Worst Food Moment. Ever.

As part of a Pity Party event, we were asked to write about our worst food moment. The event I’ve selected might not actually be the worst of the worst, but how does one judge that anyway? Twelve year old me might argue that sneezing and having a piece of spaghetti come out my nose was traumatizing enough for a lifetime.  Twenty five year old me might point out the gourmet meal on a Valentine’s Day that was so rife with the beginning of the end of the relationship that it was just as heavy on my tongue as the butternut squash ravioli appetizer.

Instead, let’s talk about last year.  In July 2010 I made my experimental move from Vancouver, BC, Canada to Hayden, Rural-Ville, Alabama.  I am so far from the life I grew up with that it feels like a million miles some days.  The first few months were rough, to say the least.  The emotional fall-out from only seeing my parents and sister on Skype was far greater than I could have anticipated.  I’m the fearless adventurer and world traveler.  I can wash my socks in a hotel sink if I have to.  My pragmatic nature knew that this move would be trying, but the benefits of starting a life with the man I love would far outweigh my separation anxiety; my family was only going to be a “convenient” 7 hour plane ride away.  Too bad I forgot to tell that to my emotional nerve centers.

So, there I was, living the ideal of well matched romantic love and running around like a madwoman with my tear-ducts on a hair-trigger.  I wanted my Mommy.  I decided that the only way to cure what ailed me was to make her Baking Powder Biscuits.  These biscuits are a magical cure-all.  Nothing can be wrong in the world for as long as the basket of delicious flaky hot morsels in front of you lasts.  (Albeit they don’t last long.)  These are the biscuits everyone asks for, and they all take seconds.  I have been known to fill the pockets of my house coat with these same little pieces of wonder, but that is another story.

I knew my homesickness could easily be resolved once I had the recipe.  After phoning Mom to get it I should have been concerned when it included directions like: “four heaping teaspoons of baking powder, more or less, I eyeball it” and then the milk “about a cup, adjust it to use as much as it needs”.  But I was on a mission.  I could have been in the Blues Brothers movie.  I could already taste the mouth-watering goodness of the finished product as I mixed the dough.

I like to think that my skills with both pastry and written directions are quite good.  I was more than a little traumatized when my buttery blankets of biscuit love came out more like horrible hockey pucks of hate.  It was the physical embodiment of the emotional reality of leaving home for good.  Both literally and figuratively hard to swallow.  Just like the giant lump of homesickness, these biscuits were impossible to wash down.

The next three attempts at those biscuits were all failures of other varying degrees of insult to my culinary abilities and emotional well-being.  What I have learned since that devastating night is that climate can make a difference in cooking, so can using a flour made entirely of winter wheat.  I have learned that failure in cooking just means you learn to try something different the next time.  As for the rest?  The homesickness has lessened, my family has been down to visit, and when I finally get my green card in about 3 weeks I’ll be able to go back for a vacation with them.  I was unsure whether I wanted to make another attempt at them, but writing this post motivated me.  As of yesterday night, I have been in Baking Powder Biscuit heaven.  Finally, success.

Biscuits = awesome, pictures late at night = fail

Sweet Christmas Finds

For those with moms or wee-ones in their lives this Christmas, this page is a must see!

Cool Mom Tech

when we were young?

Does anyone else remember the Tupperware party?  Or more specifically, does anyone else remember laying on your stomach under a chair and watching your older female family members and their friends having Tupperware parties when you were 5?

I remember these parties.  I remember the miniature mixing bowl with lid key chains that were part of the gifts to people who attended the party.  I remember the lady who came over to host the party, and how she wore too much perfume.

Mostly, though, it’s the Tupperware itself.  Part of the institution of my childhood.  How you could open any cupboard in my grandmother’s kitchen and find something made by Tupperware.  Then the sense of community years later when we all laughed at the joke about “Dead Sea Tupperware” in Disney’s Aladdin.

I have never been invited to a Tupperware party.  My mother hasn’t hosted one since I was 6.  I’d almost forgotten about Tupperware because I haven’t seen anything new in years, and all I ever bought for myself was the cheap Glad stuff that you don’t cry about when people forget to bring it back.

Today I organized our cupboards.  I discovered that we have a little Tupperware.  Though apparently less than we used to have because of people not bringing it back.  I’ve instituted a strict policy for any future events where there are leftovers handed out.  We’re only giving out the Glad stuff.

This is because of one dish, which led me on a journey to the Tupperware website.  I want to own a lot of Tupperware now.  I strongly believe that it’s in the ovaries, or my uterus, or my genetic code to want Tupperware.  But there are two obstacles to my dream.

1) I’m afraid to.  Because of the dish.

The dish in question is a microwave steam bowl set, the hard plastic kind.  The kind that used to work so well it was almost magical.  Until someone put the lid on to a hot stove eye.  Now it’s the kind of dish that has a nice swirly pattern melted in to the top.  Part of the lid has caved in and cracked.  The dish is useless as a steamer, no more mystically perfect vegetables.  The bottom of the dish has also, clearly, been too close to the heat on a couple of other occasions judging by the warped bubbles on its side.  I’m fairly certain none of this is covered by warranty because I’m going to hazard to guess that testing out hot the stove is doesn’t fall under the parameters of “normal use”.

Which brings us to the second obstacle.

2) Chris doesn’t have enough spare parts.

After spending 45 minutes drooling about the containers and storage sets that would make my life complete I spent another 20 minutes trying to sort out which organs Chris doesn’t really need so that I can sell them on the black market so I can afford some Tupperware.  Even to replace the sad shell of a formerly glorious dish would cost about $120.  I won’t bother trying to figure out how much of the equity on our house I could sink in to buying everything else.

Ultimately this has led me to the following conclusion: Glad might not be Tupperware, but I can buy it in at least 4 different colours, a multitude of sizes, and best of all: I’m never going to cry about it.

It’s not so bad if it’s not all at once…

I spent more time than I should have this morning agonizing over whether to sell off another piece of my humanity and sign up for Twitter.  (Agonizing implies more thought went in to the decision though, it was more like staring blankly at the screen and the “create” button until I realized there wasn’t really any reason not to push it).

What I’m really feeling now though is the guilt of the letter-writer over opening myself to another form of electronic media.  I like writing letters.  I like getting letters in the mail, and no, bills do not count.  I like the texture of really high quality paper.  I have a fountain pen collection.  Facebook, Twitter, Blogging…  I think I’m having social-networking buyers remorse.

Do I really want to tell everyone what I’m doing in real-time?

Yep.  Rather fits with the whole princess thing and the fact that I never grew out of that 3-year-old-child-frantically-waving-arms assertion of “look at me!!”.

Wear the hat…

I have a hat from Cracker Barrel.  (Previously mentioned as being the devil’s own restaurant with food that is designed to fill up my already jiggly fat cells.)  This hat is in celebration of the Auburn Tigers.  Who’s other mascot is the War Eagle.


I’m supposed to cheer for them, though, personal allegiances aside, I think I’d cheer for them anyway simply based on the sheer stupefying number of terrible drivers on the I-65 who have decorative Alabama Roll Tide licence plate holders.  Anyone that bad at merging is not someone I want to be cheering with.


College football…. College football?… Yep.  Most of the people cheering didn’t go to the college or university they cheer for.  Boggles the mind.

Let’s not talk about hockey.

Something I miss right now

Stars

Sometimes it’s the little things that suddenly occur to you.  I haven’t seen a full night sky in a month and a half now.

There is nothing better than laying out on a blanket on the lawn, with the one you love, a cup of hot coffee, and watching the stars.

*sigh*

Cranky-pants City Girl

It is both sunny and lovely outside.  I have been in the sun today.  I have driven around in it.  I nearly blinded myself turning a corner because the lovely sunshine happened to catch my ring just so and it flashed right in my eye and then I had to drive around with that annoying little blue circle in your field of vision thing.  I feel sheepish about my bling, but apparently it’s how things are done in the south.  My suggestion that we return it and, say, buy a car instead was met with vehement opposition.  Since I can’t beat him at this game I’ve taken to secretly prancing about the house imagining that I’m Marylin Monroe and singing “diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.  Guess it’s not so secret now.  As a complete aside, I love all those old musical movies.  *sigh*


In this sunshiny happy day weather I have had yet another illustration of why I’m not always laid back about city life.  I don’t think you can grow up surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people and retain much feeling of privacy beyond that pervasive anonymity that comes with the stranger-ness culture of big cities.  Do you know your neighbours?  Arguably, most people who live in the city do not, and if by chance you do know them, it is as passing acquaintances, not much more.  We are all relatively speaking, strangers (maybe even in a strange land).


My gripe is that the crazy bat landlady (she really is a little dotty… and very curmudgeon-y) sent over a landscaper to hack down the “noxious” blackberry bushes at the far back of the yard.  I’m not sure who they bother, being that we live on a back road kind of street and there’s an unoccupied house on one side between us and the condos down the street, and on the other side there’s an auto-body shop.  Maybe cars don’t like blackberries.  At any rate the bushes had to go.  Sadly, she hired an overcharging incompetent ass to do the job for her.  First he attempted to bond with me over how the neighbourhood is crummy… until he realized I live here.  Then he proceeded to tell me that there was no way for him to preserve the vines that grow over the back fence and afford us a modicum of isolation from the alley like street behind the house.  He’d had to cut them down because the blackberry bushes had to go.  I’m reasonably sure, being that we’ve managed to do the job ourselves in previous years with a minimum of effort, that what he actually meant to say was “it would have taken me an extra five minutes that I didn’t feel like spending in order to save the vines”.  Insert several bullshit excuses after his original statement and I simply turn and walk away to go inside before saying something I would not regret but may have to pay for later.


Why the attachment to these little vines… They aren’t flowering, they aren’t ruffled leaf ivy… I think it’s just the idea that rather than have every looky-loo moron stare in to the yard I could actually be outside with a slight degree of privacy.  I love the convenience of living in a city, but I’m tired of 75% of the idiots who live in it with me.  I mean the kind of people that have to slow down to look at accidents that aren’t obstructing the flow of traffic in their lane at all, and thereby become obstructions themselves.  The kind of people who don’t know how to merge on to a freeway at speed.  The kind of people who seem to firmly believe that it is their God-given duty to ensure that they enforce their opinions and beliefs and prissy organization on everyone else.  I’m tired of the way my city seems to enjoy using taxpayer dollars to legislate mindless busywork.  Maybe this is all just a bitter rant against people with upper middle class pretensions who aren’t capable of 5 minutes of logical thought let alone displaying any degree of common sense.


My plan to solve this: moving from a city of about 60 thousand people to one with about 600 people.  Say hello to four acres outside a small town still within convenient driving distance of a big city.  “Hello four acres… How do I love thee? I can not even count all the ways…”

Buttery buttery death…

I’m from the west coast of Canada.  I like sushi, and sashimi, and all kinds of ethnic cuisine.  I eat vegetables, and if I can find the picture I will post the most epic salad I ever made.  It was a salad to make angels weep.  Well, it was really really yummy anyway.  I didn’t know you could make vegetables unhealthy with as much flair as the south does with their deep fried okra or meat and butter covered turnip greens.  Greenbeans are not meant to be battered and fried.

I know that my love of asparagus and my acceptance of all forms of squash and even brussel sprouts sets me aside as somewhat of an anomaly.  I am a carnivore, but I will actively seek out things like portobello mushroom burgers with caramelized onions and basil aoli.

I can cook some of those things.  Promise you won’t tell PC that I can weild a mixmaster and that I have a weakness for french stoneware and castiron frying pans.

That said, the south is trying to kill me.  I think that Paula Dean became a renowned chef for the express purpose of slowly drowning my body in cells filled with the buttery cheesy creamy goodness of her evil magical southern cooking.  Cracker Barrel is the devils own restaurant.  Eating my wild rice and chicken with spinach for lunch I found myself pining for chicken and dumplings and a bowl of hushpuppies.

Catfish is not a suitable replacement for salmon.  Nothing else can be grilled wild salmon. Mmmm…. But Top Hat’s pulled barbeque pork can’t really be replaced either.  I’m not even sure we should talk about biscuits.  How I wait anxiously for PC to pull them out of the oven when he makes a batch like his Maw-maw used to make for him.  I’ve even eaten them covered in gravy and pepper.  I have consumed those biscuits as a meal.  A carb covered carb filled meal with minimal fibre content and no protein.  Of course I’ve also developped an unhealthy attachment to Chik-fil-a.  I have plans for PC to fill his cary-on luggage with sammiches for me.  It’s an illness.

Maybe it’s a good thing we have months and months of paperwork ahead of us cause I’m pretty sure I’m going to weigh about 500lbs when I actually move there. 

More Facebook Doom, and why the LDR

OK, I may be exaggerating… slightly… But only a very little bit.


Charming and I try to communicate as often as possible.  We actually have a running tradition of daily Skype chats.  It’s  been months since the last day we didn’t “see” each other.  Skype is a wonderful terrible thing.  On one hand, it’s just nice to be able to look at the person you’re talking to, body language and facial expression add so much depth to a conversation.  I like to think that PC and I are good at communicating; we have a rule about talking problems out and we don’t sleep angry, we talk about everything.  Before we started using Skype there were numerous times that things were misread and misinterpreted over emails and Facebook, even, in the early days (before he’d completely caught on to my special brand of dry humour) when we talked on the phone.  Skype has definitely made it easier to have the kind of conversations we’ve become accustomed to having when we’re physically together.


On the other hand, Skype makes that sometimes gut wrenching distance all the more tangible.  This may sound slightly melodramatic, but unless you’ve been in a long distance relationship, or apart from your soul-mate for an extended period of time, you don’t know the emotional roller-coaster that separation can be.  I’m not sure I can explain what it feels like to have your heart broken and mended over and over.  There’s the elation of having met the one person you don’t ever want to do without, and then the set down of the actual distance that separates you.  There’s something bittersweet in saying goodnight over Skype; seeing that dear face so closely that your fingertips ache to brush along the stubble there at the edge of his jaw because you remember what that feels like but knowing that there is no way to reach through the miles of fiber optics and pixels and packets that stand between that ingrained memory and the image before you.  Sometimes that knowledge burns, just a little.


Right about now I’m sure you’re wondering why anyone in their right mind would ever willingly participate in a long distance relationship.  Love, of course, is the only answer.  Not little “l” love, I mean big “L” LOVE.  The kind of love that you stopped believing existed at right about the same time you realized that most of the men you’ve known or dated couldn’t find chivalry in the dictionary let alone act in that way.  Not only was that frog not a prince, he also: prioritized work over life, or liked long legs more than intelligence, or wanted convenience more than substance, or enjoyed the conquest more than the acquisition, or thought you would pick up where his mother had left off.  These frogs were in love with their idea of you, not who you actually were or who you could become.  Gradually, so much so that you didn’t even realize you were doing it, you hardened a little, and learned to forgive a little slower, and trusted a little bit less, and that idea of real Romantic Love faded just a bit, until one day you didn’t believe it existed at all.  Love at first sight was just Lust.  You could recite all the chemical reactions and hormones that go towards promoting attraction and you could chalk everything up to the primal need to procreate.  You blamed the whole crazy mess on pheromones.  The fluffy emotional stuff was just something contrived to make it easier to commercialize the process and tie people down into monogamous relationships that no one was really ever happy with.  Valentines day was a farce, the men you dated were all relieved that you expected nothing, if they even remembered or recognized the date at all.  You were good at saying goodbye without jealousy or false attachment because no one even came close to connecting with your true self.  You weren’t cold, your feelings were just strongly mediated by your capacity for blunt logic.  You had perfected the art of being emotionally detached.


The fact that all my years of becoming jaded and skeptical are continually being disproved is reason enough for me to stay in this sometimes difficult relationship.  That I have completely fallen in to that kind of LOVE I stopped believing in, is almost more of a gift than I know how to be thankful for.  It’s the kind of love that makes up for all the wrongs of past relationships.  I don’t regret anything along the road that brought me here because the person I am is so much more appreciative of what I have with PC than I would have been at 18, or 21, or 24, or 27.  I don’t think I’ve ever elected to learn my lessons the easy way, and Love has certainly been one of the more trying ones.  I’m still working on patience… daily…


So, I have that kind of Love that sometimes feels like an ache in the middle of your chest because you have all this feeling and raw emotion and excess of happiness that you haven’t really learned how to express.  That bone deep longing to just be near the person who loves you back in that same way.  Your soul striving towards another soul that answers it perfectly.  I say again, seeing him and not being able to touch him sometimes feels like more than I can really manage.  Our relationship is anything but convenient, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.


While we’re apart we try to do things online that we can do together, or at least to occupy some of the time that we aren’t deep in conversation about, well, everything.  Today we encountered the most amazing and terrifying time sucking worm-hole of an online game (see, I got to the point, eventually, though I think it’s only because I’m down to my last 2/3 cup of coffee… I’m out of grounds.. aagh!).  This game is on Facebook, no, not Farm Ville or some other accursed  Zynga thing.  Noooooo, it’s a game where you have your own little island of people, like Sims, who are all working to get off the island, I think.  I’m not actually sure what they’re hoping to accomplish, but I feel compelled to help them along.  We talked and played this damn game for an hour and a half.  We named our islanders after ourselves and people we know.  We did little quests to make them clothes and feed them.  We got excited when they learned new skills or finished a goal.  It’s like having a whole island of little puppies eager to learn new tricks, only you don’t have to clean up after them and you can just close the browser window when you don’t feel like playing.  But of course you don’t because what if some new treasure appears and you’re not there to click it.  Or what if your little tribe people need something, and you’re not there to tell them to make it, or pick it, or plant it.  They need direction, and supervision.  I can’t stop watching.  I keep going back to check on them.  Someone needs to stop me… please… *whimper*

I say "aboot" as often as you say "tomater"

Everything sounds so much better when you say it with an accent.


This is why even companies that make bubble gum use them to convince us that their product is sooooo much better and will not taste like dry flavourless shoe leather in 5 minutes like that other nasty gum not being sold by people with delightful and trustworthy accents.


So, when Prince Charming (more on why I call him that later) tells me that something is “going to be just fine” I have a very hard time saying otherwise.  His sweet southern accent makes me want to believe everything he says.  When we’re actually nearer than 2500 miles I sometimes find that I have no idea what he’s actually speaking about because I’ve gone all goggle-eyed and I may be drooling just a little simply listening to the cadence of his voice.  It is wonderfully soothing but he can make my insides do flips when he pitches it down just a notch and gives it a bit of a rumble in the undertones.  Dear man that he is, he’s indulged me in such unmanly ways with that timbre (but more on that later too).


His voice is my kryptonite.


We don’t argue much at all, though we do often disagree… especially on politics… But when we do argue I find it completely frustratingly impossible to stay upset.  I’m done for when he says “Baby”, I completely loose my train of thought and wonder what I was arguing for in the first place.  I have the terrifying premonition that not only will this have devastating consequences for my future ability to be a bossy short angry Canadian, but it may also be very detrimental to my innate desire to win.  I dread the thought that I may be completely crippled and converted into a quivering mass of maternal instinct by the accents of any future progeny….  I’m doomed.