weekly menu – Page 15 – Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate: We got a tree!

This week we got our Christmas Tree. We picked it up from our local fire and rescue station which has a Christmas tree fundraiser every year. Last year we bought a tree that was too tall for our living room and had to lop it off a little. This year we were a little more prudent and bought a more modest tree.

(Incidentally, I listened to a fascinating and hilarious episode of Planet Money this week about the Christmas Tree market and why there seemed to be fewer trees this year. It seems to be a combination of more people staying home and the economics of ten years ago, when this year’s crop of trees would have been planted.)

Most of the Christmas tree decorations we have are from the Husband’s childhood, carefully preserved by his mother. The children loved the Garfield ornaments and the Star Trek ornaments. These last ones are pretty cool – they plug into the light string and make noises and say things like “Live Long and Prosper.”

Also on our tree are the ornaments from our wedding. The Husband and I got married the week before Christmas. And instead of a guestbook, we made Christmas ornaments and had people write us a message. The ornaments are simple wooden shapes with tissue paper and magazine images modge podged onto them. Every Christmas we read the messages on the back as we put them on the tree, remembering that snowy day in December when the city was shut down for a snow storm, but we were surrounded by so much love from family and friends.

Our wedding guest ornaments adorning our tree. This one says “May your marriage and live be filled with this… and don’t forget to say goodnight.”

Some Christmas/ Advent things we’ve been doing:

– lots of hot chocolate. I’ve been making my own mix with semi-sweet chocolate, cocoa, malted milk powder, powdered sugar, cinnamon, cayenne, nutmeg and cornstarch. It took some experimenting, but I think I’ve gotten a good balance of chocolate-y flavour and not too sweet. Not that I can recreate it because I kind of made it up.

– Advent books. I used to borrow 20 or so Christmas and winter books from the library every December, augmented several Christmas books that we own. Then I would wrap them and we would unwrap on every night and read it. It would sometimes get complicated when books had to be returned to the library and couldn’t be renewed, but hadn’t been unwrapped yet. Anyhow, last year, what with the new baby and all – I didn’t have the bandwidth to wrap them all, so I just put them in a shopping bag and we picked one out every night. And it was fine. So this year the Husband got a box and I gift wrapped it and we put twenty odd books in it and we have been reading one or two every few nights. Because of COVID restrictions we couldn’t go to the library to browse books, so I basically did a search for the word “Christmas” or “Winter” in children’s picture books and put a bunch of books on hold at the library for pick up. They’ve been coming in at a trickle, but we have more than enough to get us to Christmas day.

-Advent calendar. One of those chocolate ones with Gospel verses behind each door.

-Bonus Christmas movie night on Saturdays. We did Home Alone this week. I had forgotten that the bulk of the movie is not the slapstick humour that you see in all the previews. There is actually a lot of heart in this movie.
Also on our list for Christmas movies is Elf, Meet Me in St. Louis, and It’s A Wonderful Life.

Other fun food things:

-Another pomegranate from our Hungry Harvest box. I had read about a technique where you cut the pomegranate in half and then hit it really hard to dislodge the seeds. So I tried it and it worked better than expected. These seeds I have been eating with the spaghetti squash. An odd dish of spaghetti squash, pomegranate seeds and roasted sweet potatoe. Surprisingly tasty.

-I found a jar of refrigerator pickles in the back of the fridge. I’m not at all sure how long they’ve been there, but they were still tasty and quite garlic-y. A little slice of summer in December.

-the three year old decided he wanted a bread sandwich the other night. He was not a fan of the black bean burgers. The rest of us liked them, though.

Love the shadows of the Christmas tree needles on the floor.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Smoked salmon on bagels.

Sunday: Perch cooked in oil and Green Beans

Monday: Spaghetti Squash with kale and chickpeas. I’m not a huge fan of spaghetti squash, but this came in our Hungry Harvest box, so I wanted to use it up. I feel like I never get the texture quite right. I’ve been cooking it in the InstantPot, but maybe it will be better once our oven comes and I can roast it. This recipe from Love and Lemons was actually quite tasty and even better as leftovers.

Tuesday: Black Bean Burgers from Dinner Illustrated. We had it with bagged salad. Trying to get more beans and legumes in our meals.

Wednesday: Mushroom and Broccoli Stir fry wwith Udon noodles.

Thursday: Chicken Makhani using this sauce. The Husband made this. It was really tasty.

Friday: Pizza and The Twelve Dates of Christmas. It’s Hallmark Christmas movie season!

Weekly Recap + what we ate

View of the late fall colours at Longwood Gardend

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we went to Longwood Gardens. We didn’t stay late enough to see the gardens ablaze with lights, but we still got plenty of festive holiday experience. There were poinsettias and Christmas trees and toy trains and fire pits. The weather was pretty mild and the skies were blue.

On the way back from Longwood, we listened to the audiobook version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson, narrated by Elaine Stritch. Oh my goodness was it funny! The eight year old cackled with delight all the way home. We agreed that listening to it should be a Christmas tradition.

We finished putting up Christmas lights. I had convinced the Husband to get one of those image projectors for the house. I figured when calculated per square foot, a projector was the most cost efficient way to add some holiday cheer to our house.

“And this one,” I said, “comes with two Halloween slides too! So we get two holidays for the price of one!”

There was also a great debate about white lights or coloured lights. The compromise we came to was coloured lights before Christmas and white lights after.

There was quite a bit of rain the following week. In keeping with my determined plan to have outdoor time, I put on rain boots and my windbreaker and took the three year old and the baby outside. It’s actually no struggle to take the three year old out because he loves rainy walks. We didn’t go to the park, but walked around our block, finding plenty to explore. A good fifteen minutes was spent watching a work crawl across the sidewalk.

The rain tends to collect at the end of our cul de sac and we went down there to find puddles. Not only did we find puddles, we also found mud. Mud pies and dams were made. The mess makes me a little nuts, but the kids really loved it. I have to remind myself that it’s just mud. On the bright side, I managed to get them into the bath when we got back in the house.

Now that drawing class is over, I’ve been back at sewing masks for our church maks ministry. As I sew, I get some good listening in and this week I listened to a beautifully candid interview on Fresh Air with David Chang, the chef behind Momofuku. I always find it fascinating to hear chefs talk about food on a every day level. There is something that can be so rarified about food, but at the basic level, food’s main purpose is pretty simple; we eat to nourish and sustain ourselves physically. When Chang talked about food, I really got the sense that food can be amazing and accessible at the same time.

During the interview he also talked a lot about growing up as the son of immigrants, and about the almost manic culture of hard work that is familiar, I think, to many children of immigrants. He made the point that work is the last socially acceptable addiction, and that has really stuck with me – this idea that work can be so all consuming that it can be detrimental. But at the same time we life in a culture where our jobs define us and how we live. It’s something I’ve been thinking about as these days of unemployment stretch out.

Fun things:

My parents sent some mandarin oranges from their garden. They were a tasty as they were pretty:

The baby started signing “milk” and “more”. I had considered weaning, but now that she’s actually signing to nurse, my resolve is softening.

Sometimes I forget what an architecturally beautiful city I live in. (Or rather adjacent to):

What We Ate:

Saturday: Can’t remember. Probably leftovers after we got back from Longwood Gardens. Or maybe takeout?

Sunday: Pad Thai from Dinner Illustrated.

Monday: Brussel Sprouts and Mushroom Farro Bowls w/ Lemon Tahini Dressing

Tuesday: Paneer Biryani.

Wednesday: Tofu Udon – The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Sushi rolls with Tuna. This was kind of a failure. I made it before taking the eight year old to dance class, and before I took off to for my weekly walking date with my friend. The food was all luke warm and mushy by the time the Husband came home with the kids from the dance class pick up. He called it the “worst meal ever”.

Friday: Pizza and the eight year old’s (virtual) piano recital. I’m sure there was some Stinky and Dirty in there as well since it was the 3 year old’s turn to pick the movie. Oh, and we watched half an hour of the Rockette’s Christmas special.

Weekly Recap + what we ate

I’m really glad we got a picture of the tree at our old house last week. This week when we went over, the tree had dropped its leaves and the branches were sparse. We spent Saturday afternoon washing windows and raking leaves. The eight year old got to use the leaf blower – which was hilarious to see, but also really made me feel proud of her.

This week was the first week all month that the eight year old had a full week of school. So no big adventures this week, but rather five days of slog and small moments. Small moments such as:

– Lunch breaks at the playground in 60 degree weather.
– The baby figuring out so many things: waving, taking her dirty dish to the sink, putting dirty napkins into the laundry bin, putting her shoes away. getting her shoes out of the bin when she wants to go outside.
– Zoom chat with moms from my mom’s group. Almost all our babies are now one, and I’m really glad for such a supportive group of women.
-Standing date with my friend/roommate from college. Realizing that we’re so much better at life than we were in our 20s and 30s. Being able to laugh over things like period products.

Conversation I had with the Husband at 2pm on a Sunday:
me: Why does it feel like it’s 4:00 in the afternoon?
Husband: Because it’s dark outside. That’s what happens in the fall. You’re usually in a theatre this time of year so you don’t know that this happens.
me: !

Which speaking of which – I found out this year that the shows I had scheduled for late spring have now been cancelled. So I haven’t any glimmer of stage management work for at least the next year or so. It’s a tough blow, but I also feel so lucky that it isn’t as devastating for me as it is for so many of my colleagues. Staying home with the kids full time is not really what I’m suited for, but it is also somewhat of a luxury.

This was the last week of drawing class. We were given carte blanche for our final project. I chose to draw the Husband’s childhood home. Three years ago, when his parents passed away, he sold the house. I took a picture of it, thinking that one day I would find an artist on Etsy to make a drawing of it as a present for the Husband. Instead, last week I decided to tackle a picture of the house myself. I was inspired by another student’s hatch and cross hatch project. She was the only one do do that assignment in ink and I loved how detailed and crisp her picture was. I wanted to do something in the same vein.

There is always a point in every project that I did for this class when I realized that I’ve perhaps chosen a subject that is a tad ambitious and I feel in over my head. But then I just keep plugging away and somehow, magically, the lines coalesce into something recognizable.

With this picture, it was the roof. I knew that drawing every tile was probably the best way to go, but doing something that detailed seemed so daunting at first. But I just turned up the show tunes and kept plugging away, one row at a time, and it somehow turned out okay. I’m going to miss the weekly drawing assignment, even though it definitely took up a large chunk of my evenings. I’ll be looking for new evening projects – I do have some mask making to catch up on, and I did promise the Husband to make him a pair of lounge pants. And more writing. And reading. And finishing the blanket that I started for the baby last year. And that programming course I signed up for. And also the Science of Well being course. I guess there is no shortage of projects.

Surprise discovery of the week:
One day, in a fit of cleaning, I decided to clean out behind the fish tank cabinet. It was a mess of small pieces of toys and puzzles. I fished around blindly behind the cabinet, clearing stuff out, then my hand came across something hard and dry and stuck to the floor. I picked it free and it turned out to be… a dead fish. There was no small amount of screaming. The Husband’s theory is that the fish managed to jump out of the fish tank at some point while the lid was open. Poor, sad fish.

A more pleasant surprise discovery, however:

We discovered this pumpkin, growing in the garden. The Husband stays that it is a volunteer – maybe planted by an animal who ate last year’s jack 0’lantern off our porch and then naturally deposited the seed in our garden.

This week’s simple pleasure: Toast with butter. Something about the crispy exterior and chewy interior of perfectly toasted bread, slathered with creamy, salty butter – perfect for autumn mornings. Or afternoons. Or really any time.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Hmmmm…. I can’t seem to remember. I think it was something out of the pantry because we didn’t get to the grocery store that day.

Sunday: Poblano and sweet potato tacos from Dinner Illustrated. Our oven is still broken, so I made these partly in the toaster oven and partly in a skillet. The eight year old made the guacamole.

Monday: Stuffed pepper skillet. Basically everything I would put into a stuffed pepper (ground turkey, rice, tomatoes, cheese) but in a skillet with peppers cut up rather than than used as a vessel for the filling. I also threw in mushrooms and turnips.

Tuesday: The Husband cooked. He made mac n cheese from scratch and coleslaw. The kids loved the coleslaw.

Wednesday: Wings, Fries and leftovers. Not what I had planned, but we had a last minute change in plans which involved picking up wings and fries from one of our favorite pubs.

Thursday: Chicken farro soup in the InstantPot. Sort of made this one up. Carrots, celery, onions, garlic sauteed in the InstantPot, then add chicken broth, a can of fire roasted diced tomatoes and bone-in chicken thighs.

Friday: Pizza and The Gardener. The Husband was in the mood for something gentle at the end of the week, and this documentary fit the bill. It tells about the creation of Les Jardins de Quatre Vents in Quebec. The children were (surprisingly) fascinated by the lush vistas and garden scenes. There was a part of me that kept wondering about the wealth and privilege that brought about such a landscaping feat.

Weekly Recap + What we ate

We celebrated the baby’s birthday last week. with a chocolate cake. All three children have had chocolate cake on their first birthday – does that make it a family tradition? The cake did not go over terribly well with her. She had gotten her shots earlier in the day, and perhaps that contributed to her great fussiness. She was not having it with the cake and eventually rage smashed it, while refusing to eat any of it. Oh well. More for me.

We also went to the Supreme Court to pay our respects to Justice Ginsburg. I almost didn’t go because the whole prospect of taking the metro down and standing in a crowd seemed perhaps not prudent. But ultimately, I decided that these things could be done safely with masks and hand sanitizer, and that saying goodbye to a lady who spent her whole life championing gender equality was something that I wanted to be part of, and something that I wanted my daughters to be a part of.

Last week was also the second week of my drawing class. We talked about how in drawing you have to learn to draw what you see and not the actual object. So you draw lines and angles and not plants and flowers. Learning how to breakdown drawing into concrete steps has been really helpful; it’s shaping up to be a good brain excercise. The Husband had to go into work a couple days last week, one day being class day. I managed the lunch chaos while “attending” class, with my camera off. Being able to take a class while keeping track of my kids certainly opens up all sorts of possibilities.

The “This is Motherhood” moment of the week: wiping the three year old’s behind with one hand while using the other hand to keep the baby from sticking her hand in the (yet unflushed) toilet. It was kind of akin to cuing on the chorus while keeping track of the tenor.

Two things sighted on our morning walk – one made the three year old happy, one made me happy:

What We Ate:

Saturday: Chicken cooked on the griddle and salad.

Sunday: Thai Chicken Soup – From Dinner Illustrated. I added rice noodles.

Monday: Sausage, Peppers, and Onion sautee. Using up an excess of peppers.

Tuesday: Red Pepper Soup – From Dinner Illustrated. See above about excess of peppers.

Wednesday: Tortellini (w/ Red Sauce or Pesto, Diner’s choice), and Arni’s Jr. Salads. This was the baby’s birthday dinner. The Arni’s Jr. Salads are a staple of the Husband’s childhood and home state. We like to re-create them at home since we can’t get them here.

Thursday: Indian Eggplant Curry (Instant Pot), and Cumin Potatoes from Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.

Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stitch. I had picked up Lilo and Stich four or five years ago, but we had never made it through because the eight year always got sad and scared and had us turn it off. I particularly remember her saying, “You don’t rip books!”

Weekly Recap + What we ate

One week of distance learning in the books! I have to say, it wasn’t as difficult as I had feared. This fall is has had a much more structured and supported learning environment than what everyone (students, parents, teachers, administrators) were thrown into last spring. I felt last spring that there was a lot of independent learning expected from the students. Our school district still has implemented a very long day of distance learning (9am – 3:15pm), but the day is built so that the kids are usually never on Zoom for more than an hour at a time. The one exception is when morning meeting runs into math period – so a 1h 20 m session. But it’s the first period of the day, so not horrible. There is an hour and a half for lunch and two 10-15 minute breaks – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It seems to be much closer to what I had when I was growing up, where there was lots of outdoor play time.

Wednesday afternoons are designated “independent study.” I’d love to spend a few hours either going on an outing or tackling something the eight year old is independently interested in learning.

I do feel like in person learning is probably more effective for the 8 year old, but at least I am able to be home and support her. I know that this is a luxury that not all families have, so I’m trying to see this as a side benefit of this period of unemployment. All in all, however, the week of schooling went quite smoothly. There were a couple of incidents of accidentally logging out of the Zoom waiting room before class, but hopefully we are turning it into a learning experience on how to tell time.

(Speaking of which – are kids still expected to be able to read analog clocks and watches? I feel like all the clocks on our walls are analog, so this is indeed a good thing to teach the kids. Also is a good lesson in how to count by fives.)

This week was a bit of disaster for the younger two kids’ routines because I was trying to make sure the eight year old got where she needed to be virtually. School started right around the baby’s nap time, making a bit of a mess out of that. I’ve never been one of those people who are slaves to a baby’s nap times, but I do think the day goes more smoothly when the baby has regular naps. I’m hopeful, that having the eight year old on a schedule will be helpful in giving the rest of us a rhythm to the day eventually, though. I can try to fit naps, nursing sessions, and structured activity time for the baby and the three year old around the eight year old’s class, and we can all have recess together. New school year, new patterns for everyone, I guess. It is an ever evolving thing.

Other highlights this week: The baby has figured out how to drink from a straw. At least she figured out how to suck the water up. She still is working on swallowing the water that she fills her mouth with. Half the time she sucks up a great big mouthful and then lets it just dribble out the sides of her mouth.

She has also figured out how to climb up on low chairs. She’ll climb up on them and stand, holding on to the chair back as if at a lectern, her face glowing with pride and accomplishment. It is cute but so scary.

We didn’t get out for as many long walks as we used to, but on Thursday there was a giant downpour and both kids took great laughing delight in running in the rain. It’s funny how these kids don’t like to bathe, but love running outside as the heavens open and unleash sheets and sheets of water.

Two food highlights this week:

The Husband brought home a watermelon from the grocery store. I love watermelon but it does take a while to finish. Now that we have a new full size fridge in the basement, there is not as much urgency to eat it all in one day, which is nice. I’ve been enjoying watermelon, feta salad – something my friend Lizzie introduced me to. Watermelon, feta, a sprinkle of basil. That’s it, simple and tasty.

Leftover rice and salmon, with avocado, umboshi paste and cucumber.

Also – for lunch I’ve been making sushi rolls with leftovers. It’s not true sushi rice, so things fall apart a little bit, but it’s still a tasty way to eat things up. A couple years ago, I picked up a packet of umeboshi puree from a fancy grocery store just outside of Philadelphia. It’s one of my favorite ingredients in sushi; there used to be a Japanese restaurant that had a Ume Shiso roll – just ume paste, and a shiso leaf wrapped in rice. It was the most delicate, delicious thing you ever tasted. I don’t actually know of too many other ways to eat umeboshi puree, so it’s been sitting in our fridge for a while. Surprisingly, though, it is still good, and really made these rolls special.

This Week’s Menu:

Saturday: We had Indian take out from the local Indian restaurant.

Sunday: Lasagna. This was the lasagna the 8 year and I were supposed to make last week, but had to postpone. It was her idea and she helped me make the sauce, mix the ricotta and layer the lasagna.

Monday: Pork and Green Bean Stir Fry. From Dinner Illustrated.

Tuesday: Cauliflower Tacos with Mango Cabbage Slaw. From Dinner Illustrated.

Wednesday: Green Curry with tofu and veggies. I used this new curry paste from HMart and it was definitely spicier than the Thai Kitchen brand that I usually get.

Thursday: The Husband made dinner. Breakfast sandwiches with bacon.

Friday: Pizza and Bend it Like Beckham. The eight year old has been listening to the Aru Shah series and it put me in the mood for this movie, though I hadn’t seen it in a while. It mostly holds up in its story of being stuck between two cultures, as a child and as a parent. The soccer bits and the wedding scene are pretty fun too. (“That’s not football!” the kids said.) I’d forgotten how cringe-y the romantic subplots were, though. I think there are a lot of romance storylines that are not aging well in the wake of the MeToo movement. The realization that power imbalances are not really healthy foundations for romantic relationships certainly has me seeing these plotlines with a new awareness. I don’t think those kind of relationships are necessarily something that is impossible to have now, I just think it needs to be navigated in a more conscious way.