
To all my friends and family out there, I miss you and hope to see you again soon.
I was thinking about writing out the daily routine we have, but realised that most people are not as list-oriented as I am. Therefore, instead I am sketching out a few time management skills (yes, in a list... I couldn’t help myself...) that David and I have developed for getting through each day. Hopefully, they are entertaining...
Last year I was surprised to be contacted about a photo I took at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary – Schmap, an online travel guide, wanted permission to use it on their site. You can see it here: http://www.schmap.com/brisbane/toppicks_attractions/p=131702/i=131702_48.jpg
Recently another photo, from Luna Park in Sydney, was also selected for inclusion. You can see it here: http://www.schmap.com/sydney/entertainment_casinos/#p=116339&i=116339_85.jpg
Makes me feel like our family is achieving a tiny amount of fame!
We have tried lots of different ways to cook ribs over the last few years. I finally managed to cook some tender, melting, more-ish ribs yesterday and it was really easy! No more worrying about marinating for hours, parboiling, pre-browning, arranging them on a rack over a pan of water, etc! In a nutshell, all I did was:
The sauce I used was just a splash of vermouth, plus a motley crew of five dollops each squirted from five different bottled sauces: ketchup, teriyaki sauce, peri-peri sauce, kecap manis, and oyster sauce. I also included some finely chopped garlic (about 3 cloves). This just goes to prove that you can totally make it up. Mainly you are aiming to have some sort of alcohol (I normally use bourbon but we ran out), some tomato-ish flavor, and a bit of sugar content as well, and the rest of the flavor is up to your imagination. I also usually make sure to include a splash of oil in my marinades but since the ribs are so fatty I didn’t worry about it in this case.
I have read in other sources that slow cooking anything fatty like these ribs ensures that the fat becomes delicious rather than disgustingly greasy, and I can certainly attest that’s what happened in this dish.
Last Tuesday, David left for a fishing trip with his brothers and some other guys. We had a pretty busy time of it at home, as well, since Wednesday was a public holiday – for Brisbane-ites to attend the "Ekka" (Royal Exhibition, like a State Fair). Thursday I worked, then Friday is my usual day off, followed by the weekend, of course. Raema (David's mum) stayed with us for a lot of the time, which eased the pressure on me somewhat. Below is a potted history of what we got up to.
Wednesday: We had already gone to the Ekka on Sunday, so instead we went to Kmart Arana Hills Plaza, where they put on a mini-Ekka for the kids. Anya had a free pony ride (outside), then waited in line quite a while for her face to be painted (I also snuck Callum into the seat for a quick dash of paint). Luckily, Callum and Anya didn't get impatient, as Po (Kung Fu Panda) appeared nearby and we watched him greeting all the kids. We managed to get painted faces *and* meet Po as well afterward, so all in all it worked out well. Anya had a rainbow around her face and Callum had tiger stripes and ears. There was also a small animal petting area, for which Raema kindly held our place in line while Anya and Callum played on the usual shopping centre coin rides, until we could get in for a pat. Last, we went back outside intending to try some of the amusement rides, but the queue at the ticket booth was enormous, so I enticed them away to McDonald's where they had more play time in the fort after lunch. All in all, a hugely successful outing, and Raema even got to have the traditional Ekka treat, strawberry ice cream (courtesy of Cold Rock Ice Cream).
Thursday: This is the day when Raema looks after Anya and Callum at home. She also said it was OK for me to go to circus class as usual in the evening, but I came home in between to give her a rest. I'd hurried in to work to meet a colleague at my office – but he arrived an hour late because his wife asked him to drop her off at the Ekka and he wasted a lot of time circling around and getting on the wrong roads etc. So instead of going home early-ish as intended, I ended up getting home about 4:30... just in time for a big spat between Anya and Callum. But apparently, before that they were good little lambs all day. Raema took them on a walk down to a local park, then after lunch Anya and Charlie (neighbour the same age as Anya) played together most of the afternoon with Anya hopping back and forth over the fence. I headed out to circus class after giving Anya and Callum their dinner.
Friday: We dashed off to swimming and Raema went to attend a funeral... and we forgot the lock the house! I thought she was going to do it (didn't realise she was leaving right at the same time) and she thought I'd done it (she saw me go back in for something and assumed I'd locked up as well) – my fault of course, I should have made sure to check what was happening. Imagine my shock when I got home and found the two back doors wide open. Luckily, nobody wandered in, and I wasn't gone long, because I was expecting a visit from Jodi Meynell (realtor), about listing our house with them. Callum was resisting naptime for the start of my talk with Jodi and I kept having to run back into his room to supply tissues, sing songs, and get kisses. Eventually he settled down, but it was a complete change from his usually easy naptimes.
Saturday: Callum was extremely reluctant to let me go out without him (taking Anya to her circus class) – I think he's been extra attached to me this week because David's missing. He has been a bit restless at night as well. But Anya absolutely loved having me to herself all morning. We went grocery shopping as well after circus class, and she was so happy and well behaved and helpful. In the afternoon, she started playing with Charlie again, who came over to our place this time. Alyssia (Charlie's older sister) appeared after a while, and then they all asked, "Can we put our togs on?" (Togs are swimsuits, for you non-Aussies.) I had the sprinkler on, you see! You should have heard them running around and giggling. They got containers and kept collecting the water and tossing it up in the air in unison. By dusk they were all shivering while still insisting they weren't cold. Alyssia went home to have a warm bath and Anya and Charlie had a bath together in our bathroom. Then they asked if Charlie could sleep over! I was thinking that it was possible, but worried a little about the extra activity and disruption (and how crowded it would get in the bedroom), and luckily Nicole (her mum) told Charlie no.
Sunday: We went to GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art), the Science Museum, and the Art Gallery. GoMA's children's area has a "bat experience" at the moment. The room is decorated with paper folded cutouts of bats, flowers, leaves, cicadas, praying mantises, snakes, and other creatures that they've provided makings for (trace a template, cut it out, and follow folding instructions). One end also has a city skyline with glowing windows, and you can draw on yellow paper that fits in the window spaces. We ended up at the Science Museum by accident as my preferred cafe (at the State Library) said we couldn't eat any of our own food there (although I was planning to order coffee and my own lunch there). So we wandered around and ended up at the Museum Cafe.
After lunch, we briefly walked through the main parts of the Museum, the highlight being the room that feels like you're inside an aquarium – Callum was particularly taken with the turtles, and Anya really like them too. She also delighted in pointing out the sea snake to Raema (we all know that Raema hates snakes and frogs). At the Art Gallery there was a bank of TVs and headphones showing various old style animations. Anya made herself very comfortable there. Callum and I read some of the books on offer, then we started wandering around a little and had to drag Anya away. It was getting rather late (2 pm) and we should have left sooner, but both kids were having such a nice time.
Callum only slept for half an hour (in the car) then was his normal self for the rest of the day – I couldn't believe it. He got a new best friend (briefly) because for some reason, Anya switched allegiances and was playing mainly with Alyssia. So Charlie decided she would play with Callum instead. (I imagine it was a little disappointing for her, though.) Jack (eldest from next door) also came over the fence and played with the girls, who were pretending they were fairies (he said he was a pixie).
And that was our six days without Dad...
I’ve been out of commission recently due to a revolting stomach bug. I never realised how much of my time I spend thinking about food, anticipating what to buy, cook and eat next, until I was limited to “plain food” which I hate and which was making me sick anyway. I was thrilled tonight to sit down with a proper serving of pasta with Bolognese sauce (although I put on much less sauce, butter and oil than usual, to be on the safe side). If I made a mistake in doing this, I’ll know in about an hour...
Meanwhile, Anya has been making up for me, by eating about three times as much as she normally does. I thought at first that she was just being greedy about snacks, but she was happy to have second and third helpings of the meals themselves, and seems to be eating all day. I wonder if she will suddenly shoot up in size next week (like Jack’s beanstalk)?
Callum, of course, has always been a big eater. He reportedly had three helpings of pumpkin and spinach pasta at Kindercraft yesterday, so I begged Pin (the chef) for the recipe: mashed pumpkin, thickened cream, salt & pepper for the sauce, with baby spinach mixed in. Amazing! She is a great cook and always seems to come up with dishes the kids all like. She even makes mild curry for them!
In other developments (not to talk about food endlessly!) Callum has still been trying to learn how to jump. He pumps up and down but doesn’t quite get that he is supposed to bend his legs first. (Maybe if I dangled some food on a stick above him!) He loves trying to do the same circus tricks that Anya and I practice at home: flying (my feet on her hips while I hold her hands), rolling (he did some great sideways rolling in a rage this evening), even holding a chair up with his legs (when he saw Anya doing it, he immediately carried the other small chair in from the other room, and tried to do the same thing).
This wonderful recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks, The Impoverished Gastronome by David Chater, was our dinner last night. I’m pretty sure I’ve made this before, as broccoli is one of my favourite foods, but I think I made the mistake of leaving out the sauce last time. The soufflé is very mild tasting on its own (milk, butter, eggs, flour, cheese, almonds), so the tapenade really makes the difference. Interestingly, the tapenade itself is slightly different from the usual, as it includes mustard.
I won’t give the full recipe here, as it’s probably not that hard to find a recipe for a broccoli soufflé. The main things that make this dish are the combination of the soufflé with the tapenade, and the inclusion of mustard in the tapenade. I tweaked the recipe a little too, as I couldn’t bring myself to boil the broccoli (just seems like a travesty to treat broccoli that way!) and instead I sautéed it in a little butter, then added a dash of water, covered the pan and steamed it until soft. If you do this just right, the broccoli keeps its bright green color.
For the cheese I used finely grated Romano, but I toyed briefly with the idea of putting in some blue cheese for a stronger flavour. I left it out because David doesn’t like blue cheese, but it’s probably worth trying. Also I wondered if some fresh herbs (tarragon? coriander?) might be tasty.
Mysteriously, Callum’s latest thing is to get a drink or piece of food, and just hold it for an hour or more without actually drinking or eating it, while steadfastly refusing to give up the item. His appetite has been very small lately compared to usual, because of colds and teething, but normally before now he would have just been uninterested in having anything. This magpie-like behaviour is perplexing and frustrating. I’ve gotten to the point where I am wary of giving him anything squishable, crumbly, or tip-out-able. While I am quite happy to clean up afterwards when he actually eats, this new habit of festooning our carpet and sofa with perishables for no purpose (he usually eventually abandons the item) just drives me crazy.
We have all been gradually getting well after a week of snuffling and coughing, so I took it as a positive sign last night that after eating some pasta, Callum asked for a banana. Like a fool, I actually gave him a piece. You guessed it: he then clutched it, wandered back and forth, clambered over my legs and into my lap and out again, all the while applying just enough pressure to the banana to render the surface slimy. Eventually, it popped out of his hand on to the carpet.
It didn’t rest there for long, because Callum spotted a washcloth on our side table, so he picked up the banana, placed it on the table, and draped the washcloth over it. Next he patted it, and said, “Baby.” This went on for a little while longer, and then he picked up the banana again, this time with the cloth around it, and continued climbing over my legs and lap. He even gave the banana an experimental nibble, so that I teased him that he was eating his baby, but he never did eat it.
But at least I got an amusing blog-able moment out of it…
So the big news of the day is: we have a new car! Why? Because we are planning to drive to Sydney (departing this Friday), and only found out last Friday that our old car’s transmission is on its last legs. Talk about putting the pressure on… To fix the transmission would have cost as much as the value of the car, and we’ve been talking about getting a new car for a while now, so luckily we had some car models in mind.
David put in a Herculean effort over the last four days and says, “I would rather get my skull drilled open than go through this again, but it looks like we have a car.” Yay! (Not only that, he got them to accept our old car, which would have been a pain to get rid of, so, YAY again!) At 4:30, after a whole day of teeth-grinding negotiations (about road-worthiness) and driving back and forth across Brisbane (to see the car & get it checked out), the seller really flabbergasted us by reneging on the sale. David even asked me to check with the Office of Fair Trading to see if we had any recourse. But later, after David called them to see if they *really* meant to pull out, they said they were going ahead with the sale (phew!) Now our fingers are crossed that they deliver as promised and we get a road-worthy car tomorrow.
And a big thank you goes out to our mechanic who really helped us with advice on whether the model we liked was sound, and squeezed us into his busy schedule at short notice to inspect the car we picked.
The scene: Callum’s just had a bottle instead of finishing his dinner (pasta, which he normally loves, but this time started flinging around the room) because I thought he needed to get something in his tummy to calm him down. Afterwards, I thought perhaps some proper food would help.
Elaine: Would you like some bread? Or cheese?
Callum: Bed.
Elaine: Okay, I’ll get you some bread. [Starts to get the bag open.]
Callum: Chee.
Elaine: Cheese? You want cheese? [Pauses bread maneuver.]
Callum: Bed.
Elaine: Bread? So you DO want some bread?
Callum: Chee.
Elaine: Here you go, here’s some bread.
Callum: T'ank-oo. [Takes the bread and wanders back to his spot in the lounge room, where he gobbles up the bread like a POW.]