Next time won't you sing with me

A few months ago, my sister poster on her blog about a slightly OCD need to count things.  After borrowing first my mother-in-law's and then my sister-in-law's (yeah, shout out to Jammy) cars, I realized that I have another OCD tendency...

My favorite driving passtime is to find letters of the alphabet on my drive.  And I get really excited if I can get through the whole alphabet in order before I get to my destination.  Then there are the extremely righteous days where I can get through A-Z, 0-9 then 9-0 and Z-A.  Let me tell you - it's almost a religious experience.

Now, there are some rules to make it harder... in my mind, the alphabet game must be repeatable.  I.e., once I complete the alphabet, I have to know in my head that the next time I drive that route, I don't have to find the letters again, because I know they're all there... So, that means license plates are not allowed, nor are temporary construction signs, banners, those sign boards with moveable letters, etc...  Street signs and business names are really the only safe bets.

And the hardest letter to get?  Definitely J.

You'd think it would be one of the other oft-forgotten letters like Q, Z, X, V - but there are a lot of Zs around - Oversize loads, Loading Zone, Zellers... and X is on every speed limit sign (Maximum 60).  V is on every Avenue sign.  Yes - you get to know the tricks when you play the game as much as me.

And I loved when they renamed Highway 2 to Queen Elizabeth II - There's a Q, Z and U in there.  Awesome!

Speaking of the drive to Calgary - there's a sign for the turnoff to Joffre and one for Majteka road.  That will get you both Js for the double-alphabet game.

Pink and Yellow yumminess

Growing up, one of my absolute favourite things to eat was Battenburg cake.  I used to have it all the time at my grandma's house.  She used to get it at Marks & Spencer's, when it was still open at Heritage Mall (when Heritage Mall still existed).

For those who don't know, it looks like this:

And it's basically pink and yellow cake with some jammish filling, wrapped in marzipan and then dusted in sugar.

When you eat it, you can actually feel your teeth falling out with the sweetness of it.  A lot of people hate it, but I really love it.

Living as we do in Canada, we can't get it here anymore (see above, re: Heritage Mall).  So I decided that I would make one myself.  With Google in hand, I found this recipe, which didn't really look all that hard.  I thought that the hardest part would be making the almond paste, since you can only buy it here around Christmas time.

Turns out making the almond paste wasn't really all that bad.  The rest of the recipe, however.......

I made the cakes, and froze them so I could work with them easier (I thought "how smart of me").  Then came the time to glue them all together with warm apricot jam.

Yeah, it sucks when your gluing material has chunks of fruit in it.  I should have known better, but I needed to maximize my jam usage, since I only had a small jar.

Ok - cakes glued, nice little checkerboard pattern.  Then came the time to roll out the almond paste.

That was terrible

It would either

1) stick to the rolling pin (which, by the way, has lost its handles, so you have to kind of grab it with your palms and avoid the dough)

2) stick to the counter - I didn't want to put flour down, because I don't want flour-y cake

3) both - and at the same time.

So, in my best immitation of my mom - who never really had the patience for detail, I crammed the paste in flaky, jammy chunks all around the cake.  Then I had to "roll it in sugar" - which really meant mashing the sugar into the paste, which was doing its best job of not letting it stick.

I wish that I had taken a picture of my franken-burg cake for your amusement.  In the end, it was horrible to look at, but was twice the size of the M&S cake (and the recipe made 2!!) - and tasted wonderful.

Green onion cakes

We (and by we I mean I) made a big batch of green onion cakes for some parties on the weekend. We got so many great reviews that I was asked for the recipe, so here it is:

2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp oil
1 cup boiling water
a few green onions, finely diced
a little oil in a bowl
coarse salt

1. Mix flour, baking powder, 2 tsp oil and 1/4 tsp salt in a bowl.
2. Pour boiling water into the bowl, stir with a spoon until it's cool enough to use your hands. Knead the dough until well combined.
3. Put the dough in a grease bowl, cover with a tea towel and let rest for 1 hour.
4. Divide the dough into 12 pieces
5. Roal each piece into a circle, about 1/8 inch thick.
6. Brush with oil, sprinkle coarse salt and green onions on top.
7. Roll it up like a playdough snake.
8. Coil the rolled-up dough.
9. Squish it flat with your hand.
10. Roll the dough a little flatter with the rolling pin. It's ok if the green onions ooze out.
11. Add some oil to a pan, heat it up on medium-high heat.
12. Cook cakes on both sides, a few minutes on each side - until they have a nice brownish colour.
13. Burn your hands while ripping them apart.
14. Burn your mouth as you stuff them into your pie hole to save your burning hands.

This recipe was pretty much copied from here. It has pictures for some of the "crazier" steps.

Weekly cooking - Part 2

We got back to watching the F-Word again (after digressing with SYTYCD, Weeds and Big Love). This week, we made an awesome beef tenderloin with wild mushroom gratin topping.

Basically, Kathryn bought a hugely expensive fillet of beef, which was portioned and then sealed. By the way, searing the meat with nothing in the pan makes a lot of smoke.

On top, a mixture of wild mushrooms that had been sauteed and the liquid reduced. Mix in some egg yolk, cream and then top it all with grated parmesan cheese.

We had to substitute some generic mushrooms in the recipe that called for Shiitake, Oyster mushrooms and chestnut mushrooms. Also, we used whipping cream since you can't get double cream here. (and too bad!)

Despite the meat being a little on the blue-rare side, I think this one turned out well... You can ask Georgina, Matthew and Ali what they thought.

The Cheez Whiz secret

Aren't older sisters terrible?

Let me tell you a sad tale of endless woe.

When I was little - maybe like 9 or 10, my sister Janine was making a Cheez Whiz sandwich. I noticed, with awe, that she could get a lot of Cheez Whiz on the knife at once - eliminating the need to go back to the jar over and over to maximize the fake-cheesiness on her bread. As a clumsy, sausage-fingered kid, I was unable to perform such a wonderful task on my own sandwich.

So, I asked Janine how she did it. Her reply? "That's the Cheez Whiz secret. You don't get to know that until you're 12".

Birthdays came and went... every year, I counted down the years left until I too could spread orange oil-based substances like a pro. This was better than waiting until 14 to get a learner's permit, better than 18 to vote, better than 60 to get senior's discounts. I was going to be the Cheez Whiz master!

The day finally came, March 11, 1988. This would be the day I could finally learn the secret - a bit of family tradition passed down to each new generation of Babowals on their 12th birthday. I asked my sister, with bated breath, what the secret was.

TURNS OUT THERE'S NO CHEEZ WHIZ SECRET!

I guess when you're older, your hands work better. Thanks Janine for ruining my childhood. That was the day I left the innocence of the child behind and learned that the world deals out disappointments in spades.

Nicknames

For some reason, members of our family have a plethora of nicknames. I'm pretty sure that most of them are brought to you by Kathryn, who can't seem to call people by their real names. So, I thought it would be helpful to give you all a primer on the names in our family:

David: Deeds, D, DD, Pums, Pidge (for pidgeon, as in "Whatsa mattah pidge?"), DB (Tropical Breeze only)

Kathryn: K, Kate, Katie Lou (only for those expecting a punch), KB (again, Tropical Breeze only), Big Blue, Mrs. Bouvier, Bouves (or sometimes, Boobs)

Emily: Em, Emmie, Gem, Gemmie, Gemelina, The Jeet, Jeetsie, Em-Jeet, Brown-eyed girl, Big Brown, Gemelo, Bubble

Rebecca: Becca, Becs, Bean, Beanie, Beanbag, Blue-eyed girl, The Middle-est, Little Blue, Rebs, Rebsie, Becca-boo-bo, Eloise, Princess Eloise, Julia, Princess Julia (those last ones are self-named), Rebroccoli

Eve: Evie, Believe-y, Believes, Little Badness, Little Brown, Eves

And, for extended family members:

Georgina: Gina, Geenz, Jammy, Jamzinger, Geenz-Jammy, Francine, Jorgehina (said with a spanish accent).

Matthew: Faffu, Faffs, Le Faff

Suzie: Suze, Booze, Blues, Blues Clues, Boozy, Floozy, Boggus

Adam: Ponyboy, Jesus

Chris: Wristy (I think Kathryn's the only one that calls him this), Cheese

Janet: Juanita, Juanny, Nanny noona, Nick nacky noona, Nanny Juanny

Bill: Mr. Dressup, Gorbachev

James: Gorbachev (long story)

Janine: J9, Martha (maybe?)

Colleen: Hmm - I don't have one, other than Coh-leen

Weekly cooking - Part 1

A little history:

We got hooked on watching Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word". It's basically a show where he encourages people to cook proper food instead of buying ready-made meals and eating junk. After watching a season and a half (or, if you're British, a series and a half) we decided that we both like cooking, and we could probably make better food than the pre-packaged stuff at Costco.

ANYWAY, I decided it would be fun to blog about the food choices we make each week - which ones worked, and which ones didn't.

So, this week, our first food choice was Pan Fried Hake with Tomato Relish, from Gordon's Fast Food book (my wonderful father's day present).

Turns out that the dudes at Safeway have never heard of Hake. Instead of trucking down to Billingsgate market and paying a snotload of money, Kathryn picked up some snapper fillets instead.

The recipe was super simple - just pan-fry the seasoned fish in olive oil, then remove the fish and toss in some cherry tomatos, white wine vinegar, cilantro, green onion and seasoning. The recipe called for Hake with the skin on - and you were supposed to make the skin all crispy and golden as you cooked it.

Turns out that snapper doesn't come with the skin on from Safeway. So, our fish crumbled a little bit.

In any event, this one was a definite winner. It didn't even taste like fish (that was for Janine). It was so good that we almost didn't have restraint to save some for the next day.

Today's bonus:

We had a roast chicken last week, so we decided to make our own chicken stock. In all, we now have 7 cups of stock frozen away, just waiting on a recipe to use it. I can't wait - it smelled wonderful while simmering.

Guilty Pleasure Food

Here are some recipes for food that is totally not good for you, but should still be consumed in large quantities:

1) Extra-creamy cereal.

i) Get a bowl full of some cereal with a good high-fructose corn syrup rating. Something like Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Reese Puffs
ii) Instead of milk, use half-and-half cream
iii) Stuff your face
iv) If there's cream remaining, fill the bowl again, repeat.

2) Pastel caliente con queso solamente

i) Go to the store and buy a bag of shredded cheese. Kraft's Italiano works the best for this. Cause seriously, who has time to grate cheese?
ii) Heat a frying pan on number 7 or so. Make sure the red dot is gone (if you have those space-age pans like we do).
iii) Put a nice big layer of cheese on the pan.
iv) Wait until it's all melted and bubbling.
v) Fold it into a nicely rolled cheese crepe.
vi) Stuff your face - watch for burns
vii) Call 911 when your arteries get blocked.

Dora, Dora, Dora the evil tyrant

Here's a conversation overheard from the back of our van:

We have these Dora pens where there's a little Dora figure on top of a spring at the top of the pen. The other day, Rebecca was playing with the pen and then broke the Dora off of it. She held it up to show me.

"Look daddy, it came off"
"Oh well", I say
"But that's better now anyway, because now she can fight."
"Fight?"
"Yes, this is the mean Dora"
Emily: "And she's fat too"

(Here is where I could have taken the conversation to explain that fat people are not bad people, but I was more interested in the mean fighting Dora)

Rebecca plays some more, and I hear her say (to the other toys in the back, speaking as mean Dora)

"Come out you guys, so I can put you in hot lava and make you dead"

Yeah - awesome parenting there.

I can't believe it's not meat

The other day, Kathryn came home from grocery shopping with some yummy-looking stuffed chicken breasts. Only, once she got home, she realized that they were vegetarian chicken. We ate them anyway, and despite being kind of chewy, they looked and tasted like real chicken, even though they were made from some form of vegetable slurry.

Which makes me wonder, why is there a market for these things? What self-respecting vegetarian wants to buy fake chicken? To me, if you've decided to be a vegetarian, you should fill youself with vegetables, not fake meat. Learn to cook tofu properly or something.

If you want a hot dog, then go and buy a hot dog - stop wasting my store shelf space with your faux-dogs.

If anyone actually read this blog (other than my non-vegetarian family), I'm sure that this would anger them. Too bad. I like meat.

I like to ride my bicycle

Here's a healthy warning to those of you with kids: Don't decide on a whim that you want to go for a bike ride.

BAD DECISION!

The first bike ride of the season is always an exercise in frustration. First of all, it means climbing over the mountains of crap in the shed to extract the bikes. This didn't prove to be all that hard this year - maybe I put things away properly last year. (which, by the way was done AS the first snowfall was happening)

Ok, fine... next step is to put the trailer together. That was pretty easy this year too (now that I've done it a million times)

Then I realized that my front tire was flat. No problem - we have a compressor... only Georgina has borrowed it to fix their car tire. D'oh. Ok, so I can load the bike into the van and drive to the gas station. Except that with 3 car seats and the usual piles of crap in the van, there's no way the bike's fitting in there. Alright, next option - remove the tire. Done and done.

Ok, so now, back from the gas station, it's time to put the tire back on my bike. Hrmmm - the brake cable is so tight that I can't get the tire back on and have the brakes connected. Will solve this later. Next step - attach the trailer - no problem.

Now we're ready for kids to come outside. Helmets at the ready. Turns out that Becca's head doesn't fit her helmet anymore. So it's time to switch with Eve.

This is a process that involves cramming helmets on heads, swearing over the straps, dealing with one baby who hates helmets and one 3-year-old who complains when getting her hair brushed.

Ok, we finally get all helmets adjusted. By this time, Eve has lost it - hates the helmet, hates being in the trailer, has already gone through an entire bottle.

Almost ready to go, and I remember that my brakes aren't connected. Kathryn and I try to work together to re-attach. No luck. So, I have to go grab a ratchet from the basement. Which means unlocking the house (for the fourth time). As I'm pulling the cable through the screw, it schwings (technical term) back and the nut goes flying.

5 minutes later, we find it in the grass and re-attach the brakes. Ok, finally ready to go (after re-filling the milk bottle).

Turns out that it's an incredibly windy day. Eve screams the whole way to Sobeys. The tires on the trailer are low, so are the other tires that I didn't pump up. Kathryn goes in to Sobeys to buy treats while I head over to the gas station. Woops - their air hose is broken.

By this time, all we want to do is get home. Eve is placated with Malteasers for most of the way home. She actually makes a happy sound at one point. We finally make it home, sore-assed.

Next time will be better????

(Author's note - this was only slightly exaggerated, but in the end, it was still a good time).

Poor Betty

I read in the paper today that Archie is going to propose to Veronica in an upcoming issue. Totally wrong choice Archie. My money's on Ronnie having an affair with Reggie the first time the jalopy breaks down. Betty would never do that.

The people that you meet each day!

Here are a couple of downtown sightings:

1) I waited in line at Sobey's behind Fidel Castro. Here's how I know it was him:

a) He had the beard

b) He was wearing a tracksuit

c) He looked sort of crazy
d) He was wearing a local union hat (how's that for socialism!)

2) The other day, I was on the bus downtown, sitting near the back. The guy several rows behind me kept muttering / yelling "Natural Born Killers! mumble mumble... Natural Born Killers". The bus was pretty empty, so I started to get scared for my life. I didn't want to turn around, since making eye contact would put me at the top of the list of victims once the killing spree started.

Luckily, my stop came soon enough. As I got off, I looked back to see what dude looked like. Turns out he had a cast on one leg and crutches. I felt a little silly, because I'm pretty sure I can outrun a knife-wielding man on crutches. But then again, Richard Kimble couldn't stop the one-armed man from murdering his wife.

New fave website

Ok, so I've been wasting a lot of time recently on Broken Picture Telephone:

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com

Basically, it's like that old telephone game you used to play as a kid. Only in this one, you either get some words and then have to draw a picture of the words, or you get a picture and have to write a description. As the website says, hilarity does often ensue.

My goal is to know enough people with accounts on the site to start some private games and have just people I know play them - so go sign up, and let me know your username. Mine is diids.

While you wait, some of my favorites:

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=1946
http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=72
http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=7093

Dharma terrorists

The other day, I had to take the courtesy shuttle from the VW dealer to work. (Long story involving Georgina and Matthew's car and their trip to Europe).

Anyway, the shuttle van was the new VW minivan. One of my fellow shuttle denizens started talking about how he owned one of those old VW mini-busses. I immediately thought about the vans the Dharma Initiative drives around on the island on Lost.

Then I got to thinking (because really, who wants to listen to some old man reminisce about his old car), that before Lost, VW busses made me think of the Lybian terrorists in Back to the Future.

Just another area where Lost has taken over everything I think about.

P.S. After I added the images, I noticed that the vans are very similar... maybe the Dharma Initiative is trying to buy plutonium from Doc Brown!

News banter

One thing that annoys me is news anchor banter to fill up the dead air at the end of a broadcast. Actually, I find it funny, especially if you watch it while thinking that the anchors hate eachother, but are forced to be nice on camera.

Anyway, last night, we caught the end of the CBC Edmonton news, and their feel-good story was about some people in Sweeden who made a life-size statue of Jesus out of Lego. At the end of the story, one of the anchors says "I'm sure that Jesus would love it".

I almost fell out of bed laughing....

On that vein, I wasted some time on youtube today watching news bloopers. Here are two of my favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0eINGyJHz8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6IvsSyhCaM

Some random thoughts

Just a quick post with some random things that have been bouncing in my head, but don't warrant a full post each.

1) I like our new iron, but only because it occasionally makes a noise like the smoke monster on Lost.

2) When you let the snowmen in your front yard melt, you don't have to clean up the carrots, but you do have to deal with rabbit poo.

3) How does Swiper the Fox snap his fingers so well while wearing gloves?

4) Dora thinks a funny face is just putting your hands on your cheeks.... lame. But it was enough the make the grumpy old troll (or trumpy old troll in our house) laugh.

P.S. can you guess what we watched at our house tonight?

Special Olympics

Shame on President Obama for making a politically incorrect joke!

(yeah right).

Really, I think you should only be offended if:
1) You are in the special olympics (or, more properly, paralympics)
2) You are related to somebody who fits #1
3) You have never, ever, called somebody "special", or "retarded"

And I guess that if you must pounce on the man for his offhand comments, then you must agree 100% with the first 20 minutes of economic policy.

Autobody shop

File this under strange observations:

I drove past an independent repair shop the other day and noticed that the parking lot was full of snow covered cars. This got me thinking that at every repair shop I've ever been to, or driven past, there are always the requisite broken, snow-covered cars in the lot.

Which makes me wonder:

1) Do autobody shops have a distributer, similar to restaurants, that supplies them with broken cars so that it looks like they have lots of work?
2) Who are the people who take their cars to the shop, but don't actually get them worked on for months? Did they max out the credit card on the towing charges?
3) Maybe it's the shop owner who buys smashed cars in hopes of restoring them when he has free time

Teenage Love

I had to take the earlier bus home today, which means that I have to share it with a bunch of high school kids. Usually, I just put on my mp3 player and tune them out - but I'm glad that I didn't today.

There were these two girls (Janelle and no-name) who were talking about some boy (because what else do girls talk about?). First of all, Janelle wanted to text him saying "Hiya my giraffe" (??) - but she had to be told by her friend how to spell giraffe 10 TIMES!

Ok, what-ev-er!

ANYWAY, she then proceeded to leave him the longest voicemail that I have ever heard. Here are my favourite snippets:

1) Even if you had 200 pimples on your face, I would kiss all of them, every last one, until there was pus all over my lips. That's how much I love you.

2) I love you until the end of time. And if that doesn't happen, then I'll love you for ever and ever, even in my grave, my heart will be pumping for you. Even though that means I'm not technically dead. My heart pumps just for you.... pump......................pump.................(wait for it)..........pump......................pump

Yes - there were 4 pumps there at the end - all in a high pitched voice, and about 20 seconds apart.

Which makes me wonder, when I was in high school, was I that stupid?

Nut man

I ran in to the Nut Man in the elevator at work today, and I came up with the following observation:

Is it always true that the Nut Man's appearance matches his job title?

I don't think I'd buy candy from a guy that looked as crazy as him.

You try to win, but you just can't win!

We spent a great weekend at my sister's house last weekend. Generally, these weekends involve two things:

1. Eating copious amounts of junk food
2. Me beating everyone at board games

I don't mean to brag (well, actually I do), but I seem to win a lot of the time when I play board games. Now - I'm not talking about your boring games that you played with your family growing up - we're into German-style games. Alex, my niece, even commented "why does Uncle David win all the time?"

Anyway, I thought about this and I think that there are several factors that influence my extreme prowess:

1. I played (and still play) a lot of video games.
2. I'm a computer programmer

Numbers 1 and 2 help me to hold a lot of crap in my head at once. But I think that the big reason is #3:

3. Growing up, I played a lot of games against myself.

Yes, sad but true. When your sisters are 6 and 8 years older than you, they are more interested in boys their age, and not the annoying little boy that lives in their house. I think I got so good at games because the only person who I could reliably find to play against was myself.

So take that Janine and Colleen - it's your fault that I win all the time!

It's a bird! It's a plane!

A few months ago, we were driving home, Kathryn and I saw an impressive shooting star. While it wasn't as impressive as the Edmonton Fireball, it was still pretty cool - and lasted for about 20 seconds or so.

Kathryn, (who immediately regretted it as soon as she opened her mouth) says to the girls "Look girls, a shooting star". Now, keep in mind that Emily can't find things in the house when they are on the floor directly in front of her.

Neither of the girls saw it before it burned up - cue the whines and cries. So Kathryn says "Oh no, I was wrong, it was just an airplane".

Rebecca ate it up, but Emily continued to snivel, pout and moan ("why do these things always happen to me").

Becca, in her meanest yelling voice, turns to Emily and says:

"EMILY! IT WASN'T A SHOOTING STAR. MOMMY SAID IT WAS JUST A PLANE!"

(and was probably calling her Triplet or Crank in her head)

No Birkenstocks please

So my new addiction is the pre-made Granola from Costco.

What's bad about this, is that I'll eat a small handfull, and then in a couple of minutes, I'll be right back at the container, scooping up another handful.

Of course, since I'm eating just a handfull at a time - it can't be bad for me, can it???

Hmm - well, the problem is - I will continue eating small handfulls long after the roof of my mouth is chewed to a pulp, and my teeth are aching from crunching it all... (or the container gets emptied... woops)