Category: Soccer
Monday, Jul 16, 2012 | Local Food, Soccer |
I’ve been making some really good summer meals — sometimes. Sometimes the creativity fails, and I throw hot dogs on the barbeque. Here are a few memorable meals from the last two weeks (since I missed posting last week.)
**Last Thursday’s menu** Quinoa salad with black beans. Gazpacho.
**Keepin’ it cool** The kids requested something cold. I mentioned that certain soups are served cold and all were intrigued. I could not find a recipe for gazpacho, so I winged it. Pureed chopped tomato, cucumber, garlic, green pepper, and a handful of stale bread bits with 6-8 cups of water (can’t remember). Added salt, pepper to taste, plus a good slug of vinegar, and a sprinkle of oregano. Albus was a huge fan. Meanwhile, I steamed the quinoa, and chopped similar veggies, and tossed a lemon dressing together in a large bowl, to which I added the cooked quinoa and a cup or two of cooked, leftover black beans. Did not add feta (kids don’t like feta). Did add huge bunch of chopped basil picked fresh from backyard.
**Success!**
**Last Friday’s menu** Gallo pinto picnic (beans fried with rice).
**Not entirely sure I’d recommend this, but …** AppleApple was playing an extra soccer game, fairly early, a week ago Friday. There wasn’t time to eat supper before leaving, which I only realized while in the process of whipping up the gallo pinto. So I packed it into a large bowl and added extras to the picnic basket: grated cheese, grape tomatoes, tortilla chips, salsa. Add plates and cutlery, and fruit for desssert, and it all worked out. Yes, we looked a little odd eating our supper by the field. But at least there was a picnic table.
**Monday’s menu** Tomato sauce tossed with pasta. Green salad with maple dressing.
**Cooked by AppleApple!** She made this meal essentially by herself. She followed a recipe for the sauce, which did come within a hair of burning to the bottom of the pot, but was rescued just in time. Still, we only had about half the amount of sauce I usually make; this inspired us to toss it with the hot pasta. She also made the salad dressing herself. It’s so easy to make homemade salad dressing in a small glass jar with a lid! (A bit of oil, a bit of vinegar or the juice of a lemon, maple syrup, dijon, salt and pepper. Shake. Pour. Toss. Done.)
**Miracles do happen** CJ and Fooey ate the pasta covered with sauce. If the sauce is separated out, they refuse it. They didn’t even question eating this meal, and requested seconds. I think we have a winning recipe here — fewer options are sometimes better.
**Tuesday’s menu** Quinoa salad. Sausages on grill.
**Sausage splits** To economize, and because I don’t think we need to be eating that much meat, I grilled three sausages, split them in half and lengthwise, and served them already in buns, one bun each. It turned out not to be enough to satisfy big kid appetites, at which point I forced the quinoa salad on them, at which point we discovered the quinoa wasn’t as good this time round (even I had to admit it). At which point, Kevin finally arrived home from Toronto just in time for all of us to leave for soccer. He took his sausage to go.
**Wednesday’s menu** Gado gado: an Indonesian feast!
**What was I thinking** So … Kevin was working late in Toronto, and the two big kids had invited friends for a sleepover. Naturally, I decided to emerge from my office goggle-eyed and semi-present and whip up an elaborate Indonesian feast. Right?! That is exactly what happened. Of course, in some senses it’s really easy food to make. In others, it’s time-consuming, takes a ton of chopping, and uses lots of dishes. However, it all worked out because Kevin arrived home just as I was placing food on the table. We all ate together. The tofu was not popular with the children who were not mine; but otherwise, this meal was a hit.
**Gado gado, what is it?** Gado gado goes like this. A heap of yellow rice (1/2 tsp turmeric flavours two cups of uncooked rice) served upon a bed of spinach. I arranged halved hard-cooked eggs around the side, one half for each of us. Toppings can then be added, as desired. I offered: steamed broccoli, fried onions with zucchini, fried tofu cubes, crushed peanuts, unsweetened coconut, and hot pepper flakes. Once a plate has been made, a lovely peanut sauce is poured over top. I will say this: it was phenomenally good. I will serve it again, perhaps at the next big family gathering. Other topping options include finely chopped cabbage, banana slices, or other fruit. Flexible! Delicious! Vegan!
**Thursday’s menu** Hot dogs on grill.
**Sigh** It was all I could manage. In fact, I barely managed it.
**Friday’s menu** Lonely grilled bun with cheese and garlic. Plus fruit.
**Context** The kids were spending the night at my mom’s. We had a Bailey’s pickup (so much fruit! Cherries, peaches, plums, and blueberries!!) There was a stale bun on the counter. Kevin had to take Fooey to a soccer game. I ate alone, reeking of garlic. It wasn’t half bad.
**Saturday’s menu** Noodles in peanut sauce. Chopped napa and fennel and radish. Cupcakes and plum cake for dessert.
**Ho-hum** The peanut sauce was bland. I used actual peanuts, as we’d run out of peanut butter. It was made with coconut milk and curry. It needed more curry, more salt, and more peanuts.
**Dessert** If there’s dessert on the menu, you know something’s up. Yes, we had guests, and one arrived with yummy cupcakes and plum cake from a new bakery across from the Kitchener market called, I think, The Yeti. Correct me if I’m wrong …
**Sunday’s menu** Pizza from Pepi’s.
**The start of a tradition?** This Sunday and last Sunday everyone came along to my soccer game, which is usually scheduled for Sunday afternoon/evening. Both games involved travel, and by the time they’d ended, we knew everyone would be hot, tired, and hungry. So last Sunday, we offered pizza as a reward for 90 minutes of Mom-playing-soccer. Honestly, it was a reward for everyone. Pepi’s makes great pizza (downtown Kitchener). We order one Hawaiian, one vegetarian with tons of green olives. It makes for a happy supper, few dishes, and a good end to the weekend. Plus I really like having everyone come to my games. Even if they have to watch their mother get slide-tackled/clotheslined/or otherwise badly fouled at least once a match. Apparently this is how (some) grown women play recreational soccer?
Thursday, Jun 28, 2012 | Big Thoughts, Good News, Kids, Photos, Play, Publishing, Soccer, Spirit, Work, Writing |
balloon-dog, by AppleApple*
*Yes, she made her own balloon-dog. She looked up instructions on the internet. When she explained the twisting technique to me, my brain malfunctioned. That is because, when it comes to engineering of any practical sort, I am the opposite of gifted. She’s thinking she could sell balloon animals this summer at street parties; we weren’t convinced the yard sale approach would work for such a specific product.
:::
Here’s what I’ve learned at soccer, so far. This is purely skills-related. Skip over this section if you’re not remotely interested in playing the game of soccer.
First game: I learned to touch the ball.
Second game: I learned that I was fast. And that this is handy, if you like touching the ball.
Third game: I learned that a pass into the net is as good as a hard shot; likely better. Perhaps not coincidentally, I also learned how to kick the ball without injuring myself.
Fourth game: I learned to run with the ball by kicking it in front of me rather than trying to dribble it at my foot. I also learned how to do a throw-in. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way–during game play, by doing it wrong the first time.
Fifth game: I learned that when heading for the net, I need to turn in toward the middle a lot sooner. Unfortunately, in this lesson I’ve only gotten as far as realizing that I must be doing something wrong. I get the ball, start running up the wing, and then (mostly) lose it because I come up against a defender. Kevin tells me I shouldn’t really be coming up against a defender, but should be making my decision earlier either to turn or to pass.
Maybe in the sixth game I will learn to keep my head up?
:::
While speaking of learning things, here’s an anecdote to make you feel better about yourself.
Yesterday I was at the bank to make a simple deposit, and found myself waiting for ten minutes in a line-up of one (me), while one teller served one client, and several other teller-types walked briskly around in the background avoiding catching my eye, as if to say, I’m much too busy to open up another window here. Is a ten minute wait long enough to start getting truly impatient? Because I was truly getting impatient. In fact, steam was coming out of my ears.
When finally I handed over my cheques for deposit, a transaction that look less than a minute to complete, the teller thanked me for my patience. It felt farcical, like I was part of a reverse psychology experiment. I almost replied, “It would be much more accurate to thank me for my impatience because it’s clear I’ve got none of that other stuff, and you know it as well as I do!”
Oh my goodness, I am not a patient person. It’s the main reason I swear so much while driving. All that time wasted, endless inefficiencies, and being at the mercy of systems not of my own creation.
My goal is to find something good in every situation, to waste nothing, by which I mean to find in any situation something redeeming: educational or funny or comforting or amusingly distracting or morally relevant; but I sure enough wasted those ten minutes at the bank, seething with irritation. What do you think I should have done to salvage the situation?
:::
One more miscellaneous item, relevant today-only, and only if you live in the greater Toronto area. If you pick up today’s Toronto Star, you’ll find a special section on Canada Day, with a bunch of stories and a few photos by me! I’m especially pleased about the photos, though this job has spurred me to make a few minor (and thankfully inexpensive) improvements to my current photo-processing and -storing capacity. I would like to add Photographer to my toolkit of marketable skills, and this is an excellent start.
I see myself as a workmanlike photographer rather than an artistically-skilled one. But I think that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and that there’s a place for it.
It fits in with my philosophy that there’s a place for all kinds of writing, too; I aspire to be able to work across the genres. I think anyone who writes serious literary fiction should damn well be able to write light-hearted party-planning pieces, and snappy headlines, and generally entertaining well-constructed articles on most any topic imaginable, assuming there’s time to do proper research. These take technical skill, as much as anything else. I also believe that writing across the genres will make me a better literary writer. (My only caution would be: don’t get stuck in a rut, and don’t write the same thing over and over; write widely, if possible.)
And that concludes my On Being a Writer 101 lecture for today.
Tuesday, Jun 19, 2012 | Siblings, Soccer |
From dancer to soccer player.
:::
Sisterhood. (Click on the last photo to get the full view.)
Monday, Jun 18, 2012 | Readings, Soccer, Work |
goat cheese and tomato tart
*Monday’s menu** Sausages, buns, green salad, roasted asparagus. Ice cream cones for dessert.
*Because** Friends visiting from Toronto! It’s a theme! We planned to BBQ, but Kevin discovered, as he was going to turn on the grill, that we were out of gas. Luckily, everything transferred easily to the stove/oven.
*The usual hurry** The girls had dance. Then there was soccer, and more soccer. And rain. But we got to visit, and my friend brought ice cream and cones for the kids, who were thrilled (we don’t often do dessert, as you’ve likely observed).
*On hosting** I love hosting! I love guests. But if you’re invited to our house, you’ll have to take your hospitality with a grain of chaos. There’s just no way around it. So thank you, guests, for being so accomodating and coming anyway. Mi casa es su casa!
*Tuesday’s menu** Leftover sausage drippings fried with onions, garlic, peppers; tomatoes and leftover pasta sauce added; plus macaroni = one-pot of delicious.
*However …** The original menu was supposed to be something made with puff pastry. I’d neglected to read the instructions on the puff pastry. “Thaw for five hours,” I read with some horror, less than an hour before supper was due on the table. Thus, a quick change in plans.
*More rushing** Yup. I cooked in a hurry, and soccer girl and I ate in a real hurry (the others, too), as we all dashed off to various soccer outings. (Soccer girl and I had to drive all the way to Orangeville. On a school night. For a nasty game that nearly got the kid injured.)
*Wednesday’s menu** Community supper at Conrad Grebel (me); Fun Fair pizza (kids and Kev).
*Scheduling with precision** I biked to a reading at my former residence on campus at the University of Waterloo, and was fed a delicious supper of fish, rice, veggies, and napa salad. Kev drove the kids to the school Fun Fair, where they ate pizza, freezies, and candy. After the reading, I biked to the school, so Kev could drive the girls to a rehearsal for their dance recital on Saturday. I would take the boys home when they were done having Fun. Here is where my careful planning ran into a glitch. How to carry home an exhausted and foot-sore CJ, while pushing bike, and carrying heavy backpack?
*Thankfully** Albus helped a great deal. He pushed the bike and carried the backpack (no small feat), while I carried CJ on my back (also no small feat). We made it!
*Thursday’s menu** Quiche with asparagus and goat cheese. Goat cheese and tomato tart. Beer and bacon cupcakes.
*Because** I spent the afternoon testing recipes and photographing food for an assignment. Had to get my work done before suppertime … because it was supper. Which made supper very easy, frankly. And a good thing too, because we had another early evening of soccer practices and games.
*Complaints/Raves** A few disliked the goat cheese. But the beer and bacon cupcakes were a hit.
*Friday’s menu** Bailey’s Local Food supper!!! Hot dogs, buns, bacon-wrapped asparagus, cherry tomatoes, strawberries.
*The best** I love Fridays, and this was a good one — the kids had their last swim lessons of the session (three passed!; apparently CJ still needs to work on putting his head under the water), after which Kev and I did the Bailey’s local food pickup together while the kids stayed home and watched a movie (yes, I left them all home alone, and it was fine). And then we ate fresh local food for supper. Oh, and then the girls had a dress rehearsal for dance; but Kev took them. Phew. Because I was toast.
:::
*Saturday’s menu** Marinated chicken drumsticks. Pasta salad. Eaten at around 4:30pm.
*Thank you,** Grandma, who brought us chicken from the market. For the pasta salad I used leftover macaroni, fresh veggies, feta, basil from our garden, and olives and capers, in a vinegar dressing.
*And then …** We all went to the girls’ Highland dance recital. Soccer girl had spent the morning at a soccer tournament — quite the change from tough little athlete, to sleek-haired dancer. But can I just say: two and a half hours of Highland dance. That is all.
*Sunday’s menu** Eggs and bagels.
*Thank you,** Kevin! Oh, and Happy Father’s Day, by the way! This meal was brought to us by an exciting soccer tournament, which saw Kevin providing live text reports on the games. When I realized her team was likely to make it through to the finals, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to borrow a carshare car, pile the kids + snacks in, and race off to Woodstock to catch the final game. We made it! And they won! And then I raced back to Waterloo to play in my own soccer game — in which I displayed much better team spirit, but less inspired play, and managed to injure myself to boot. Meanwhile, Kevin and kids made their way home, stopping for bagels on the way.
*It was a lovely Father’s Day**
Saturday, Jun 16, 2012 | Soccer |
Our weekend includes:
one out-of-town soccer tournament
and
two girls performing at a dance recital
Soccer tournaments we can do in our sleep. But this recital is a new experience.
These photos were taken while one of the girls was at the soccer tournament. She’s home now, and I’ll be attempting a dancer’s bun shortly — the pressure’s on! The bun in these photos was courtesy of a friend and neighbour who knows what she’s doing and gave me a tutorial this morning. Honestly, I’m hair-impaired. I can cut hair, and braid hair, but I hardly ever brush hair, or blow-dry hair, or attempt to make hair look sleek, tidy, neat, or professional.
As a result, we’re a windblown family. But I think this little dancer loves her sleek new look.
Tuesday, Jun 12, 2012 | Exercise, Soccer, Spirit |
For a long time, I’ve thought of myself as someone who doesn’t like participating in team sports. But it had been so many years since I’d even attempted a team sport that I couldn’t remember why. And I love watching my children play team sports, and have observed the wonderful potential for camaraderie and intensive learning. So … this spring, when the opportunity arose to join a women’s soccer team, I signed up without hesitation.
At first, I thought the difficulty was going to be the fact that I hadn’t played organized soccer since the age of ten. But I’ve been watching a lot of excellent soccer over the past few years, and I’m physically fit, and a quick learner — and our team welcomes beginners. So that hasn’t been an issue.
What I realized after last night’s game is that there is another difficulty, one I’d forgotten, and it’s the reason I don’t like team sports.
Actually, I do like team sports. I love playing on a team. The problem is that I’m not always a fabulous team player. The problem, in other words, is me. Team sports don’t like me.
For years, I suppressed my competitive nature, and only began embracing it again when I took up running and signed up for races. Wow, this is actually fun, thought I; and wondered why on earth I’d suppressed such an essential part of myself. In fact, I embraced my competitive nature so thoroughly that I forgot what I’d disliked about it in the first place — and let’s just say there was good reason for that suppression.
Here’s why: Because competition brings out an adrenalin-fuelled intensity in my personality that can be extremely unpleasant. Nope, it’s worse than that. It can be ugly.
In individual competition, there’s no problem: the only one I’m being hard on is myself, and for reasons probably best discussed with a therapist, being hard on myself brings out my best effort. But on a team, competitive intensity, handled badly, just sucks. Basically, I’m transferring expectations about my own level of intensity to everyone around me. What I seem to demand of myself, and therefore of teammates, is maximum effort — forget being there for fun, apparently I just want to win. Honestly, if this team sports thing is going to work out, I need to figure out how to dial this aspect of my personality down, and fast. Also, I need to shut up. There’s nothing wrong with having high expectations for myself; but in a team setting, positive feedback is the only feedback worth giving.
(And I need to get off the field without complaint when I’m subbed out! Good grief. It was one little moment in Sunday’s game, but honestly, in that moment I behaved like an ass.)
You know, on the surface, it was a good game on Sunday evening — we won for the first time this season, and I scored the only goal of the game, and it was a very nice goal, put together with the help of excellent teamwork. But I came home feeling yucky. Realizing that I’d let my competitive nature take over; realizing that I wanted too badly to win and was willing to fight inappropriately toward that end.
So I guess my question is: Can I change? Can I, ahem, mature? Can I become a good teammate?
In some ways, I hate how the learning never seems to end. In other ways, I’m glad for it. Life has a way of shaving off my hubris, and keeping me humble. Ugh. It’s no fun being kept humble, even if it’s good medicine.
But I’m hopeful. It’s not all bad news. I really like being coached and getting feedback and criticism on my play — probably shaped by years of appreciating the writer/editor relationship, which is based on necessary criticism and mutual trust. And I really want to keep playing on a team, and improving — everything. Skills, fitness, but especially attitude. Especially that. I’ll report back.
Page 15 of 21« First«...10...1314151617...20...»Last » 
