Category Archives: Food

Home Again

We’re back! We had a lovely weekend, but the drive is just so incredibly draining for all three of us. Liam’s not a fan of it either, particularly since he’s teething again. The poor kid has his first real teething rash on his cheeks.

When we got home the place felt so wonderful. (Thanks for taking care of it, Tal!) Liam ran around (well, his version of it) and touched everything, toys and furniture and walls; you could just see him saying, “This is mine! This is mine too! This is all my stuff!” Maggie and Nix came right up to him and rubbed against him or let him pet them oh so gently, and he was thrilled to see them, because my parents’ cats are more of the “I’ll sit over here and watch you from a safe distance” or “I’m hiding under the bed till you’re gone” types. And after a moderately belated dinner and a bath, he went right to sleep and slept through till quarter to seven this morning, thank goodness; we were worried that he’d wake up every couple of hours. But he didn’t, and he’s in a wonderful mood today.

We came home with more chocolate than I know what to do with. Well, I do know what to do with it: put it in my sweets tin in my office where it will lurk, waiting for the time when I need it. And it’s all really good chocolate too. Liam got clothes in his Easter basket, although there is one chocolate bunny I will have to eat for him that was presented to him by a fan.

I’m so impressed by how Liam ate while we were away. For dinners, he pretty much shared what we were eating. For example, that first night he had osso bucco and polenta with us, and Sunday night he shared our Easter dinner of roast beef, roasted carrots and potatoes with gravy, plus his own personal hors d’oeuvre of apples and squash sprinkled with cinnamon. He’s discovered the joys of couscous as well. (He did not, however, share the brownies, or the pie, or the chocolate macadamia nut cookies. He did share his grandparents’ Cheerios and a couple of slivers of my fresh strawberries, though.)

We have wonderful pictures of Liam at the farm, and at the warplane heritage museum too. I’ll post them at some point when I have time. This week is already two days gone, and the schedule for the next six days is already set.

Not Dead — On The Contrary

Ah, Easter weekend, where we drive through thunderstorms to eat gourmet food, enjoy wonderful company, and generally exhale in a huge tension release. Naps all round! CBC on the television! Evil delicious snacks on the counter!

(Seriously. There’s a pound of butter in the Tupperware container of brownies alone.)

Liam has enjoyed osso bucco and polenta with everyone else our first night here. He was asleep by the time we got to the spaghetti bolognese last night, though, and thank goodness for that because he was so off his schedule on Thursday that he didn’t go to bed until nine, and woke up at 1.30 to play and didn’t go back to sleep till 4.45. Argh. But he travelled in the car wonderfully, and the only real dent in the plan was that he refused to eat the beef stew I’d made him for lunch, so all he had was lots and lots of fruit for lunch and his snack, along with some water and rice rusks.

On yesterday’s walk we saw a rabbit, and Liam is fascinated by the three big Maine Coon cats here (or rather, by the two who will stay in the room if he’s there; Cordelia’s playing the prima donna and not showing her pretty little face during the day). The stairs interest him, but he hasn’t taken a shot at them yet.

Today we’re going to a local farm to look at animals! It was misty and drizzly yesterday, but today is gloriously sunny, so we’re looking forward to that.

It feels good to be here. Even though Liam’s thrown off for a whole day after travelling, it’s worth it. I hope everyone else is having as enjoyable an Easter weekend as we are.

Lunch Out

For anti-cabin-fever therapy, we took Liam out this morning to explore parts of the toy store we’d never seen before and then out lunch with us for the first time post-infant seat. He thrilled us to bits with how calm and self-possessed he was in the restaurant. He sat straight up in a high chair pulled right up to the table without the tray attached, charmed the waitresses with his poise, and very obviously enjoyed being at the table like we were. I’d prepared his lunch at home and packed a wide-mouth Thermos of hot water in which to warm the little containers up at the table. He ate all his own lunch neatly, snacked on crackers and a glass of water that the server brought him, nibbled bits of the chicken HRH had for lunch, and had his first taste of vanilla ice cream from my dessert (sometimes his reaction was “More!” and other times it was “Ew, it’s cold.”) I really wish we’d had a camera, because to see Liam sitting so neatly at the table was terrific and so heart-warming. It makes me wish the high chair we have at home was less bulky and more table-friendly.

He’s growing up so fast. Next week he’ll be ten months old. I’m not sure where the time’s gone.

One Story: Check

[reposted from the Great mySQL Disaster of 2006)

HRH went out gaming tonight. I sat down at the computer once he was gone and I’d tidied up a bit: handled email, checked news, did a bit of research, and wished I could be working on Swan Sister, but I wasn’t in the mood to slog through the warmup only to be ready for bed when I reached the point where things flowed. Nor was I particularly keen on opening one of the other novels to work on one of those, because I wanted to do something finite.

So I pulled out the story postcards I had. Alas, I’d used all of them: they all have big orange checkmarks on them.

But I remembered one that I hadn’t used, one that’s somewhere in a manila envelope or a file of stuff that was on my bulletin board by my desk in the last apartment. Longtime readers will remember the story postcard Neil Gaiman sent me with a phrase about a never-ending line of people written on it with a fountain pen filled with green ink. I made rather a fuss about it at the time.

So I opened a new Word file and wrote a 1,143 word short story beginning with that image of a long line of people snaking off into the distance.

It doesn’t have a title yet. At the moment the file is called “Gaiman postcard”.

Whether I like it or not tomorrow is immaterial. I like it now, both for what I did with it (plain, simple) and how I wrote it (I just did it, in a single hour).

And HRH has just come home with ice cream, since I’d indicated a desire to have some earlier only to discover that he’d finished it last night.

No, wait, I think I have a title: Next. Oh, yes; that’s perfect. That makes it 1,144 words, thank you very much.

Now: ice cream, and bed.

~ Originally posted by Autumn at February 9, 2006 11:27 PM

Comments:

Way to go!
Posted by: Kino Kid at February 9, 2006 11:46 PM

Hey, I’m just reading your post on NaNoEdMo! How’s that for synchronicity?
Posted by: Owldaughter at February 9, 2006 11:47 PM

Er. What I ought to have said first is, Thank you!
Posted by: Owldaughter at February 9, 2006 11:50 PM

Woohoo! Go Arin!
Posted by: Ceri at February 10, 2006 09:09 AM

Full of awesome!
Posted by: Maia AP at February 11, 2006 02:35 AM

Good Things

Hmm, says I while answering loads of e-mail. Hmm, there are rumblings in my tummy.

So I got up and made parmesan-chive biscuits. And now the house smells absolutely delicious. They taste even better, though. Oh gods, they are completely divine, and very grown-up (although any fears of adulthood will be banished once you realise that you’ve gobbled down six in a sitting). Parmesan-chive biscuits are definitely Good Things.

Aren’t I just the regular Martha Stewart. Except not a criminal. Which is also A Good Thing.

Later: To assuage Ceri’s cravings and to save my door from being kicked in, here the recipe. It was originally the basic biscuit recipe from the Joy of Cooking.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

– approx 2 cups sifted flour (that means about two tablespoons less if you’re not going to sift it, which is fine, because you’ll need those 2 tbsp to sprinkle your kneading area, so scoop out the spoonfuls and throw them on your clean counter)
– pinch of salt
– 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
– 3 tsp baking powder
– approx 1/3 cup shortening or butter (or half of one, half of the other)
– 1/4 to 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (use a coarse grater)
– 2 tbsp dried chives or green onions (fresh is okay too, but I used dried because it’s what I had on hand)
– 3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder together. If you’re going to cheat and not sift it, make sure you remove the two tablespoons of flour before you add the other dry ingredients. Blend well. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.

Add the slice of shortening and/or butter. Use a pastry cutter to cut it in, or two forks, or two knives, or hey, your fingers. (You’ve already thrown flour on your clean countertop, and your hands will get sticky later when you knead it, so why not?) Cut it in until it resembles little pea shapes of butter and flour.

Make a well in the center and pour in all the milk at once. Stir carefully till you won’t throw flour and milk all over the kitchen, then stir vigorously till incorporated. The key to good biscuits is to NOT OVERSTIR.

Turn the dough out onto the counter and gather it into a ball. Then flatten it, turn it, fold it, turn it again, etc. Do this only about nine times. Folding it and then flattening it is what gives the biscuits the flakiness. Roll or pat out to between 3/4 to 1 inch thick.

Use a round cookie cutter to cut out rounds of 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter. Don’t twist the cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Gather scraps, reroll, cut again.

Bake for about nine minutes, or until lightly browned. The cheese and chives sometimes give a bit of a burning smell if they’re directly touching the metal as they bake; it’s not the biscuits themselves, don’t worry. Check anyway. Overbaking these is a crime.

Remove from oven. You can cool them on a wire rack, but mine cool on the sheet just fine. Store in an airtight container, unless you’re going to eat them all, which is entirely possible. Serve with butter. (I was thinking of making sage butter, because then I would be in absolute heaven.)

Enjoy!

Present In Body

I woke up, organized my whole day while I lay in bed, got up, and now have absolutely no idea what I was planning to do.

Irritating. I was happy with the original plan, too. While I try to remember, I’m doing book work: the publisher sent me the back cover copy for my book to edit. I’m trying to figure out how to re-state the bulleted information without repeating the info that’s everywhere else.

Yesterday was the first writing jam in about six weeks, and although both Ceri and I were remarkably uninspired, we managed to get things done we wouldn’t otherwise have accomplished if we’d been alone. I transcribed eight hundred words of handwritten work to the computer. Ceri made some adjustments to the story that On Spec asked her to rewrite, and chaperoned two reluctant characters through the beginnings of a conversation that will eventually turn into something useful. Neither of us committed as much jamage as we’d hoped; but then, we’re out of practice. And t! was not present in body, although he called.

And yes, HRH walked in, damp and unimpressed, partway through.

The day was capped by a very productive CMS co-ordinators’ meeting. Blade makes a mean ice cream/Jello dessert which finished things off nicely. And I not only slept through the night, I slept well.

Now, if I could only remember what was on today’s agenda…

The Irony of Precipitation

I was already awake when HRH’s boss called at 6.30 AM to cancel the morning’s work. Environment Canada (who evidently foretell the weather with a rock, a pair of scissors, and a piece of paper) was waving about weather radar which said it would be a miracle if the Looming Storm and its accompanying offspring Fifteen Millimetres of Rain would miss us. HRH’s boss said that he’d check in with everyone at eleven to confirm work for the rest of the day. HRH and I went out to pick up groceries. (You know, there’s no one at all in a supermarket at 8.15 AM. And all the shelves are fully stocked. And the vegetables are attractively arranged. Must remember this.)

Miracle of miracles! There were a couple of sprinkles, and that was all. When we came back at ten-thirty, there was a message from HRH’s boss on the machine. Hey, well, that storm didn’t happen, so the rest of the day is on!

I just looked outside, and it’s pouring.

This, dear readers, is irony.

I wonder how soggy HRH will be when he gets home, and when that will be.