Bupbilla

Another New Year

2012-01-24T16:18:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yesterday was Day #1 of the Chinese New Year, and it went by in a flash. Because we're cleaning house and packing to go to Singapore this weekend, we had no decorations, no pineapple tarts, no red packets, no firecrackers, no xinyao music and no lions or dragons.

We did have clementines, though.

An abundance of them, which is wonderfully auspicious.

While we had zero celebrations (of the noisy, jubilant, red-everywhere sort) at home, we brought the festivities to the schools! I visited Kate's, Emily's and Jenna's classes and talked to the kids about new year traditions. The respective daughter whose class it was, sat up front with me and demonstrated different lanterns and distributed clementines. It was a lot of fun, and I am always a little heartsick when I have to leave classrooms, particularly where the students are older, as in the case of Emily's class. I miss the classroom environment so much!

That took the whole day, though, and we were all tired at the end of it. When we got home, Emily asked to please put up a little bit of decoration, so we hung up the lovely banner in the first photo that her auntie Joy made us last year. And also one red plastic lantern.

Uncle James came to have supper with us, though! So we had a kind of a reunion dinner - one entire day late - with meatloaf and brownies. Not exactly longevity noodles, but anything with chocolate in it is auspicious in my book.

And that was the sum total of our observation of the Year of the Dragon. We arrive in Singapore on Day #6, so there will be plenty of time to catch the spirt of the new year and celebrate!

Kateism

2012-01-20T18:32:00.000-06:00

To Dad at the supper table: "You know, we had pancakes for breakfast and there was one left and we called it the forlorn pancake. And Emily took a picture of it!"

Cupcakes Are Messy But Fun

2012-01-16T20:57:00.000-06:00

I wanted to avoid sewing today, so we made cupcakes. Jenna was very excited, because she adores cupcakes but Emily and Kate also joined in with gusto. And we got to use the new Kitchenaid mixer to make the cake part and the frosting.

I continue to be amazed at the girls' skill in piping. I did the white part of this cupcake, and Emily did the pink rosettes.

The most exciting part of today's baking adventure, though, was the fondant. The girls have been wanting to try (eating as well as making) fondant icing ever since they heard about it on a TV show. Kate even told me, when we asked her some months back what sort of cake she wanted for her next birthday, "A fondant cake" (I'd expected her to say "Princess" or "Fairy" or "Pink").

We made marshmallow fondant because we'd heard that it was tastier than regular fondant.

After sampling it, though, I'm convinced that if regular fondant is less tasty than this, I never want to try it. Still, the girls enjoyed eating it and playing with it. Kate wanted to collect small fondant shapes - she wasn't interested in actually using them for decoration. Here is a picture she wanted me to take of her fondant shape stash.

Here is where the fondant shapes were supposed to go - and, happily, most of them succeeded.

All in, we had a lot of fun designing cupcake toppings.

And after making them, we had a tea party and ate some.

There was an awful mess to clean up after.

We don't mind - it is evidence of children having swept, like small whirlwinds, through the kitchen one winter's day, laughing, loving, and learning, leaving good stuff in their wake.

Sesame Chicken

2012-01-16T20:32:00.000-06:00

Something Chinese today. Not Singaporean Chinese, but Chinese nonetheless. I still remember asking Mom if she could make this. "What's sesame chicken?" was her response - she (and probably everyone else in Singapore) had never heard of it. It falls in the same category as Singapore Noodles, another interesting item on the menu of almost every Chinese restaurant here in the US, but which doesn't actually exist in Singapore. It took me the longest time to deduce what Singaporean dish it was supposed to be interpreting: depending on what sort of Chinese restaurant it is, it could be char kway teow (in the Malaysian-Chinese restaurants), fried hokkien mee (Cantonese-Chinese restaurants), curry mee (Vietnamese-Chinese restaurants) or The Thing They Teach Us To Fry Up In Homec Class (all other Chinese restaurants).

All that said, we do like sesame chicken - at least the version made by The Yellow Place, our nickname for a Vietnamese-Chinese eatery on campus. Not all sesame chickens are equal - some are so uninterestingly candy-like and flavorless that they could well be leftovers of their sweet-and-sour or lemon/orange/citrus cousins, refried and re-doused in whatever generic sauce was lying around at the time. The version we cook at home is our interpretation of Camdi's (real name of The Yellow Place) - less plum-saucey and more spicy than the typical. This recipe serves 4 -8 adults.

Note that the picture above is the base chicken without the sauce (or sesame seeds) all over it. The most important part of this dish (at least according to us) is how the chicken is made, with its crunchy cornstarch coating. The sauce is almost an afterthought (and can be substituted with other sauces)!

MARINADE

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts
1 egg
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1 tsp rice wine
5-10 drops sesame oil
1/2tsp cornstarch + more for coating (1 cup++)

Method

Cut chicken against the grain, into bite-sized pieces.
Marinate with the above ingredients for 15 minutes (or more).
Coat chicken with cornstarch, shake off excess. I dump the chicken pieces in a big ziploc bag with cornstarch, seal and shake to coat.
Heat oil in a wok and fry (deep fry is most authentic, but I shallow-fry and turn the pieces halfway through) the chicken till golden.
Drain on paper towels, set aside.

SAUCE
Ingredients:

1/2 cup - 3/4 cup sugar (start with 1/2 cup)
1/5 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup light soy sauce
2 tsp oyster sauce
4 small cloves of garlic, minced or chopped finely
1 can chicken broth
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 - 1 tsp red pepper (chilli) flakes
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1 Tbsp lightly-toasted sesame seeds
2-3 tsp cornstarch, dissolved in a little cool water

Method:

In a saucepan, fry garlic in a little oil till fragrant.
Mix all the other ingredients, except cornstarch, in a separate bowl and pour into saucepan. Bring to a boil. Taste and season according to preference.
Dissolve cornstarch in a little water and pour into sauce. Lower heat and allow to thicken. Remove from heat.
When ready to serve, pour sauce on chicken and sprinkle with more sesame seeds.
Serve with jasmine rice.

Note: The cornstarch coating is a very common technique in Asian cooking to keep the chicken crunchy underneath a sauce. The kids like eating just the fried chicken sauce-less (but with ketchup - !!!!!!!), so we usually only mix a small portion of the chicken with the sauce for the adults each time we serve this for a meal. Adding the sauce only when ready to serve also keeps the chicken from becoming soggy.

Lemon Pie

2012-01-09T20:58:00.000-06:00

Most of the pies I've baked in years past are meat pies or savory pastry things that serve as the main course in a meal. Occasionally, though, I make a sweet dessert pie because the change is nice. And especially now that we live in the US, where pies are synonymous with sweet rather than savory. Also, dessert pies are about a hundred times easier to make than meat pies.

Recently, I made a lovely lemon curd from a bag of Meyer lemons I found at the supermarket. The recipe made a LOT of curd, and I didn't imagine we'd be able to eat it as a spread before it went bad, so we filled a pre baked pie crust (thank you, Karen!) and made a lemon pie.

If I'd been bothered to, I'd have whipped real cream for the topping, but we had a tub of Cool Whip sitting in the fridge so I used that.

Emily helped me pipe the stars.

Quite good, the whole combination. It is now one of our favorites!

Tobogganing

2012-01-04T15:03:00.000-06:00

We finally got some snow a few days ago. Not snow like we are used to in January in Minnesota, but at least it's something to play in. Today was bright and sunny and warmish so we pulled a sled out to our backyard after lunch.

Jenna did all the sledding, or tobogganing, as I grew up calling it. My experience with it growing up, I must clarify, was entirely from Enid Blyton stories, since we had zero snow in Singapore.

Kate was not interested in sledding. I think she's still young enough to be frightened of speed and high slides and other similar things out of her control. She helped pull the sled uphill and she enjoyed watching Jenna in action.

And she ate snow.

Jenna got some really good runs down our back slope. I actually became slightly worried she might slide right out to the road. She didn't, though. Here's a video of her.

Random Scenes from December

2012-01-04T07:05:00.002-06:00

At Kate's preschool Christmas concert, waiting to go onstage

Figuring out their new camera/videocam/game device

Coloring at the kitchen table. 100 barely-used coloring books later, we've finally learned that their favorite things to color are the bookmarks Mum draws. We got smart and scanned them so we can print them out over and over again.

30th December, 2011:

Q: What is wrong with this picture?

1 I am not wearing a sweater

2 I am standing out on our deck

3 I have no shoes on (not that you can see)

4 Part of my arms are exposed

5 There is no snow on the deck

6 The grill is operational

7 All of the above

Q: What is right about this picture?

A: The awesome ribs Dave cooked in the not-quite-so-bleak midwinter. It was practically January! In Minnesota!!!!!

The Family That Chops Vegetables Together....

2012-01-03T17:05:00.000-06:00

....will have vast quantities of soup to show for it.

Last week we made soup. Making soup is comfort cooking for me, because soup can be mass-produced not just in quantity but also in variety. My cooking philosophy is that if I have to cry while chopping onions, it might as well be for 10 as for 1. So I like to make several soups simultaneously. It's efficient, and I'm Singaporean, and Singaporeans are efficient (it's what I've heard).

The girls all wanted to help. So everyone got a cutting board and a knife befitting their skill level, and we chopped away.

This took all of one day (but we started in the afternoon). The vegetables (and wild rice) were ziploc-ed and refrigerated for Day #2, when we cooked.

We did the usual three soups - chilli, cream of chicken and wild rice, cream of broccoli and cauliflower, and a new recipe - beef and vegetable soup. I'd never even eaten this last variety of soup, but Dave requested it, so I found a recipe that looked tasty (i.e. has more than 10 ingredients) and tried that. Karen, Arne and Dave did the final taste test since - as I said- I had never had it, so I didn't know what it should taste like.

Here is the recipe we used - final tasting by experienced beef-vegetable soup eaters is recommended, to finish off the seasoning at the end.

Beef Vegetable Soup
adapted from Paula Deen's recipe here:

Ingredients

Water (4 quarts = 16 cups)
1 can (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes
1.5 - 2 cups diced onion
3 Tbsp dried parsley
2 Tbsp beef bouillon (I used 3 ++ small cubes)
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp seasoned salt
1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce
0.5 Tbsp black pepper
0.5 Tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp celery salt
2 bay leaves
2-2.5 lb beef short ribs* OR 2 -2.5 lb short ribs and stew meat, diced to 0.5"
1 cup thinly sliced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1 cup french beans, cut to 0.5"
1 cup (I used the whole can) black eyed peas
1 cup corn
1 cup butter beans
1 cup okra
1 cup diced potatoes, cooked but not soft/soggy

* The short ribs don't give as much meat and are troublesome to strip later in the cooking process, but they give a good flavour.

Method:

If using any stew meat at all, dice and marinate with soy sauce, pepper and dust in flour, then brown in pan to seal.
Put all the ingredients in the list up to and including the meat into a dutch oven and bring to a boil. Do not add in the vegetables if they are already cooked/soft. If they are fresh, they can be added into the pot at this stage.
Simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours, then remove the ribs, strip the meat and return to the pot, discarding the fat and bones.
Add in the remaining vegetables and simmer for another hour or until they are tender. Note: I put the soup in the fridge overnight for the flavors to blend, then filled a crock pot the next day and cooked for about 6 hours, seasoning to taste at the end.

I love the tip about swirling a lettuce leaf at the surface to remove oil and surplus floating herbs. Having the soup in the fridge also solidified the fat around the walls of the containers and made it easier to remove it.

I don't think I've shared our chilli recipe, so here it is. It's very subjective, and this is the first time I've ever written it down. I also make it far less spicy than I personally like, for the majority of the chilli eaters in our family. The most important things I've learned, when making chilli are

You must not eat it on the day you make it. Leave it in the fridge overnight, or two nights before heating it up again.
You must use cumin. Lots of it. Coriander, too.
You must not cook it (for the first mixing, I mean - reheating is fine) in a crock pot. You must cook it over the stove and it must bubble and reduce (and evaporate), to deepen and concentrate the flavors. It is even OK if it gets a teeny bit burnt at the bottom.

Beef and Bean Chilli
(adapted from here):

Ingredients

3 lb ground beef
2 large onions, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
4 14-oz cans of petite diced tomatoes (either regular or chilli-varieties), with liquid
2 large red peppers, diced
1 rib of celery
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can white beans
1 can any other beans
Beef bouillon, to taste
Ground/powdered cumin, to taste (start with 2Tbsp, and add generously, 1 tsp at a time)
Chilli powder, to taste (start with 1-2 tsp)
Ground/powdered coriander (1 tsp)
Fresh cilantro (about 2 Tbsp)
Salt, pepper to taste

Method

Brown beef and onions, drain fat.
Put beef and onions in dutch oven/stock pot, with other ingredients except cilantro. Do not add water yet.
Boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 1-2 hours, uncovered.
Taste and season. Add water and bouillon if necessary.
In the last 20 minutes before turning heat off, add in cilantro.
Cool and refrigerate overnight (or longer).

The times they are a changin'

2012-01-03T16:11:00.000-06:00

This is the scene from my kitchen sink.

Last year there was one orchid plant (named Orchid) and I was holding my breath in case he* died.

This year, there are five others.

From left to right, they are (and these are their real names)

Orchid
Stem Cutting 1 (Emily's school project)
Stem Cutting 2 (Emily's school project)
Grass (Emily's school project)
Pink Flowers (from the dentist)
African Violets (Emily's)
Other Orchid

I would never have guessed the day would come when I'd have potted plants sitting long-term on my window ledge. Sure, I talk to them. But we don't discuss politics or anything personal like that.

*Could be "she". We don't discuss sex**, either.
** And I mean "gender".

Jennaism - The Currency of Dessert

2012-01-01T19:06:00.000-06:00

We have a sort of barter system in our house with dessert. When the kids ask for dessert, we usually have them first eat fruit and vegetables. Often, the conversation goes like this:

Child: Mom/Dad, I'm done! Can I have dessert now?
Parent: Did you eat fruit?
Child: Not yet.
Parent: Well, first have a slice of apple or pear or several grapes.
Child: OK!

Tonight after supper, Jenna decided aloud, "I'll spend my pear on a cookie and my apple on a brownie."

Home for the Holidays

2011-12-27T15:47:00.000-06:00

Short post to say we are home from Moorhead. The entire house looks like a toy store. Both Dave and I have made lists of Things To Do After Christmas. Dave has started on his. I'm sitting here, writing this blog post, just having eaten two servings of Pho. TWO! In the same meal! I can't move. I'm thinking, "List? What list? Where's the chocolate?"

The plan is to cook this week. I have a new stand mixer to calibrate (!!!!!!! Don't ask me - I'm just parroting the instruction manual) and break in. But I also want to make four soups. So this morning Emily and I went supermarketing for the ingredients.

Watched Back To The Future last night. So much fun. Oh, those skinny neckties!

Well, off to trim a toenail now. Jenna's, I believe. Always something exciting around here.

Merry 2nd Day of Christmas!

Christmas by Preschoolers

2011-12-23T00:52:00.001-06:00

We're off to relatives for Christmas this weekend.

In our absence, please accept some entertainment by the children, recorded at their annual Preschool Christmas Concert. Typically, this is held in the beautiful sanctuary, as you will see in the first video starring Kate. However, the sanctuary was occupied during the time of Jenna's concert, so that became, instead, an intimate sort of affair in her own classroom.

You all know the words to We Wish You A Merry Christmas,

but maybe not those of Jenna's song, so here they are:

A Stable Warm and Dry

A stable warm and dry, oh yes,

A stable warm and dry

For Mary and Joseph

And the new little baby boy.

The angels came to sing, oh yes,

The angels came to sing

For Mary and Joseph

And the new little baby boy.

The shepherds came to see, oh yes,

The shepherds came to see

Mary and Joseph

And the new little baby boy.

The wise men brought their gifts, oh yes,

The wise men brought their gifts

For Mary and Joseph

And the new little baby boy.

It happened long ago, oh yes,

It happened long ago

But we still remember

The new little baby boy

Merry Christmas, all!

Merry Christmas To Me

2011-12-22T20:11:00.001-06:00

After a fair bit of research, I finally went out and bought this one. There were others with great reviews - Borsch, Electrolux, but they also seemed very pro-baker; the sort for folks who need to bake 50 loaves of bread and 20 batches of ultra-chewy bagels per day. I just need one loaf every 2 weeks or so. And that temperamental sugee (semolina) cake every now and then. Wish we had Kenwood (what Mum has) here. I think it used to exist, but it's been reacquired by somebody else, and given a new name, and a new uh... reputation, so... pffft.

Fancy, but still infinitely cheaper than the Pfaff Industrial Sewing Machine that was also on my Covetousness List this year. I want to sew neoprene and vinyl so bad. But we have no room for a industrial machine in the house right now, so a stand mixer it is. If we can't outfit the family in wetsuits, at least we can feed them bread now.

It's still in its box, by the way. Too many cookies on my counter right now to share space with a mixer. I'll unbox it today and take more photos of it later.

Watercolor Family Portrait

2011-12-22T13:11:00.000-06:00

Emily brought this home from school this week. My jeans have scoop pockets! And Dave wishes he had an actual shirt like that. And Kate and Jenna have pink in their outfits - coming from any of our girls, that's like the highest, most selfless gift ever.

And here's the message that went with it:

I know - awwwwww.

Post-it to Santa

2011-12-22T10:24:00.000-06:00

Found on our Christmas Tree earlier this week, the morning after we brought the wrapped gifts up from the basement storage.

Where did she learn P.S. ????

10 Things I Will Never Tire Of

2011-12-21T00:51:00.000-06:00

The smell of a 3-year old's head
The roundness of a 3-year-old's head
Small people jumping gleefully, in completely vertical projectiles
Young voices singing about Jesus (and mispronouncing the important words)
The look in a child's eyes -and the grin they're trying unsuccessfully to hide - when they accomplish something
The question, "What are we making today?"
Sleepy, disoriented children wandering out into the living room, rubbing their eyes, needing only to be ushered back to their bedrooms with a kiss
Listening to a child read aloud
Tiny toes and pudgy feet, running fast
Clicking in my seat belt buckle, looking around at three little faces (and sometimes their accompanying soft toy friends, masses of coloring sheets and vast numbers of markers) and asking, "ready to roll?"

What an ride motherhood is. And how lucky I am, and how deeply blessed, to navigate it with these three, and their matchless dad.

Happy almost-Christmas, everyone!

(Ours looks set to be a brown one this year, drat it.)

Jenna Reading

2011-12-18T22:20:00.001-06:00

Jenna reading Henry and Mudge:

Updates

2011-12-18T01:46:00.001-06:00

We're still here, and everyone is well. But we've been busy, and not taking a lot of photos because we're indoors so much. Advent this year has been fun. Emily and Jenna are done with preschool for 2011, which translates to me getting a break from the silly chauffeuring. I've imposed a moratorium on sewing, for the purposes of sanity and countering Christmas-stress and general family ungrouchiness. When sewing sanctions are lifted on Boxing Day (or the new year, if I am especially enjoying myself), I might finally sew a couple of winter dresses for Jenna, who badly needs them.

We're doing lots of crafts, and refusing to blog about a lot of them. We baked lots of cookies, and did blog about all of them. We're playing lots of games, like the Clothespins game, and Christmas bingo, and tomorrow we're supposed to play Princess Monopoly. We're reading lots of Christmas books, which we get to pick out of a pillowcase, as dictated by our advent calendar. We aren't going on as many trips this year, because Emily is in full-day school and would miss out on them. I've finally finished writing out our Christmas cards. I've given up even thinking of writing a Christmas letter. We've got all our Christmas presents bought/done, save one (needs to be painted). We're excited to start the wrapping. We're enjoying Christmas movies which, along with the Christmas books, are fun and fresh again after 11 months of being tucked away in storage.

Above are photos of Jenna, enjoying her new craft. She is weaving little stretchy bands on a hand loom/frame to make small potholders. She and Emily are trying to complete enough of them to assemble a patchwork rug. I am glad she's discovered it, because it is a craft that appeals to the part of her that adores sorting, colors and organizing.

Jenna is also starting to read independently! We are very excited and also surprised at how well she is doing already. Emily has started on Enid Blyton's Secret Seven series, while also reading through the Rainbow Fairy series. Sometimes as I'm watching her sit and quietly read, curled up on the sofa, or beside me at the kitchen table, I marvel that this is the same little girl who was gnawing on board books and eating newspapers not that long ago.

Kate is going through a new phase in her fashion journey. Where she used to alternate only between her fluffy "cute little pink skirt" and her other fluffy "cute little grey skirt", she now exclusively prefers the chiffon dress-up dance skirts that I made the girls some years ago. She wears them out to school and all day and then to bed. We have put our foot(s) down at also wearing them church, especially as they retain and display food stains remarkably well.

We are also rejoicing/panicking at the lack of snow this December. On the one hand, we like that there's nothing to shovel. Plus I got to take photos on the deck all week, which is a miracle. On the other hand, we are not pleased at the prospect of a brown Christmas, or at the lousy sledding and tubing conditions.

We are missing family far away, as we do every year-end. But we are planning to see you all in Singapore during CNY anyway, so look out for us! Already Dave and I have started mental lists of food we want to eat, and how many times we want to eat them. We are rubbing our hands in glee and fantasizing. With those flavours finally within arm's (in a manner of speaking) reach, I think I might finally throw out those old shriveled bits of pandan leaves in our freezer, and the tablespoonful of pineapple jam from 2009 to which I've developed an almost pathological sentimental attachment.

And that's our update for tonight!

I hope your weekend is going well!

Christmas Baking

2011-12-15T00:58:00.000-06:00

This past weekend was a Bakingstravaganza of sorts.

We baked cookies to give to teachers and neighbors this week.

We did these Chocolate-Butterscotch Haystacks,

shortbread with white sugar and shortbread with brown sugar

and nuts

and sprinkles,

krumkake,

princess cookies and orange drop cookies.

These got packed in reusable foil pans

and topped with a kitchen towel

which the girls sort-of-helped sew ribbons onto.

The girls also worked on Christmas gifts for their classmates. For Kate's classmates, we made paper stockings and filled them with treats.

Everyone helped decorate and fill them.

Jenna filled these little plastic candy houses for her classmates:

They come with the cutest little scoop.

Everyone helped fill those, too.

Today, Jenna and Kate had their preschool Christmas concerts. It was so much fun to watch them. Then they gave out their gifts to their teachers and friends. That was fun to watch, too!

It was raining tonight so we didn't deliver cookies to the neighbors. Hopefully we can do that tomorrow!

Chocolate-Butterscotch Haystacks

2011-12-15T00:54:00.000-06:00

My friend Raelynn shared this recipe with me last year and we tried it for the first time this year. Yum. These haystacks remind me of the cornflake bunches we used to make in mini muffin liners as kids, but this is a much crunchier version.

Ingredients:

1 bag (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 bag (6 oz) butterscotch chips
About a cup of roasted peanuts (ours were lightly salted)
1 bag (12-16 oz) chow mein noodles

Method:

Melt chips in double boiler. We found that melting the butterscotch chips first was helpful, since they took a longer time to liquefy than the chocolate chips.
Stir in everything else, and form into bunches on wax paper.
Store in fridge but thaw slightly before eating.

I went to the supermarket to buy chow mein noodles for the first time in my life. I found it quite funny that, considering that I'm Chinese, I couldn't remember what they were called at first, while trawling the aisles in search for them. I don't think we have chow mein in Singapore, just like we don't have fortune cookies. Or Singapore Noodles, whatever they may be.

Shortbread

2011-12-15T00:45:00.000-06:00

Realized I never posted the recipe for shortbread. Shocking.

I've always made this with white sugar, and this time I tried brown sugar instead. No reason - just heard that it was nicer.

It IS! I will not make it with white sugar again. The brown sugar version is delectable beyond anything white sugar could hope to be.

But for completeness' sake, I'll post both versions.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) cup butter
1/4 cup white sugar (or a little less than 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar)
2 cups all purpose flour
Semi-sweet chocolate
Nuts
Sprinkles

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream softened butter and sugar, then stir in flour. Add more butter if dough is crumbly. It should stick together.
Roll out to 1/2" approximately, and cut shapes out.
Bake about 20 minutes or until set.

Topping:

Melt semi-sweet chocolate in double boiler.
Dip cooled cookies in and dry on wax paper.
Top with chopped pecans or sprinkles if desired.

Makes about 26 cookies.

Tandem Art By Kate

2011-12-09T17:18:00.000-06:00

"That's Mom wearing a ghost suit, and me wearing a ghost suit."

(G)Hosts of Christmas Past

2011-12-07T00:52:00.001-06:00

I like Advent and Christmas. Always have. I like it differently now that I'm grown up and have small children. Way back when I was younger, friends and family in Singapore will remember that I was hardly ever at home during the Advent season. I was always Involved In Something, it seemed. Found some archival evidence of some of those Somethings which I thought my new friends and family in the US would enjoy beholding. Ready to go back in time?

Right, so when I was a youngster, we went caroling. This was our caroling choir circa early 1990s.

Lovely, isn't it - all that green grass and those bare arms in December?

That was our youth group from church. In the other 11 months of the year, we hung out together and played games and worshipped and had prayer meetings and mentored each other. In December, we became a formidable SATB choir - and many years we were even an S1S2A1A2T1T2B choir. We were self-trained and self-conducted, and sectionals were very formal and businesslike. I think I was the alto section leader some years, in spite of not being able to play the piano to actually help anyone learn their harmonies the traditional way. Some of us were very young - like elementary school-young, but many of us were in our late teens and early twenties (which was why our parents probably let us do this). On Christmas eve we hopped on chartered buses and went on a singing tour of sorts - we sang from about 5 pm to 3 am, through Christmas morning, at the homes of church members, who would invite extended family, friends and neighbors to hear us. We took caroling very seriously - not only because we took choral singing very seriously, but also because of the opportunity to be heard by folks who would never otherwise step into a church building.

It's funny looking back now, knowing what Christmas is like here in Minnesota. I mean, the whole caroling idea would never take off here for so many reasons. Hypothermia, for one. Christmas Eve family traditions for another. Our families in Singapore were flexible with family things during Christmastime - caroling on Christmas Eve meant the family got together for Christmas Day dinner instead. It would be quite different with Chinese New Year, of course - there'd be no question of us staying home then!

Back to the picture now - are you wondering where I am?

Here - see red arrow:

Oo - attitude.

Apart from the homes of church members, some years we also sang in malls.

I know, I know - you're looking for me again. Here you go:

One year we sang in a pub. And not just "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" either. It was quite the experience, doing Christmas outreach in those very public places. But then we would've done anything together, really - this was such a great youth group.

Backing up a few years to the late 1980s - this was my high school choir. The man in the black suit was our conductor and instructor; the lady on the left of the photo was our manager of sorts. I don't remember her much, only that she was very nice and strongly believed that well-brought-up girls should always wear nylons. Even in the humidity of the tropics. Hm.

There I am - see yellow arrow. This was not specifically a caroling choir - we sang all through the year and entered competitions and gave concerts and did general choir things. During Christmastime, though, we did go caroling, and whenever the timing of those performances conflicted with church caroling events, we (those of us affiliated with churches) always picked church, much to the conductor's dismay. Incidentally, I was never alto section leader here - the conductor decided I was not compliant enough for leadership. Ha!

Going back even farther in time, here we are in the 1970s. This was our Sunday School caroling choir. If I remember right, we also did a round of homes. That's me, not watching the conductor.

This is photo evidence of one of the best parts of caroling - the food. The dishes served became part of the caroling tradition itself -and the hosts gamely played along, so that for years after, we still remembered with fondness, the excellent macaroni soup at so-and-so's, or the pizza, or the little cocktail sausages speared on the enormous pineapples.

Here I am in the photo, being Big Sisterly to Sean (brother). I was always slightly bossy that way.

It was also interesting to remember the friends in these old photos, and marvel at how we've grown up into actual people who contribute to the national economy. See what we became!

Urm..... well, some of us are (happily) not exaaaaaactly contributing to the national economy. When we were as young as we were in the photo, we truly believed we would be children forever. I think I still am.

OK, old YF*ers reading this: do you remember these songs?

These songs were part of our caroling repertoire. I still have the choral scores for them, believe it or not, but it's been years since I've heard a recording of the actual music. And then tonight I found them on youtube - hurrah for youtube!

So, old YFers - are they conjuring images of (hopefully modest) white dresses, white shirts, dark trousers, fancy ties, uncomfortable dress shoes, huge paper bags of Christmas gifts, Magdalene and Stanley's mansion, that house in Geylang, and Audrey Tang standing on a plastic chair, conducting and signing, "watch me" with her fingers pointing to her eyes, minus ones blaring? Ah, the past is a strange and wonderful thing.

*YF = Youth Fellowship

Magnitudism

2011-12-01T08:57:00.000-06:00

Here's my hypothesis on age: one's perception of bigness is proportional to one's age. Or, at least, it varies with age. Us old people, for instance, describe biggest possible numbers with words like "infinity" and, even less precisely, "gazillion". Little children, though, are far more specific.

The biggest number, according to Kate, is "one hundred".

According to Jenna, it is "one thousand-one thousand" (said with passion and arm gesticulations).

We realized we'd never heard Emily's version of the Biggest Number Ever, so we asked her yesterday.

"One trillion and ninety-nine," she told us.

Then she asked me what my Biggest Number Ever was.

"Um.... a googol."

"What's that?"

"It's a one with a hundred zeros after it."

"No!!!!!! You're kidding, right? There's no such thing!"

Yes, there is. But as it's also a general word for "A Very Big Number", it was sort of cheating to use it, along with (my second choices) "as many as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand" or "more numerous than the hairs on your head." Those are the Very Big Numbers I grew up learning at Sunday School. God should know, considering that He's been around longer than anybody else.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2011-11-28T23:14:00.000-06:00

.... is Advent.

We brought home our tree early this year.

The girls decorated it, as is evident from the charmingly-random placement of ornaments, none of which quite made it to the topmost branches. Except for the star, which I was given strict instructions to emplace upon the highest bough while every one else was (unwillingly) in bed.

The little brown table that, 11 months of the year is covered with coloring sheets and markers of all kinds, is now laden with Christmassy figurines and other display items.

And Emily made a stable for a new set of nativity characters from Grandma K and Grandpa A.

It is a rare and wonderful thing when our family is ready for Advent before Advent actually begins.

Now it seems that all we need to do is bake a lot of cookies, play and sing a lot of carols, buy a lot of presents, and enjoy a lot of family.

Happy eve-of-the-eve-of-the-eve-of-Advent!

Boringism

2011-11-23T19:41:00.000-06:00

Kate: Mum, our front yard and backyard and downstairs are boring*, boring.
Me: Why are they boring, Kate?
Kate: (no answer).
Me: Well, if those are boring, what's not boring, Kate?
Kate: Well...... Emily's school backyard and my school play area are not boring.
Me: What else is not boring?
Kate: Computer games and watching TV.
Me: What about cleaning up?
Kate: That's boring.

* Although she says it "baw-in".

Emily Does Watercolour

2011-11-20T21:35:00.000-06:00

I love what the schools do in art here. I cannot remember what we learned in art in Primary One (first grade) but it wasn't this. Every time I am in Emily's school building, I gawk at the artwork on the walls. Either the kids are all incredibly and naturally gifted in art, or else the teachers are good at teaching it. Or both.

There's a lot of art done by the kids on this blog, and not as much other-academic-subject matter. To an extent, we do a lot more art (than any other learning area) together because the girls are so young that it's something they can all enjoy. Also, art is a lot more interesting to document and photograph than, say, a sine curve (not that we're there yet). For instance, we do a lot of random counting exercises, mostly for Kate's benefit, while we're out and about on the road. Our most current game is to spot and count Brown Trucks (aka the UPS delivery vehicles). Once the girls unexpectedly spotted a UPS airplane and were beside themselves with joy. But as it was technically not a truck, we were initially perplexed at how to include that in our daily tally. Last week, we added another game - spotting and counting school buses, and on a particular day, we counted 44 school buses and 18 brown trucks. The challenge for the older girls is to simultaneously keep count of both kids of vehicles.

Jenna, our resident colour aficionado, recently suggested we also play the very popular game of spotting coloured cars. Her rules were: no bicycles, skateboards, work vehicles (including construction-type things and semis) but motorcycles were allowed, and pick-up trucks were allowed. We were also not allowed to spot white, black, brown, tan or grey vehicles, because they were "boring", or pink (surprisingly) because it was "too hard". In other words, colours of the rainbow. Jenna is very one-track-minded that way.

Mathwise, Emily makes Dave give her mental sums during supper. Her rate of success depends largely on whether she happens to be in a daft mood that evening or not. I'm glad I'm not the one in charge of her Math education, because I just have no clue as to what sort of things are appropriate for the early elementary school level. A couple of months back, Emily missed a whole week of school because of a bad cold, and I thought she should have some make-up lessons, so I taught her Venn diagrams. Apparently, it was slightly too advanced for a first-grader, even with plastic fruit and vegetables and large sheets of paper with large circles drawn on, strewn all over the bedroom floor. And by "advanced", I don't mean Emily didn't comprehend the concept - the challenge was stopping Kate and Jenna from stealing the plastic fruit and making fruit baskets with them on the side while the lesson was in progress. How was I to know they would completely miss the point?

That's our academic update for the week! Emily has a field trip tomorrow to watch an outdoor play. She's very excited about it, which is a good attitude, especially since it was 24 degrees this morning and we were several inches deep in snow. Yes, winter has suddenly descended upon us.

Have a good week, all!

Bread Rolls

2011-11-17T07:00:00.001-06:00

Thought I'd share the recipe for the bread rolls I mentioned in this earlier post. It was in the week's newspapers and I tried it for fun. I'm always interested in bread making, and will probably do it more in earnest when I finally buy myself a stand mixer with a dough hook. Winter is not the best time to make anything yeast-involved, because the temperatures, even if supplemented with space heaters and bright hot lights, are just lousy for rising. Case in point: this dough literally sat like a lump for almost an hour before I stuffed it in the oven that was cooling down after a batch of cookies. It rose, if a bit rapidly, and we managed to get some decent rolls out of them. I think they would be quite spectacular if the yeast actually behaved the way it was supposed to, but we do what we can.

Ingredients:

1 cup milk (not skim)
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp oil (I used olive)
3 cups flour (I used bread flour mixed with all-purpose)
2 tsp instant yeast
1.25 tsp salt
3 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup instant potato flakes
1 Tbsp butter, melted, for fan tans
1 egg (for glazing)
Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried rosemary etc for garnish

Method:

Heat milk in saucepan till you can comfortably swirl your fingertip in it. Remove from heat, add in butter and oil and set aside.
In mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, yeast, salt and potato flakes. I used a little less than the 3 cups of flour and left about 2 Tbsp for dusting later. This is so I wouldn't have to add additional flour that would make the dough hard/dry.
Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients by hand (or, if lucky enough to own one - a dough hook) and knead till springy, about 5-10 minutes. Dust hands with the remaining flour, only adding more if absolutely necessary (it won't be).
Place dough in lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave in warm place (snort!) to rise for about an hour, till doubled in size. I used a warm-cool oven (lowest temp 170 F and switched off immediately upon reaching it) for about half an hour.
Shape rolls into cloverleaf buns, fan tans (layered), crescents, knots and snails, tucking all tails under, where applicable.
Cover with light cloth and let rise in warm place for about 45 minutes.
Brush with egg beaten with 1 tsp water, then sprinkle with seeds.
Bake in 350 F oven for 18-20 minutes or until golden.

Recipe from here.

Operation Christmas Child 2011

2011-11-16T21:36:00.000-06:00

Every year in November, the girls and I pack shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. Each time, we take photos of our packed boxes and mention that we dropped the boxes off at some collection center. This year, we finally remembered to take photos of the process and print out the little bar codes that will allow us to track our shoeboxes, so we know exactly where they finally end up.

Yesterday, we packed the boxes. As with the year before, we set up an assembly line of little stations so the girls could fill their shoeboxes. Here is our messy basement sofa, laid out with boxes of art supplies, toys, candy, vanity items and toiletries.

Today after school, we drove to the processing center, which happily was about 5 minutes from where we live. We carried our shoeboxes up that little black flight of steps to Suite 500,

where we dropped them off (they are stacked behind Emily on the table). The kids got little green I Gave A Shoebox stickers and a big thank you from the staff.

The nice staff guy also showed us on the map where the shoeboxes were headed this year (the year on the post-it note isn't quite right). Last year, they went to India.

The girls got to peek inside the warehouse where, come Saturday, tours would be held to take people through the process of moving the shoeboxes from the drop-off centers all the way to the recipients in far-off lands. Last year, Emily and I went on the tour and we are going to wait till Kate is a little older before we sign all of us up. Saturday will be a busy day, as will be the weeks following, as the boxes are processed for their long journey. Today, it was quiet, with only a few workers pottering about, receiving shoeboxes from donors and setting up the tables and supplies for the busy days ahead.

Before we left, we stood in front of a wall of cardboard cartons.

Mostly because I can never resist cardboard boxes, let alone a whole wall of them, but also to capture a bit of the magnitude of this project. We gave just four boxes, but by the end of Collection Week, literally millions (8.2 million were delivered in 2010) will be packed into cardboard cartons like these, and sent to children in more than a hundred countries all over the world. Our girls, especially Kate, are still too young to understand the impact of those numbers; all their little heads (and hearts) know is the shoeboxes are for "the kids who have no toys." May God multiply that motivation a thousandfold as He brings our gifts to those other children we've never met, who have even less than no toys, but whom He loves just as much as He does ours.

Art Lesson

2011-11-16T07:00:00.003-06:00

Now that school is in full swing, Emily has been continuing her governess duties with Jenna and Kate. Because she is now in full-day school, she no longer has entire afternoons to recreate the schoolday at home, so she does single lessons with her sisters, often after dinner. Her most recent one was an art lesson:

She drew up the colour wheel to teach the concept of warm and cool colours, stuck it on her wall,

got out the good colour pencils (thank you, Grandpa D!)

and had her students illustrate the concept.

This is Jenna's.

Jenna explained to me that hot colours were the colours of fire, then paused and reflected aloud, "Pink is not in fire. But pink is a hot colour." She continued with, "Cool colours are..... blue, green, purple and even dark green."

Kate didn't quite get the concept, but she turned out some beautiful patterns, regardless. She always gets excited when allowed to use the good pencils.

Emily now mounts all the formal artwork (the random colouring and doodles on scrap paper around the house don't count) on black construction paper. She says she learned this at school. Our walls are now beginning to fill up like an art gallery, with self-portraits and patterns and other fine art.

I don't think I even knew what a colour wheel was, when I was seven!

Backyard Romp

2011-11-15T13:23:00.000-06:00

We've been blessed with outrageously gorgeous weather this November, with temperatures remaining in the 50s and 60s and no snow. No snow! At this time last year, our trees were laden with the heaviest, wettest snow we'd ever seen. Today's weather was beautiful, and the girls, after a morning of errands, ran out to play in the backyard. Here they are on the neighbour's swing set, since ours has been put away for the winter.

Also wanted to show you this strange fence-like structure in the neighbour's backyard.

Do you know what it is?

It's their ice-skating rink! They fill it with water, which freezes and stays frozen all through the winter, and the neighbour kids skate on it. I thought our Singaporean friends and family would enjoy seeing this, since it's such a novel and wonderful (not to mention impossible) concept to go ice skating outdoors in a tropical country, let alone have that outdoors be one's own backyard!

When We're In the Kitchen

2011-11-13T18:23:00.000-06:00

...we're really in the kitchen. This week and weekend have been declared Kitchenfest. I cooked and cooked and baked and baked like there was no tomorrow. We (the girls helped a bit) turned out cornish pasties, beef stew, baked potato soup, bread rolls, orange drop cookies, chocolate chip cookies, butterscotch cookies, mee siam (yes, mee siam!). Ah, it feels good to really cook. And when I cook, I like to have two or three dishes going on at the same time - stew in the dutch oven on the stove, rolls rising in the basement, cookies in the oven, another batch of cookies in the mixing bowl. Multitasking keeps up the mad rush of adrenaline, even during the waiting periods of stirring, watching the timer, percolating. I also unload and load the dishwasher at breakneck speed, and clean up the messy counters during those lulls.

This doesn't happen all the time, just so you know. I usually loathe thinking up what to make for everyday dinners. But take me away from the kitchen for a prolonged period, like when I was sewing like a madman for Halloween, and I return with a vengeance. I took my notebook last weekend and asked Dave what he felt like eating (since I'm too lazy to think up dishes myself) and he rattled off his cravings.

Another motivation for cooking was to deliver a home-cooked meal to a friend who had her third daughter two months ago. All too well I remember those odd evenings when Jenna or Kate was two or three months old, and on some growth spurt and I was nursing, nursing, nursing. And my already-fragile routines were turned on their heads once again and suddenly it was 530pm and there was no dinner and I was too tired to stay awake, let alone cook. If only Rachael Ray lived next door and was my best friend, were my desperate and idiotically-optimistic thoughts. Those memories are still fresh in my mind when I think of new mothers. What practical gifts meals are! But how I wished they'd been spaced out over the first six months of my babies' lives, instead of given all at the beginning.

Anyway, tomorrow I get to deliver a meal gift, not as belated as it might appear, to a friend. Very happy.

No photos in this post because I didn't stop to photograph any of the food. Next week we'll be back to takeout pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches and things like that. Fast meals, but not cathartic to make the way the ones this week were. I've always loved baking, and I enjoy cooking in spurts, but only when the mood strikes me. This week it did, so I'm riding it for as long as I can!

Cupcakes and Plants

2011-11-11T21:06:00.000-06:00

Random photos today requested by the children.

Jenna has been working on this display of cupcakes:

They came as a craft kit of small paper trinket boxes which Jenna decorated to look like cupcakes. This is the view of the other side of the stand.

Emily has been working on a Science project at school, involving growing plants from stem cuttings. She brought them home today and asked me to take a picture of them. This one was a success.

The other one wasn't. Emily explained that this cutting never took root, so it never grew.

Kate had no request for photos today.

Kateism

2011-11-08T15:32:00.000-06:00

Today, while in the van, driving to do errands, Kate said, "Mum, are you following the speed limits?"

I glanced nervously at the speedometer before answering, "I think so. Why, Kate?"

She answered, "Because they're on the road, far, far apart."

Eh?

"Where, Kate?"

"There!" said Kate, pointing and wiggling her finger. "See? They're in the middle of the road! Not the long, long things. The little rectangles!"

"You mean the lane dividers, Kate."

Silence from the backseat as Kate processed this.

"How did you know they were called speed limits?" I asked her soon after.

"Emily told me." she said.

I smiled. Kate will learn anything from her sisters.

Soon, we came to a zebra crossing (as we call them in Singapore) she became agitated again and began pointing.
"Look! Speed limits!" she yelled. "Big ones!"

What They Were For Halloween

2011-11-07T21:19:00.000-06:00

Musketeers.

Here is Kate in her ball gown,

Jenna in hers,

and Emily.

And here they are transforming

into musketeers -

Corinne

Aramina

and Viveca -

(all for one etc.)

They've often been called The Three Musketeers, so we just made it true this Halloween.

They spent about 45 minutes trick-or-treating in their outfits, and have worn them almost every day since (and before I even finished them). I'd say they're keepers.

More photos of the dresses here and the boots here on the craft blog.

Huntingism

2011-11-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

We're in Moorhead for the weekend! Hunting season has begun, and Dave, clad in orange and camouflage, has gone hunting with some of the other men. While the menfolk are out hunting, the womenfolk played with Lego, went to the mall and blogged.

"Where's Daddy?" asked Kate this morning when she didn't see him at breakfast.
"Hunting." we said.
"Oh" said Kate, her eyes big.
"Do you go hunting, too?" we asked her.
"No." she said.
"Why not?"
"I don't like killing deer. I just like to watch them."

And What A Birthday It Was!

2011-11-04T01:06:00.000-05:00

Buttermilk pancakes for breakfast, with sprinkles and cream
Being sung "happy birthday" to by both sets of grandparents
An hour in The Ball Pit (supervised play area) of IKEA, while Mum shopped all by her lonesome (but not complaining) self
Lunch at the IKEA restaurant
Uncountable rides at the amusement park of the Megamall
Tea at the Barnes and Noble, with some reading by the train-table
Ooh-ing and Aaah-ing at the tiny, tiny toy cupcakes and petits fours in the American Girl Store
Riding the escalators
Riding the elevators
Watching the Mall guys put up the decorations on the gigantic twin Christmas trees
Going home to open more presents
Playing musketeer out in the leaves on a beautiful fall evening
Pepperoni pizza for dinner
Hot bath, reading and snuggling at bedtime
Cupcake PJs and cupcake bedlinen
Warm bed

Did you have a good day, then, Jenna? I asked when the day was done.
"Best day ever!" she said, softly and smiling.

Jenna Is 5 Years Old

2011-11-03T01:02:00.000-05:00

Jenna turns 5 years old today!

Our sweet little girl! You love rainbows, cupcakes, cookies, frosting, baking, sprinkles and all things rainbowy and colourful. You request rice and mashed potatoes at every meal. You eat pizza, cream cheese sandwiches as if there were no other foods on the planet. You are a talented artist and fill each sheet of paper with colours, colours, colours, and turn them into masterpieces. You dance and twirl and do cartwheels in the living room, make piles of doll paraphernalia in your bedroom, and set up bakeries in every other room in the house. You want to do things all by yourself and we are amazed at how well you do them. You are a storehouse of trivia and deep, deep secrets and you surprise us continually with nuggets of information about whales and bats and synchronized swimming and squids and detective work. You love your mother's hair because it is "smooth, soft, black and stuck to her head". You have carefully named all your best stuffed animal friends, including Icingcakes Fluffluffs Bearaby, her offspring Precious Little Guy, and your rag doll Sloppy Joe. We love your hilarious observations on the world around you. You love acting out our grownup sillyness in your play. You give the best sharp-lip kisses. Your feet skip you to exciting places. Your hands punch the air in triumphant declarations. Your arms are the snuggliest, cuddliest place to be. And your smile is the unselfconscious window to a solemn little soul, a generous heart and an exuberant spirit.

Indeed!

We held a week-long celebration, beginning on Saturday with a party for her cousins, neighbors, sisters and schoolmates. Her party was all about cupcakes and cookies.

On Sunday, we celebrated with the family -Grandpa Arne, Grandma Karen, and our little family of five.

We interrupted the festivities on Monday by observing Halloween and collecting candy (photos later), took a mini-break on Tuesday, and continued on Wednesday with a cupcake feast in school. Here is Jenna with her cupcakes from the local bakery.

She gave out plastic apples filled with stationery to her classmates, and everyone made birthday cards for her (as is their practice whenever a classmate has a birthday). She coloured her birthday crown and danced out of school.

Today is the actual day so, at her request, we are having buttermilk pancakes with cream and sprinkles, and going to IKEA to play and have lunch. We're also planning a tea-time stop at the Megamall's Barnes and Noble, where Jenna has a coupon for a free cupcake. Yes, another cupcake. She can never have too many cupcakes, she thinks.

Here she is, all grown up, in a picture from warmer days ago:

Happy Birthday, Jenna!

How Emily Solved The Pink Problem

2011-11-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

Did I even mention that the girls all like pink and sometimes fight over who gets the pink bowl, or the pink cup? It is ridiculous. If they were only more like their mother! Then we could use pink as the disciplinary color, e.g. Whoever doesn't clean up her room will get the pink plate at dinnertime!

I'll never understand this about my girls.

But anyway, Emily solved the problem:

This chart is stuck on our kitchen wall. The fighting has ceased.

Halloween Came And Went

2011-10-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Helloooooooooooooo!

The hardest week of the year is over!!!!!!!! Last week of October = Jenna's birthday +halloween costume sewing. It wouldn't be so hard a week if I'd actually started costume sewing in, say, July. But the girls keep changing their minds, and only seem to settle on a concrete idea round about 10 days before the 31st. For instance, Kate, for the longest time, wanted to be a grape.

Us (all through summer and fall): Do you want to be Sleeping Beauty, Kate?

K: No.

Us: Why? Sleeping Beauty is pink! You like pink!

(Personal agenda = SB is a princess, and I am good at sewing princess dresses, since those are all I've sewn for the past 3 years for halloween).

K: No.

Us: Well, what do you want to be, then?

K: A gwape.

Us: Why?

K: (Giggles and refuses to answer.)

Fine. A grape is not hard to sew. It might involve an inordinate amount of stuffing, and result in an awkward gait, but grapes are easy.

After seeing Jenna's costume, though (one week before Halloween), Kate was swayed.

K: Mum, I changed my mind. I don't want to be a gwape. I want to be (what Jenna is).

I knew she'd say that, of course. Three-and-a-half years of being someone's mother does give one an insight into that someone's mind. I didn't even buy purple grape cloth.

Anyway, off to bed now. Tired. Will show photos of Kate in her non-grape outfit soon. Just wanted to check in, photo-less tonight, to say we're still here, no one is sick, but we've been busy.

Pumpkins!

2011-10-22T23:01:00.000-05:00

Two? Three weeks ago, we went to our favorite pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins for the year. Looking back over the summer, we reflected that this has been a rather poor year for our traditional harvests - we missed the strawberry crop, we didn't pick fall raspberries, the honeycrisps were all picked out at the orchard (as were many of the other apple varieties) and we didn't get our fall chrysanthemums, either. What a year. The pumpkin patch, however, after being gone two years (they lost their lease or something like that), returned this year to its old spot, so we packed the kids in the car one evening and headed there.

Everyone got to pick a pumpkin.

The third quarter of the year is always our busiest time. For one, it's when school begins and everyone has to adjust to new schedules and driving duties and, correspondingly, the exhausted that comes from those new routines. Then, there are two birthday parties to organize and execute, one on the same weekend as Halloween. And then there's Halloween itself - meaning there are costumes to make. Also, somehow, all our annual medical checkups seem to converge in these three months. Finally, there are the things to do around the house and yard to prepare for the change of seasons - leaves to rake, summer things to put away, winter-proofing to be done, and all the dressers and closets have to be turned out and the summer clothes and shoes swopped with winter wear. So forgive us if we're a little quiet on the blogging front. Or email. I always feel that once Halloween is over, it's a slow and relaxing cruise into the new year, with Christmas barely making a bump in the ride. I look forward to pointedly ignoring the sewing machine and spending copious amounts of time in the kitchen, making soups, stews, bread, cookies, tarts and pies, enjoying the kids, letting them help cook and bake, and just playing.

First, though, I must survive this week!

I miss the pool. I have a splitting headache now that only swimming can cure. Chocolate didn't work - I tried it.

See you after Halloween!

Books In The Post

2011-10-12T09:02:00.002-05:00

This week, some books arrived in the post.

I bought them online, and they are all by the same author. They are all also out of print. This company has books from as far back as the 1960s, but I already owned those hat they stocked. These were some of the titles I didn't own, and mostly hadn't read. Very pleased. Enid Blyton is a children's author, so these are mainly for the girls, although I shall probably read them first before narrating them.

A large number of Blyton's works are original tales of fairies and pixies and children, but she also rewrote versions of other, well-known stories, fables and myths. The book on the left was one I remember reading as a child but which, for some reason, is no longer in my collection.

Half of it is about Robin Hood

and the other is about the Knights of the Round Table. A strange combination, given that they aren't even from the same era. I shall nonetheless look forward to reading them.

The book on the right is of myths and legends- here is a Roman one. I am hoping there are also some from the Greek - we shall find out soon enough.

I got 16 of these golden oldies for $60 - the shipping was free. A steal.

Shepherd's Pie

2011-10-11T21:20:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I haven't yet posted our recipe for this old favourite. As always, the actual quantities are inexact - so just taste as you go. Also, while I make a roux in other similar dishes, I always forget with this one, so the thickening agent goes in at the end. You can make a roux if you prefer.

Ingredients:

Potatoes
1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion, diced finely
2 cloves garlic, minced
Frozen peas-and-carrots
Beef stock or bouillon
Tomato paste- about 2-3 Tbsp
Salt
Pepper
Parsley
Corn starch or flour
Paprika
Milk
Butter
Cheese (cheddar/mozarella) - optional

Method:

Choose a casserole dish. Heat oven to 350F.
Peel, dice and boil enough potatoes to make mash that's 1"-2" deep.
When potatoes are boiled, drain and mash, seasoning with salt, milk and butter. Because it's going to be baked, it is better to err on the side of too moist than too dry.
Soak the frozen peas-and-carrots in hot water, drain.
Fry garlic and onion, then add beef. Drain fat.
Add in thawed vegetables.
In a separate bowl, mix together water and corn starch/flour. If using stock, dissolve the cornstarch/flour in it. If using dry bouillon, add water to about a cup. Pour this into the beef mixture.
Add in tomato paste, salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in parsley flakes or freshly-chopped parsley.
Pour into casserole dish.

Layer mashed potatoes on top, smoothing with fork. Dust with paprika for garnish. Sometimes - like if the meat mixture is oddly tasteless - I may sprinkle a little cheddar and mozzarella on it before topping with the mash. It binds the two layers together and adds a little extra saltiness.

Bake in oven for about 20 -25 minutes, or until the mash is golden.

Not Really Sundried Tomatoes

2011-10-10T01:32:00.000-05:00

Some awful-lighting photos in this post- brace yourselves.

Our two tomato plants have, in spite of a premature freeze several weeks ago, continued to valiantly produce their tiny fruit. If you've grown tomato plants, you will know they are especially prolific at a time when you are quite sick of eating tomatoes, and have exhausted all recipes that have them as an ingredient. Even after turning a batch of them into sauce for freezing, there were still these little ones sitting in overabundance on our kitchen counter. I always feel bad letting them rot, but particularly so when the harvest was hard-won.

So these got halved, laid on a baking sheet, and left in a lukewarm oven for several hours.

Supposed to have sprinkled salt on them, but of course I forgot.

Well, here they are - fake sundried tomatoes.

I put them in a jar, keep that in the cupboard, and forget all about them till next year when I do the same thing to the new batch, and curse when I discover the jars from subsequent years, still full.

At least they didn't rot, right?

P.S. I do use them in my cooking, of course. I just forget I have them. Sometimes in desperation I take a few out and chew on them like raisins, just to deplete their numbers slightly.

The Colours Of Fall

2011-10-06T21:25:00.000-05:00

This week, the trees and shrubs are at their peak colour and they are so beautiful that it drives us almost to distraction. So yesterday I took our camera on our car ride to pick the girls up from school, and made frequent stops to capture some of those glorious sights.

This is the park where we feed ducks - we stand on that dock.

Trees at the preschool

Pumpkin stand

Tree at another park, turning colour.

A couple of shots taken by Dave:

And since yesterday was a 90-degree day (in October!) we went to a park for a picnic tea

and to feed fish.

Kate has been sick all week, incidentally. But we also had gorgeous weather all week, so we went out to parks and picnics in spite of it. Fresh air is so good, especially for sick little girls!

Art by Kate

2011-10-06T16:24:00.000-05:00

After several days, Kate finished her first pearler bead thingy!

I was very impressed that a three-year-old would sit and assiduously arrange all those tiny beads, but she did.

Here are some sheets of paper we found near Kate's bed. She's been practicing her letters. She told me that some of the letters are "normal" and some are "fancy". The fancy ones have curly tails.

And I love this drawing of people she did. The face at the bottom could have been drawn by Quentin Blake, but no, it was actually Kate.

And here's Kate showing off some gems she bought at the Children's Museum months ago. They don't count as Art By Kate, but she felt that we should take a photo of them, so I did.

Right Place, Right Time

2011-10-05T22:54:00.007-05:00

On one of the last few days before Mum and Dad left Minnesota for home, we went to a park we've nicknamed "The Archery Park."

It had all the usual park amenities - playgrounds,

fields, grass, trees -

but it also had an outdoor archery range (hence our nickname for it). Dad and Mum were here before on their previous visit, and the girls, Dave and I have been here countless times ourselves in the last couple of years. We've never, never seen any sign of life on this field. Not one arrow or archer or anything. It made us wonder if it was actually used, or whether it was secretly some kind of odd ornamental sculpture garden. I'd even consulted the online parks department and googled it to see if I could discover who used it, when and how. Zero. Nothing.

That day, however, two archery parties were there. Two!

So we sat and watched them for a while. Dad, if you remember, is an avid archer and instructor, so it was especially interesting to him.

On another day, the ice cream truck turned up. Again. We'd not seen it all summer, and suddenly it appeared twice, and both times while Mum and Dad were here.

We didn't see it the rest of the summer. It was almost as if it turned up just so a couple of visiting grandparents could buy their granddaughters ice cream. Twice. Just like the archers turned up to entertain Dad while we played on the slides and see-saws at the park. Happy coincidences, providence, planetary alignment - call it what you will - it sure put a smile on our faces.

And that brings us to the end of the DesiMae Chronicles! Tune in in 2014 for the next chapter!

County Fair

2011-10-03T00:58:00.001-05:00

The end of the summer is marked by, among other things, the big State Fair. It's huge - so huge that we've chosen to skip it for the third year running, until the kids are old enough to enjoy it without passing out from exhaustion and overstimulation. We go, instead, to the smaller and more intimate county fairs.

They offer ample parking closeby

and all the usual attractions:

but on a more manageable scale.

The kids loved the livestock - real

and fake-

the food,

the prizes,

and the rides.

Some of these rides have been around for years (in a good way).

I am always thrilled to see law enforcement on horseback. You never get to see this in Singapore. Never.

Can a family have too many grand days out?

I think not!

Blackhawk Park

2011-10-02T00:58:00.001-05:00

Blackhawk Park is one of our favourites - a short drive away, nice playground, hiking trails, bridge over a fishing lake and lots of wildflowers and trees.

And creatures -

We were last here with Mum and Dad in 2008.

The kids were tiny then! Here are Emily and Jenna

and Kate.

And here are some of the colourful living things that bloomed therein.

It's always fun to look at old photos taken with the same people in the same place!

On this trip to Blackhawk, we discovered a mulberry tree

with mulberries!

We harvested some, and turned them into jam at home!

Emily's Party

2011-09-30T09:00:00.001-05:00

Finally got the photos of Emily's party rounded up. More photos on the craft blog, but here are some highlights of her enjoying her day.

Zoo in Photos

2011-09-29T12:00:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday we went to the Zoo.

Now, we regularly go to the Zoo, but this time was special for two reasons. One, Dave came (because it was the weekend) and he brought the camera, and used it.

And two, we were there with the cousins!

So this post is going to be as much about enjoying being with them as it is about the Zoo itself. Hurrah!

First we walked the main loop. Here is Kate watching the otters.

Here are the girls at the wild boar exhibit.

Kate and Molly.

Kate and Alex.

Kate after a tumble on the ground (it was hard to be exuberant and also accident-free).

The grizzly bears - from afar

and close up.

Then we headed to the farm.

where we watched the cow-milking demo

and fed the goats

and rode the tractor.

Sunshine(ish) + nature + outdoors + people = a grand day out (again). We are blessed to have had so many of them this summer!

Medieval Fair

2011-09-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

Last Sunday, we went to the Medieval Fair at the Caponi Art Park. We went with some friends, who are also our neighbours, and our three girls were very excited about meeting their three girls.

Kate made a map.

We walked down wooded trails from the car park to get there.

There were all sorts of little tents and pavilions, housing various displays of crafts, cooking demonstrations, and other exhibits.

This was bean porridge cooking over coals. There were samples of this to try, along with peas porridge (cold).

Lady spinning wool into thread.

Lady doing needlework- she was also handing out wooden thimbles.

Man making glass beads.

The girls spent a long time at the coloring tent, decorating bookmarks,

which they then took into another tent to have their names scribed by calligraphers.

There were also medieval warfare exhibits -

tournaments with different hand weapons of the sword variety

siege catapults, crossbows and armor demonstrations

Also medieval science.

Some random photos of the kids.

Morningism

2011-09-28T08:33:00.001-05:00

Me, to Kate this morning, "Kate, you haven't touched your cereal. Do you want your cereal anymore?"

Kate, shaking her head, "Unh-uh."

Me: Well, then I'll finish it, so we won't waste it.

Kate protests loudly and grabs the bowl back.

Me: But I thought you said you didn't want it!

Kate: "No" is another word for "yes".

And then she chuckles.

"So ridiculous." she adds.

Only three, and already an expert in the fine art of ambiguity.

Colourism

2011-09-26T23:35:00.000-05:00

Different families employ the services of different sanitation companies in the community to dispose of their trash, yard waste and recyclables. This is seen in the variety of colours of garbage cans sitting on driveways on the different service days. Most of these cans come in subdued, dirt-camouflaging colours like dark blue, dark green, brown and black. This week, however, we saw a hot-pink trash can on someone's driveway as we were driving to Jenna's and Kate's preschool.

Everyone said something about it, because it was such an unusual colour. Jenna also wryly and somewhat unfairly observed, "That must be the good-smelling one. The dark blue, dark green and brown ones are the -bleeeaaaghh! - horrible-smelling ones."

Also related, Jenna often has strong opinions on what colours are in rainbows. She is open to omitting indigo, but otherwise consistently includes the traditional red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. This sometimes causes her emotional conflict, because of her love of pink, which (the girls feel) has been unfairly overlooked in the original divine assignment of rainbow colours. To compensate for this, we have created the Marginalized Hues Rainbow, which is made of brown, grey, white, black, silver, gold and (of course) pink.

Isms

2011-09-25T08:53:00.004-05:00

Jennaism

At Jenna's preschool, the kids are often asked a question at the door as they leave to be picked up by their parents. These are simple questions related to the day's lesson, like naming something green, or something they can find in a fire station. Last week, the kids had been learning about bears and the letter B, so as we picked Jenna up on Friday afternoon, her teacher asked, "Name something that begins with "B"."

The first kid called out, "bear!" and ran out to his mother.

The next kid whispered, "Barbie!" and ran out to her mother.

Jenna walked slowly out to meet us and her teacher asked her in turn.

Emily, Kate and I listened, wondering if she'd pick "Bearaby" (her current favorite stuffed animal) or "bupbilla".

"Beluga." said Jenna.

Stunned silence for a second and then much high-fiving with the teacher and us. Jenna grinned and walked nonchalantly away.

Back home later, I asked Jenna what a beluga was. She made me guess, and allowed me to ask questions to get clues. I was informed, in this sequence, that a beluga is

an animal
an animal that lives underwater
a mammal
warm-blooded
a kind of whale
a white whale

(but she wasn't sure if it laid eggs or not).

Kateism

On Friday night, Emily asked for chocolate chips for dessert. Getting this dessert is usually more work than I'd like, because it involves taking down the baking box from the highest shelf, and apportioning the different flavours of baking chips into small bowls. It is even less efficient if each child asks for this at different times.

Kate, having seen Emily's bowl of chocolate chips, came to ask for hers.

"No, Kate." I said, "I've already put all them all away and I don't want to dig them all out again. Can I get you ice cream? Fruit popsicle? Yoghurt?"

No, I want chocolate chips, was Kate's firm stand, which became increasingly whiny and desperate as exhaustion from the long day took its toll on her. We don't reward whining, so Kate walked away unhappy and empty-handed.

Suddenly, she returned to the kitchen door, calm and earnest, and plaintively tried again.

"I'm sorry you have to dig them all out again but I don't care."

Vanquished. Just like that. How irresistible is this combination of candor and consideration. When I was done laughing, I got up from the floor and gave her her chocolate chips.

On The Street Where We Lived

2011-09-24T11:37:00.002-05:00

In the days before we had kids, we lived in an apartment in a big brown building. It stood between this 3rd Avenue Bridge

(March 2003)

and the historic Stone Arch Bridge over the St Anthony Falls.

(Aug 2011)

Those were wonderful months in our first home after our wedding. We lived here till we returned to Singapore so I could serve out my work contract (aka The Bond) with the government.

From here, we walked downtown, biked to school, walked to the office, in-line skated along the river, enjoyed the view of the city skyline from our balcony and watched the lines of traffic snake along the one-way streets after the games at the Metrodome.

(2003)

(2011)

Grandpa Desmond and Grandma Mae stayed in the same building on two of their many visits to MN, and had many fond memories of this beautiful place, so after the Twins game at the stadium (see previous post), we took a detour to revisit our old neighbourhood.

We walked along the Stone Arch Bridge, which was my biking route to classes at the Uni every morning.

We watched the Falls

and peered down at the mill ruins.

Some things stayed the same -

(2003)

(2011)

(2003)

(2011)

but most of it has changed in the eight and a half years since we've lived there.

Our rental apartment building is now a residential condo.

The paths and roads are better.

(2003)

(2011)

There's the newish Mill City Museum

And from behind the famous Gold Medal Flour tower,

the new Guthrie Theater now peeks, beyond which lies the (also) new Mill City Park.

And then there's them. They're new, too. Or, at least, they weren't there in 2003.

They couldn't fathom that there was once a place in which Mum and Dad lived which didn't have them in it.