The week in suppers
**Monday’s menu: Curried squash soup (crockpot). Cornbread. Cabbage salad.
**Ho-hum: Should have stuck with my sweet potato coconut recipe, because this new version was less pleasing. Not bad, just not fab.
**Happy crunching: A few of us must have been craving a mid-winter veggie crunch, because the cabbage salad was very popular. Chopped cabbage with grated rutabaga and carrot in a lemon dressing.
**Tuesday’s menu: Red mexican beans. Baked rice. Tortillas. Cheese. Leftover cabbage salad.
**Super-flash turnaround: The food was prepped and waiting for us when we raced through the door at approximately 5:15. We ate tortillas stuffed with rice, beans and cheese in about ten minutes flat between swim lessons and soccer. It wasn’t pretty. Everyone required a second supper when we all returned home around 8pm.
**Wednesday’s menu: Rice pilaf (crockpot). Leftover cabbage salad.
**Epic meltdown: The mixing of leftover rice into cooked lentils in order to create the finished pilaf sent our youngest into full-on suppertime revolt. His revolutionary chant went something like this: “Not mixed together! PLAIN! Not mixed together! PLAIN!” He had to be removed from the table temporarily, until the revolt was quelled, though he never did try the pilaf, which was generally accepted by everyone else as satisfactory vegetarian fare.
Thursday’s menu: Chili. Steamed brown rice. Leftover squash soup. Kale chips.
**Hello leftovers: Chili made of leftover beans, plus corn and roasted red pepppers from the freezer. One child preferred the squash soup.
**Rice fail: Should have baked it in the oven. Used the stovetop so the oven would be free for the kale chips, and the brown rice took much longer than anticipated. And was the consistency of porridge. Ugh.
**Mini-recipe: Kale chips. I used Smitten Kitten’s recipe as inspiration (kale chip recipes practically infect the internet, all with different baking times, oven temps, and methods; allow me to add to the epidemic). Method: Rip kale leaves into chip-size portions (minus the thick stems). Wash and dry in a salad spinner (just because it’s easy). Toss in a big bowl with 1-2 tbsp olive oil and salt to taste (1 tsp is way too much!). I added 1 tsp of red wine vinegar to make salt-and-vinegar kale chips. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 300 for 20 minutes or until crispy. You’re looking for a crispy almost translucent chip that reminded my kids of seaweed (which they love). This is far and away the best use for kale I’ve yet to discover, though it did taste best fresh out of the oven–delicious and salty and melting on the tongue. Liked by two out of four children and two out of two adults.
**Friday’s menu: Pizza night at church. I made a sour cherry/plum crisp to share.
**Because Mama doesn’t love pizza: My bedtime snack was a feast of pita bread, hummus with hot sauce, carrots, and pickled dilly beans. And a glass of white wine. Then I fell asleep while watching a movie with Kevin. Sigh. Friday night.
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**Weekend kitchen accomplishments: Four litres of yogurt. Chocolate sunflower cookie squares. (Opening photo–and hey it looks like a real food blog photo, doesn’t it?!).
Cracks in the plans
This week has not been the easiest. We’re halfway through January and already I’m seeing cracks in my new year’s plans. My hip creaks (literally) and I need a training plan that will accomodate returning me to injury-free status (no long runs for a little while? I’m ever so slightly panicked at the thought). I haven’t taken a Sunday photo today. The weekends are proving more packed than anticipated. I sense the dropping of many balls. I’m probably dropping several right now as I sit and type in my dark office instead of heading for the dinner table.
….
And I’m back. Decided to head for the dinner table when the cries for Mommy grew too strident. They need me at the dinner table. I need to be there too, catching what’s falling, in touch with the many moods.
And there are many moods. Disappointments to walk alongside. Hopes. Plots and plans. Energy that might be silly and outrageous or emptied out and low. Sadness. Grumpiness. Sibling unkindness. Siblings racing around and egging each other into greater and greater goofiness.
Tonight my mind is occupied, too, by tomorrow’s publicity meeting tomorrow with Anansi. I hope to return with good news to share, and good energy to share, too. I’m entering into a new stage of this book’s life, and I have very little control over what happens next: how the book is received. It’s a tough stage for me. How to let go? How to be graciously accepting, no matter what? How not to dwell or muddle or worry or fret? There may not be an easy answer. Sometimes just gutting through is the only answer I’ve got.
Window on writing
I’ve been reading Charles Foran’s biography of Mordecai Richler. It’s a fat book and I’m not even halfway through, but already lines are jumping off the page. I’m deeply intrigued by the portrait of the formative writer–the kid, no more than twenty, who set off to Europe cadging money from any willing family member or friend, working as if possessed, carousing, ambitious. That’s what strikes me most about his formative years, when he was writing frantically and receiving nothing but rejection letters–the sheer volume of his ambition. Of course, in part what he displays is youth. And he had talent even if it was awfully raw at that point in his life. He had luck too. Just before he left Europe to return to Montreal, broke, just twenty-one, he found an agent who admired his potential, and helped him see his way into this life he was demanding for himself.
Charles Foran writes about what might have happened, had Richler not been found and professionally validated; he had a lead on a job at the CBC and in fact worked there briefly writing news copy; but not for long. “By 1952, CBC radio and the new television network were already the destination of choice for those with talent and culture who dared not risk seeing if they could really make a go of it as artists…” [my emphasis]
Guess what Mordecai Richler dared to do?
What elements make up the personality of someone willing, as Foran writes, “to hustle, do what was required. … Henceforth, he would be freelance, his own master and servant. Without security. Without nets.” Brash? Egocentric? Bold? Calculating? Intensely focused? In many ways, it’s not the nicest personality, is it? It can’t really be. You can’t worry about pleasing others, or meeting conventional expectations. It helps not to be apologetic in your approach. Why apologize for being who you are?
(Side question: Does this apply mainly to male artists? Personally, I don’t think so, though traditionally it’s been less acceptable for women to be unapologetic in their ambitions. Now where the heck does motherhood fit into the bold/brash/intensely focused rubric?).
One more thing. Around this same time, Richler wrote to his editor Diana Athill: “Often I think I don’t like or dislike writing, it’s just something I’ve got to do.”
I read those words and felt like something in me had been struck. Yes.
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This week has been a flurry. There’s a lot of hustling going on. At various moments during any given day it feels like I’m keeping up; not keeping up; almost keeping up; hanging on by sheer will; taking a tumble; staying with it; losing track; back in the game; organized; overwhelmed. But mostly, okay.
I’m okay because I keep landing on this thought that completely amazes me: I’m doing what I want to do. No, you know, it’s even more amazing than that: I’m doing what I’ve got to do.
Word of the year
“there was such a moon”
I cheated. This year, I’ve claimed two words. My word-of-the-year friends were skeptical at first, but I swear I saw this online somewhere and it’s allowed. (Are there actual formal rules and guidelines for word-of-the-year? I suppose it is right there in the title, singular, not plural).
Well.
My word of the year is work/play.
It was going to be work. Work grabbed me and shook me and said, hey you, this year, you’re going to focus on me. And I replied, sounds good, I’d like that. So I walked around with Work for a week or more, quietly testing it out and accepting it as my word. Except it didn’t seem complete all by its rigorous demanding lonesome. That’s when Play jumped into the mix. Hi there, remember me?
Here’s the thing: in my world, in my being, Work comes naturally. Work is Play. I am easily obsessed by the completion of goals. I like to do things. I throw myself in really deep and sometimes get lost inside of Work. Yes, I want this year to be about Work–about Working, to be precise. But I need to strive for some balance. I need to seek out Play, too, accept it when it comes knocking at my door.
For me, Play is sometimes more like Work. Not always, not precisely, but let me put it this way: I will beeline for my office at the mere suggestion that there’s work to be done; it takes more effort, more convincing, to call me outside to play. Sad but true. It is also true that I could not create what I do without going outside to play. So my work stands to suffer and stagnate without making room, taking time, clearing space, to leap into the spontaneous, the adventuresome, the just plain fun.
One of my word-of-the-year friends told me I should make a “Playlist” (nice!). On the spot, I couldn’t come up with much. Ask me for a Worklist and I’ll get down to business. But what’s on my Playlist? Truthfully, I don’t know yet. Surprise me, Playlist. (For some reason, horseback riding was the one thing that leapt immediately to mind).
I also aim to combine Work and Play this year. They don’t have to stand in opposition to one another. Where do these words align, in my life and yours?
Yesterday held a satisfying mix of work/play. I ran with a friend before dawn; served breakfast, plus made supper in the crockpot; got everyone out the door; napped for 20 minutes; worked on a new song at the piano for half the morning and worked at my desk for the other half; picked up my youngest from nursery school; ran errands; ate lunch; squeezed in a little more writing time while he watched a movie (and no, I won’t apologize for the tactic); picked up the girls early from school for their piano lessons; visited with a friend who works at the same place the girls have their lessons; arrived home to finish making supper and hang laundry; parented some bad meal-time behavior; headed out for supper with my siblings, within walking distance; picked up Albus and walked him (almost all the way) home from his piano lesson; walked to meet with friends over tea to talk about word-of-the-year; and finally, at the end of the day, spent time with Kevin.
I was going to try to categorize each item above as either work or play or work/play, but realized I’m not sure where everything falls. Serving breakfast to my kids can be really fun when we’re all talking together; or it can be a real chore when I’m hungry too and everyone’s grumpy and wants something different and we discover homework that still needs doing, etc. I also realized that there isn’t really room for the critical element of “rest” within work/play. I’m not going to add a third word. But it’s there, lurking behind the scenes. The lack of it gets in the way of both work and play. I don’t care to focus on it, but hope to get enough of it, both mental and physical, this year. (Play seems like mental rest, though, doesn’t it?).
Hope for the best (the meltdown version)
I was hoping for the best yesterday. Good to stay optimistic. Also good to set expectations LOW to MIDDLING. Yesterday, swim lessons began again, plus soccer, plus more soccer. The unpromising start to swim lessons included bringing the wrong bathing suit for Fooey (much much too large–her sister’s, in fact), and CJ declaring he would NEVER duck his head under the water. (“Just tell the teacher no thank you,” I advised. “But the teacher ALWAYS wants me to.” “I get that. Just tell her no thank you, not today.” “NOT EVER!”) This led to full meltdown on the pool deck. Somehow, two kind lifeguards hauled him off me and got him into the pool. “Go! Give us five minutes!” By the time I got up to the seating area, he was fine. So fine, you’d never have guessed he’d recently been in full mutiny. We ended this fine opening swim session by losing one child’s underpants. Found later in her pocket to everyone’s amusement.
Remember how I’d planned to read to the little kids during AppleApple’s soccer time? Turned out it was in a school gym, with loud music pumping–more of an aerobic workout than a soccer practice. The girls had a blast, including Fooey. Meanwhile, ever-jolly CJ made me cover his ears basically the entire time. We couldn’t read anyway. Too loud. This is not a problem easily solved. No brilliant brainwaves came to mind as I contemplated another ten weekly sessions in this gym, staring at the little Canadian flag pinned to the wall, watching a bunch of lively girls leaping joyfully, whilst trying to remain compassionate toward a constantly-complaining three-year-old. Nope, not seeing the bright side.
At the end of that, we drove across town to pick up Albus and Kevin, who were at a different indoor field for their soccer practice (one-car family, remember?). CJ spent the opening minutes lying on the floor declaring life not worth living (to summarize), or at least not worth living given the lousy choice in snacks his mother had brought. Finally, I found a candy cane in my pocket. This proved to be “too spicy,” but worked as distraction. AppleApple got some playing time with the boys’ team; we all went in to watch. Fooey picked artifical grass. CJ complained about not having a ball to kick.
Basically, CJ is at a stage/age where he can effortlessly suck the fun out of just about any situation. For example, grocery store this afternoon. CJ in full tantrum seated in the cart wailing over and over the touching phrase: “Multi-coloured mini-marshmallows!” My skin must be elephant-thick by now, and thank heavens. Nothing draws the gaze of passersby like a screeching three-year-old kicking the sidewalk and declaring his lower legs–yes, the lower legs, to be specific–“too tired!” to go on. I’m not saying all gazes are critical. Some are closer to pitying, some to gratitude–thank God that’s not me. Which is admittedly how I feel now when I hear a tiny infant wailing from inside a baby carrier. I know the mother’s pain–how the baby is probably hungry and wants to nurse and she’s pulling a toddler by the hand and they just need to get this one final errand run, please, please, please just make it baby.
This too shall pass, in other words.
This too shall pass.