Parenting

Going Overboard

/ Robinne Weiss / 1 Comment

I know people for whom to spend half an hour preparing dinner is an unthinkable chore.

I don’t understand those people.

Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the got-home-late-from-some-after-school-activity sort of feeling. The days when we know we’ll be coming in late and hungry, I pull something out of the freezer that needs only a few minutes in the microwave.

But on ‘normal’ days, making dinner is a way to make every day special. If it takes an hour to do that, who cares? An hour spent nurturing my family is an hour well-spent, in my mind. And if, some days, that hour expands to two or three…well, I at least make sure on those days I’m making enough to put a meal or two in the freezer for when I need an instant meal.

I also don’t mind going overboard now and again on dinner, because our family has a culture of food appreciation. From an early age, the kids learned to appreciate new flavours, interesting textures, and the culinary effort it takes to create a meal. If I spend two hours making dinner, I know the people who eat it will appreciate the extra effort. I know they will recognise it as one of the ways I show my love for them–a culinary hug. As teenagers, they resist real hugs, but they love a good culinary hug. It’s not just conditioning that they thank the cook at each meal–they actually mean it.

So if I go a bit overboard sometimes…well, you can never have too many culinary hugs.

Taking Life Seriously

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These hands were made for walkin’

Life is full of serious stuff. Hard work, difficult decisions, earthquakes, fires, death, politicians, lawyers, and accountants…it’s easy to be overwhelmed by it all, and to walk through life with a frown.

So I’m thankful for those who can show us the proper way to take ourselves seriously…

Like the fellow in front of me at Farmlands this morning, who was buying fence posts.

“Anything else?” the clerk asked.

“Yeah, I’d like matching holes to put them in.”

Or the man I once caught stealing a marker flag off a research site. Surprised in the act of untying the flag from the tree, he smiled impishly, shrugged, tied it back on and walked off.

Or the awesome women I see around town with their hair dyed fuchsia, peacock blue, or lime green.

So, In an effort to take life as seriously as these leaders in the field, I’ve decided to tackle an issue that has bothered me for many years.

Handstands.

Yep. The important issue of our time–our orientational and gravitational challenges.

Oh, I can do handstands, and I can walk on my hands for half a dozen steps, but I lack control and finesse upside down. It bothers me that I can’t just stay on my hands for as long as I want, like I do on my feet. Eventually, I lose my balance. That shouldn’t happen. I should be able to remain in a handstand long enough to sing every last verse of Ratlin Bog. Long enough to read the entire front page of the New York Times (which would probably seem much less serious from that perspective). Long enough to do the bunny hop around the room. Long enough to thoroughly embarrass both my teenage children. Long enough that they deny they’re related to me, or that they’ve ever even met me.

So if you find me upside down at odd hours of day and night, please understand I’m just doing my best to take life seriously.

Technological Stress Relief

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Our smoke-red sky

Our smoke-red sky

It’s been a tense day here. For those who don’t pay attention to the New Zealand news (I don’t blame you–one of the top stories today was that a police officer in Queenstown pulled a plastic cup off of a hedgehog who was stuck in it), there have been two bush fires burning in the Port Hills, just outside of Christchurch for the past two days. We’ve been able to see the flames from our house 30 km away–they’re serious fires. Yesterday I worked at a library not far from where the fires were burning, and watched as helicopters with monsoon buckets circled.

Today the wind shifted and is pushing the fire toward the city. As evacuation orders started coming in, my kids were somewhere on a bus, caught up in a snarl of traffic. People fleeing the flames, people trying to get back to their homes from work, people coming to see the spectacle of the hills above town on fire–it was pretty chaotic.

I was safely at home, watching the smoke plume burgeon, listening to the radio. It all felt so familiar–a natural disaster, and I was in one place, and the people I love were in another. We’ve been here before.

The difference was that this time, all four of us own cell phones. Last time, we didn’t know the status of our loved ones until we actually saw them. This time, I knew pretty well where everyone was all afternoon.

It didn’t stop me from worrying–my kids were still too close to the fire and too far from me for comfort–but it prevented me from envisioning the worst.

I admit, there are times when I want to say to at least one of my children (or to myself), “Put down the phone!” But the trade-off of being able to communicate with them on days like today is worth it.

I’ve been accused of being a Luddite, and the accusation has some merit–I don’t like technology for technology’s sake. New technology tends to stress me out. But I certainly appreciated it today–it relieved a great deal of stress.

Cake #2 of Crazy Cake Season

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img_3078He asked for a cube. Said I could decorate it however I wanted to. My first thought was to create a building (because he’s keen on architecture) but, truth is, a cubical building just looks wrong. Then I thought a Rubix cube or Lego block would be cute…but dreadfully boring to make. I wanted to create something unexpected, something not meant to be cubical. And I wanted an excuse to play with more Mexican paste.

So, inspired by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, I created Cubeworld. Instead of elephants holding it up, there is a dragon holding it down…or something.

Along the way, I learned more about Mexican paste (or maybe I learned more about my sculpting skills…). Creating largish shapes with it is easy–it’s lovely to work with–but fashioning tiny animals was almost impossible (again, probably my skill here, not the Mexican paste at fault). I tried to make the dragon smaller, in keeping with the scale of the other parts of the scene, but I just couldn’t manage the tiny spikes and other sculptural details needed. And the longer I fussed with it, the drier it got, until the thin parts started crumbling. I just couldn’t work fast enough at a tiny scale.

In hindsight, it would have been good to practise with modelling clay or plasticine until I could form the dragon quickly.

Despite its limitations, the Mexican paste was, again, fun to play with, and was able to do things icing just can’t do.

 

Salty Pretzels, Shiny Pots

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img_3057I love soft pretzels. If I had an unlimited supply of them, I’m certain I would simply eat them until I was sick. So it’s a really good thing they’re basically not available in New Zealand.

They’re easy to make, though, and the kids enjoy shaping them. We make them with some regularity, usually timed so that they’re coming out of the oven at lunchtime. Served with dill pickles, mustard, and a good sharp cheese, they make an excellent meal (if a bit salty).

I love these pretzel meals, but even after the pretzels are gone, they leave a lasting bonus.

A shiny pot.

Boiling the pretzels in a baking soda/water mixture loosens all the burnt-on oil from my cooking pots. You know, all those dark spots you chalk up to ‘patina’ because they’re a real pain to wash off. Loosened by the baking soda, they lift right off when you wash the pretzel-boiling pot.

I learned this years ago, and regularly boil water and baking soda in my pots to get them nice and clean. But I never have the patience to boil it long enough–by making pretzels in the baking soda mixture, I leave it boiling long enough to lift the stains.

Pots looking dingy? Maybe it’s time to make pretzels!

Crazy Cake Season Begins!

/ Robinne Weiss / 3 Comments

2017-01-26-21-49-17-smWoo hoo! My favourite time of year–the time when I have lots of excuses to make ridiculous cakes–has begun with the daughter’s birthday.

I like to try new cake decorating techniques, and this year I’m using Mexican paste. It’s surprisingly easy to make and to work with, if you don’t mind remortgaging your house to pay for the gum tragacanth that gives it the right texture. I expect the stuff is dirt-cheap elsewhere in the world, but here the price was shocking (about $10 per tablespoon).

Great fun to work with, though. I’ve already gotten my money’s worth in entertainment.

Combine 227 g (8 oz) icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar) and 1 Tbsp (15ml) gum tragacanth in a bowl. Add 2 Tbsp water. Stir until it becomes crumbly and damp. Turn out of the bowl and knead until pliable. Place in a plastic bag and leave at room temperature for 12 hours until firm. When you’re ready to use it, break off a small piece and knead until softened.

The paste can be moulded into shapes, or rolled thin and cut with cookie cutters. It works a lot like modelling clay, though it tends to stick. I rolled mine out on a non-stick baking sheet, and would have appreciated a non-stick rolling pin, too, but with care I managed with an ordinary wooden rolling pin. I picked up a cheap set of fondant shaping tools that proved very helpful for producing the shapes I wanted.

After you’ve made your shapes, you need to let them dry and harden for about 24 hours. Then they can be painted with paste food colouring thinned with gin. You can also knead food colouring into the paste.

Once the paste hardens it is quite tough, but thin pieces are brittle (reminds me of unfired ceramics). I didn’t plan very well for my leaf and flower stems. I made the leaves and flowers, and only considered what I was going to use for stems after they’d dried. In hindsight, I should have attached the stems while the paste was still pliable. Nothing a little gingerbread icing, used as glue, couldn’t fix.

So, where was all this sugary sculpture heading?

My brief was an alpine scene atop chocolate cake.

Homemade Gifts

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100_2135smMy daughter’s birthday is fast approaching, and I still felt I hadn’t come up with a gift idea that was truly from me. I have often made special things for the kids for their birthdays, but they don’t always go over as I’d wish. Three years ago, I made her this awesome jeans jacket. I found an okay commercial pattern and modified it to fit my daughter’s tastes and frame. I spent ages searching for the perfect cool hardware bits to decorate the front. Then I had to order a zip from overseas, because I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted in country (because it had to match the hardware, of course). In the end, I was quite pleased with the results.

She has never worn the jacket. Not once. Not even for a few minutes.

The same thing happened with the skirt I made her four years ago (because the girl needed something other than shorts and T-shirts to wear). She’s worn the skirt…once or twice when I forced her to wear it to a formal occasion, and every time it’s led to tears.

That’s okay. It really doesn’t bother me. I had a blast making every homemade gift I’ve given the kids. If the kids don’t like them, I know that I’ll be able to give them to someone else who will. And some of them have gone over extremely well (all the stuffed animals, the jerseys and parkas, the zip-off pants, the slippers, the fuzzy bathrobes, the wizard costumes…).

I’ve received my fair share of awkward and excellent homemade gifts from the kids too. Because we all give and receive homemade gifts, we all understand and appreciate the time and love that went into each item, even if we wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it. It makes each gift special, regardless of what the item actually is.

And we learn from past mistakes.

This year, the homemade gift my daughter will receive is something I’m pretty certain she’ll appreciate and use–a list of 500 writing prompts, written just for her and categorised by genre. As usual, I’m having a fabulous time making it, and if she doesn’t end up using it, I expect to find it handy, myself.

How is a Teenager Like a Shed?

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2016-01-12 08.31.38 smI used to do creativity exercises with my university students. One of the activities was called ‘Forced Analogy’–take two random objects/ideas and come up with ways they are alike.

The exercise forces you to think in strange ways, and to examine the fundamental nature of each thing.

Using a handy online random word generator, I gave myself the following challenge today: How is a teenager like a shed?

  1. There are lots of different types of shed and teen, and each type is good at different things.
  2. A teenager, like a shed, can be gussied up. You can make it look nice on the outside, but inside it will always be a mess.
  3. You may know for certain you’ve put something into the shed (or the teen), but once in there, it’s lost forever.
  4. Keeping your shed and your teenager organised are both impossible.
  5. Sometimes, you find the most surprising things inside–a long-lost treasure, or something you never knew was there.
  6. Occasionally, both smell like dead rats.
  7. Neither one will ever thank you for cleaning.
  8. Both require regular maintenance.
  9. You can learn a lot about a family by closely observing their shed…or their teen.
  10. Everyone expects them to have a few blemishes.
  11. They tend to accumulate rubbish.
  12. After having one for a while, it’s hard to imagine life without one.

Proof We’re Lame

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A boat shed in Duvauchelle

A boat shed in Duvauchelle

It was Mum and Dad’s annual day out today. We dropped the kids off at summer camp in the morning, then had the whole day together with no other obligations.

Yeah! Party time!

Or not.

We brought our wetsuits and snorkels, thinking we might do some snorkelling…

But it was cloudy and chilly.

We drove into Akaroa to visit a couple of art galleries and have lunch on the waterfront…

But a cruise ship had just disgorged 2,000 tourists into the town, and it was so crowded, we left.

We ended up having toasties, chips, and a beer on the deck at the pub in Duvauchelle, watching the wading birds and a luckless pair of hitchhikers. Then we went for a short walk and came home.

Lame, lame, lame.

It was a lovely day, but we could have done all that with the kids. In fact, our summer outings with the kids are usually more exciting than that.

Truth is, I wasn’t surprised. It happens most every year. We have a week with no kids in the house, and what do we do? We go to work, we weed the garden and mow the lawn. Sometimes we might go so far as to rent a movie.

No all-night dancing, no dinners out—just the normal routine, with less washing up needed afterward.

Is that lame? Perhaps. I like to think of it as an indication that our daily life is pretty darned good. I like to think of it as an indication that we enjoy spending time with our kids, and our kids don’t stop us from doing the things we enjoy.

So tomorrow, I’ll have a nice long work day (I have lots of editing to do!), and when my husband comes home from work, we’ll make a delicious dinner. We’ll spend the evening sitting on the couch reading, and then we’ll do it all again the next day. Not really too hard to take.

 

Poem on Moose

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What happens when I let my daughter decorate Christmas cookies.

What happens when I let my daughter decorate Christmas cookies.

Literary ungulate
In gingerbread.

This poem is either
On a moose,
Or on moose,
Or both.

Your palmate antlers,
Distinctive,
Tell me you’re a bull.
They beg to be bitten off.

Then you would be a cow
Only your drooping nose
And your beard
Giving away your moosy nature.

But why a poem
On a moose
(Or on moose)?

I do not recommend
Writing poems on moose
(or is it mooses?)
Unless they are of the gingerbread variety.
The icing tickles
And moose (meece?) snort when they laugh.

But if you try,
I suggest a stepladder.