Kathryn
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kathryn" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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12:43 am
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Moo, Baa, La La La, by Sandra Boynton (in collaboration with Alden)
"OK, Alden. A cow says. . ."
"Moo."
"A sheep says. . ."
"Moo."
"No, sweetie! A sheep says. . ."
"Ba."
"Right, a sheep says Baa! Three singing pigs say. . . "
"La la la!"
"Yes! Three singing pigs say La La La! No no, you say, that isn't right! A pig says. . ."
". . .neek."
"OK, sure. A pig says OINK both day and night. Rhinocerouses. . . "
"Snuh."
"Yes! Rhinocerouses snort and snuff, and little dogs go. . ."
"ruffruff."
"That's right! Little dogs go Ruff Ruff Ruff! Some other dogs go. . ."
"Bowuh."
"Yep, some other dogs go Bow Wow Wow. And cats and kittens say. . ."
*big grin* "MEOW!!!"
"Right! QUACK says the duck, a horse says. . ."
"nee."
"A horse says NEIGH. It's quiet now. . . what do YOU say?"
(beat)
". . .moo."
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09:24 am
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Important information about R-74
Yesterday, Governor Gregoire signed Washington State's marriage equality bill. In 90 days, it will become law, and we will have full marriage equality for all citizens of this state, and not a moment too soon.
Except: it's not that easy. (Chorus: It's NEVER that easy!) Those who oppose marriage equality have begun collecting signatures towards getting their referendum, R-74, on the ballot. R-74 would put the issue up for a public vote. The referendum affirms the exact text of the bill just passed into law. Opponents of marriage equality will try to get people who support marriage equality to sign the referendum petitions based on the pro-equality text. If they can't get enough signatures, it will become law on 6/6/2012; if it goes to a vote, it is possible for it to be voted down, and even if it passes, we won't get weddings until December. The petition isn't gathering signatures of those who agree with marriage equality; it's gathering signatures of those who believe that basic civil rights should be subject to a popular vote.
If you support marriage equality, please decline to sign ANY referendum about marriage that you see before this year's elections. But if the anti-marriage people get this on the ballot, you'll want to vote to APPROVE it in November. Welcome to Washington's confusing referendum process.
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09:39 am
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Languages Redux
I keep updating this list becauseI keep adding languages to it. This is all the languages I've sung in. This iteration adds Ojibwe and takes the asterisk off of Zulu, as I have now done a piece where I actually had a straight up zulu *verse*. Including a word with a click in it.
Adunaic
Black Speech
Czech
Dutch
English, Middle
English, Modern
French
German, Low Medieval
German, Modern
Gibberish
Hebrew
Italian
Japanese
Latin
Magyar
Norwegian
Ojibwe
Polish
Quenya
Russian
Sanskrit
Sindarin
Spanish
Urdu
Welsh
Yiddish
Zulu
I need K, T, V, and X. Who wants to write an opera in Xhosa for me?
Tags: languages, languages i've sung in, music, singing
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06:47 pm
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Arizona "Lasagna"
I would love to come up with a better name for this. Shoot me your suggestions in the comments.
This recipe was borne of my purchase of four enormous winter squashes, the largest being probably 15 pounds, for a dollar each at our local fruit and vegetable stand's closeout sale in the fall. With that much winter squash in the pantry, I've had quite the task coming up with recipes to use it -- particularly considering that my husband doesn't really like winter squash. So he'll eat it, but the bar needs to be set pretty high. The other influencing factor was the so-called Three Sisters of the Native American tribes of the southwest: corn, beans, and winter squash. You plant all three of them together in hills, and then the beans nitrate the soil, the corn stalks support the beans, and the squash leaves spread out and shade the soil, preventing moisture loss. This idea appeals to me, and I wanted to use all three of them together in one dish. If cutting into an enormous winter squash seems an onerous task, do what I do: whale into the squash with your longest, sharpest knife, embedding it in the rind, and then tap the knife with a tenderizing mallet (or a plain old hammer) to split the squash in two. Or just pop it into the oven whole, roast it for an hour or two until it collapses in on itself, and separate the seeds and pulp from the meat afterwards.
This is still in the oven; I haven't tried it yet. By one view, it's an all-day affair to prepare, but the long things are unattended and can be done in advance, so it's really not that bad. It makes about 12 servings.
Ingredients:
10 6" corn tortillas
1 pound of dry black beans, or 3 14.5 oz cans of cooked beans
2 pounds of pork shoulder (or boneless spare ribs, or pork blade steaks)
1 can of diced roasted mild green chiles
1 can of Ro-Tel, or 1 can of petite-cut tomatoes + a second can of green chiles, or a can of chipotle in adobo if you like things spicier
2 small, 1 medium, or 1/2 or so large winter squash -- you're looking for maybe 3.5 to 4 pounds total
1/2 to 1 pound shredded cheese; monterey jack, pepper jack, cheddar, or a combination thereof
1 tsp salt
2-3 tsp adobo seasoning, or Penzey's Arizona Dreaming blend
1. If you're using dry beans, cook them however you like; I use the 90 minute no soak method.
2. Cut open the squash (or don't, see above) and roast it at 350 degrees for 1-2 hours, or until soft.
3. Combine the pork shoulder with 1 can of the green chiles, about a half a cup of water, and the salt in a 2 quart dutch oven or stovetop-safe casserole. Bring to a boil on the stove top, then cook in a 250 degree oven for two to three hours until it's falling apart. (If you do the 90 minute beans, you can have them in the oven at the same time.) Shred it with two forks. If there's a lot of liquid in the pot when you're done, bring it back to a boil on the stove and stir briskly until the excess liquid has boiled off.
4. Drain the beans, and combine with the Ro-tel (or whatever) and the adobo or Arizona Dreaming.
5. Remove the flesh of the squash from the rind, and puree or mash it.
6. Cut 8 of the tortillas in half, then in strips crossways about 3/4 to 1 inch wide.
7. Butter a 9x13" baking dish or lasagna pan.
8. Layer the ingredients in this order: a layer of tortilla strips, then a thin layer of beans, a thin layer of pork shreds, a thin layer of squash puree, and top with cheese. Aim for 2 complete iterations of these layers.
9. Slice the two remaining tortillas into shreds, maybe an eighth of an inch by an inch and a half, and sprinkle over the top layer of cheese.
10. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly.
Now, that looks like an insane amount of effort, but in my case, I had half the squash already roasted and separated from the rind in the freezer, so all I had to do was thaw and puree that. I used canned beans, and I threw the pork into the oven before I took Lillian to a birthday party, and just let it burble away. I'll be interested to see how it turns out; it certainly smells fantastic.
Tags: cooking, food, recipes
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09:03 pm
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Historical Metaphors in Parenting
Erik, trying to barricade Alden out of the kitchen while I cook: "I'm creating a Maginot line here for everyone's protection."
Me: "I notice you chose an example that was both resource-intensive and ultimately a failure."
Erik: "Well, Alden doesn't have an air force, so I have high hopes."
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10:59 pm
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RIP Ellen
cancer can fuck itself sideways.
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11:03 pm
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Thought Process of a Sleep Deprived Cook
I'm making pot roast tomorrow for a multi-family dinner, and on the advice of my father, I pulled out Mastering the Art of French Cooking to do Julia Child's braised beef. Dad says it's fantastic, and I hope it is; I'm serving it with the recommended sides (braised carrots and brown-braised onions, even though I have some misgivings about peeling all those damned pearl onions) as well as homemade bread and possibly creamed spinach.
Anyway, the recipe starts out with a 12-24 hour marinade in aromatics and wine, and Julia says to marinate all the ingredients in a bowl just large enough to hold everything. that seemed potentially dangerous, so instead I decided to do it in a gallon-sized ziploc bag. This is how that went.
4.5 lb rolled round roast: excellent.
1 cup each thinly sliced carrots, celery, and onions: took some packing in, but at the end of the day, not a problem.
Poke in the garlic, the thyme, the cloves, and the bay leaf: things are starting to get moderately tight.
1/4 cup of chopped parsley: OK, right, stuff stuff stuff.
Five cups red wine. . . wow, that's a lot of wine, is that just to cover or do I really need it all? Hm, this boils down to become the braising liquid, I'd better use it all. Measure measure measure, pour off the first cup, then another quart, then start to pour.
Oh.
Oh, hm.
Oh, goodness.
UM
UM OK
UM
THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA
ACK!
"Erik! HELP! I need your hands!!!!!!!!"
Fortunately there was not a disaster, we got the bag sealed (barely) and then resealed inside a second larger ziploc bag, and it is now marinating away in the fridge. But whew, that was a close run thing.
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07:38 pm
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Alden's crawling!
Not far, well, or easily -- but he did it!! He had a STELLAR OT session today, just had made all kinds of leaps, not just motor ones but cognitive and sensory as well. He has some sensory. . . differences? Not really problems, just atypical ways he reacts to his environment? that his therapist says to keep an eye on. Like, he doesn't play vroom-vroom with cars, he turns them over and flicks the wheels instead. He likes to feel textures, he flips cups over and over to hear the clattery sound. Stuff like that. It's consistent with the sensory portion of autism, but he has absolutely none of the social signs of classical autism, in fact he's an exceptionally reactive and social baby, he smiles and makes eye contact and laughs when you laugh, and when something cool happens he looks around the room to make sure all of you saw it. . . he's not autistic. But he also doesn't point, and he doesn't follow it when you point, and his language development is. . . certainly not advanced.
BUT ANYWAY, I ramble. He was doing all kinds of great things in OT today -- pulling to kneel, reaching across midline, rotating, waving at the baby in the mirror, waving at the therapist in response to verbal (not gestural) prompting, pulling up his knees to do a lizard crawl, putting things into and dumping them out of buckets, etc. Rhona (the therapist) was so thrilled, she spent the entire session clapping and grinning. At the very end, she put her hand under Alden's chest to help him support himself, and he happily did an assisted crawl all over the room.
After therapy and lunch, Lillian wanted to go to the run-and-shriek -- the indoor playground at the mall, so-called because there the children run, and also shriek. The run-and-shriek has these sort of sculptures that are made of a rigid armature with foam over them and vinyl covering them, so you can climb on them but they aren't hard, and the ground is that spongy bouncy rubber stuff with a really high-friction carpet over it to cut down on slippage.. Lillian took off like a shot, and Alden tried to army crawl around, but the carpet was too frictional to make it easy, and he whined a little, so I got down there with him and did the supported crawl thing with him. (Halfway through, Lillian climbed on my back. Livestrong does not have calorie burn counts for "crawling around holding up your 1-year-old while a 5-year-old rides on your back," but I do not feel bad about skipping the gym today, let me tell you.)
One of the climbing sculptures had a little deck thing that was about 10" high, and he climbed up onto it with very little struggle. . . and then wanted to do that over and over and over again. I kept moving him back and assisting him the 8-10 feet to the thing to give him the practice, and I realized that I was using less and less pressure to hold him up. So I set him back, and let go, and. . . .
(apologies for crappy pixellated iphone video)
I cried. I'm crying now, actually, posting this. I know it is not a big deal, that lots and lots and LOTS of kids go through OT and have delays and are totally OK and there are lots of kids that have way greater struggles than Alden does, but he's my baby, and I just want him to be happy. He actually did that little crawl three times, and then he was DONE. He's fast asleep now and it wouldn't surprise me if he stays that way for hours.
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10:48 am
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Chicken and Potatoes
This is a solid dinner for a cold night. It's not the healthiest thing I've ever cooked, but when you actually break it down, it's not as bad as you might think. This also has the distinction of being 1) something my entire family, children included, will tuck into with gusto and 2) under ten dollars for the whole meal, almost certainly. Depending on the size of your chicken and your appetites, you can make it serve either four or eight -- in my family, it serves all four of us for dinner, plus lunch for me and Erik the next day. It does take about an hour and a half from the time you take the chicken out of the fridge, but it's so good, and it's not solid cooking -- you can chase children and drink a glass of wine and have a conversation while you do it.
Tools:- A big cast iron skillet or braiser pan, or other stove-to-oven pan. I have one from Lodge that I like very much that was 1/4th the price of the Le Creuset equivalent. Of course, the enamel's chipping like crazy -- you get what you pay for -- but it's definitely worth the $60.
- A broiler pan, one of those two-piece jobbies that gives the drippings a place to drip
Ingredients:- One whole roasting chicken cut into parts -- either split breast + leg quarters or quartered breast, drumstick and thigh separated, plus wings with tips removed. Save the back, giblets, and wing tips for stock.
- about 2-3 pounds of russet potatoes, depending on how much you like potatoes. The potatoes are super good, so you might use even more.
- 1 Tbsp. salt, or less to taste
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 to 1 cup chopped fresh herb of your choosing, or 1-2 Tbsp. dry. I like rosemary, but tarragon or basil or thyme or sage would be delicious. I've also done this with Penzey's Mural of Flavor blend and it was stupendous. Or you could use a southwest-type spice blend for a totally different but still nomtastic dish.
- One entire stick of butter
Get the chicken out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Season the chicken parts with about 1/3 the salt, about half the pepper, and most of if not all of the herbs. Use a LOT of herbs, more than is really necessary. The reasons why will become apparent in a moment.
Melt the butter in the skillet or what have you, over medium-low to medium heat. It is very important not to ever let the heat get too high in the pan! Once the butter is all melted and starting to foam or bubble a little bit, put the chicken breasts in the pan, skin side down. Cook for about a minute, then add the legs, also skin side down. Again, don't raise the heat too high! Just let the chicken parts hang out there in the butter, bubbling away gently, for about ten minutes -- check it after five to make sure that it's not sticking and that the skin is browning up. If the skin isn't browning up, you can try turning the heat up a VERY TINY BIT, but be careful not to let the butter burn. Lots of your herby bits will be falling off into the butter -- this is expected behavior.
After about ten minutes, or whenever the skin on the breasts is starting to get some good color, add the wings and turn the breasts over. After about five more minutes, or whenever the skin on the legs is nice and crispy, turn the wings and the legs over. After about five MORE minutes, remove the breasts to the broiler pan and get them into the oven, followed by the legs and wings five to ten minutes later.
During all these cooking intervals, peel and chop your potatoes into about 3/4" chunks. Toss with the remaining salt, pepper, and herbs -- don't freak out if there aren't a lot of herbs left, there are lots more in the pan. When the chicken is all out of the skillet, dump the potatoes in and continue to cook at that same low-ish heat, stirring frequently to coat the potatoes in the butter, until they start to soften and get translucent. If they start to break up, stop stirring them quite so much and turn the heat down a little lower. After about fifteen to twenty minutes, put the potatoes in the oven with the chicken.
Cook everything all together in the oven until the chicken reaches about 175-180 in the thickest part of the breast, measured with a meat thermometer. this will probably be after it's been in the oven for about 45 minutes, unless you have a convection oven in which case who knows. At that point, the potatoes will be browning on the top and the bottom and fully cooked through. The wings might be done 10 minutes earlier, and if so you can throw them to the inevitably starving children. Pull everything out of the oven, and serve with whatever vegetable you like -- steamed broccoli, or brussels sprouts, or braised cabbage, or creamed spinach, or whatever.
Because of the initial bubbling in the butter, the fat in the chicken is rendered out so a lot of it ends up in the broiler pan, and the skin is crispy on the legs but the breast isn't dry. The chicken also transfers its flavor (and maillard browning yumminess) to the butter, and hence to the potatoes, making them so delicious I have to forcibly stop myself from eating them after I'm already stuffed. And I don't particularly like potatoes!
It's not haute cuisine, there's nothing fancy or challenging about it, but it's a solid way to feed a crowd. And while the entire! stick! of butter! is a little eye-opening, it's spread over 4-8 servings. If I've done my math right, 1 chicken quarter + 1 cup of potatoes slides in at just about 500 calories, if that's the sort of thing you're tracking. And the leftovers reheat better than you might expect.
Tags: cooking, food, recipes
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09:33 am
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Milestones and address changes
First of all, my old nwlink.com address is no longer good. New address is ktewson@gmail.com.
Alden is ONE YEAR OLD. Appalling. He's still not really crawling; at ten months, our ped was concerned about his gross motor development and referred us to an occupational therapist. He's in OT now once a week and making significant progress, enough progress that our old solution to keep him out of the catfood no longer works. :-) His delay appears to be the result of troubles coordinating the two hemispheres of his brain; he army crawls now, but he still wants to do it frog style (like he's swimming breast stroke) rather than lizard style (arm over arm, leg by leg), and he gets cranky when he has to do different things with different sides of his body -- like weight-bear on one arm while he reaches for the other. Fortunately, that's the sort of thing that OT is really good at addressing, and the therapist has assured me that there's no cause for concern as long as he's making progress. I myself was in OT for a couple years for sensory integration issues, so none of this is really that unexpected.
A tad more concerning is that he has some sensory issues, and what may be some cognitive/language issues. He doesn't play vroom-vroom with cars; he turns them over and flicks the wheels. He doesn't put things into cups or dump them out. He has some body-stim stuff that he does, it's hard to describe but involves putting his arms straight out and sort of bobbling his hands and shoulders around. He doesn't point, and his vocabulary is limited to ma-ma, da-da, na-na (sometimes nursing and sometimes Lily, he has trouble with the L sound) and the signs for more, milk, and food. He's also the most social baby you ever met in your whole life, with eye contact and turn-taking and responding to his name and if you say "Where's mama?" he'll look at me, and he smiles back and waves back and is distracted by voices and all that stuff, so classical autism is pretty obviously off the table. But cognitively he might just be a tad different, just his own little snowflake.
Which, given his parents, is not even remotely surprising. So I am resolute in my refusal to worry. This doesn't mean I don't worry all the time, it just means that I'm aware that my worrying is silly.
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