cookbooks – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Halloween and Opening Night

Another show opened! Yay. That feeling of relief and achievement and being able to get back to the rest of life.

Through the brilliance of opera scheduling, we had Halloween night off from rehearsals and performances. I took the kids over to a friend’s house to trick or treat since our own street is pretty quiet. The Husband stayed home to pass out candy, though I don’t think we had anyone come to our door. He’d been solo parenting in the evening for over a week now and thoroughly deserved a night to himself.

I only got one picture of the kids in their Hallowe’en Costumes:

Back in August, I had told all the kids that if they wanted me to make their costumes, the designs had to be in by the end of September since I would be in tech the week before Hallowe’en and unavailable for costume construction. The oldest wanted to be “The Taylor Swift House.” Which was not a reference I understood. To which her response was, “Why can’t you just Google it yourself!?!?!” There was probably an eye roll in there as well. At any rate, I’m sure I could have Googled it, but I wasn’t going to put effort into it if she wasn’t going to, so I left her to her own devices. Then a couple days before Hallowe’en – she woke me up on morning waving a piece of paper, saying, “I’ve designed a house!” She decided just to be a house. Of course it was the weekend before Hallowe’en, and not on my to do list. The Husband went out and bought her two pieces of plastic sheeting and a bunch of markers and she made the costume herself. I wish I got a picture of the back because the rooms she drew were amazingly detailed. I did attach the straps for her, though if I were to do it again, I would not use hot glue. The hot glue did not hold and half way through the evening, the straps came off and she just held the costume up for the remainder of the evening.

The 6 year old wanted to be a builder. I was initially going to make him a cardboard truck to be part of his costume, but then I saw Kiwi Co. makes kits where you can make an excavator arm – a working excavator arm – and attach it to a box. Well, that was much cooler than anything I could make on my own, so I ordered the kit. The morning of our first orchestra tech rehearsal, I got up at 6am to put together this cardboard excavator arm with the “help” of the children before going into work. You know when you roll into work at 10:30am and everyone else looks like they just got out of bed and are saying how tired they are and how early they had to get up to get to the theatre by 10:30am, and you don’t want to say anything because there is no competitive suffering in opera, but really you were up at 6am making a freaking cardboard excavator so they can all shove it, but you don’t really say that… ? Just me? Never mind. Anyhow, the excavator arm was every bit as cool as I had hoped.

The 4 year old made it easy and just pulled the astronaut suit from the dress up clothes and called it a day. It was brilliant because she could also wear the NASA bomber jacket that my father had given the 6 year old, and was toasty warm all evening. Or would have been except at one point she declared that she was hot and took it off.

It actually turned out quite chilly on Thanksgiving. This after a weekend of 75/80 degree weather. I think the cold discouraged people from staying out very long. By the time 8pm rolled around, the streets were pretty empty. We went back to my friend’s house, where we had some turkey chili and minestrone soup for dinner and the kids traded candy. Then I took the kids home and we watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with the Husband while we sorted the candy. By “we” I really meant “me.” The little kids didn’t quite understand the joy of candy sorting. An added bonus of the candy sorting was that I used it as an opportunity to combine the two little kids’ candy and then let them pick 30 pieces to eat and there was no jealous cries of “That’s my candy!” The rest of their candy, I put in a bag and set aside. By which I mean, I set aside so I can eat it myself. I feel like I can probably get away with taking all my kids’ candy for another year or so before they wise up and realize that I’m doing that. Case in point, the 11 year old who would not let me near her candy and sorted her piles on the other side of the room.

One thing I love is that the 11 year old always gives her 100 Grands to the Husband. In fact, if she ever is given the option to choose candy from a bowl and there is a 100 Grand, she will almost always choose that one, “For daddy,” she says.

The day after Hallowe’en was a day off of school for the two kids in public school. I think it was just a fluke of scheduling; it was an end of quarter grading day for the teachers. Fluke though it might have been, it was kind of brilliant. The kids could stay up late the night before and sleep in the next day. Only they couldn’t sleep in because the day after Hallowe’en was a Wednesday and the kids have back to back piano lessons starting at 7:15am on Wednesday. Gotta admit that was a tough lesson to get them to. If i had had more foresight, I probably would have cancelled for the week, but I am very much a slave to scheduled routines and didn’t even think about cancelling. But after that, the kids got to lounge around the house the rest of the day while the Husband worked from home and I went to rehearsal.

After rehearsal on that Wednesday, I took the 11 year old to participate in a study at the nearby University. When she was a couple months old, I saw a flyer for the University’s Child Development Center saying they needed babies and children to participate in studies. I wasn’t working at the time, so I thought it would be fun to do, and for the first few years of our kids’ lives we participated in three or four studies a year. Some of them paid, some of them didn’t but I always thought it fascinating to go to them. I think one of my favorite studies is the one from Gallaudet University which centered around a robot they were making that could communicate with deaf people – they wanted both hearing and hearing impaired babies to interact with the robot. When the youngest was four months old, I signed up for a study that involved putting her in an MRI machine – that one was kind of a disaster because we had to go during her bedtime so they could swaddle her and cover her ears to go into the machine while asleep, but she kept waking up once in the MRI machine and so we eventually gave up on that one. Anyhow, when people ask for things to do with one’s baby, I always suggest participating in research studies as a fun way to get out of the house.

The 11 year old had been feeling left out because her younger siblings were always being asked to be in studies, but she wasn’t. I don’t know if it’s because there are fewer people researching preteens? Or just in our area? So when an opportunity for a study for children 8-12, I signed up the eleven year old to go. It was a study about mother child interactions and anxiety and involved filling out a survey prior to the lab visit and then the lab visit where we wore eye trackers while participating in simulated conversations based on topics the researchers prompted. The study visit took 90 minutes and at the end we were $50 richer and the 11 year old got some sparkly gel pens. Afterwards I took her out for BBQ, which was nice because I’ve been feeling like we haven’t been getting a lot of mother-daughter time.

Random musings:

I just spent $80 on pads and hair ties for myself and my daughters. Now I know that pads and hair ties are not solely the domain of women/girls, but given that the majority of people who menstruate and/or have long hair seem to be female, I feel like I was just hit with some kind of penalty for being female and having daughters. I guess, men get their hair cut more so have to pay that expense more often? But in truth, my Husband’s hair cut costs about a quarter on mine, so it doesn’t seem to even out at all.

Also- Daylight Saving Time after Opening Night seems like a good idea. I got to feel like I slept in on Sunday morning. I had all sorts of thoughts as to what I would want to do with my gained hour. It involved aspirations of reading, and journaling and yoga. Yeah nope. In reality it just involved sleep. of course I didn’t get home until nearly 2am after the opening night party, so sleep would seem to be the best use of my gained hour.

I came home one day to find this in our yard:

A new tree! Earlier this year the county had taken down a tree in front of our house because it was not quite alive and also because it posed a hazard to the electrical lines above. I guess they have now replaced the tree. I’m not even sure what kind of tree it is, but it’s kind of exciting to have a new tree, to think about how big it will get. To wonder if it too will one day be cut down because it is growing into the power lines, or if by then all the powerlines will be underground…

More Fall Fashion:
I’ve posted before on how much I love dressing for fall, so I thought I’d do another mini fall fashion post. One day, I put on this outfit:

The 11 year old took this picture and was very specific that my hand had to be on the doorknob.

The outfit is a grey plaid flannel button down from Uniqlo, a dress from Wool&, black leggings, the “not for Amsterdam” blue boots, and a knit hat that was a present from my sister in law. The Wool& dress I bought this year and it quickly became one of my most worn garments – I’ve worn it at least twice a week since April. It’s not a terribly interesting dress, but it layers well and can be worn in many different combinations. Anyhow, I put on this outfit and the six year old said, “You look like a teenager.” Not at all sure what that means.

So I added my favorite and ubiquitous Uniqlo puffer vest:

And the six year old said, “Now you look like a mom!” Hmmm…. When I first got my puffer vest six or seven years ago, I did kind of feel like I was falling into a suburban mom cliche, but… but but… it is such a practical piece of clothing – keeps me warm without being bulky, and I can throw it on over anything. I might look like a mom cliche, but at least I’m not cold.

(On an incidental note – you see all that wood paneling? That is in our foyer. This wood paneling is 85% of my living room window treatment dilemma. I would love to have natural woven or bamboo blinds in the living room. But the living room is directly off of this foyer and I just can’t picture whether or not having bamboo blinds will clash with all that wood paneling in the foyer. Like whether or not the vintage/mid century vibe of the foyer needs to dictate the window treatment of the living room and whether bamboo blinds are too beachy for the vibe our foyer gives off…. this is something I’ve been pondering for over a year now. Opinions welcome.)

Grateful for:
– The Assistant Stage Managers, who are my eyes on stage and backstage when I’m too busy calling cues to look up, and the Assistant Director who, for me, is the real soul of this show. Getting to opening always is the work of many and having good ASMs and a great AD to share an office with is foundational to me getting where the show needs to go.

-The Husband, as always, for holding down the fort. For making dinner, picking up the kids, putting them to bed, laundry, keeping the house clean… all of it. Tech week is always a lot of hours away from home, but this fall, seems harder than normal. I think I’m still trying to balance some new responsibilities at work with the parts of the job I’ve always done and I haven’t quite figured out how to spread my time yet so I’m at work a lot more and I’m bringing home work to do a lot more than I used to. It’s been rough. There will never be a tech week where I’m not grateful for the Husband, but this tech period, I feel like has been particularly demanding.

– Bike store by work. Two weeks ago, I had ridden my bike to work and ended up leaving it there because it was dark when I got off work and I don’t have lights for the bike. Well, I finally went back to pick it up on my day off last week only to find the front tire had gotten flat. This was super discouraging because I had decided not to go running that morning because I knew I was going to be biking home later that day. The I remembered that there was a bike shop four or five blocks from work, so I wheeled my sad limpy bike there. Only to find a note on the door, “We’re moving!” and it listed a new address along with their re-opening date which, luckily, was the day before. So I wheeled my sad limpy bike down four more blocks to the bike store. I feel very ignorant about bikes – I want to be able to do my own maintenance, but I never got around to learning how to do it. At any rate, the technician at the bike store put my bike up on the rack and took the inner tube out, checked it for holes, found a hole on a seam, which indicated that it was just a bad innertube, but the still checked the tire for pointy bits anyway, then replaced the innertube while answering questions about training wheels, and I was soon on my way home. It was the best $25 I spent all week.

– County Rec Program. I signed up the 6 year old and 4 year old for a new session of skating lessons and while I did, I thought how awesome it is that they can take 6 weeks of skating lessons + a card for 6 admissions to open skate, all for $114. The expense of kids activities can really build up, so I’m grateful that we have access to really great, relatively low cost, activities through the county program. Our tax dollars at work, I guess.

-Guavas in the mail. My parents sent us a box of guavas from the tree in their yard. I love guavas – the rest of the family not so much. I guess they don’t appreciate the crunchy, sweet, and tropical taste. Yippeee, more for me! There were a few days when I realized that we were low on fruit in the house, but because we had these guavas, I could pack the apples for my kids and take the guavas myself and we would get through another couple of days without a grocery run.

Looking forward to:

– planning meals and cooking again. I haven’t made dinner in a long long long time. I got this cookbook from the library and I’m really excited about the recipes in it:

Hetty Lui McKinnon wrote To Asia With Love, which is another cookbook I’ve loved this year. This book is already overdue, but I’m hoping to sneak a few recipes out before the Library starts banging on my door asking for it back. There is a mushroom ragout that looks amazing, and a butternut squash lasagna that uses butternut squash in place of noodles. Which is fortunate because my Hungry Harvest box came with 4 butternut squashes this week.

– evenings not at the theatre. Evenings and bedtime is a slog, but I miss that routine and being able to snuggle at night.

-The 11 year old’s school play. She’s been working so hard learning her lines; I’m excited to see the lines in context. (This actually just happened – it was fun!)

What we ate: once again, I couldn’t say.

There was some kind of tofu/noodle/ thai-ish stir fry. The leftovers of which I accidentally three out because I thought it was the leftover Thai food that made me sick and had me vomiting at work one day. But it wasn’t and now I’m sad I didn’t get to eat any of my Husband’s yummy cooking.

There was an eat down the freezer meal- a handful of this, a handful of that to finish off some nearly empty packages in the freezer. From the Husband’s account it was something like six dumplings and a handful of tater tots.

There was a pizza and movie night, but I’m not at all sure what they watched.

Books Read – July 2023

Already September and just now getting around to the July books. I thought about doing August and July books together, but this post was already half written, so here you are…

Ballad of Love and Glory by Reyna Grande: This novel was set during the Mexican-American War, a historical event which I didn’t know anything about. It is based on the true story of Irish immigrants who join the American army then defect to the Mexican side and were given their own artillery unit. I really loved the historical aspect of this book and learning about a new slice of history. The writing is so descriptive and vivid. At the same time, I thought the narrative arc lacked momentum. And maybe that’s just the nature of war – people die, things just plod on and on. I felt invested in the story, though, because I really liked the two main characters – John Riley who lead the artillery unit and Ximena Solome a Mexican army nurse – and I was really rooting for their relationship.

The Year of Miracles by Ella Risbridger – I don’t usually put cookbooks in my “Books Read” list, but this one was so beautifully written – part memoir, part cookbook. I had read her first book Midnight Chicken and felt similarly entranced by it. A Year of Miracles takes place during the pandemic as Risbridger is mourning the death of her long time partner. It is an account of finding joy in the simplest of things but also for allowing yourself to grieve and to feel. It’s a testament to good friends and simple food. I love this book so much because she writes things like:
I’ve been grieving now for years, and grief sets “missing” as your default state. I’m always missing someone; and I’ve learned to live along the line of something being lost. I’ve learned to cultivate happiness in absence, and to love an empty space where something used to be in the quiet hope that it won’t be wasted: something always turns up to be loved, a fox, a star, a courgette. At cat. A home. A person.

And then she writes recipe instructions like:
Stir to coat everything in the lovely scented oil. You might have to turn the heat up here, but not too high. A medium flame, let’s say, at most. I trust you. If it seems like anything is catching, turn it down. Just watch it, and it will be ok.

Her writing and her recipes are like a warm, soothing hug from a good friend.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn – This novel is about the escapades of a group of female assassins, which immediately piqued my interest. They have been in the assassin business for a 30+ years, but somebody is suddenly out to extinguish them and they have to go rogue to figure out who that is. I thought this novel was a lot of fun. 60-something year old female assassins who are smart, cunning, witty and can kick ass — well that’s definitely refreshing to read about. And their friendships – I like reading about female friendships and these ones are certainly complicated yet comforting. I’ve read Raybourn’s historical mysteries, but this has a certain fresh humour about it that is different. I wonder if she will write more?

After Dark with the Duke by Julie Anne Long – The next novel in the Palace of Rogue series. I really loved this novel – the heroine is an opera singer, so automatically that piques my interest. She is fleeing from scandal, having been the impetus for a duel, and comes to the Grand Palace on the Thames to escape and figure out what to do next. Having no money she agrees to put on a concert to raise funds for the boarding house. The hero is a celebrated war hero who has taken rooms in the Grand Palace on the Thames to write his memoirs but he’s a little stuck. He insults her (a little bit on purpose) and to make up for it he teaches her how to speak Italian and over the course of their Italian lessons they learn about each other and fall in love. But of course she’s an opera singer and he’s a noble lord. This is just a very nice romance novel about two very mature people trying to do the right thing, when the right thing they want to do is not necessarily the right thing society would have them do. There is a bit of an age difference between the two of them (20 years) that I found not really warranted, but that’s a minor quibble.

A Heart that Works by Rob Delany – A sad, wistful, and angry book about Delany’s two year old son’s battle with brain cancer. Losing a child just seems like such a horrific and heart-wrenching experience. I think it must be one of the worst things that a person can face. Delaney writes with such honesty and with surprising humour about what he and his family went through. It’s a book that made me want to hug my children closer

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Schaffer and Annie Barrows, narrated by Paul Boehmer, Susan Duerden, Rosalyn Landor, John Lee, Juliet Mills – I feel like I’m the last person to read this novel, set in 1946 about a writer who strikes up a correspondence with a man on the Island of Guernsey. Epistolatory novels are my cat nip and I heard that this one was charming on audio, and indeed it was. Some of the plotting was a little awkward and unsubtle – there are limits to the epistolatory novel, of course, but over all this novel was perfect for my long commute home – sweet and undemanding and full of fun characters.

The Secrets of Happy Families by Bruce Feiler – Feiler is a New York Times journalist who in the book explores frameworks for creating a thriving family life. He does talk to scientists and researchers, but also talks to business experts, coaches, and military professionals to figure out what makes families stronger. It’s kind of family through a team building lens. Each chapter tackles a different subject – things like allowance, activities, travel, making decisions, discipline, having a family mission statement, how to talk about sexuality, etc. A lot of it is common sense and just good reminders of how we need to invest time in our families for them to thrive. Like any parenting book, I think one can take what is useful and leave the rest- “Good for you, not for me.” Some of his strategies to build relationship through createing competition between his kids rubbed me the wrong way – it is very counter what “Siblings without Rivalry” advocates. But that’s just another example about how there is no one parenting style that will work for all the variations of parents and children in the world. I did make a lot of highlights in this book, though. I think the parts that really resonated with me are the chapters about how to create stronger bonds in your family through shared experiences, rituals, histories, and values. Some of my highlights:
“… The more kids remember about their own families, the more self-esteem and confidence they exhibit. With the at in mind, devote a night to having kids tell stories from their own past… the day they scored two goals at soccer, the night their mother made those awesome chocolate chip cookies. This game would work particularly well the night before a big test or game, as scientist have found recalling high points form their own lives boosts children’s self confidence.”
The book talks a lot about how important it is for kids to feel like they have a family history – how knowing where they come from gives them confidence and roots for becoming adults.

“A key gift of the family meeting was to give us a designate space each week to overcome … differences. It was a safe zone where everybody was on equal footing, and no one could leave until a resolution was forged.”
I like the idea of regular family meetings and a family mission statement – this idea that a family was a unit lead by the parents, but not dictated by the parents. This is very different from how I grew up and I chafed at that.

“I told my dad, ‘I promise not to do anything big and stupid sexually if you promise not to yell at me for doing something small and stupid.'”
I need to learn this, to accept that kids will do dumb things and if I can be gentle with the small mistakes then hopefully my kids will not be afraid to come to me if they make big mistakes.

“The purpose of youth sports, Thompson says, is to create better competitors and to create better people. He often asks parents who they think has the job of accomplishing the first goal. “They get it right way,” he said. “Coaches and kids.” Parents have a more important job, he tells them.” You focus on the second goal, helping your kids take what they learn from sports into the rest of their lives.” Let’s say your kids strikes out, and his team loses the game. “You can have a first-goal conversation about bailing out of the batter’s box, keeping your eye on the ball, etc. Or you can have a second-goal conversation about resilience, character, and perseverance.”
I think this is so important to remember as my kids start activities. There are coaches and teachers to tell them how to play the sports. My role is to help the kids see the intangible benefits of what they are doing.

“Honey, what you are saying makes a lot of sense.”
Another phrase I need to learn to use more – to validate other people.

Reading with the kids – some of our/my recent favorites (I mean the kids also love those early readers that feature Peppa Pig or the Avengers, but I’m going to be a bit of a snob and list the ones that I like reading to them.):

The Legend of Rock Paper Scissors by Drew Daywalt and Adam Rex – I got this as a Vox book and it’s hilarious to my kids who love to settle things by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. (Though they don’t always like the results.)

L’Ecole de Barbarpapa by Annette Tisson and Talus Taylor – okay this book is one I like to read. At the end of the school year, the 6 year old’s school gives everyone books to take home. Because he is in a French immersion program, they try to give him French books. When I saw this book, I was immediately taken back to my childhood – The Barbapapa books were very popular where I was growing up in Canada. It’s about a charming family of amorphous beings who shape shift as necessary. In this book, they open up a school.

I’m a Unicorn by Helen Yoon – This is a rather silly book about a cow that thinks they’re a unicorn because they have one horn. There are poop jokes, which always makes for a winner. Yoon also wrote the work from home book “Off-Limits” that we love.

Working Boats by Tom Crestodina – A beautifully illustrated book that looks at cross sections of various boats. Not a bedtime book, but a slowly pore and explore book with so many fascinating facts.

On my proverbial night stand:

Wild Genius on the Moors – still plugging through the Bronte biography. Charlotte has writer’s block.

Braiding Sweetgrass – I had put this aside for a while, but now I’m about 20 pages to the end, so I really want to finish it.

Stranger in a Shogun’s City – Non fiction about a woman in nineteenth century Japan who, after suffering three failed marriages, leaves her rural village for the big city of Edo. Such fascinating period details.

The Number One Chinese Restaurant – novel set in Rockville, near where I live and where, indeed, all the good Chinese restaurants are.

Tree Grows in Brooklyn – for Engie’s book club. What a lot of suffering is going on in these chapters.

Unwind – Dystopian YA novel about a world where adults can choose to have children “unwound” – basically their body parts are taken and given to other people- if they don’t show any promise between the ages of 13-18. It is rather grim reading. Next book in our Mother Daughter book club. We might need something more cheerful next.