While shopping for puppets today (honestly, who doesn't want to start a story that way) I picked up a tidy little cookbook entitled "The Fussy Eaters' Recipe Book: 135 Quick, Tasty, and Healthy Recipes that Your Kids will Actually Eat."

Things I noticed about this book within the first few seconds of flipping through it:

It is by Annabel Karmel - mommy chef guru, who has written like a trizillion kids cooking books, and is apparently the "leading author on cooking for children" according to her About The Author bio . She advocates using cookie cutters to shape carrot rounds into little hearts and stars to make them more appealing (I read this in her "finger foods for toddlers" book) and I've never been able to figure out (a) where to find cookie cutters small enough, or carrots large enough, for that to work and (b) if you'd have to steam the carrot rounds first or just press down really hard, that is, if you could get clause (a) worked out.

More about Annable Karmel that I learned today: she lost her first child at 3 months to a rare viral disease, she is British, she looks a great deal like a character on Dynasty and not at all like she spends most of her time thinking about what to cook for children (which clearly she does, as she has made her career out of it). I don't know what I would expect her to look like - maybe a bit more pea puree and a little less Salon Selective ad? But I guess if you can have perfectly set hair and whip up a plate full of homemade pasta, shaped like zoo animals - power to you.

Eaters' is Plural: In other words, you may be dealing with more than one "fussy eater" and this book is prepared for that fact. I like when people think about punctuation.

Food Porn a Plenty: It is filled with gratuitous and beautiful photographs of food, delightfully presented on precious kiddie plates with polka dot napkins and funky cutlery playfully askew. There are no spills, stains, sticky spots, dirty socks, junk mail or purple crayon scribbles surrounding any item of food anywhere in this book, which is how I know for sure that not a single shot was taken in my kitchen.

Recipes For Foods I would Eat: Things like "sizzling asian shrimp;" "pasta with tomato and marscapone sauce;" "mini corn fritters." Yes, I'll have one of each, thank you.

Recipes Herb would not object to: In principle, anyway. Lasagna recipes and sweet sauces aside, there are a few Herb-friendly ones like mini meat loaves, lamb koftas, pork and peanut noodles...also, I think he'd be into Annabel's hair (it's big and blond and kindof 80s looking).

Prep & Cook times in the 10 - 20 Minute Range: This is assuming that you have all the ingredients in the recipe, know where your husband hid the grater and what your 2 year old did with the whip after blessing the couch with it a few thousand times. Also, that your 2 year old is not "helping" you cook this meal and that you have use of both of your arms. Re-calculating: Prep & cook times in the 15 - 35 minute range. Good enough.

So I bought it. Of course I did. Did I mention the food porn? And Annabel's awesome hair?

I think I'll use it, really, I will. But here's the thing. I kindof have an issue with this label, "The Fussy Eater."

It really bugs me when I hear parents brag about how their kid will eat anything, as if that's an accomplishment. First, it makes me wonder what kind of range we are talking about with this "anything" business. Like really, anything? Boiled cabbage? Cow's brains? Lamb hearts? Have you tried that or do you just mean Little Johnny will eat pizza with pepperoni or without it (what a champ). Secondly, what you're basically saying is that your child has no preferences; no taste. It's all the same to her. Well, that's something you should really be trying to fix, not celebrate.

What does "fussy" mean anyway? Doesn't it mean particular, choosey (i.e. conscious). Don't we want our kids to think about what they put in their mouths and not just stuff it all down? Isn't it also having a sense of self-knowledge and the ability to impose this "me"-ness on the outside world. This is what I like. This is what I don't like. Could it be that choosing what to eat could be as empowering for a small child as choosing what to wear or what to play with. Isn't being fussy a little bit like being passionate? (Do I sound annoyingly like Sarah Jessica Parker when I write one pointedly rhetorical question after another? Sorry.)

Now, I'm not suggesting that we should all constantly cater to our toddler's eating whims (that's when you end up with croutons for dinner, honey). Certainly, as parents our job is to present a healthy variety, guide good choices, challenge our kids and help them develop their tastes. But to expect your child - or anyone - to like and to eat everything you put in front of them is insane. I don't like (or necessarily eat) everything I make and I'm the one who chose to cook it!

I feel like recognizing your child's tastes is part of discovering who they are. Loki likes garlic and salt. He prefers popsicles to icecream (why?!) and broccoli to carrots. He likes matzoh balls and spring rolls and does not like tomato sauce. He can eat his weight in fruit - just about any fruit except bananas, until just recently, when he suddenly started to like them (why?!). He is sensitive to hot food and prefers everything basically e coli-warm. He likes to eat "big" things (like a whole ear of corn) until he decides that it's too much work, and then he wants it cut up really small. Any or all of these statements may change tomorrow. And that's not fussy, that's just Loki figuring out who he is.

Tonight's Dinner:

- Orange Chicken (it's more tangy than sweet - that's what I tell Herb)

- Broccoli

- Steamed Rice

Lump This, Stupid Fishmonger

2009-06-21T19:13:00.000-04:00

My excuse is we cooked all weekend. That's why Loki ate a banana and croutons for dinner and we're ordering sushi.

Before you go ahead and call child protective services, I actually made Loki wholewheat pasta shells and cheese with steamed carrots. What he ate was a banana (me) and a handful of croutons (Herb). In Herb's words "what's the difference between croutons and a piece of toast?" I invite you - no, I implore you- to respond to this challenge. Why is it a bad idea to give your hungry two-year-old a box of croutons for dinner? Anyone? Maybe he'll listen to you; my opinion is fairly useless.

As I was saying, we cooked all weekend - it being that kind of weekend. My mom was up for a visit so I took the opportunity on Friday night to breakout some real homestyle Baltimore cuisine. Ahhhhh, the crabcake.

Now, if you're from Baltimore, if you grew up there eating Baltimore crabcakes at say CJs Crabhouse, the dish is pretty much ruined for you. What I mean is, you just can't order them anywhere else. Every once and a while the "crabcake" or some variant-there-of appears on a Toronto menu but it's always a bizarre bastardization. Apple & fennel crab-style cake; crab and corn fritter on spring greens; organic broiled crab mash with rosemary aioli...what is this bullshit? There is one way - one way only - to make a crabcake otherwise you might as well take a fist full of sawdust, dunk it in a dirty aquarium and call it a meal.

Oh, but just tell that to the smart-faced old Ukrainian at our local fishmonger's who tried to sell me clawmeat.

"Vhat are you try-eng to make vith zat?" he said when I pointed to the reasonably (and fairly) expensive can of lump.

"Crabcakes."

"Zats not vat you vant. Trust me. You vant zis. Much cheaper. But, hei, you are ze boss."

That's right, I am the boss. I am the goddess of crabcakes, old man, so back off. It's not like I was asking for a pound of primerib to boil for beefstew. Whatelse is lump crabmeat good for if not crabcakes? But how could he know. I've bought the "prepared" crabcakes they pawn off at their shop. You know what they taste like? A handful of sawdust dunked in a dirty aquarium.

I realize it's not always the case that one's beloved hometown food is superiour to other variants or is even good at all. Take another Baltimore favourite, the snowball. Now, I've tried - really tried - to get a few outsiders on the side of the 'ball, but everyone pretty much agrees, it's kindof a gross version of the snowcone. Now snowcones usually come in two flavours: red or blue (right, I know, those are colours, but in the world of sugar syrup, colour = flavour). Now the snowball, on the otherhand, comes in brilliant, creative flavours like "egg custard," or "skylite" or "tuttifrutti." These are flavours with meaning, with history. And, the snowball includes the option of marshmallow topping. Why would you want to take a 15 ounce soda-cup filled with crushed ice and sickly-sweet syrup and top it off with a big gooey heap of marshmallow? Why wouldn't you, I say. In fact, here is the expert way to order a snowball - if you happen to be passing through the Baltimore region this summer:

"I will have a medium chocolate (small= too much syrup, not enough ice; large = too much ice, not enough syrup) with marshmallow (obviously) in the middle and on top." If you just put the marshmallow on the top, you will inevitably eat it all off and the rest of the snowball is nothing but ice and flavouring - who wants that?! You need to hide a bit of marshmallow in the middle, really, to save yourself from yourself.

Ok. Truth be told, I can take about two bites of a chocolate & marshmallow snowball before wanting to hurl. But man, when I was 8, I could eat like 12 of them without blinking. My dad can still polish one off pretty impressively, but he's had many more years of practice and I've spent too many summers now away from home. Nostalgia is a dish best served cold. (It's just like watching Night Court...I'm sure you know what I mean).

There's no point trying to re-create the snowball here in Toronto, or really beyond a 20-mile radius of Reisterstown Road. It loses something out of context. But the crabcake is different. Look, Bloor West Ukrainian Fishmonger, this dish has been perfected by the hands of poor, easternshore crabpickers and passed on generation after generation, coffee-stained diner menu after diner menu. So even though your people probably ran through my people's shtetl with burning clubs and pig's blood oh so many years ago, I'm gonna tell you how it's done:

Lump crabmeat (honestly, lump it or leave it)

Mayo

Mustard (dry or wet, doesn't matter)

Old Bay Seasoning (Chesapeake, that is)

An egg

Maybe some salt and pepper

Only the smallest palmful of flour or breadcrumbs or bread soaked in milk

Mix (gently now, Petro, don't break up those precious lumps). Fridge. Mold. Broil/Fry.

Sure, you can add wasabi paste or green apple shavings or any other fancy-shmancy ingredient you want; you can make it with clawmeat or immitation crab or crab-flavoured tofu, but I repeat: sawdust, poopy-green aquarium, eat-it-up. You're wasting your time. Not that I'm some kindof culinary expert. Afterall, my kid ate a banana and croutons for dinner. So what do I know.

Tonight's Dinner:

Loki: 1 banana; approximately 8 croutons

Herb & Jessie: Edamame, Agadashi Tofu (Jessie), Dragon Roll, Spider Roll, BC Roll, Mixed sashimi (no surf clam, no octopus, substitute butterfish).

For Your Reading Pleasure:

A bit of Snowball history: http://www.citypaper.com/bob/story.asp?id=8153

The Woman Who Eats her Young

2009-06-18T20:48:00.000-04:00

Tonight I ordered pizza. Maybe it's hormonal.

There are moments when I want to just absorb my children...literally suck them into me. I am sitting here and looking at 2 pairs of tiny sneakers, tongues wagging out, Velcro straps sticking up like antennae. They are lined up infront of the glass backdoor after being scrubbed inside and out, waiting to be put away. They are Loki's and now they are too small. Children outgrow things. They outgrow shoes and clothes and toys. They outgrow secret words and comforts. You have your children only to lose them over and over again for the rest of their lives.

Like I said, tonight I ordered pizza.

Becca was back today. Nate took 3 1/2 bottles. Dinner arrived in a box. Perhaps I am becoming outgrown.

This is a silly sadness given that, by definition, my children are still babies, still fully dependent mostly on me for mostly everything. And if I resent that, and there are moments - short, real moments when I do - than I also must admit that this dependence has come to shape who I am as an adult person moreso than anything else.

Maybe that has always been true for every parent. But my generation is a little odd. Most the women I know became full-fledged adults before they had babies. They romped and roamed and filed taxes and established careers and then, just when it was getting close to "too late" they signed up for prenatal pilates, registered at Pottery Barn Kids, and settled into the business of raising families with the same gusto they applied to their post-docs and MBAs.

I realize this has as much to do with where I live and my socio-economic class as it does with anything else. I mean, by no stretch am I singing "Papa Don't Preach" in the shower and wondering what style prom dress will best hide my postnatal belly flab.

*(Funny aside: Nate was a bit of a surprise. I found out I was pregnant while visiting my parents' house with Loki last spring. I snuck out to the RiteAid to take the peestick test and after 5 bewildering double-line results, still not believing it, I drove home, walked into the family room and said - I think I might be pregnant. How could you let this happen? my mom cried. And for a moment we all forgot that I was married, had a house, a stable income, oh-yeah, and was already a mother. I was sixteen and had just screwed up my whole future. Oh wait, my mom blinked, this is actually pretty exciting. Someone remember to tell Nate that story when he's fifteen. I'm sure he'll be thrilled).

There's no question, I had my children the "mature and responsible" way. But as a person, I was (am?) still pretty gooey. Gooey. You know, like that neon-coloured slime inside the plastic eggshells that you could get from the grocery store vending machine for 75 cents. I'd been thrown against a few walls, picked up some pocket lint, stamped with lots of news print but I was still trying on shapes, pouring myself into molds, trying to figure out what I was made out of.

Becoming a mom really expedites that process, mostly because there are so many ready-made patterns available and you're more or less expected to fall into one of them. You are the stroller mom, the lululemon mom, the winnie-the-poo-in-sweatpants mom, the mom who buys expensive organic babyfood, the mom who makes organic babyfood from scratch, the mom who feeds her baby pop in a bottle, the fitness class mom, the yoga mom, the drop-in centre mom, the mom who watches Oprah and distractedly rocks a cradle, the professional mom, the stay at home mom, the momtrepreneur, the mom who lunches, the mom who drinks... I could go on. I won't. (you're welcome).

I'm sorry, what does this have to do with me wanting to eat my children? The thing is they are my world and with that does come the identity-imposing trappings of what non-parents might call "the club." The cliche-momlit-bullshit of getting spitup in your hair and worrying about whether apple juice has too much sugar in it. But for me it's something else too - like we are all growing up together. Like as I figure out who they are, I am figuring out who I am too. So when they feel far away or out of reach, even when they are just asleep safe safe in their cribs upstairs, it is like being lost, marooned from myself. Of course, swallowing them whole (to quote Suzanne Vega) would solve that problem.

It sounds bizarre and twisted but I think this might just be love in its most raw form. It is what I feel when I tell Herb I miss him and he is only two feet away from me. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered how fully-formed I was when I had my babies. Maybe becoming a mother rearranges your molecules and splits them off into the universe so that you can never be whole again or, rather, your wholeness is constituted by others walking around forever outside your body, outgrowing their shoes.

Tonight's Dinner:

- Pizza from Mama's (really, no joke) topped with broccoli and black olives

- A side salad that no one ate (why do I always order it?)

- Loki and Nate, as much as osmosis would allow

Getting Dinner Off My Chest

2009-06-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

So I had a choice at the butcher shop today between a "naturally raised" chicken roaster and one that was simply labeled as "air chilled." I went with the "naturally raised" one because, obviously, it sounds better. But it leaves me wondering about the alternative. Was the other chicken raised by spirits on the other side (i.e. supernaturally?) or by alien-robots, science-fictionally? Honestly, were the laws of nature broken or somehow exceeded in the raising of this other, air-chilled chicken?

Maybe they were. I don't mean to be so sensitive about it but I'm feeling a bit raw about the whole "raised naturally" issue and it has nothing to do with chickens. It has to do with Nate, my 5-month-old. By definition, Nate's dinner should cause me the least concern of all the members of my household. It should be the product of miraculous multi-tasking, continuously homemade, served up warm and fresh on demand, just the way he likes it. Unfortunately, it hasn't been going that way exactly.

Like most women, I have strong feelings about the best way to raise a child - not my child - a child. Sure, we like to be all "I am the best mother for my baby and every child is different and as long as your love is pure..." blahblahblah. No. Most mothers believe that they are doing it the right way and sure, there are other approaches or schools of thought, but those are wrong or at least not as good (PS- this psychosis is reinforced by every single babybook on the market). I felt this way about breastfeeding. You should do it. You should do it exclusively until they are old enough to pull your shirt up in a mall and say "mommy-booby-now!" and then you should stop, stop, stop.

Yeah, I was a breastfeeding warrior. I have scars, permanent scars, on my nipples from Loki. In his first 6 weeks he consumed so much of my blood that the extra iron actually turned his poop black (fact!) . I would breastfeed anywhere: a park bench, a restaurant, a subway station. Shoot, I'd ask the guy next to me on the airplane if he wouldn't mind holding my boob while I grabbed a nappy from the diaper bag (luckily, that guy was usually my husband).

After all that, I had no doubt that I'd do the same for Nate. I figured this time it would be easier as I knew what was in store. And it's true, I nursed through a gross spell of mastitis (which SUCKS!) and the stomach flu. Why wouldn't I. After all, it is the best food for your baby. Just ask Dr. Jack Newman - breastfeeding guru and lactation wizard (he actually developed his own nipple cream - not just any guy would do that). I mean, when you read the labels on formula they all claim to be "the closest to breast milk." Who wants to give their kid the next-best-thing when you've got the best-thing in your shirt. And what the hell is formula anyway? I'm sure Michael Pollan would dig his grave, die, and then roll over before he gave that to his kids (however, I am also sure that Mr. Pollan was not responsible for breastfeeding them).

So here I am, this smug breastfeeder. But see Nate is big...really big...and really, really hungry. Nursing has become a shouting match between him and my boob. He screams at it. He says "feed me you stupid lump of flesh" to which my breast replies "drip, squirt, squirt, drip drip, fizzle." And then we switch sides. And then we switch again. And then the pounding and pulling and batting of ears begins. Nate looks up at me with his tear soaked face and heart-wrenching sobs as if to say "why oh why won't you feed me. It's like the one thing I ask of you."

It wasn't like that at first. When Nate was born, I was the first-prize winner in the least-sexiest wet t-shirt contest ever, on pretty much a daily basis. I'm not sure when the needs of his body started to overpower the ability of mine, but I think that stomach flu had something to do with it.

Either way, the horrible truth is this. I've started to supplement. With formula. Sometimes up to 2 bottles a day. Go ahead. Gasp in disgust, Dr. Newman, but what would you do?

"Well, Jessie, I would just nurse more. Nurse and nurse and nurse until your supply catches up with his demand. Every 45 minutes, all day long, until you are a single, melded, sucking-lactating machine."

That's great advice Dr. Newman, from someone who does not have breasts.

So what does this mean. That I love Nate less than Loki? That I am not willing to sacrifice as much for his well-being? That he won't be as bonded to me, as nourished by the life-determining security of maternal devotion?

Is Nate the air-chilled chicken?

Probably not. After all I am the best mother for my baby and every child is different (echem).
Okay, I'm not sold on it. But I'm doing what I have to do.

When you think about a family dinner, you think about everyone sitting together, eating the same thing. But, of course, that's not ever what happens. People take more of what they like, less of what they don't. You make something special for this one who won't eat carrots, for that one who is only cool with yellow food this month. Feeding your family is about flexibility and accommodation. So I'm not feeding Nate exactly how I fed Loki. Well, good. That will probably be the way it goes for the rest of their lives at my table. But no child of mine will go to bed hungry (unless they really piss me off).

Tonight's Dinner:

Loki, Herb, Jessie: "Naturally Raised" herb roasted chicken with carrots, fennel, Brussels sprouts & potatoes

Nate: Left, Right, Left, Bottle.

Woman's Eternal Conflict - Blah, Blah Blah

2009-06-16T13:52:00.000-04:00

So Becca, our caregiver, has the flu. Since Monday I've been on my own with the two boys, an idea that would have terrified me just a couple months ago. Now, granted, there's a big difference between a 3 month old and a 5 month old (for anyone reading this who doesn't have kids, indulge in a huge eyeroll, but really it's like a "monkey vs. Lucy" difference). But still, the notion that I could capably and successfully take care of an infant and a toddler all day long without anyone's help and without collapsing into a heap of pooping, whining, crying madness (and that's just me) is a relatively new discovery.

Privileged. Yes. Let's call a spade a spade. The fact that I can be on maternity leave and have full-time help is like the Prada of childcare situations. Yesterday, I bumped into our neighbour at the park - me with Loki and Nate and she with her two kids, who are a bit older. Her son and Loki play "Sportball" together on Tuesday mornings - an activity generally reserved for just Loki and me as our special time one-on-one. I mentioned that if Becca was still under the weather than all three of us would be there together. "Who's Becca" my neighbour's daughter asked her mom, as they walked away. "Loki's nanny," the mom answered, to which the girl questioned "why do they need a nanny?"

Because I'm lazy! - I thought about yelling over my shoulder- And kindof incompetent!

I always imagined myself as a working mom. Isn't that a hoot - a "working mom" as if there are moms who don't work. Okay, I always imagined myself as a mom who also has a salaried, socially-rewarded and recognized career. But, after a year off with Loki I thought, how exactly do I pay someone else to do this job which is so clearly and completely mine? I had just gotten over feeling guilty that we pay someone to walk our dog - now I'm hiring out motherhood? But if I don't go back to work, what happens to me? Well, I start to feel half-there. That's who I am. I need meetings and deadlines and projects and people to say "wow, you're really great at that." One of my biggest struggles with motherhood is that, as much as I ask for it, Loki will not sit down for a semi-annual appraisal. So far, Nate's given me verbal feedback in the form of raspberries but refuses to put anything in writing. No one will grade me.

I think this might be why the whole dinner-thing plays such an important role in my life as mother. It is concrete. It is a success (everyone ate-it-up-yum) or a failure (even Herb wouldn't eat it) and it requires planning and creativity and results in a final product. Dinner is my daily report card.

Ironically, part of the reason I have time to fixate so much on what to make for dinner is the fact that I have childcare.

But, what I've realized over the past 2 days is that I could do it on my own and I would be just fine, in fact, possibly even good at it. I've baked. I've achieved the simultaneous nap (so much more rewarding and satisfying than the simultaneous orgasm). We've gone to the park, to the school, to Sport Play, to lunch at a sidewalk cafe. I set up the sprinkler in the backyard and stripped Loki down to his diaper and we romped through it while little Nate basked in the wonder of tree shadows.

And, I've made dinner. Easy, quick dinners. But dinner none-the-less.

The house is messy, there are dishes in the sink and I'm considering a glass of wine before 3pm but selfishly, I hope Becca needs another day of rest. I like having my children all to myself (for a few days, anyway).

Tonight's Menu:

- Salmon on the grill (with Barefoot Contessa's yummy asian salmon marinade)

- Asparagus (also on the grill coated in olive oil, salt and pepper)

- Either fresh bread from the bakery or steamed rice depending on how the afternoon goes...

Eating Good

2009-06-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

So I was sortof joking when I wrote to some friends, telling them I had started a blog that tackles the socially & politically charged dilemma "what should I make for dinner?" However, in the particular climate of our time (climbing, that is), the question is anything but benign. In the face of rising temperatures, rising obesity rates, rising cholesterol, rising habitat degradation, rising poverty, scarcity, costs of production (ah!) - we are all meant to raise our consciousness when we go to market (to market, to buy a fresh, locally produced, grass-fed, antibiotic-free, organic pig).

There is tons written on this topic. In fact I recently finished the very thought-provoking new book by Mi chael Pollan, "In Defense of Food," where he actually feels it is necessary to define the word "food" for poor, deluded Western eaters who think that cheese is actually grown to the perfect shade of Cheetos-orange inside little plastic wrappers, which is simply nature's evolution of the banana peal. We're pretty far gone. I get it. I agree. But it's so hard to do it right.

For example, last night Herb and I attended Toronto Taste, an event in support of Second Harvest - a phenomenal charity that redistributes fresh food left over from restaurants and hotels (which otherwise would have been thrown in the dump) to social service programs across the city. It's a "duh" idea. I could take these 20 gigantic, fresh, delicious spinach lasagnas and dump them in the garbage cause they just weren't selling so hot tonight or I could, you know, give them to a women's shelter, an AIDS hospice, a seniors center. So Second Harvest figured out and perfected how to do this and we live in a better city because of it.

Toronto Taste is their biggest fundraiser (I'm pretty sure) - all the chefs and restaurants in the city (that count) come out for it. Each one gets a booth and produces a perfect little nibblet - something savoury or saucy or sweet - and you get to go around and have one of this, one of that, all fantastically yummy. Also there are wineries and breweries and wateries (what else do you call them?), chocolatiers, bread-makers, tea tottlers - all for our epicurean pleasure.

In the program, co-chairs Tracy Wynne and Camille Allman write "As an honoured guest at Toronto Taste 2009, you too become an activist and form a vital part of the food chain that enables Second Harvest to recover and redistribute millions of pounds of perishable and non-perishable surplus food to those in need."

Damn. Doesn't that make you feel good? Really full. But good. But wait. Wait. An activist? Are you sure? I mean, I'm a fundraiser too so I know what you're trying to do, here. And sure donors are super-duper important but let's not fool ourselves. I'm pretty sure that the chick in the $700 Holt's halter-dress that took one bite of her Kobe-burger before throwing it, and her unscathed napkin, into the trash is as much of an activist as I am. Maybe a little bit more. But dude, we were there for the food. Oh, and yeah, it's a good cause.

Ok, that might be a bit more cynical than I really feel. I'm sure at least 65% of the people there really do care and do want to do the right thing (breakdown of the remaining 35%: 15% trying to impress a date with a mixture of compassion & affluence that would make them an attractive parent for potential future children ; 15% trying to impress a date with a mixture of wealth and social status that makes up for the fact that they are old/fat/ugly; 5% looking to get laid - there's always that 5% at any event).

But all we really did is fork over some money and fork in a whole heap of food (and fork out tons of waste - both food and trash, I'm sure). I'm really glad that something good will come of it, but I know better than to accept even an ounce of credit for it (ummm, but yeah, we'll take the tax receipt, thanks).

I'm not really sure what it would take to be a food activist, but I guarantee it requires a lot more effort. Planting your own organic garden, becoming a vegan, eating a 100-mile diet 12 months a year...I'm not being callous. I am in awe of people that take these stands. But it's not what I can do. What I can do is try. And try to try on a somewhat regular basis.

There's a quote from Voltaire that I've been coming across a lot lately: "Perfect is the enemy of good." We can't eat perfectly. I don't have the time, temperment, or marriage to survive it. But we can try to eat good or at least take responsibility for eating better.

Tonight's less-than-perfect dinner:

- Meat lasagna that's been in our freezer since Nate was born (Loki wouldn't eat it until we put slabs of it on top of toasted raisin pita bread and called it "pizza")

- Organic Spinach Salad

King of the Grill

2009-06-14T09:45:00.000-04:00

Weekends generally mean that I am not solely responsible for what gets put on the table. Last night we had a BBQ with friends and - hearkening back to some oddly persistent caveman-code - the grill is Herb's domain.

We finally replaced the junky Walmart smoker we bought in Chattanooga the year we were married with a real, grown-up, stainless-steel beauty; it is the "Broil King." We bow to you, Broil King, ruler of ribs, champion of chicken, sage of sausages.

This is the kind of barbecue you read about in those Skymall magazines you get on airplanes. You know, in between the advertisements for "the 9-hole golf course that fits perfectly in your corner office" and the "ever-fresh" water dish for the pampered cat with built-in osmosis filtering. Right, like those things - except we need the Broil King. How else could we prepare succulent, fall-off-the-bone, smokehouse ribs without the need to boil them first (refer back to my strong sentiments against boiling meat).

But the other thing about the Broil King is that it blatantly reinforces the patriarchal hierarchy of meal preparation gender roles (really, it says that, right in the description of the product in the Skymall advert). I mean, you'd never have the option to buy a Broil Queen or god-forbid a Broil Princess. Not even something gender-neutral like a Broil President (no, we'll leave that to the media networks).

So let's think about this for a minute. Is it because the BBQ resides outside the home, beyond the kitchen, that it falls into male territory? Or because it involves openfire and is therefore untamed, anti-domestic? I mean, in our house it kindof makes sense in that Herb has much more experience with and a much greater love for the act of cooking meat. But take my parents, for example. Up until the age of 60, when my mother broke her wrist and was unable to cook for a few months, my father's biggest coup in the kitchen was a pan of scrambled eggs and the overly-complicated concoctions that he feeds his dogs (really, it involves coconut oil, raw venison, and some mysterious white powder). Yet, somehow, the plate of quivering pink chicken breasts would pass from my mother's hand out the screen door and into a world in which my father could cook. I think we were all greatly relieved in those years that a family of robins made nest in the bbq. We were all off the hook.

But honestly, my feminist angst aside, I have no desire to burn my bra in the Broil King. I say, let'em have it. I'll sit down and have a glass of wine (or two) and watch. In fact, I fully support male dominance at the grill especially now that I have figured out that an entire meal can be cooked out there with almost nothing required from my end.

Starch: drop some ears of corn in a bowl of water for 30 minutes. Put them on the grill; when the husks char, they're perfectly cooked.

Veg: chop up portabello mushrooms, red peppers, zucchini, eggplant...you name it (not lettuce, though, never lettuce) ; douse with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, whatever. grill.

Dessert: big fat pineapple rings. grill. ice cream. done.

Besides, the fact that I have "prepped" dinner (read: thought of a meal, bought the necessary components, washed, cut, and marinaded a few things) means that I still get the credit for it and I don't have to do the dishes. All hail the Broil King...long may HE live!

Dinner tonight:

Toronto Taste in support of Second Harvest

Herb's parents babysit!

Make Your Chicken Comfortable

2009-06-12T13:37:00.000-04:00

I hadn't planned on making dinner tonight as we are going to see the Russell Peters show but, as timing has it, we decided it would be easier for us if we just ate dinner at home before scooting childless out the door. So my original plan of wieners and cheese shells for Loki has been replaced by an equally comforting but less grossitating family meal.

This raises two questions:

1) Why would I serve my kid something that I consider grossitating?

a. Because he really likes it
b. Because it's easy
c. Because really they're 100% organic beef wieners and organic shells & cheese so how bad for him could they really be?
d. Because it is part of childhood to eat weird crap your parents make
e. All of the Above (ding ding ding).

See when my parents were going out on Saturday night, I was left home in front of the Muppet Show (or in later years, Golden Girls) with a plateful of crinkle fries and oven-baked clams (I can't even find those anymore...they were delicious!). Or, the occasional TV dinner with that very exciting brownie ending that tasted sort of like a slab of clay. Those are great memories and I cherish them.

2. What counts as comfort food in a mixed-culture family?

I have discovered that comfort food is purely subjective and our dinner tonight is a case in point. Both Herb and I indulge nostalgic longings for the appendages of our fine feathered friend, the chicken. Only, for me the appendage is more of a metaphor - the chicken "finger" - where as for him it is grotesquely literal - the chicken foot.

How someone develops warm and fuzzy feelings about a claw covered in corn meal and chicken crap, which is hacked off, boiled, and coated in some kindof sickly red sauce is perplexing. But there's nothing pretty in the hook to plate story of the gefilte fish either, so we'll leave that alone. I think Herb's chicken foot fetish might go back to the big exciting trips to the city for dim sum that his family took when he was a kid to escape the wonderbread and mayonnaise culture of the small Ontario farm town where they lived. I can't imagine that his mom made these ghastly things at home - not that she couldn't, but where would she have gotten the necessary parts? Hardly the thing you find sandwiched between plastic and Styrofoam at the local Listowel grocery store. I guess she could have procured them directly from the farm - they were accessible enough - but I just can't see my mother-in-law knocking on farmer Brown's door for a few spare talons.

That being said, we never ate chicken fingers at home even though we certainly could have. Maybe it was the upsetting breading to chicken ratio (3:1? 7:4?) that made them off limits in my mother's kitchen. In any case, chicken fingers were reserved for very special occasions - like my annual birthday trip to Ruby Tuesday at the very glamorous Owings Mills Mall (it actually was glamorous once, really). I ordered them with french fries, dipped them in honey mustard, and got a full-on ice cream sundae for dessert. They also had a salad bar which was the length of the entire restaurant which I think is why my mom took us there. I have no recollection of what she ordered by I'm guessing a glass of white wine and salad as those are her two primary food groups.

So perhaps our chicken digit attachments stem from the same source (if not the same anatomical part) - the sense of occasion, of indulgence that comes with eating something usually out of reach.

Wow, that's deep and beautiful. But there's no way on god's-green-earth that I am ever cooking chicken feet.

So tonight's menu is:
- Sesame coated chicken fingers w/ plum sauce
- oven-baked fries
-steamed broccoli

Sorry, You've Got the Wong Kitchen

2009-06-09T15:07:00.000-04:00

Mmmm, hungry for some maple glazed salmon? Or spicy orange beef?

Sorry, we don't serve that here.

How about a lovely spinache lasanga or wild mushroom pizza with salad greens?

Nope. Not on the menu

Okay. channa masala, butter chicken, saag paneer!

Look somewhere else, buddy.

Fine! Soup of the day - whatever's in the pot.

Right, well, we don't DO soup.

Welcome to The Wong Kitchen - my daily attempt to prepare a healthy-wholesome-eco-friendly-immune-boosting-delicious-toddler-friendly dinner for my family on a (semi) nightly basis following the complex set of rules, preferences and mores that have been set before me by my darling husband.

They are:

1) No sweet on the meat

2) Vegetables are a side-dish. If there ain't no meat, it ain't complete.

3) Pasta and pizza are too carb heavy (besides, I ate pizza for lunch) but rice is okay.

4) Indian food gives me gas

5) Soup is for sick people.

There's also:

6) Sandwiches do not a dinner make

7) Eggs are for breakfast

Okay...I'm making him sound like a jerk (or, at the least, a food snob) which he isn't at all. This is just his own personal kosher - his rules of food physics - that I have discovered over the past 9 years of eating together. And the truth is there is another over-riding rule that trumps all: "Put it infront of me and I will eat it, all of it, whether I like it or not."

We all have our own ways with food...odd little imprints of our cultures, childhoods, personalities that make us followers of our own food religions. For example, I do not eat boiled meat of any kind and I do not eat leftovers. I feel like the melding of food ways in a family is an incredible act of love and intimacy. Plain and simple, cooking food for someone just the way they like it is a caring act and is deeply satisfying.

So that's what this is about...the one thing I do consciously, planfully, (almost) every day to build our family with food and love (they are kindof the same thing, right).

Tonight's Dinner:

- BBQ beef sandwiches
- Corn on the cob
- Caesar Salad

Explained:

BBQ Beef: I'm getting a much needed haircut at 4pm which means that I needed to do something in a crockpot that would be ready and require little last minute prep. Hence BBQ beef. I realized I am braking 2 rules with this meal:

1) it's a sandwich (but I think the amount of beef involved balances that out)
2) it's sweet & meat (I use kindof a sweet bbq sauce but it's SOOOO good) and again, the sheer amount of beef involved should make it okay

Corn: Loki will eat it. I need at least one component of dinner to be my "Loki Safe" ingredient. He might not touch the beef or the bread and definitely not the salad, but I've never seen him push away corn...(and Herb changes his diaper in the morning so HAH!)

Salad: Part of my own food heritage from my mother... you MUST serve something green with every meal or you are probably a terrible person.