new(ish) blog

I keep starting posts, and then not actually posting them, because everything I want to say doesn't really seem ... relevant. (What counts as "relevant" in a blog-o'-random like this one is beyond me.) I am changing up the look/template, again, because I never really did warm to the dynamic one — it's a nice idea graphically but it sort of fell down in the usability department — and ... well, it's January, and January and September are usually when I want to change everything up, so. But I haven't had much time to actually sit down and consider and play with things, so I don't actually know what I want, nor do I know how to accomplish it.

(Man. I kind of miss the old HTML days ... you know, like ten years ago? When you could bung a blog together with HTML and a smattering of CSS and it looked reasonably decent? Okay, that was more like maybe fifteen years ago, but whatever. Now everything is all fancy and I'm stuck using Blogger templates because I am too lazy to learn Wordpress.)

All this is to say that I am going to start blogging more regularly, starting with the Christmas thing soon, because I don't think there's any call to make any more Christmas posts after, say, this week. It should have been done by now but I'm having trouble with my iPhoto and Picasa and all that. (Man. I miss Flickr, too, although I guess that's still around.) My MacBook Air is having difficulties. It's first- or second-generation, which is to say that it's a few years old, and it's lovely but honestly I never should have bought it; I don't travel that much and I take too many photographs. So now iPhoto takes about 50% of all of the available memory and it's sluggish and generally cranky. That's another reason why I stopped blogging consistently; taking the photographs was fine but actually getting them off the camera and then into various other forms was just too time-consuming and grumpifying. That's another resolution for the new year, I guess: make it less grumpifying. Make me less grumpy, generally. I'm sure others would appreciate that.

Anyway. I am going to try to get photographs to catch up with all of this writing, and then start posting again. That's the plan, anyway. You can even call it a resolution, if you like — although I, personally, wouldn't. I would totally cave under the pressure.

notes on cooking

1. Our handheld immersion blender is really good at ... blending.

2. You know that "chunky" tomato sauce I usually make/was planning on making? There's been a slight change of plans. It's going to be slightly ... creamier. Like a smoothie. A tomato smoothie with stuff in it that you pour over pasta.

3. I will neither confirm nor deny that #1 is directly related to #2 ...

4. But I will admit that the white shirt was totally a rookie move.

a lighter spirit

Happy new year!

I will admit, I fell down on the blogging towards the end of last year. (Well — maybe not towards.) And I would post the reasons (and they are legion), but this is the very first post of 2013, and that should ... I don't know, mean something. So here is what I am going to do: I am going to post a little — maybe not every day, but at least more frequently than I usually do — about all the things I should have posted in December, but didn't, and then in a week or two we will be all caught up and we'll be able to start clean. Fresh. Like one should.

I will say something new-year-ish, though: it's amazing what a difference the calendar makes. I mean, I know it's a human construct, it's all artificial, but still. When I thought of December, my thoughts are dark — not in mood, but in the absence of light, literally dark. I think of twinkling lights, I think of softly falling snow, I think of shopping, outside, at dusk — and all of it is night. And now, it's light. Everything is clean, like a peppermint after coffee. Yesterday was my first day back at work after the holiday, and as I left work it was dusk — the sun had already set but it wasn't completely dark yet. And that little bit of sun made me so happy.

And yes, I know; that's a function of the solstice; we're past it now and galloping towards the light. But it's more than that. There isn't that much more light now than there was on December 31, and yet the latter, to me, is dark. We keep vigil while the old year dies. The new year doesn't begin until it's day, actually day, and you're tramping through the cold air to visit friends, and everything actually does, oddly, feel new. And light. January is as dark as November, maybe even more so, but it never feels as gray, or as depressing. Somehow all that light bleeds through.

Christmas post tomorrow. There's a cute baby involved — and also Harry Potter.

good food is what makes the winter bearable

About two weeks ago, Pd and I took some time off work and just ... took a day. Between work, the kitchen renovation and the Spanish Inquisition, it's hard for us to find time to do stuff together — for instance, in wat is now (frighteningly) becoming an annual tradition, the Spanish Inquisition had a meltdown at the One of a Kind Show last weekend, so shopping was aborted, again — so we decided to just take the time.

Mind you, we had decided to do this in September. It takes us a little while to gather momentum sometimes.

Anyway, we finally made it to Momofuku (the noodle bar) for lunch. Pd works up in midtown and it's not exactly the most baby-friendly place ever, so we haven't been able to go until now. Which was sad. And it's so good! I have been a little bit obsessed with Momofuku since we went there in New York. And I am obsessed with ramen generally, so it really is a bit of a pilgrimage. It's not "authentic" ramen, of course, but it's so good that that's really beside the point.

I had forgotten how good his pork is. We make the pulled pork from the Momofuku cookbook at home, and it's excellent, but it is nothing to the pork belly at the noodle bar. Which is probably one of the many reasons why David Chang has a Michelin star and I don't.

 Now all I need is a Uniqlo, and maybe a Shake Shack, and I will never have to go to NYC again.
...

Speaking of food: I made my first from-scratch dinner in the new kitchen last night! The kitchen isn't finished, not by a long shot — there is a wee problem with the exhaust hood, which will be solved by us punching a hole in something that shouldn't have holes it in (i.e., a wall) —by the by, why does it always come down to that? — and elsewhere there was a bit of a measuring fail — but it's functional. I can cook, mostly. (There are some things that are missing, and some other things that are homeless. And, also, until last night, there were power tools on the counter.) I am still hoping that we can get the whole thing finished — like finished finished, like all-the-i's-dotted-and-t's-crossed finished — by the holidays. And that might even be a reasonable hope.

In any case, we are close enough that I am starting to plan our mid-winter feast. We decided that the best way to thank our friends for their help in our renovation was to use the thing they helped us with, and so: feast. It's going to be gloriously decadent. In fact, just planning the menu got me so hungry that I had to cook last night; take-out wasn't going to cut it. And then there's the menu for our holiday open house ... oh, yes. I am absolutely a glutton, and I have missed this.

'tis the season

We went to the Santa Claus parade with the Spanish Inquisition! She got very into the foam Rudolph noses — I would open one and she would stick her little face out for me to put it on her nose. Or I would put it on my nose and she would try to swipe it off, laughing the whole time. And then she sat on our shoulders and bopped along to the marching bands.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. Technically, last year was her first Christmas, but she was barely six months old — she was just along for the ride; she didn't really experience it. As magical Christmases go, it was kind of a let-down. I mean, she was happy, for the most part:


The Spanish Inquisition on Christmas Day, 2011, being little.
... but it had absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. In fact, she found Christmas itself kind of stressful — too much noise, not enough naps.

This year, though — this year, she's a lot more aware. She has the requisite skills for enjoying a wee toddler's Christmas: she likes toys. She can sway to Christmas carols. And she loves to rip up tissue paper. Last year, everyone doted on her and she was a little taken aback by all the people. This year ... well, let's just say that she loves the attention.


I'm not sure about the whole "Santa Claus" thing, though. (We actually missed the big man himself on Sunday — the Spanish Inquisition had napped through lunchtime, so we left early so we could all grab lunch before the big crush.) Pd grew up with it, so he's all for it; I'm ... well. Undecided, obviously. It wasn't a part of my childhood, so I'm a little cynical and a little confused by the whole thing. I mean: who gets to be Santa Claus? Doesn't it get weird if three different sets of parents/grandparents decide to all be "Santa"? (Trust me, in this family, it could happen.) And if you think I'm over-thinking this ... well, Pd agrees with you.

My parents weren't big into fostering childhood illusions. I remember them discussing the North American tradition of the Tooth Fairy, and how ridiculous it was that kids could con money out of their parents that way, in front of me. I was seven. So you see, the cynicism is genetic.

So I don't know. I like fairy tales, though, and magic, and isn't giving your kids the childhood you never had part of the point?