TV is Not a Dirty Word

Like many people, I have a conflicted relationship with television. I have a fond memory of my dad climbing on the roof to adjust the antenna when I, waiting for The Friendly Giant to come into view, spotted a bear in the orchard. And I recall being quite excited for Sunday night's Disney hour-long specials such as the memorable Flight of the Navigator. I loved MASH and Monty Python for periods of my teen years and then I went without TV for many years, pretty much the entire run of Seinfeld and the first six years of Survivor. I was busy living large with few possessions and even less income; TV was the last thing on my mind.

It wasn't until I settled in my current city with my now-husband that we got our first TV off craigslist. My parents gave us their old VHS player and we'd rent video tapes from the library. (And yes, I realize just how very out of date that sounds now, eight years later, but imagine how peculiar it will sound to our kids in another eight!)

With those new-to-us technological advances I watched the entire series of Blackadder. It wasn't the first time I'd seen the show but I fell completely in love with the series and still give it top three ranking today. It was around this time that the current TV comeback was picking up momentum thanks to shows like The Wire and Six Feet Under. These programs were proving that shows could be better than movies, offering more in terms of character development and plot lines.

Here is a list of the shows I've watched in the past decade that I enjoyed, loosely organized chronologically.

• Deadwood
• Carnivale
• Life
• Californication
• Mad Men
• Breaking Bad
• Game of Thrones
• Sherlock
• Boardwalk Empire
• Downton Abbey
• Wallander
• The Hour
• Parade's End
• Black Mirror

You can see I've been on a BBC kick the last while (Thanks Dad).

Oh, and just for the sake of it: my top three TV shows of all time are Wallander, The Wire, and Blackadder.

Excuses, Excuses

I've got a few excuses for not blogging lately. Whether or not they are good excuses I'll leave up to you.

First of all, my longtime friend, sometimes client, and newly certified massage therapist, Dana Smith, has begun publishing her own blog, The Anatomy of Touch, in which she explores the quirky workings of the human body and the benefits of massage and various other roads to wellness. Her website is also hot off the press and these two projects display not only my newly acquired html code-writing skills as well as my editorial consulting skills (much to the detriment of my own blog).

Then it was Christmas - merry and bright and full of family, toys, treats, a little snow, and a week of night terrors. (As soon as I learned to handle them, in other words, to not handle my boy as he was going through it, but to simply standby, they disappeared). And then we all got sick (see previous post for the play by play on that one). So here I am to report, in photographic detail, on these events.

There's not much left of our snowman now but a few arms, buttons, and hair (sticks, rocks, and ivy).

The carousel at the Vancouver Christmas Market was a big hit as were the waffles on a stick.

Bennett's first fishy encounter.

Our annual visit to the aquarium.

Playing with his cousin's new Christmas present.

Grandpa is the best stroller driver: he aims for the icebergs!

An icy day for a bike ride on the Richmond dyke.

Hot baths aplenty.

Midweek in January, Granville Island is essentially a ghost town with buskers.

Third attempt at ice skating and he's only holding one hand!

A rainy day hike in Lynn Valley after which we all came down with terrible colds. 

Season of The Soup

We've all been there. My family of four has had the displeasure (and discomfort) of having just been there last week. We've been in the land of the sick. Congested, coughing, and sneezing with only soup, lemon n honey's, trucks and trains, and BBC's "Parade's End" to get us through it.

My soup season began with an old standby, Green Soup:

Next I made this pureed cauliflower soup from Vegan in the Freezer. Next time I'll try a version where the cauliflower and garlic are roasted for more flavour.

Most recently, I made a version of slow cooker "nutrient dense" chicken soup based on this recipe from Paleo Infused Nutrition but with more veg and noodles:

And though, according to The NY Times, the data is inconclusive on whether or not one should take in more fluids when suffering from a cold, we've decimated the tea cupboard and burned through honey, lemons, and ginger. 

The aforementioned trucks and trains (most of which were new additions at Christmas) have been a source of entertainment for our boys during these days of runny noses and ugly weather. The back edge of our sectional sofa has never seen so much traffic and the coffee table has been transformed into a bustling train station whose hours of operation perfectly coincide with the boys' bedtime. 

Today, we are officially over the worst of it and I have the best intentions for tomorrow. We will be out of pajamas by 8:30am and I plan to venture out into public after my husband heads back to work. The only downside of our recovery is that along with our tea supply we've also plowed through all five remarkable episodes of the BBC's "Parade's End". A return to regular life would seem dreary after our evenings spent in Ford Maddox Ford's parade if we weren't so thankful to have our nasal passages back in working order. 

All I Want for Christmas...

A waterproof picnic blanket in a bold and/or retro pattern like these from Portland's PoBa.

A gift certificate to any upstanding stationery store such as The Regional Assembly of Text or Buchan's.

I'll take any number and any combination of these mugs from Dahlhaus Ceramics. I have never coveted pottery like this before; it makes my heart ache. Available at Shiny Fuzzy Muddy Dec 8 & 9 at Heritage Hall on Main St.

A gift certificate with Victory Gardens to help me spend the $100 I need to get a free consultation to better plan and expedite my garden next spring.

A gift certificate to any of these Vancouver restaurants that I've been wanting to visit: Wildebeest, The Acorn, or Fray.

A gift certificate towards having my couch cleaned by Roya's Carpet Care because they have the best reviews on Yelp and decent prices, they use eco-friendly products, and I want my once-beige couch to look as pristine as the one in the picture on their website (see above). Baby drool begone!

OR:

Tickets to a show of any kind (concert, ballet, theatre, etc)

Pedicure gift certificate

Books on local history
Smartwool socks

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas: a Retrospective How-To

There is the "kick-start the holidays" Christmas party, the Hanukkah party, the solstice party, the apres-ski  party, the gift exchange with friends, the work Christmas party, the school or church pageant, the neighborhood party, the gift exchange with extended family, the Christmas Eve dinner, the Christmas day brunch and the ensuing feast, the Boxing Day dinner, the leftovers meal, the holiday card night with friends, and the New Year's Party - Did I forget any?

Oh yes, the online Skype party with distant loved ones! Nuts. That one was hard to remember as I didn't turn on my computer much over the big weekend this year. Hopefully an interim weeknight call will make up for it!

From someone who successfully attended or hosted many of these events, my advice would be do them all (unless you're under the weather then by all means stay home with your germs and a good book)! To keep the stress levels low and the multiple gatherings enjoyable don't make, wear, or bring something different to each one. In November and early December bake a few batches of cookies and store them in your freezer. Around this time make a list of all the people you'd like to give a little something to over the holidays - my preference is to give everyone a little something rather than half the people a big something. Make a few homemade gifts (see below) and bring these along as needed. Budget for a couple extra bottles of something at the liquor store this month to keep you in the spirit of things and stock your pantry with bulk nuts (salted and candied or in the shell), oranges and pomegranates and cranberries and decent chocolate. These items can be prettied up for a last minute gifties or placed in nice bowls and set out for unexpected guests. Collect a few pinecones and cedar boughs and light some candles; now you're set for the season.

As for shopping, I love the idea of picking up items throughout the year when you see just the right thing for someone you love, but I never actually do this. While I hope to one day shop with that much foresight, I tend to purchase most of my gifts at the same store. One year it's a bookstore, the next an outdoors store, the year after that a specialty foods store and so forth or try getting everything online from Etsy or give yourself one day at a local craft fair; there are some really fantastic shopping events out there these days. Shows like the Shiny Fuzzy Muddy show here in Vancouver or The One of a Kind Show in Vancouver, Toronto, and Chicago.

Here are a few of my favorite gift-worthy recipes from Christmas 2011:

Candied Orange Peel

 I dipped mine in chocolate and filled mini take out boxes lined with pretty scrap paper to garner oohs and ahhs.

8 oranges, 10 lemons, 6 grapefruits or any combination

3 cups sugar plus more for rolling

3 cups water

3 cups semi sweet dark chocolate chips

1. Cut the ends off the fruit and standing on one end, follow the curve of the fruit and cut away only the outermost peel leaving most of the white pith on the fruit. Slice lengthwise into 1/4 inch strips. 
2. In a medium pot of boiling water, 10-20 minutes (longer for lemons and grapefruits). With a slotted spoon transfer peel to dry surface and pat dry with paper towel.
3. In a medium saucepan, bring sugar and water to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add peel and simmer until it turns translucent and syrup thickens, 10 minutes. With slotted spoon transfer peel to wire rack set in a baking sheet to catch the drips, separating the pieces as needed.
4. Let peel dry 1 hour. Toss with cup sugar to coat.
5. Return to wire rack to dry. Place in a warm (not hot) oven to dry if you find the strips do not dry as quickly as you would like.
6. Working in batches, melt chocolate in a double boiler and dip ends of strips in the chocolate and lay on rack or brown paper to harden.
7. Package in boxes with wax paper, decorative paper, and ribbon or enjoy at home with loved ones!

Snickerdoodles

These freeze really well. Be sure not to over bake them! 

2 3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 400 f.
2. In a medium bowl mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder. 
3. In a large bowl cream together the remaining ingredients. 
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until dough is smooth. If soft, refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours. 
5. In a large shallow bowl mix together 1/3 cup white sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon  
6. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar/cinnamon mixture. Place on cookie sheets and press down each ball using the bottom of a glass to flatten to about 1/2 inch thick.  
7. Bake 8 minutes or until firm around the edges.

And finally, make the pumpkin butter recipe I posted about back in November. 

Now, on to the new year!

What I'm Gifting

Lu Prints napkins and placemats

Paper bird game by French company Djeco

Upcycled guitar string necklace from  Blue Bird Sky in Brooklyn via Etsy

Homemade seasoning salt

Reusable bathtub stickers

Homemade pumpkin butter

Bingo for tots

Homemade candied orange peel au chocolat

Kids' card game

My Slushy, Gravelly, Grey Hometown

Winter in my hometown is great, well, winter in the mountains is great. In town, it's grey; the trees, sky, streets and snow are all grey and it's only at altitude that you can break through to blue sky some winter days. Sure, the first snowfall always elicits a certain electric anticipation and Christmas is nice, but the highlights of my adolescent winters, if I wasn't skiing at the local hill, consisted checking out neighbors' Christmas lights, cross country skiing on the old railway tracks, reading a good book, and sledding down the steep unplowed Uphill alleys.

This segment from Whistler's Sherpas Cinema proves me wrong; apparently winter is grey and great in my hometown and it's nice to see some familiar alleyways too.

An Afternoon In

There was a lovely sunset today in my neck of the woods - at 4:15pm! In the slim hour between nap time and nightfall I couldn't get the momentum to bundle up the kids and get outside despite my resolution to always get out twice a day if it isn't pouring rain. And so we played indoors this afternoon - thank goodness for books, blanket forts, and play dough!

I made our play dough based on this recipe and it turned out great. I think the cream of tartar gives it a really smooth consistency. I didn't add any color to mine but I did add cinnamon to one batch and lavender oil to the other and I highly recommend doing so; it makes it more enticing for me to play with it too!


Play Dough Recipe:
1 cup white flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup water
food coloring, optional

Mix first 4 ingredients in a pot. Add water and mix well. Cook over medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Dough will become difficult to stir.
Remove from stove and knead for 5 minutes. If using food coloring add during the kneading process. Store in a covered container in the fridge.

This Year's Xmas Cards

I've been keeping busy in the brief evenings between putting kids to bed, cleaning up from dinner, and watching episodes of Boardwalk Empire by making Christmas cards out of my favorite material: old Christmas cards! You may recognize a snippet from a card you once sent me (it's a compliment really that I kept your card for such purposes) or see the card you're about to receive from me this year!

Birds and houses

Trees

All I Want for Christmas...

For the boys:

A bath toy hammock or bag

Any art supplies from Clementine Art

Or any other toddler-appropriate art supplies

Push cart for baby

And as always, books, books, and more books are welcome gifts

For Mama:

Set of stacking cake plates or a frilly 3-tiered dessert tray

Stainless steel lemon juicer

 1 quart sauce pan

Natural soap - I like to stockpile

Gift cards for any of the following:

My favorite store

My hair salon

My local fitness studio