vegan survey

ok, so i'm not vegan or even technically vegetarian, but we eat vegan a lot, vegetarian almost all the time, and don't support the meat industry. as i become a better cook i make more and more vegan food.

i got the survey here but if you're looking for amazing vegan recipes, look here, too.

1. Favorite non-dairy milk?

usually silk soy milk, since it's gluten free and a lot of other soy milks aren't. i'd like to try almond milk next. and kirkland soy milk tastes amazing, but i refuse to shop at walmart and so can't have it.

2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
my to-die-for spicy orange tofu is amazing. potato & tofu fries are a favourite, especially with the 2year old. and i can do things with black beans that i can't even write here. also falafels, soups.... i'm actually a great cook, when i make an effort.

3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
salt, chili powder and oil.

4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
i made this cranberry stuffing a couple of xmases ago that was bloody awful. but it enlivened the dinner conversation, i guess, since everyone spent the whole meal making fun of it.

5. Favorite pickled item?
olives

6. How do you organize your recipes?
most are in my head, a few are in an actual recipe box, many are saved in notepad files on the computer or bookmarked.

7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
mostly compost, with garbage when it's too cold to empty the full compost pail. so compost in summer, garbage in winter. yes, i suck.

8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods...what would they be (don't worry about how you'll cook them)?
mangoes, avocados and coffee.

9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
hangin' with my dog.

10. Favorite vegan ice cream?
italian-made fresh sorbet.

11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
garlic press

12. Spice/herb you would die without?
chili powder

13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
more with less

14. Favorite flavor of jam/jelly?
currently mango/passionfruit... mmmmmm.

15. Favorite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
spicy orange tofu if they're open to tofu, chili with tsp if they aren't. (my fil went on and on praising the 'nice, meaty chili' last time)

16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
tofu.

17. Favorite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
breakfast is easy but dinner offers more exciting possibilities.... it depends on my mood. never lunch, though.

18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
boxes of cereal, bananas, apples and coffee

19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
leftover vegan stew, carrots and broccoli

20. What's on your grocery list?
nothing, flying out tomorrow morning

21. Favorite grocery store?
stupidstore, it's huge and i can find anything i want, usually for disgustingly cheap. organic planet when i'm trying to be more organic/ ethical.

22. Name a recipe you'd love to veganize, but haven't yet.
bacon.
kidding. quiche would be nice, then the kid could eat it.

23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa's because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
something in season, gluten free goddess, and... um... the bookmark is on the laptop and i forget the name.

24. Favorite vegan candy/chocolate?
frozen orange juice has been on my top 5 treats since i was a little kid.

25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
organic, fair trade, dark kicking horse coffee

26. who is the sweetest sleeping baby to lie in your lap today?

life in general

we had a good weekend. three parties (or four) and lots of hugs. tomorrow the babies and i fly out to the inlaws' place, my partner will come join us on friday.

we had our biannual solstice party on saturday and it was great. several of our closest friends couldn't come, this is a crazy time of year to try to schedule things, but it turned out ok. better than ok. it was a toast and wine party and it was a hit. we burned through many, many loaves of bread, lot of nutella, jam, bread, wine, eggnog, coffee... and conversation flowed. there were probably 15 people at the height of the party and everyone was having a good time. friends from all different parts of our life met and hit it off. i had been afraid that nobody would come and it would suck, but it was really good. i'm still on a little bit of a high from how well it went.

except for the part where the boy fell down the stairs...

off to pack.

don't read this

for the second post in a row i'm hesitant to hit the 'publish post' button. i have another confession to make.

every day, in my living room, surrounded by my impressionable children, i dance...

to shakira's 'hips don't lie'

a couple of weeks ago i realized that i was in pathetically bad shape. i was at my friend's party and we were all crazydancing and i was badly winded after less than a full song. michael jackson's 'billy jean', to be precise.

so i decided that i need to exercise at least a little every day. i don't have any fitness equipment and don't want to spend money on something that will just gather dust. i tried a video, but the boy wouldn't let me do it, he stood in front of the screen and demanded attention. plus hardwood isn't too nice for floor exercises. so i figured if i dance, hard, to three songs a day, that's about a 10 minute workout. i went through my cd's and mp3's, looking for a dance mix, and came up empty. bob dylan, jack johnson, rage, and rancid are all great, but none of them are dance-able. then i remembered that ages ago i'd had stupid shakira stuck in my head and in desperation i'd downloaded her latest hit to banish her from my brain. so every day i dance, hard and geeky, to some of the world's least cool music. or most cool. or something. either way, i've been stealthy and secretive about the whole thing, since my partner and friends would be merciless if they knew.

so why exactly am i posting this on the internet?

ok, look at the thingamie and don't blink, ok?

sometimes i just suck

i'm really, really imperfect. so is my son. we've been known to disagree, upon occasion. take yesterday morning.

now, in my defense, i'd had about 2 hours of sleep. but that's a feeble excuse. many other women could have held it together in the same circumstances, but i am not those women. really, from the moment i hauled my sorry ass from bed i was looking for a chance to blow up. then the boy emptied the container cupboard - something he does every few days. normally i let him play with the containers, then when he loses interest i bring him back and help him clean them up.
yesterday he'd barely gotten them all out of the cupboard when i decided that he needed to clean them up, now. so i said so, but maybe more like NOW. then i told him that they had to be picked up NOW, OR ELSE!!. then i proceeded to insist that they be cleaned up THIS MINUTE OR YOU'RE GETTING IN TROUBLE!!!!. being his happy little self, my son ignored my unprovoked fury and picked up the lid of a yogurt container and skimmed it across the floor. i swear that at this moment i gained a second personality, and that personality was hitler.

i swear, before i had a baby i was the mellowest person. it took a lot to get me pissed off, and even then i'd just rant and rave a bit then forget all about it. but something changed when the boy was born. there are days when i just quietly simmer away, waiting for the chance to let my rage loose. i have so much pent up fury, for no good reason. nobody has wronged me. i have a comfortable, safe life. people love me. my baby grins at me every time i look at him. my boy wants nothing more than to play with me, be hugged by me and just generally be around me. so what's wrong with me?

pirates III

instead of 'at the world's end', the subtitle should have been 'the movie even johnny depp couldn't save'. seriously. he was the only good thing about the movie. i generally take every chance i can get to ogle mr. depp, but this one wasn't worth it. the plot was incoherent, the writing was like nails on a chalkboard... none of us (roomate, hubby and i) had any idea what was going on at any given time, and we were barely drinking. it seemed like one long, stupid sea battle with brief scenes on land thrown in just to confuse the viewer.
i loved the first movie (how many movies can you describe as swashbuckling? a good time, what's wrong with that?!?!) but the second one was garbage and this was even worse. i will never get those hours of my life back, alas.

although there was a scene with about 100 of johnny depp in the same frame, some of his incarnations were shirtless...

bonnie burstow and the house on lippincott*

i'm in the middle of this book and it's amazing. a pair of holocaust survivors are living in toronto and have three daughters. the daughters grow up in a house haunted by pain and memories of the unspeakable. they each end up as different as three women can be. that sounds so trite. i'm not even near the end of the book yet, but i can say that this book is deeply satisfying because it is a well-told story, it is emotionally impacting thanks to the premise and the writing, and it is philosophically challenging.
the book doesn't gloss over any of the pain, yet none of it is glorified or dragged out. pain is simply a daily fact for the book's denizens, much like hunger and cold. it divides the family and, paradoxically, holds them together. it forms the characters as they strive to overcome it, wallow in it, deny it... pain is as air to the family in the book. amazingly, the book isn't depressing. it's deeply thought-provoking, though. several issues (pedophilia, homosexuality, guilt, racism, etc) are treated with the gravity they deserve but without bogging the story down. the writer is unafraid of being intellectual. most novels don't have footnotes, but this isn't most novels. the writer assumes a certain amount of literacy on the reader's part in regards to philosophy and history, which i don't mind at all, but others might.
this book really isn't for everybody, but for the right people it's staggeringly good.

*this review was written while nursing, bouncing and burping a heavy, fat baby to sleep and so the syntax is choppy and the thoughts don't flow. consider it to be a draft. come back in a week or two to read the final version

the same, only different

lovely, non? i should have taken a picture yesterday, it was even worse. the good news is that these hideous, festering wounds are on the retreat. one day i'll post these lovely lips smiling and cold sore-free.

right after i took the pictures last time, the boy discovered that the bulbs on incandescent fairy lights are removable, and promptly took them all out. so i took the lights down and got led lights, which are more toddler-proof. also they use much less electricity and are less of a fire hazard. and the string of lights is significantly shorter so the fort looks less cool. and they give off less light so it's dimmer inside the fort.
still cool, but not bright enough. i might get more lights, or i might just say fuck it. probably the latter. the colours are nice, though.
but it's that time of year. i love it when it's legitimately winter so i can bust out the hot chocolate powder to mix with my coffee. sure, i could do it in july, but where's the fun in that?

and for all those who were anxious, the ass zit is better now. no one is happier to hear that than me.

it's beginning to look a little like christmas

yes, those are my lips. why yes, they are a little sore, why do you ask? oh yeah, and TWO cold sores that suddenly popped up... how lucky am i?
actually you're the lucky one. i have a deep, painful zit on my ass the size of a marble. it hurts to sit. but i'm not posting a picture of that, just telling you about it.

and if that grosses you out to hear, don't click this link.

in less gross news, i started decorating for the holidays.what's more festive than a half-assedly decorated construction zone? i'm pretty sure the guys who tore out the ceiling are never coming back to put it back up, so i'm going to have to get used to the gaping hole where drywall should be. it's ok, though, i can't afford to pay them anyways.

this is pretty. that's what a person sees as he or she comes through the door into the house. notice how the light fixture looks a lot like a nipple? that's because it looks a lot like a nipple.

the piece de resistance, though, is the boy's first blanket fort. i was bored and remembering how much i loved blanket forts as a kid. then i realized that the boy has never had one and might not be old enough to think of it himself. so out came the nasty old blanket, the staple gun and the fairy lights. as a bonus it partly hides the hideous table that's uglified our living room for ages.
i'm told there are places where people don't use old cardboard boxes as decor. i don't live in one of those places. oh, and that blur in the left corner? that's the cat.


he thinks it's magical. i think he might be right.

my new hair

last week i cut it all off. i now have 10 inches of braid to give to those bald, cancerous types. until i get around to it my hair is living on top of the microwave, with the oven mitts. it's been a week since i cut my hair and so a week since i washed it. things are more than a little insane here and my skin is sooooooo dry, i dread showering and have quit taking baths. so this pic shows my hair at less than its best, but i still like it. sort of punky and funky and not so long that it gets caught on everything like before.
longer in the front, shorter in the back. the front strands are almost chin length, a lot longer than the hair around them. one day i'll get a better pic.

while i had the scissors out i cut the boy's hair, too. badly. see, my mother in law loves cutting hair and is quite good at it. last time she was here she cut the boy's hair and it pissed me right off. that's my job, damnit! so i pre-empted her. i'd rather have him get a bad haircut from me than a good one from her.
can you see the uneven bits at the bottom? i'll buzz that section so it's even before i take him to see his grandma in a couple of weeks.

ben's holiday special

we're not putting the tree up at all this year (we're going to stay with the inlaws, why bother?) and the lights and whatnot are in a ball on the shelf. but for ben, my son's doll, christmas is here.
yes, ben has boy bits. and yes, he is always naked. my son lost his clothes two minutes after he got him. and yes, ben's tree is cut out of a flyer and glued to the wall of 'ben's house' (a shelf in the bathroom. the lower shelves have to stay empty thanks to the boy anyways, why not make a home for ben in one?)
so that's our christmas decoration. i'm trying to figure out a way to get ben a festivus pole.
just for reading all that i'll give you another pic - ben's potty. it's opposite the 'tree' so en can enjoy the festive decorations while dropping a log. a yule log, even.