television I sometimes have time to watch

2024 Media Favorites

I try to track the media I consume – I like being able to look back on what went into my brain, and remember if I enjoyed it or not. I don’t have a very cohesive method of tracking, just random scribbles in my journal. I do make longer entries for live performances, though. Here are some things that I consumed that really stood out in 2024. I don’t know if these are my absolute favorites – I find I didn’t take really good notes last year, but these were things that stayed with me (I know these lists are usually posted in January or December even, but.. here you go…)

BOOKS
I read 59 books this year, mostly fiction. I think I’ve re-discovered that I like reading paper copies of books over ebooks. Certainly over reading books on my phone. I get distracted too easily when I read books on my phone.

I DNF books a lot. Not because I don’t like them, but because something more interesting comes along and other things fall to the wayside. I tend to “hate-read” books that I don’t like because I really want to see what happens. I should maybe let that go.

Favorite Reads 2024 :
Ministry of Time by Kalaine Bradley – Time travel isn’t usually my thing. But apparently if you mix time travel with a very attractive Victorian explorer, workplace politics, and political thriller and wrap that in a story that asks questions about what really is “progress”, I guess that ends up being my jam.

Landslide by Susan Conley – I loved this book set in Maine, about a mother of two teenage boys in trying to cope when her husband is injured in a fishing accident off the coast of Nova Scotia. It’s the kind of book that quietly pierces to the core of the beauty and heartbreak of every day life.

Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan – This book – about Taiwan under martial law, about being an immigrant in America, about how a family deals with trauma and hardship – this book felt very deeply personal to me. These were the times that my parents lived in.

The Adventures of Amina el-Sarifi – Middle aged female pirate gathering a team together to carry out one last heist while battling magical creatures. There is a lot of that description that isn’t my usual jam, but 40 year old bad ass heroines certainly are.

Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions to Adulthood by Lisa Damour – Forget that cringey title, this books was super insightful for me in thinking about how to relate to my tween.

Audiobooks:
The Monsters We Defy by Lesley Penelope read by Shyana Small – I loved this audiobook so much that I borrowed the e-book from the library to read it again. I’m not one into fantasy, but the historical aspects set in 1920s DC provided a good gateway for me to sink into this story.

Ten Things That Never Happened by Alexis Hal, read by Will Watt – I really enjoy Alexis Hall’s books for their mix of humor and quirky yet human characters. Will Watt’s narration of this book upped that all for me. This cozy rom com of a book was like my favorite Richard Curtis movie in audiobook form.

PODCASTS:
I’d say next to books podcasts are the media I consume most. I tend to like podcasts that are long conversations about the human condition, or deep dives into something super niche. I do also listen to a lot of parenting podcasts.

House Calls with Vivek Murthy – I am so sad that Murthy, who was Surgeon General under Obama and Biden, will no longer be producing this podcast, what with him losing his job and all. When I think of podcasts that dissect the essence of what makes us human and how we connect to each other, this podcast is right there. I loved his interview with astronaut Kayla Barron – it’s probably my single most favorite podcast episode this year. In addition to the fascinating details on how one becomes and astronaut, Barron has so many wise words to say about life on earth. I had previously mentioned that she frames the ordinary with the extraordinary. (Fixing the treadmil… in space!) She also said something that has stuck with me about building diverse teams, and that is it’s not about diversity for the sake of diversity, it’s about bringing diversity of thought to a project. That’s so important to remember in the current anti-DEI times. Murthy’s interview with poet Ada Limon is also fantastic – it gave me a lot to think about how I spend my days. You’re going to have to find this podcast on your player because it is no longer available on the Health and Human Services website. wump wump.

Sold a Story: This series actually came out in 2022, though I found it still really relevant. It’s an investigative journalism series that looks at how children are being taught to read in America, specifically how a method that had no scientific backing was being used throughout schools.

Nice White Parents: A 5 episode podcast from 2020 that looks at how parents can shape public schools, and not necessarily for the benefit of everyone.

This is So Awkward – Cara Natterson and Vanessa Kroll Bennett are the experts I turn to when I feel like I’m failing at parenting a tween (now teenager). They provide the perfect blend of science and compassion for navigating this stage of parenting.

28-ish Days Later – podcast from the BBC that looks at the menstural cycle from both a biological and historical perspective. I especially appreciated the sentiment that our periods don’t make women weaker – after all what is stronger than being able to deal with having a different body every single day as we cycle though physical and emotional states?

MOVIES: I think I went to see two, maybe three, movies in the theatre last year. We watch movies at home, but mostly for family movie night. I find I don’t have a lot of bandwidth for watching movies on my own. As a result, most of our movie watching is not at all current.

Babes – My friend and I went to a midweek matinee of this movie last spring, when things were kind of slow at work. We laughed so so so hard at this movie. It stars Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau in a story about two best friends whose relationship is tested when the perpetually single one accidentally becomes pregnant. There are pregnancy jokes, pumping jokes, parenting jokes, BFF jokes… All of which fell in the “funny because it’s true” category. Was the movie stunningly original? Probably not, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful. Why haven’t more people seen this movie????

Family Movie Night: Pizza and movie night is a staple at our place. Usually on a Friday night or a Saturday night. Some of our (MY) favorites this year that we watched with the kids (who were 12, 7, and 4):
-Night at the Museum – action and excitement
-Next Goal Wins – heartwarming soccer movie. Also Michael Fassbender is dreamy.
-Greatest Showman – we watch this at least twice a year, singing along loudly
-Barbie – subversive bubble gum fun, that had me in tears at the end.
-Mitchells vs. the Machines – Animated movies aren’t my default pick for movie night – I’m trying to watch more live action things. But this movie was delightful and heart-warming.

TELEVISION
Family TV Night: This year we really leaned into family TV night rather than family movie night. What with everyone’s activities, a 30 or 60 minute episode of something was just the right length to fit in between basketball practice and bedtime. Favorite shows we watched:
-Gallivant. WHY WHY WHY was there only two seasons of this family friendly, funny, entertaining show?
-Glee. Some of the subject matter was awkward to explain, but the musical numbers had us all bobbing along.
-Bad Batch, The Acolyte, and really anything in the Star Wars Universe. When we don’t know what to watch, Star Wars
-Star Trek: The Next Generation. When we were vacationing on an Island in Maine, we watched ST:TNG non stop for three days. It didn’t feel as dated as I thought it would.
-The Summer Olympics. So exciting to watch.
-Bluey. I don’t know why it took us this long to get into Bluey. The episodes are short and feel so true to life, perfect way to unwind before bedtime. (Like the one where the kids drop their ice cream cone and declare to dad, “It’s not fair!” and Dad says, “That’s about as fair as it gets, actually.” Made me howl with laughter.)
-Brooklyn 99 and Modern Family. When we just want to spend 22 minutes laughing.

Grown Up Show for Me: I don’t watch a whole lot of TV – mostly because I often would rather read a book at night to wind down. But I do like watching TV as I clean the kitchen, and occasionally I’ll watch something with the Husband. I for sure don’t watch all the shows that are hip or trendy or buzzy. To be honest, I feel like a lot of the stuff that everyone is watching is too violent or gritty or serious or sad for me. Like I’ll scroll through Hulu and every show seems to feature people glaring and sullen. When I do watch something, it’s usually a half hour comedy. We don’t have Netflix, but we do have Hulu, Disney, Max, Peacock, and Prime. Sometimes I feel like I’m missing out by not having Netflix, but I figure there will always be something to watch on the services that we do have, so my sense of FOMO is kind of unnecessary. Some of my favorite shows I watched in 2024:

-Starstruck (Max)- So funny and sweet and relatable, this show is about Jess who has a one night stand with a huge movie star and the fall out from that. I don’t usually like protagonists who are screw ups, but there is something so fresh and honest about Jess that I ended up loving her. I’m half way through the last season and I can’t bring myself to finish watching it because I don’t want it to end.

-Sort Of (Max)- Gender fluid Sabi navigates the dynamics within their Pakistani family and their job as a nanny. This is a show about learning to accept yourself and those around you.

-Acapulco (Apple) – Cute show, told in flashbacks, about young Maximo who starts out as a pool boy at a luxury Mexican resort and rises through the ranks. I like this show for it’s feel-good, sunny humour and the 80s playlists.

-English Teacher (FX/Hulu) – Really funny and sharp comedy about a gay teacher in Austin trying to fight the system and sometimes giving up.

LIVE PERFORMANCES
High School/Middle School Musicals. I didn’t do theatre in middle school or high school. (Shocking, I know, considering it’s now what I do for my job.), so I didn’t really grow up going to school plays. Turns out the high schools in our area do really great shows. This year we saw Beauty and the Beast and A Year with Frog and Toad at the high school as well as middle school productions of Annie and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They were all delightful. There is something special about going to see a show where you know the kids onstage and where you’ll run into people you know in the audience, a show where things probably won’t be perfect, but everyone is having a once in a life time experience. The high school is doing Secret Garden this spring – I CAN’T WAIT!!!

Silent Night – is this cheating if it’s a show I worked on myself?. I love this opera so much. The music, the story, the bagpipes. I feel so lucky that I got to work on it again this year, and that I got to hear this exquisite score played over the course of four performances.

The Play That Goes Wrong – I think sometimes we go to the theatre to be moved to tears. I know certainly that’s true for opera – we want to see the soprano die and everyone to be devastated. But this play, about an amateur production of a murder mystery where everything goes wrong, made me laugh and laugh and laugh so hard. From identifying with the Stage Manager who loses track of the place and forgets to run a sound cue, to the actors forgetting their lines, to the doorknobs that keep falling off the set. This was an exquisitely timed masterpiece of comedy. Some of the technical aspects were amazing.

ART and MUSEUMS
Mary Cassatt at the Philadelphia Museum of Art – I’ve always been a fan of Cassatt’s art, and this exhibit was a wonderful exploration of her process.

National Museum of Taiwan History in Tainan – My cousin recommended this museum to us, and I’m really glad we made time to go while we were in Taiwan. It was a really well laid out and comprehensive look at Taiwan from it’s early days as a trading port through all the various states of occupation, to present day history.

Museum of Islamic Art in Kuala Lumpur – Stunning art and fascinating history. It was eye opening to see the intersection of Muslim and Asian cultures.

Lobster Museum in Swann’s Island, Maine – Okay so this was basically some guy’s attic collection of lobster men memorabilia that the town decided to put into a building, but I loved it.

Dorothea Lange: Seeing People at the National Gallery of Art – The title says it all – haunting portraits taken by Lange throughout the years. Some well known and iconic, and some that were new to me. The pictures taken in Japanese internment camps were especially poignant.

Pattens and Paradox: The Quilts of Amish Women at the American Art Museum – I learned so much about the art of quilts from this exhibit, which also make me think about the women who made quilts and the intersection between art and functionality and folk art and high art.

MUSIC – Looking at this list, I’m realizing one thing that’s missing is music. I don’t listen to a lot of music in a curated way. That is to say I don’t tend to listen to specific artists or albums. If I want to listen to something I’ll often just listen to the radio and see what serendiptiy brings, or I’ll type some inspirational words, like “Happy dinner” or “Bluegrass excercise” into Spotify or Apple Music and see what play lists come up. I think this is partly because I am surrounded by music at work, so music isn’t the first thing I turn to in my liesure time. Even still I do get a lot of enjoyment from music. This year, I re-discovered the joy of big romantic sweeping musicals (Scarlet Pimpernel, Titanic, etc.), and of just listening to the classical music station when I needed to decompress. As a family we listen to a lot of Disney songs and musicals (SIX is a favorite), and whatever the husband has playing on Pandora (his mix is pretty eclectic, but always has a strong beat and a good tune). Do I feel like I need to change my music habits? Not really. I do feel like I’m out of the pop culture loop, but hey I can’t keep up with everything.

That’s it for my 2024 Media favorites. What about you? Any favorite books/podcasts/movies/tv shows/music/art/ etc. that you discovered in 2024? What music do you recommend for me?
Any goals and aspirations for your media consumption in 2025?

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Needs met, then unmet

Sometimes my writing schedule gets off and then I realize it’s been two weeks since and update even though my last post was just last week. Time can be funny like that…

I recently read this beautiful poem : I Remember the Carrots by Ada Limon. It starts with the lines:

I haven’t given up on trying to live a good life,
a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen
in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I’ll be—
the advance of fulfillment, and of desire—
all these needs met, then unmet again.

Those words- “all these needs met, then unmet again.” has stuck with me. I’ve been thinking lately with regards to many things, work and life. In regards ot work, how there will never be a perfect system. We go through reorganizations and departmental changes, each time hoping that this is the optimal way to run things, but it is never a forever solution. People come and go and bring different talents, fill different holes with their different strengths. Different stressors come up, different duties, tasks to be done. You check the boxes then more things come up on the list. So there is no ultimate system, just a meeting today’s needs.

And in other parts of life – we adjust our lives and patterns to meet needs and then before we know it, things shift and once again there are unmet needs. Kids too. And oneself. Feed ourselves until we are no longer hungry, but then we will be hungry again. File the paperwork so that we get that insurance reimbursement then we have to go to the doctor again. But also things like, tell someone you love them, and then tell them again, because we can continue to meet that need of those around us to be loved. It is an exhausting cycle to think about. But also – there is some wonder in the thought that we can meet needs, that perhaps this is life’ work – to continue to meet needs – physical and emotional. Perhaps that’s the “good life” of the poem?

So along those lines –

It was a really busy few weeks for me. What week isn’t? (Side note – One of my favorite quotes is from an essay by Ursula Le Guin, who, when asked what she does in her spare time, says:
“In my case I still don’t know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has been and it is now. It’s occupied by living.”
I never want to imply that the things that occupy my life and make my life feel frantic, this busyness of a hamster wheel that I feel stuck in sometimes – I would never want to imply that my personal busyness is morally superior than that which occupies anyone else’s time – we all of us occupy our time by living. When did being busy become a virtue? Or is that just the narrative I’ve internalized somewhere? )

Anyhow, the week before last, I took on an event gig, which required me to be at work at 8am. I know many people show up at work at 8am (or even earlier!), and props to them. 8am is a whole new world for me. I basically wake up at 6:00am, eat breakfast, pack lunches, get dressed and leave for work by 7:00am. It feels so much more efficient than my typical mornings which stretch longer (6:45am wake up to 8:50am leave for school bus) and where all those things seem to take up two hours rather than one. I mean, I do sometimes get a yoga stretch in, a bit or reading, a moment to journal. Or sometimes those stretches are occupied by looking for permission slips, or socks, or prepping dinner, or when I’m lucky a couch cuddle with a kid and a picture book. A 7am out the door, however, does not allow for those extra things, though.

The event was a two day affair, a symposium on mental health, and it went pretty smoothly. I was there mostly to help out the stage manager that the producing organization brought, facilitating communication with the crew. There was a lot of setting water glasses onstage and chairs and side tables for the different panels and speakers. Events are interesting to me because the stakes feel so high since you only get one go at it, but also at the same time you only get one try at it, often with minimal/no rehearsal, so the stakes somehow simultaneously feel oddly low. Like you just have to do the best you can to get people where they need to be when they need to be there and if it isn’t 100% smooth, it’s very rarely your fault. Event work is good money, to be honest, and I know many people who just do event work for a living.

But… I think I would miss rehearsal. I like going to rehearsal and creating something and being part of that process. I like taking a hundred people and stirring them all together to make a story onstage. I like watching artists discover how they tell stories and doing my part to make that story happen. And I like working somewhere where I know whom I’m working with and I don’t have to wonder if so and so is going to show up or if they have to cancel at the last minute to testify before congress. Or we have to re-arrange the PowerPoint last minute because the speaker cancelled. There is certainly a thrilling rush of adrenaline to work under the fast paced scenario of an event, but I think it would be exhausting to do that every. single. gig. Maybe I’m too comfortable where I am?

Which, on that note, I did finally move my cubicle at work, so I guess that’s a step towards discomfort. I’d been putting this off since I don’t like change and have been sitting at my original desk for almost twenty years. But someone pointed out that the desk of my predecessor in the Production Stage Manager role was probably better suited for, well, being the PSM since it was in a corner and was bigger and had a couch for sitting and chatting, which is something that happens more now that I have more work responsibilities. I’d delayed and delayed but then we were all getting new computers at work, so I figured it was as good a time as any to move cubicles. I don’t love it – I can’t see when people are in the office because of the way the cubicle walls are set up, but maybe I can move the cubicle walls.

Other fun things:
– Family game night. We often have pizza and movie on Fridays, and sometimes also on Saturdays as well. One week, though, the 7 year old demanded game night. So we had a Saturday game night. Everyone had different ideas for what they wanted to do, so we did all of it – we started by playing King of Tokyo, then we spent some time playing with the marble run and building domino topplings (is that a word?), and then we ended the evening by playing Uno. It was a great time – even with some sore losing and sore winning antics. I’m hopeful we’ll do more game nights.

You can sort of see the 12 year old in the chair at the top of the picture – she’s listening to an audiobook with her earphones on. But hey, she’s in the same room as the rest of us, so it’s still family time, right?

-FIVE! The youngest officially turned five. (Despite the unicorn cake of the last post, her birthday wasn’t until the next day.) They don’t get any younger, I suppose. This past weekend we had her birthday party at a nearby aquarium. It’s a small aquarium mostly focused on local marine life, with one room of tanks and then a huge play space outside. The kids got a tour of all the fish, and got to feed some of them, and also touch some of the animals in the touch tank. Then there was pizza and snacks and cupcakes and play time. I feel like 90% of the reason the 5 year old wanted to have the party at the aquarium was that the outdoor play space is in the shape of a pirate ship.

-No School Day/ Car Free Day. The two older kids had last Thursday off school for Rosh Hashanah. (I mean the calendar doesn’t say that – it just says Non-Instructional Day, but the school calendar doesn’t call it Christmas Break either…) It’s my last no school day with the kids for a while, and I wanted to have an adventure, but the 12 year old was reluctant to visit a museum or go on a hike (the two things I would have done), so we stayed close to home and it ended up being mostly a lovely day. In the morning we “ran” to a cafe and had special drinks and pastries. The run was the 7 year old’s idea. It was a very slow run, punctuated by much walking, but I think both kids felt good about it. At one point, the 7 year old was losing steam and the 12 year old grabbed his hand to encourage him along, telling him we just needed to make it to the next light.

We shared earbuds and listened to musical theatre soundtracks, singing along at the top of our lungs, which got a lot of smiles from other people on the path. After our special drinks and pastries, we walked home (still singing loudly) and had lunch. At some point during the walk home, I had it in my head that I wanted to have a car-free day. So after lunch, we took the metro to my work as an exercise for the 12 year old on how to take the metro on her own. I mean we were with her, but I had her lead the way. Then we went to the library near work, got some books – including Dogman books in French (Super-Chien!) – and then came home. The rest of the day, I baked Brazilian Cheesy Bread and brownies and we watched some tv as a family. It was a pretty low key day, but it was nice to spend time with the two big kids.

Side note: the library we went to was a DC Library, which we don’t often go to since we live in Maryland. I snapped this photo for their Busy Person’s Book Club- I love that idea.

-a new Costco snack. I went to Costco to pick up food for the 5 year old’s birthday party, hoping to also grab another bag of those Chocolate Quinoa Crisps, but they were no where to be found!!!!! Typical of Costco to lure me in with a fabulous snack and then not carry it any more. No worries! Costco does not lack for snacks, and I found a new one – These crunchy savory rice cakes – all my favorite Thai food flavor profiles in a bite sized morsel!

One Not Fun Thing:
-The decluttering has kind of hit a roadblock. I gave away the kids’ play tent on Freecycle. Several mistakes here – I should have double triple checked that they were okay with my giving it away, even though they said okay initially – but the biggest one was giving it away while the youngest was at home. There were tear. So many tears. Heart-wrenching sobs. Our youngest kid is perhaps our most pragmatic child and is the least likely to get upset or feed into melodrama. So when she does get upset, it feels so so heart-breaking. Anyhow, I feel terrible about giving away the tent now and am kind of petrified of giving away anymore toys from the toy room. So much for the toy room purge progress. This definitely needs to get back on track, though.

Two OMG things that I’m probably the last person on earth to have discovered:
– Shaking out the floor mats. Every Wednesday morning, I take the kids to piano lessons. While the 12 year old has lessons, I go get gas. I’ve gotten in the habit of throwing out the trash while I pump gas, and it’s such a simple way to keep the car tidy. Well lately, I’ve also been shaking out the floor mats as well, and what a difference that makes! Vacuuming the car seems like a lot of work, but shaking out the floor mats? With a quick flick, i get rid off all the grass and dirt and what not and the car looks almost like I vacuumed, even though under the floor mat is still covered in grass and dirt and whatnot. I guess this isn’t earth shattering, and I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before to do this, but it makes a huge difference.

-USB plugs! Despite using a computer almost every day of my life for the past thirty years, and having to plug in and unplug USB plugs, and often plugging them in upside down and getting frustrated and wondering if I was missing something – well, you know what? I was missing something. USB plugs are marked! The marked part of the plug is the top. What???? I feel like such an idiot not to have known this. I’ll never try to plug in a mouse upside down again.

Grateful For:

-Flowers in the front walk- a splash of colour during a grey week. The sun has come out now, but last week was so grey and drizzly. Coming home in the rain, I just wanted to rush into the house, but the purple flowers that line our front walk, poking their heads out reminded me to take a moment and savor beautiful things.

-The Husband booking the 5 year olds’ birthday party venue. I will admit I am not a birthday person. Witness the 7 year old not getting a party last year because I just couldn’t get it together. So this year for the youngest kid’s birthday, the Husband took it up on himself to research venues, run the options by the 5 year old, and then book the venue she picked. Done. Once a venue is booked, I’m good at food and other logistics. It’s that first push of the boulder that I’m not good at.

-The guy (D) who comes and fixes things for us. I am not a DIY/ Fix it myself kind of person. I might paint a room, and I have changed a light switch, and I did tile the basement of our first house. But in general, while I like the idea of doing my own DIY projects, I wouldn’t work on a timeline that is acceptable to other people in the house. Enter D, who comes in and will do both small and large jobs for us. He is careful and also honest – if something isn’t in his wheelhouse, he’ll tell us rather than try to figure it out. Anyhow, he was here to paint our new front door, and he’s done such a smooth job that every time I close the front door, I give it door an extra stroke because it’s just so glossy and pretty. He also replaced a light fixture in the kids’ room – I had always hated the fixture that was in the room when we moved it – everything was always so dark. Oh also installed a new medicine cabinet. Now the room is full of light. I’m grateful to D for making out home nicer bit by bit.

Looking Forward To:
-Starting a new opera. This week I’ll start prep for my next show. I’m excited to get back to a rehearsal room, but also kind of dreading it. The calendar is very full these next few months and I get overwhelmed thinking about it. One week, one day, one hour at a time, I suppose.

-Going contra dancing! The Husband sent me a link to a contradance that is ten minutes away and suggested that we go. It’s on a Thursday night and there are a million reasons we shouldn’t go – we haven’t been contra-dancing in years, and it might be a disastrously late night for everyone, the kids might hate it – but I’m looking forward to going. The Husband and I met at a contradance, so there’s a special place in my heart for dancing.

-re-setting my phone habits. I was listening to this 2015 episode of Note To Self with Sherry Turkle where she talks about how the mere presence of one’s phone is a huge distraction and I do find that it’s true for me. There are for sure things that I find valuable from having my phone, but also lots that just makes me fell sluggish. I want to be more thoughtful about how my phone plays in my life, so I’m trying this Bored and Brilliant challenge to re-set some habits. It’s supposed to be a 7 day challenge, but some of the challenges I think I’ll do more more than one day. The first challenge was to put one’s phone away while in transit – while driving, walking, on public transportation – and I’m trying to make that a longer habit. I think my goal is not necessarily to reduce time on my phone, but to reduce the number of times I pick up my phone.

– We started this tv show:

It’s sharply hilarious and skewers everyone on the political spectrum, as one might expect of a show about a gay public high school teacher in a school in Austin, TX. As I have a kid who is spitting distance to high school, this show fills me with dread and hope.

What We Ate (two weeks’ worth): I’m going to be real honest. I don’t know what the family ate while I worked the event. Upshot they were fed. Thank you to the Husband and my mother. We’re going into full on opera season, so I want to start thinking through more meals that can be made ahead or that the husband can make quickly.

Monday: Chicken wings and green beans. These are my mother’s chicken wings that the kids always ask her to make. It involves marinating the wings in garlic and soy sauce, pan frying and then baking with honey and more garlic. I could eat a whole panful by myself. Here’s the recipe:

Tuesday: no clue

Wednesday: no idea.

Thursday: Zucchini boats. The Husband cooked. Zucchini stuffed with ground turkey and topped with cheese. I told the seven year old to label the leftovers:

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: Toast. We had a lot going on this weekend and we wanted to make sure we had time for game night, so we had the ultimate simple supper. Toast. Some of us had toast and peanut butter, some had toast and jam. There was probably fruit and cut up veggies to go with, but I can’t be sure.

Sunday: Toast again. It was that kind of weekend.

Monday: Sandwiches (grilled cheese) and leftovers. Monday is very activity heavy so we usually have soup or sandwiches on Monday.

Tuesday: Eggplant Dan Dan Noodles, a Hetty Lui McKinnon recipe from the New York Times. Tasty and surprisingly fast, using Japanese eggplant from the farmer’s market. I added tofu, just fried it the same as the eggplant. VEgan.

Wednesday: Lemony White Bean Soup with Turkey and Greens from the NY Times Cooking site. This was really tasty – I started it on teh stove and the finished it in the InstantPot so it would be ready to eat when we got back from gymnastics. I didn’t have ground turkey, but in an effort to clean out our freezer, I took some chicken breasts and chopped it in the food processor. I also chopped up the chayote squash that came in our Hungry Harvest box and which had been confounding me, and threw that in too. After dinner, there was only two or three servings left, so I added another can of beans, a quart of chicken broth and the leftover ground turkey from the zucchini boats, cooked it in the InstantPot for another 15 minutes and then presto! had soup to go into the freezer for a quick leftover meal later this month.

Thursday: Chickpea Sweet Potato Stew when I read this recipe on Suzanne’s site, I immediately screenshot it to make since I had some sweet potatoes to use up. The twelve year old and I thought this was delicious. The rest of the family didn’t love it. The Husband doesn’t like too much coconut milk in his food. Maybe if I had made it with chicken they would have liked it more.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Rush Hour. I had never seen this movie before, and it was very entertaining. For those who are unfamiliar, Rush Hour is a buddy cop movie featuring Jackie Chan as a police officer from China who comes to China when his bosses daughter is kidnapped, and gets paired with a Black LAPD officer played by Chris Tucker to solve the case. I was kind of afraid before we watched that there would be cringe-y Asian stereotypes in it, something that I’m kind of sensitive to the kids seeing. (I had to turn off All Dogs Go To Heaven within the first ten minutes because my kids really don’t need to see a buck toothed slanty eyed dog from “Siam”. Same reason I’ll probably not show my kids Breakfast at Tiffany’s any time soon, even though Audrey Hepburn is sublime in that movie. I wouldn’t say “never” but there would have to be some conversations first.) But Rush Hour was surprisingly free of bad Asian stereotypes and racist jokes. There were definitely “race” jokes, but I do think there’s a fine line between jokes about race and jokes that are racist. And the whole Black Cop/ Asian Cop thing – I don’t know if my kids will ever get how really cool and revolutionary that pairing of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan was. Also -now I want to show them Shaolin Soccer.

Saturday: Leftovers and Bahn mi sandwiches. (I worked this evening)

Sunday: Pizza leftover from the 5 year old’s birthday party. I brought way too much food to the party, but it’s not a bad thing because now I have fruit salad and cut up veggies and chip and guac to last all week. And pizza. I froze one whole pizza for later – I’ve never done this, so I’m excited to try it out.

And now we are into October. Fall and Hallowe’en and all the things! And then the slide into the end of the year. Hope you are having a lovely week, that you are staying safe and dry where you are.