rain ramblings and our outside garden

it's sounding pretty torrential outside. i haven't looked. the curtains are drawn but i can hear the soft thundering of the rain against our fences. 

for as long as i can remember, i have always liked the rain. when i was growing up in the philippines, i used to love  watching sheets of rain guzzle down outside my classroom. my favourite years in elementary school had me in a classroom that had no doors or windows. they were brilliant structures: a hexagon building divided into six classrooms with an opening in the middle and stairs that came down to create a little theatre in the round for assemblies. it was amazingly conducive to learning. we were, in fact, always outside. there was always fresh air. it never seemed to get too cold. and when the rain beat down during lessons, i remember feeling more grounded, focused on learning. and the rain smelled wonderful. (there are no pictures to be found online that properly capture what it was like to go to school there. not the way i would photograph them now. but i really loved it.)

on days like today, i want nothing more than to curl up in bed under a blanket, with a good show and a good knit, children occupied with their own pleasures or piled on top of me, napping. 

we live in vancouver. rain happens. all the time. most days, we embrace the rain: i let the kids jump in puddles. we run our errands. we go about our business. but on really rainy days, it's so nice to be able to just stop and slow down. listen to the rain. and we absolutely get to relish the fact that we don't have to water our plants: that on this day, mother nature is taking care of our gardens for us.

our gardens are wee but so full of heart and rather busy these days. while i have been dreaming up kitchen feasts with the fruits of our very small harvest - the wife and the boy have been hard at work putting the plants in. 

in the little garden we share on the co-op grounds, what i call our outside garden, we are growing tomatoes and basil and green onions. and a very kind neighbour shared some green bean seedlings with us. 

there, the boy also planted his beloved carrots and pumpkins - seed packets he picked out himself and obsessed over until the very day he set them in. here's hoping they take. our carrots didn't do so well last year. and oh, wouldn't it be amazing to grow our very own pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern this year? that would totally rock.

i'm so grateful for this little gardening space. i never had a garden like this. growing up, i was just not interested. i suppose it was because i was never really exposed to the experience. and in my adult life, apartment living never afforded such a luxury (and my potted plants died). so, i never really understood how satisfying and relatively easy it would be to grow your own food. and while i'm also grateful for grocery stores the world over, my little family is becoming addicted to the simplicity and real beauty of being this close to the earth: appreciating our hand in the cycles of life, and literally filling our table with food that tastes all the better because we grew some part of the ingredients ourselves.

i know this garden experience is no real epiphany to many people in the world. but i am so happy be able to share this wonder of mine with my wife and children. it's always a small celebration when we learn something new together, as a family, outside. and gardening is the perfect team building event: the wife supervises all the planting. the boy helps out, does a lot of the digging, and gets into trouble for not doing what he is asked. the girl putters about, talking to plants and doing her own thing. and i photograph the occasion and knit, when permitted. and then it's my job to turn whatever we're able to harvest into a meal.

corn and spinach fritatta with basil from the garden

so i say, rain on. and grow little seeds, grow. we'll be checking the outside garden tomorrow for progress.

magic march

i love march.

there. i said it. i know march is  unabashedly wet in this here parts (and notoriously unpredictable in ontario, where i lived most of my life) but for me, march and magic are synonymous.

my wife and i got together on march break. and rather coincidentally (we couldn't have planned it if we tried), both my children were born this month. see? magic.

the wife and i have been working magic for some time now to prepare for our babies' birthdays this month.

and oh, if there's one thing i want to get right as a mom, it's birthdays. my babies' birthdays celebrate multiple anniversaries, after all: the end of our pregnancies, the beginning of our motherhood, the birth of our children, meeting our children for the first time, and the forming of a new family.

birthdays are magical.

i always knew i wanted to be a mother. but i don't think i ever believed it would happen, not really. not until it did. and even as i hold my babes near, stare into their eyes, laugh with them, scold them - i often turn to the wife with a wink, a smile, and a whisper: "peter pan's got kids," pinching myself all the while. my babies' birthdays commemorate so much joy and love, yes. but my sense of gratitude is ever-whelming.

i made so many promises to myself when i became a mother. i have every intention of keeping all of them, as much as is possible. one of those promises was about making sure our babes knew that the day belonged to them. another promise was that whatever was happening in the day or in our lives, that i take a moment to connect with my children: to find an opportunity to look them in the eye, hold them near, and breathe in the memory of their birth.

anyway, when the boy turned 2, we started a tradition of decorating the house for a party of 4. so that when our little celebrant woke up, they would know their birthday was a day more special than all the rest. and then in the grand tradition of lorelai gilmore, we would try to tell them their birth story.

we were going to catch a ferry on the girl's 2nd birthday this past weekend, so my not-so-little, fast-talking, funny, dearest baby girl woke up to this.

best chocolate cake i ever made! thank you alicia paulson!

and then we celebrated all weekend. in victoria, in fact. 

at fisherman's wharf

these seals were so sweet!

we fell in love with beacon hill park

she only takes her backpack off when we force her to. which means at bedtime.

suffice it to say that my baby girl had very little attention span for her birth story.

knitted bear  is the ugliest thing i've ever made. no seriously, the wife had to talk me out of torching it while we were setting up the girl's birthday morning. thankfully,  she tolerates loves it. 

but believe me when i say i replayed the moments before and after her arrival over and over again. 

just minutes in this world

it's impossible that she's more beautiful to us today than the moment we first laid eyes on her. 


but she is. 

and i suppose that's the lesson i learn from my children everyday.

just look at that face. 

2!!!

everything is possible.

the boy's birthday is up next. so we're keeping the decorations up for the rest of magic month. because there is so much more to celebrate (and also because making magic, like birthing, is bloody hard work. which means, of course, we've got to make it last for as long as we can). 

happy december!

i know it's been a while.

i have been rather busy working, mothering, housekeeping, tending to sick babes, tending to a sick wife, and elving.

the wife and i have been ramping up for the christmas season for quite some time now: thinking, dreaming, online shopping, packaging. but mostly, we've been making. every spare moment is spent making. and sometimes moments are orchestrated to ensure that the making happens amid the hustle and bustle of work and family life.

while watching tv, on the bus, on rare lunch dates, the wife and i have also been giving serious thought to the tone and tradition we want to set for our kids during this holiday season: thoughtful intentions, mindfulness, meditation, and generosity.

over the next little while, and interspersed with anything else i feel like sharing, i'll be documenting some of the ways we'll be merry-making, discovering the spirit of giving, celebrating the return of the light, and paying tribute to the nativity. we are going for simple and sweet this year, with a focus on togetherness and gratitude.

starting now.

well, starting yesterday, actually.

the wife and i collaborated on our family's advent calendar (we designed together. i cut the pieces and hand-sewed most of the numbers. she machine sewed.). and this would be the first year we'll be marking the rhythm of december by counting down the days before christmas with family activities.

i've been wanting to do an advent calendar since the year the boy was born, inspired by so many fabulous examples in in the blogosphere. our version was made only from what was in our supply closet: felt, broad cloth, and leftover yarn.

this handsome reindeer from christmases past is going to mark our december days for us. 

yesterday, we kicked the month off by decorating the tree.

today's activity was our very first santa claus parade (which was mostly a wet, cold, and epic adventure. we vow to be the wiser next year, with a newly formed strategy that mainly involves catching the tail end of the parade and skipping out of most of the rest).

tomorrow, we're shopping for the boy's school food drive and i'm looking forward to this starter opportunity to talk to my kids about what it means to help others, even in the smallest of ways. 

this is only our second christmas as a foursome and it is all the fuller for it.

my toddlers are older this year. what they see, what they hear, what they understand - watching them experience their lives, changes my perspective everyday, challenges me to be better, kinder, more mindful.

some days are most certainly better than others. today was most definitely not my best, to be sure. (i don't deal well with public meltdowns.) but there is also value and a certain sense of redemption in starting a fresh new day, "with no mistakes in it;" and in the interest of sanity and being kind to myself, i think i'm going to embrace this sentiment as part of our december days: my christmas gift to myself. 

recipe share: my caesar salad

i love a good caesar salad. the first time i had a real, made-from-scratch, caesar salad was at my faerie godfather's house, long ago. it was, and still is the most delicious caesar i've ever had.  


(what is a faerie godfather, you ask? the same as a faerie godmother. but better - because instead of glass slippers, he and his husband gave me an iron spine and dared me to put it on when i was at my most "in-the-closet-frightened. together, my faerie godfathers taught me how to cook and throw proper dinner parties. i still don't quite throw "proper dinner parties like they do in their home, but my standards for proper food and good ingredients were definitely raised because of their influence. in fact, i still remember the very first meal i had at their house. and balking when i was told that bottled salad dressings were forbidden in their home. i get it now. obviously. but i digress.)


my caesar salad diverges from my faerie godfather's and the traditional recipe in that i do not include a raw egg in my ingredients list. i don't know why. i guess i've always been a bit uncomfortable with the idea - even though cerebrally, i realize that the lemon's acidity essentially cooks the egg. in my head, i also think the omission of the egg also extends the life of the dressing.


the long and the short of it is, this is the caesar salad i make all the time. it's more tangy than creamy, not to mention quite substantial.


and the wife devours it to the extent that if there is dressing around, no romaine lettuce head is safe.

ingredients

salad dressing

2 cloves garlic
4-6 anchovy fillets (or to taste)
the juice of one lemon
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauces (or to taste. i am quite liberal because i love it)
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
dash tabasco sauce (optional)
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste (i go easy on the salt and grind the pepper mill like heck)


croutons (i make this fresh with whatever bread i have to hand, tossed in a bit of extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. i then toast the lot in the toaster oven for about 10 minutes at around 375 C)


romaine lettuce, chopped up to bite sized pieces, as you like

freshly grated parmegianno regianno

other accompaniments
i often add other vegetables to my salad. my favourites are avocados and cremini mushrooms. or add your protein of choice - cooked chicken, salmon, or beef would be delicious with this, too.

instructions

i used to use a mortar and pestle to blend the ingredients together. but now i use my faerie godfather's method, which is  put everything in a measuring jug and use a hand blender to blitz until everything is emulsified. then i taste and adjust the seasoning - adding bits of the ingredients here and there depending on my mood.

toss the salad and dressing together. serve with a fresh grating of parmigianno regianno, as much or as little as you like.

i know this shot is terrible.
it was the best i could do that night.
you get the gist though, right?

if you try the recipe, let me know how you like it!

knit parade: a little carried away with the easter toy making

i couldn't help it, it was addictive going through my yarn scraps and making things work.


i didn't quite knit an army of ducks and bunnies - but i made four of these... well, i completed 3. they are reversible duck to bunny toys... 

see? so fun! my kiddos each got one and i sent one home with our nanny for her daughter.

i'm making this one for my nephew. i don't have to finish it until june.

but i am absolutely delighted with these! the pattern is called fat robin. 

i made one for each of the kids. they were a hit.

and of course, they love taking the eggs in and out of the birdies' "tail feathers".

i'm working on a nest these little ladies can share... i do wish i found a way to stuff the birds with beans or something because they won't sit flat without something to prop them up and it's kind of late in the game to do so. oh well.

both the toys were designed by susan b. anderson and i found the pattern and construction unfussy and easy to follow - not to mention so much fun! i need to get better at making the faces though. more difficult than it looks.


i see more toy-making in my future. in fact i'm already hatching christmas toy-making plans for the boy and the girl. we'll just have to see if i make it all happen on time.

oh! 


and check out this basket - it's full of finished knits just waiting to be blocked and then seamed! 

if i get my butt in gear on all the blocking and seaming, next week's posts will be quite the knit-centric one. 



*big grin*

an army for easter

our days are so busy, i'm finding it so hard to stay focused on a single task.


also, i've not been feeling my knitting mojo of late, so i thought i'd get on to a confidence-boosting project.


i'm knitting a small army of ducks and bunnies for the littles in my life - which includes but is not limited to my own children.

i have no idea what ducks and bunnies have to do with easter. i understand the symbolism attached to the fertility associated with spring, etc. but i never did get it. i grew up observing lent and going to mass. easter was a reprieve from 40 days of sadness, solemnity, and sacrifice. now that i don't so much do that any more,  i'm not quite sure what to tell my kids about easter: why in the world we take the time decorate, and then hunt for eggs. 


and i really don't feel like going in for the commercialism associated with clucking bunnies. even though i am likely to be consuming - and distributing the requisite chocolatey goodness in various forms of bunnies and eggs (my family needs no reason to consume chocolate - ever) - i never did believe in the easter bunny.


so i return to the needles. i'm hoping for some epiphany in positioning to sprout up as i procrastinate on the house cleaning. 


if you've got any ideas, i'm knitting quite a few bunny ears. as many as my scrap yarn will let me, anyway. shoot: what do you tell your kids about easter? 

outside, egg decorating, etc

on sundays, i have the very distinct pleasure of being home alone with the kids. because it ended up being such a beautiful day, and because our home was already trashed by 10am, i decided that being outside would be best. 

our walk was short, but sweet. not least because i didn't have to look at the mess at home, but mostly because when it's just the kids and me and outside, whatever collective crankiness we developed from our morning rut disappears, because we can just enjoy the day - and each other, away from house rules and restrictions. 

and then we got to decorate easter eggs. i am ever so grateful for our neighbours, who are fast becoming our friends. i don't know how i would've managed 2 kids (or decorated any eggs, myself) otherwise.

our finished products are on the bottom left. i love them so. an emptied a few so (that there's a chance) we can keep them for many years. the hardboiled eggs don't stand a chance against the boy's appetite for peeling them.

i also got to try my hand at making pysanky for the first time yesterday, thanks to the wife.

so fun. but i don't think traditional designs are my thing. i um, just freehanded my own designs. and i like them just fine - shaky hand and all.

all in all, not a bad weekend. much busier than i would have liked. but not bad at all.

how was your weekend? 

catching up: belated birthday girl report

pardon my absence. it turns out that the cold i thought i thwarted with a bit of r & r has had this family walloped. the wife and kids are still sick and i have been hit harder then they. i lost my voice yesterday and my body still seems intent on keeping me horizontal but i refuse to concede. mostly, because i can't. duty calls. even if i called in sick to the paying job, my kids still need me to be their mama. and so i'm up, working, typing, and finally - after days of quiet, blogging.


the girl had a lovely birthday, surrounded by the people she knows and loves, as well as visiting grandparents she's still getting to know.

we had hoped to take her for a solo park date with her moms after dropping her brother off at school. but the rain had other ideas for us. so we hung out in a nearby cafe where we let the girl indulge in her first taste of a cinnamon roll.

after which, were continued party preparations.


it was all about keeping things simple and remembering the day the girl was born.

i wish i had just one good picture of us blowing out the candle. in my sick brain fog, i didn't think to turn on even one light to allow me to take a good photo of the girl's bewilderment and the boy's persistence at being the one to blow out the candle. duh.  


to boot, the pics we took didn't even turn out that fabulous. i got a new camera and i'm still learning how to use it. i find it takes great photos in good light but needs to be tempered somehow in darker lighting. hmn. ah well.


all in all, we celebrated the girl. and that what is most important.

and the crown? we finished it, just in the very nick of time. and she loves it. so yay!

what ambition looks like, part three: a birthday crown

both the girl and the boy celebrate a birthday this month. 

and as with many other parents before me, i am fervently committed to making each of my children's birthday celebrations as intimate and special as possible. 


i don't believe that this necessarily means throwing a large party and making up loot bags. 

i've attended many of these parties and nice as they are, i think that there needs to be room for a moment to be had with just the immediate family, and most importantly, a deliberately arranged "event" between the parents and the child that profoundly changed their lives on the day they were born: with eye contact and shared reflection. because i truly believe that birthdays are about parents and their children. that the children should be celebrated on the day the were born, and that their parents take a moment to recall the miracle they brought forward and how their family has evolved together.

i don't know if this brand of birthday magic is always possible, especially as my children grow older - or even as young as they are, for that matter. 

and so the plan is to make birthday magic with the simplest of traditions: with a letter i plan to write to them each year, to be read together for as long as they will allow; a cake i will always bake from scratch - the details of which they get to choose as they grow older;  and a crown they get to wear, to reign sovereign over the events of their special day.

the boy already has his crown. the girl has got to have one too.

and just in case i have not already proven myself a bit mad with all the making and the dreaming, not only have i just been nominated and elected as a member of the board for the co-op in which we live, i am adamant that the girl will be wearing this birthday crown, yet unassembled, on her first birthday next friday.

do wish me luck. i think i might need it.

recipe share: jaffrey cauliflower soup

i thought about making the roasted cauliflower soup featured in sprouted kitchen. but when i set about making the recipe, i thought about the fact that my kids needed protein. then, inspiration struck when i decided to base my soup creation on maddhur jaffrey's cauliflower stir fry from a taste of india, a long-time favourite of mine and the wife's. the recipe uses urad dahl, a type of lentil that lends a distinctive nutty flavour to the dish, and happily, the protein that will help to feed my babies' growth spurts.

the ingredient list is short. the soup, as pureed or textured as you like, is filling and satisfying. the babes, they ate it all up because it really was delicious.

ingredients

2 heads cauliflower, large chunks

2 tablespoons grape seed oil or other neutral tasting oil 

3 tablespoons urad dahl

1 onion, sliced

1 serrano chili (optional)

vegetable or chicken stock (to cover the veggies)

1 can of coconut milk

1 lemon

choice of nuts: any combination of almond flakes, chopped pistachios, or chopped cashews would be delicious (optional)

fresh coriander, finely or roughly chopped, as you wish (optional*


*when i first made this dish, i sauteed the fresh coriander with the onions. but this was mostly to distract my toddler from noticing the green stuff. garnishing with fresh coriander would lend a better flavour - and make a more beautiful presentation.

directions:

preheat the oven to 425 C

roast cauliflower for 20-30 minutes until burnished and scorched 

to your liking. 

heat oil in a saucepan. 

when the oil is hot, add the urad dahl.

add the onions and serrano pepper (if using. the kids are sensitive to spicy foods at the moment so i did not use it at all. but the flavour of green chilli pepper - with minimal heat - would really add a nice depth of flavour). sautee until the onions are translucent.

toast the dahl until golden - or further if you like a nuttier flavour.

when the cauliflower is ready, add the cauliflower to the soup base. mix and cook together for a few minutes. 

cover with stock.

simmer for at least 15 minutes.

add coconut milk.

remove the serrano chilli (if using or leave it in you want a fiery soup)and puree to desired consistency. (i use a handblender but a food processor or blender would work just as well but you would want to add the soup back to the pan. if you want a chunky soup, only process half of the batch.) you may also want to add a bit of water if the soup is thicker than you'd like.

add the juice of one lemon (or to taste. i hold back a little for the kids but add more to my own bowl later). 


season to taste.

garnish with choice of nuts and fresh coriander (in the photo below, i pureed some fresh spinach to boost the iron in the dish).

eat up.