momcast

Friday Foto: Hey Girl

2012-02-12T20:09:00.002-05:00

A little late for Friday but, worth it. A little fun with a meme :) Thanks Ginny @ small things.

Day 8 - The Kids Room

2012-02-08T20:52:00.001-05:00

I braved the boys' room today to cull two bags of broken stuff. It certainly wasn't hard. They are hard on their stuff.

It wasn't hard to get the stuff out of the room, either. The two of them were fully absorbed in playing a new Star Wars themed video game and never even glanced over at me. Except when I asked, of course.

And, I did ask. Matt Paxton - extreme cleaning specialist, owner of Clutter Cleaner, host of the 5 Decisions Away podcast and a featured expert on A&E's Hoarders - explains in his book The Secret Lives Of Hoarders and illustrates on the Hoarders show, you should never go into a hoarding situation, bag stuff up and throw it away. The person who owns the stuff must be consulted and give permission when you throw things out. Even if it appears to be straight up garbage.

I asked Kieran if I could throw out a number of things that were broken. I was expecting resistance and was prepared to reason with him but he surprised me. A number of things I know he was holding onto, despite their being broken or orphaned from a set, were quickly dispatched. Kieran had a look on his face like he knew he couldn't keep everything he owned, especially if it was something outside his main interests (namely Star Wars and Lego).

So, a few old, broken toys and dress up clothes went into the bag along with some ripped comic books, a scratched DVD, a cardboard box, a bunch of plastic kid's meal toys, a handful of abandoned crayons and a preschooler sized bike helmet that had lost it's outer shell.

And that all took me five minutes.

Where Stuff Goes When It Has To Go - Garbage, Recycling and Donations

2012-02-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

I don't know about your city, but our city has limits on how much garbage you can throw out for collection each week. There's just so much crap in the world and nowhere to put it!

For the de-clutterer, this can be a problem. I'm trying to get 29 bags of garbage - on top of my usual weekly household garbage - out of the house. Our municipality allows each household to put out 1 bag of trash each weekly for collection. It doesn't matter if that's 1 grocery store bag of trash or 1 mega sized black trash bag or 1 can full of garbage. Only 1 bag per household will be picked up by the garbage collection program.

I have a secret weapon, however. I live in a house with three separate households. The other folks I share the house with don't consistently put out garbage, or just put a very small amount out. That means, on most weeks, I can slip an extra bag or two out to the curb and not get penalized. Sneaky, but sometimes necessary.

To get around this 1 bag limit, we have to be pretty savvy recyclers. We are lucky to have an awesome green and blue bin recycling program. Our green bin program takes compostable material so all food waste, old pizza boxes, paper coffee cups and old tissues can go in there. Paper - so often the bane of the chronically disorganized - goes in one bin and plastic, glass and tin containers in another.

But, not all of the stuff I'm decluttering is recyclable. Not all of it is garbage, either. In fact, if I wanted to invest the time, I could probably find new owners for a large chuck of the things I'm decluttering. The smaller the items, the less I'm interested in investing that time, but there are definitely things worth the effort.

Where to get rid of stuff? Well, in my city there is Value Village. They'll take most items that are resalable. There is also the Salvation Army (a faith-based organization) and the Goodwill/Amity. In the next city, Burlington, there is a fantastic resource called The Reuse Centre. This place will take clean building materials as well as most household items, except clothes. You will need to bag and box everything you are donating. Most of these places will offer you a tax receipt if you request one.

There are a number of organizations that will pick up your clean, reusable household items for you. They often call every few months to ask if you have items to donate and then send a truck around to pick up the items from your porch. In this area, the Canadian Diabetes Association runs the Clothesline program. Another pick up program is Recycling Matters through Community Living Ontario. If you don't receive calls from these or similar programs, you can contact them through those links and have them collect your clean, reusable stuff on their next trip through your neighbourhood.

Another donation option if you have singular useful items is Freecycle.org. You can list an item, along with your general area, and often have a dozen interested people ready to claim your item, at your convenience, within a few hours. I'll be listing a couple items there right after I post this. (So, if you are local and a Freecycle peep, look out for the 3 bags of packing peanuts and the mini sewing machine.) Not all items get picked up and sometimes people never show up, but I like helping folks out directly by giving away items that I know will be used by other folks in need.

And, I'll just put this out there right now: if you have a broken Magic Bullet Express or one you never use, I want it!!! I just need to blades and cups, so I don't care if the motor is burnt out! I post that on Freecycle every 2 months but haven't gotten a hit yet. One day, though!

I'll be talking about what to do with your valuable clutter in a few days, so check back in. In the meantime, before today the bag count for the February Clutter Fighter Challenge was 5 bags. Today, I add 3 more bags to that total.

I emptied out 6 small storage boxes, 4 of which had been sitting on my kitchen floor for a year. That's what you see above. It's assorted toys, art and craft supplies, sewing supplies and junk. There is a bag of garbage half full in that photo.

After separating the clutter from the misplaced items, I put away the things that had homes, put the miscellaneous craft supplies in a box to go back in the pantry and had two items for Freecycle.

On Day 5 of the 29 day challenge, I now have 8 bags of clutter cleared!

How are you doing?

Friday Fotos: Brothers Walking Home From School

2012-02-03T17:50:00.000-05:00

From my vantage point, this is a scene that never fails to make me smile. In the first photo, Kieran, 8, is teaching Spencer, 4, to skip. In the second photo, they are just walking along, hand in hand, after pajama day at school.

Day 2 - Scratched Kid DVDs Are Gone!

2012-02-02T21:40:00.003-05:00

A few years ago, we got the kids a TV and DVD player. It was given to us, actually, and the most logical place for it was the kids room. At that point, after 6 years of watching kids shows and kids movies at what seemed a non-stop pace, I was ready to relocate the kid stuff.

A number of DVDs were designated for kid use - Spy Kids 3D, for example, blech! - and the kids were taught how to handle all the equipment. They pretty quickly devolved into tossing their DVDs on a pile instead of putting them back in cases. Then the pile would get knocked down. Then discs would get kicked under the train table. Then they'd get picked up and thrown in a bin during clean up.

It wasn't too long before the DVDs were getting scratched beyond repair. And Sean and I made the decision that we weren't going to be super precious about that. After all, we didn't foresee the kids wanting to keep watching the movies they loved at 3, 4 and 5 year olds when they got older. We were right on that score. And kid DVDs, even when handled with care, rarely make it out of childhood in a resellable state. Heck, most of them were second hand, anyway. Obviously those discs were from fussy parents!

We recently decided, with the kids, to round all the kid's room DVDs up and throw them out. I wanted to go through them first to verify that they were in garbage ready condition. There were cases of games still in use to be sorted out of there, as well. Then, Sean asked me to reserve as many decent condition cases as I could to give to a friend who runs a resale shop; he goes through lots of empty DVD cases, it seems.

So, today, my bag is two bags: one bags of discs, cases and cover art and one bag of empty cases and doubler inserts - for multiple DVDs.

For a bonus, because it was in the same stack of bins under my antique Mission table, I got a stack of papers ready for the recycling bin. I still have to rip up (I don't own a shredder, but I'm thinking in might be a good investment this month) a few old bills and outdated insurance policy papers, etc. But, that's essentially a third bag heading out the door!

You've been awful quiet, readers. What have you been getting rid of?

Day 1 - A Bag Of Stuff To Start!

2012-02-01T22:01:00.000-05:00

It's the first day of the Clutter Fighter Challenge and despite being gone all day at a Board of Directors meeting, I managed to do my first bag. And then some!

Do you remember the coffee table? This is what it looks like now!

I cleared out enough books to fill one of those cubbies from the other side of the table. The kids and Sean all contributed a few things to the bag of books now destined for the used book store, or maybe just Value Village.

I also put together a bag of keepsakes to put in everyone`s keepsake boxes: old class photos, old birthday and holiday cards, a picture of me at 19, Walter Gretzky`s autograph, a story about my father-in-law that made the newspaper...

How did you do today?

This Is Why I Need To Throw Out 29 Bags Of Clutter

2012-01-31T11:54:00.002-05:00

The Clutter Fighter Challenge officially begins tomorrow, so I thought I ought to show you what I'm dealing with.

Now, be warned, this is not a design blog, so you won't get beautiful photos, lovingly framed, with artful depth of focus and realistic colour. Nope, you get pics that I took at 7:45am on my iPod which show that I might actually have a slight palsy!

First, let us look at the kitchen. Living in a duplex with one closet and a very modest amount of space for a four person family has led to the kitchen becoming a catch-all. I bought two double door pantry cupboards that house my business stuff, the kid's craft and drawing supplies, sewing supplies, etc. Unfortunately, this organization still left lots of stuff without homes.


The top of the fridge. Ugh!

I love the look of jars and canisters, but this looks so junky.

Our printer station. Can you see the antique Mission table?

The hoard that never goes away.

Now let's take a look at the master bedroom. This is the one I'm really ashamed of. When we had our home birth nearly five years ago, this room was spotless. Taking care of two kids and a husband - and being a hater of housework in general - has led to a laundry pile that grew and grew and never seems to recede. It doesn't help that we have to pay to use the coin-op washer and dryer in the basement. During the many tough financial times we've had, the laundry was the thing we skimped on in favour of decent food. A lot of this should be thrown straight out.

The never-ending laundry pile.

The hoard, all packed up, a jumble.

The living room, though pretty clean and tidy, contains this monster, the Leksvik table filled with bins that are filled with stuff. Really, it's just boxes of semi-concealed clutter.

There are 9 cubbies on each side. 9 places to store crap!

The hallway is the home of our one, yes ONE closet. For the whole apartment. It is FULL! At least one bag of clutter must come out of here.

The hall, packed with wrapping paper, Rock Band drums and a thousand other things.

Finally, there is my son's room. They share. They share many things. Literally. They also share a horrible habit for tidying up.

A giant train table dominates the middle of the kid's room.

So, there you have it. Almost 10 years in this apartment, living with four people and a tragic lack of closets and some chronic disorganization and a tendency to hold onto stuff has led to what you see above. And tomorrow, that's going to change, one bag of clutter at a time.

So, fess up. What's your place look like?

February Clutter Fighter Challenge Starts In Two Days!

2012-01-30T07:30:00.000-05:00

The Challenge is almost here!

If you want to join me in get your clutter under control, leave a comment.

If you blog about your challenge or write about getting organized, add your link to your comment. Show off your progress, come clean about the real state of your home, share your best clutter fighting tip or talk about the clutter in your life. Share with everyone else, I'm going to! It's going to be fun!

Making Hash

2012-01-25T19:21:00.001-05:00

I've been going through a thing this last year: I've been really fatigued by having to cook everyday and come up with food that is nutritious, tasty and won't bore my brains out. I think I just found a new thing: hash.

A hash is a pan fried version of the one-pot meal. Basically, you chuck everything in a pan with some fat, season it and cook till done. It's perfect for leftovers, especially those leftovers that accumulate in the freezer in small quantities like half a cup of gravy, a cup of pan drippings, one chicken quarter, etc.

Tonight I was looking for something to make with three sausages for me and the boys - Sean is at a concert in Toronto tonight. I found this in my blog reader: Hash: A Great Stretchy Meal. Major inspiration!

I put three about a 1/4 C of bacon fat from this morning's breakfast into my big iron pan.
I sliced three Yukon Gold potatoes and let them cook on med-low until the potatoes start to get a bit soft.
I add half an onion, chopped into medium- large pieces and let those cook for a minute.
I added half a carrot, sliced in thin half medallions.
The last veggie I added to this mix was chopped cabbage.
To the mix I added sea salt and pepper, some garlic powder, a shake of Montreal Steak Spice and a tsp of Old Bay Spice. Yum!
I cooked the whole thing till the potatoes looked evenly fried and the carrots and cabbage were soft.
I then slapped that stuff beside some German sausages.

You're welcome!

Do you make something similar? What's your favourite combo?

February Clutter Fighter Challenge 2012

2012-01-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

It's almost the end of January and I have yet to get started on any of the New Year's resolutions I told myself I was going to do. Sound familiar? So, this is the moment when I get off my butt and actually do something. Who's with me?

I'm challenging myself to purge a minimum of one bag of trash or donations every day in February. That 29 bags of stuff I don't want and don't need in my home. After 29 bags of stuff leave this house, it's going to be a lot cleaner around here.

Like most families - especially those with kids - we have a lot of stuff. We do our best at finding places for things and putting everything in it's place, but we're not perfect. Stuff is piling up. We have more stuff than we need and nowhere to put it.

Spencer, my youngest, was born at home. My bedroom was perfectly clean on that day. I had three midwives, one doula, a mother, a child and my husband in that room and they all could move around easily. But, the challenge of raising two children quickly overwhelmed my ability to keep clutter and cleaning under control. Our bedroom has a laundry pile that's been in steady state for two years. There is a permanent collection of stuff that doesn't have a home stacked at one end and because of it's clutterific state, there are bits and bobs all over the place - Lego, stray dryer sheets that escaped the clean laundry baskets, abandoned hangers... you get the picture. This is a hoard waiting to happen.

The kitchen has a similar problem. There are a few boxes and stacks of assorted paperwork and homeless stuff stacked neatly around the edges of the room.

I often explain the problem away by pointing out that there is one closet for a 4 person home (we live in a duplex). That's really just an excuse. We've really just got more stuff than we need.
Some stuff I have a hard time relinquishing due to the fact that I feel I'm being thrifty. Who knows when I'll want a dozen toilet paper tubes to make owl crafts?!

Sometimes I feel guilty throwing things away that I've spent money on. Living on a small income means that any purchase I make that ends up going in the garbage is wasted money. It doesn't matter that many of the things I'm holding onto may have lived through their usefulness; they were once valuable and served a purpose but they are no longer needed as our family's needs change.

Well, it's time to white knuckle it and face the problem before it completely overwhelms us all. I can understand those families on Hoarders who are living with piles of stuff and boxes and cobwebs: after a while, when things are messy and cluttered for so long, keeping it all tidy and clean seems pointless and the grime starts to build up.

It sounds ridiculous, but it's more motivating to maintain the cleanliness of an already clean home.

So, as I stand on the tipping point, I am ready to let go and purge the clutter.

Want to join me?

Here are the rules:

Clear out 1 bag of clutter a day.
The bag can be all trash, all donations, or a combo of both (in which case you should really separate the stuff into two separate bags.
The term bag could mean a grocery sack, a black garbage back, a box, a pail, a laundry basket or even a larger single item or more (for example: a bag could be equivalent to two old broken kitchen chairs or a computer monitor).
You can dispose of your unwanted items by adding them to your weekly garbage and recycling, donating them to a thrift store, donating them to needful individuals, reselling them or having a third party pick them up (like an e-recycling firm that can pick up old cell phones and dead laptops).
You must dispose of your items within one week. I don't expect you to run to the thrift store every day, but if your items sit around for long, they may never leave!
You don't have to do this one, but I'd love it if you left a comment here on your progress. Blog about your progress, if you have a blog, and share your links!

The challenge starts on February 1, 2012. I'll be posting about my daily progress here as well as offering some tips. Want to join me?

Christmas Traditions and a Recipe

2011-11-15T21:45:00.001-05:00

Like most of us, I grew up with certain Christmas traditions. Most of them involved food.

There were the traditions that we all share of foods eaten on specific days, at specific times, in specific houses. On Christmas Eve I ate frankfurters and kartofellsalat (weiners and potato salad) at my Oma's around 7pm. Around 10 or 11pm I ate lasagna at my Granny's. The next day we would have turkey, ham, brussel sprouts, corn, mashed potatoes and mushy peas for supper and "Sand" (a strawberry trifle) and "5 Cup" (5 cup salad with marshmallows, fruit and sour cream).

A holiday meal really isn't complete for me unless it has some ham, some "Sand" (so named because, my father declared on first eating it, the juice of the berries made the jelly roll go "sandy". It's been called "Sand" for 40 years) and some "5 Cup". I can negotiate on everything else, though I crave mushy peas like crazy! (Bigga Peas that come from the British Isles in a box and must be soaked.)

There are other food related traditions that I'm reminded of in late November and December. Like Magic Bars!

The rest of the world calls them Hello Dolly's but we call them Magic Bars because that's what the recipe on the back of the Magic brand sweetened condensed milk called them. And I know the recipe from heart because my mom and I made them every year since I began existing. You melt butter into graham crackers and press into a square pan, spread a layer of chocolate chips, a layer of walnuts and a layer of coconut and drizzle a can of sweetened condensed milk evenly over everything. Bake till it all goes melty and the top starts to brown.

This was pretty much the extent of my mother's "Christmas Baking".

My Mom, lover of Advocaat.

The squares, usually 2 batches at a time, would go into the fridge to set and my mother would give a strict warning that the treats weren't to be touched. They were for guests. Of which we had few if any. (My father didn't cultivate many friends and abhorred entertaining people, preferring to drink beer in front of the hockey game alone.) I think my mother really meant that they were for her.

The warnings succeeded only in slowing down the pace at which we devoured the squares. Every day when we came home, we'd sneak into the kitchen and cut off slivers of squares, attempting to make the devouring as unnoticeable as possible. After a week or so my mother would notice the missing squares, however, and hit the roof.

The other pre-Christmas Christmas food tradition we had also involved something that just my mother would enjoy: egg liqueur.

Called Advocaat, it was a creamy egg liqueur that my grandmother made every year. My mother would request a bottle and be given a small soda bottle full of the creamy stuff that was always covered in a bit of plastic wrap held in place with an elastic band. Since it was alcoholic, I never touched it, not even to experiment. It lived at the very back of the fridge like a scary science experiment.

My mother indulged in a weekly teaspoonful of it, making the precious stuff last months and months until it was almost time to request another bottle.

I made some when I was in my 20s, from my Granny's recipe. It was delicious! I can see now why my mother hoarded it. Though, of course, I also wonder why she didn't just make some for herself whenever she wanted it since it's remarkably easy to make. Though, I suppose, my generation don't really get the concept of delayed gratification and making things a special treat in this age of instant gratification.

I suppose that little bottle of Advocaat prepared by her mother wouldn't have been special if she'd made it herself every month and drank a dram every day.

I hadn't thought of the egg liqueur in a long time until my Granny told me she'd made some because my mother had asked for it. But, Granny told me, she'd lost her recipe and made it from memory and was sure she'd gotten it wrong because it was more like custard than a cream liqueur. I tried it and reveled in its thick, creamy deliciousness, not unlike a boozy custard. I wondered at where she'd gone wrong with the recreation of the recipe and then realised that I actually had the recipe at home.

My Granny, with Kieran and Spencer.

My Granny was relieved to hear it and I promised to bring it to her so that she could make a second batch in time for the holidays.

My Granny is 86 years old. She won't long be around to make Advocaat for my mum. Thinking about that makes me realise that I need to get off my butt and archive a number of my Granny's recipes and remember all the wonderful traditions she created for me and my mother.

Egg Liqueur - Advocaat

6 Egg Yolks
3/4 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Alcohol (vodka, unless you can find plain, tasteless spirits)
1 1/2 Cups Heavy Cream (35%)

Soak the sugar in the alcohol while you beat the egg yolks for 15 minutes.
Blend the alcohol into the eggs.
Add the cream to the mixture and beat for 5 minutes.
Store in the fridge in a clean bottle, covered.

The Best Pork Chop Recipe Ever!

2011-10-04T20:33:00.002-04:00

I'm not kidding, I'm going to share with you the most delicious pork chop recipe I've ever come across. It will make tender, flavourful chops with lots of sauce. You will thank me.

As part of a meat package we bought from our favourite butcher, we received 10 lbs of thick cut pork chops. When I was a kid, pork chops were sprinkled with garlic salt, chuck into the oven and cooked until ready. When I tried that as an adult, I found the chops to be pretty dry and therefore a bit tough. I fried them in a pan, but they were once again dry and tough. And, frankly, bland.

We are getting to the last few packages of that meat order and I've been putting off cooking the chops. So, I turned to the collective culinary wisdom of the internet and performed some Google Fu. "How to cook moist pork chops" yielded a number of results, including a positively ancient thread on Chowhound where someone asked the very same question.

If you are in need of food ideas and tips, Chowhound is definitely the place to seek them out.

A few early responses pointed to the need to sear the sides of the chop to lock in the juices. Other people spoke of starting the chops off in a pan and finishing them in the oven. Many people pointed out the necessity of brining the meat first for a truly moist, soft chop. One person brined in milk and salt instead of water and salt.

My attention was caught by a person who brined, seared and then cooked the chops with a couple of sliced up onions.

The real gem, however, came shortly after. A gentleman described a method of cooking the chops and building a sauce in the same pan. And that's what I made tonight.

I just want to apologise for not having a photo, but we all gobbled the food up so quick a photo wasn't possible.

This dish was absolutely amazing tasting. The chops were tender and moist and the sauce was endlessly flavourful. Though this is a hands-on kind of dish, it's not so labour intensive as to be hard to make on a weeknight. You can prep your veggies between steps, set your table, enjoy a glass of wine, wash a couple of the breakfast dishes and even read a few snatches of a good book.

The Best Pork Chop Recipe Ever!

4-6 chops (size up or down the portions as fits your needs)
Olive Oil
Butter
2 Onions
1/2 C White Wine
1 C Chicken or Veggie Stock (I used a TBSP of homemade boullion and a cup of water)
1/2 Heavy Cream (if you only have Half and Half, add in a TBSP of corn starch at the end)
1 TBSP Mustard (not yellow hot dog mustard. Get your self some decent mustard!) or 1tsp Dry Mustard
Sea Salt and Pepper to taste

Brine pork chops for an hour (1 or 2 TBSP sea salt and water in a bowl or zip bag), drain and dry.
Heat a pan to very hot and with some oil sear both sides of all the chops for 2 mins/side.
Remove chops and reduce heat to medium-low, add 2 TBSPs butter, 2 onions halved and sliced, 2-4 cloves of garlic minced.
When soft, add 1/2 C white wine and reduce for 2-5 minutes, then add 1 C chicken or veggie stock and reduce for another 2-5 minutes.
Add chops back in, cover and cook on low heat for 20 minutes - less if your chops are thinner.
Remove chops and add in 1/2 C cream.
Simmer a few minutes and add mustard and salt and pepper.
You are done! Eat that stuff up!

I had a bunch of the sauce left over, so I'm going to add it to browned hamburger tomorrow and serve over potatoes. It's going to be amazing!

The Writing On The Wall

2011-09-29T23:08:00.001-04:00

The last time I wrote, I discussed the differences between my two sons: my wild child Kieran who is spirited and curious and my adorable Spencer who embodies that time worn phrase joie de vivre.

This summer, tho, Kieran hasn't merely been spirited, he's been troubled. The depth of the developing problems shook me to the core. And, looking back, I realise that I've always known that there was something Kieran needed special help fixing. I just refused to look at the writing on the wall.

We've read so many parenting books, took classes, tried for years to parent Kieran with love and kindness and practiced positive discipline while warring with our frustrations, the pressure of people who didn't understand, like we did, that Kieran was special and was just physically and mentally unable to restrain himself.

It broke our hearts in two to watch Kieran in pain but at the same time resent him for being so damned difficult, defiant, aggressive, mercurial, unfocused, disrespectful... He never got invited to birthday parties, never was able to build and keep friendships and gained a reputation as a problem kid for his outbursts and those wretched and horrifying lapses in patience when he bit or punched or pushed a student or his cousin or the child of a friend.

For my part, I've learned to shy away from other parents. I am a lone wolf on the playground, seeing the unhappy looks of other parents and putting my headphones on or opening my book to hide away from accusations and the sheer fatigue of dealing the Kieran-stuff. I've spent years explaining and making excuses to family and teachers and administrators and strangers and parents and babysitters... In the first year he was at school, I often walked home from the school crying and ashamed at hearing the latest incident.

And, despite all my readings and classes and research, nothing seemed to work. We role played and made charts and had heart-to-hearts. We yelled and gave time-outs and a couple times completely lost our tempers and swatted at behinds. We implemented strategies that the books and blogs recommended: family meetings, structure, participation in the decision-making process, dietary changes, emotional connection before correction, kind firmness...

Finally after a combination of some truly frightening new symptoms showed up and it became quickly apparent that many of Kieran's problems were directly impacting his ability to learn, we realised that a new approach was needed.

This morning, Kieran took his first tablet of Ritalin.

When he came home, he put his lunchbag away and started his homework reading - without being asked. Then he worked on a very hard math page with me and didn't once freak out, yell, say "I'm stupid" or refuse to continue or do the writing.

He actually wrote! By himself! And didn't once ask for me to do it for him because writing with a pen was "too hard".

He made mistakes! A lot of them! He made false starts and wrote numbers backwards and had to scribble out mistakes and not once did he shout "I'm so stupid!"

I pushed him, hard, to learn new math concepts, to redo the work he made mistakes on. I cringed in anticipation of his defiance and refusal and he did neither. Not even an "Oh, come on! I'm not doing that!"

From the time he first practiced writing at age 3, from the very first homework project sent home in Junior Kindergarten, he has always protested and refused the effort. And, for the first time in 5 years, working with him was joyful! I feel like I shouldn't admit this, but he was like a normal kid.

He said, "this is hard, but fun!" And I almost started crying.

Last week he told me he really wanted to get an A this year on his report card. "Just, like, an A minus would be good." He's never gotten one of those before. I think he'll probably meet and exceed that goal if his reaction to the medication continues like today.

Brothers, Sons

2011-07-30T22:01:00.001-04:00

It's a marvel to see how very different Kieran and Spencer are.

The difference was brought home to me the other night when, out for a bite to eat, Spencer abandoned the table, hotdog in hand, and approached a boy about the same age who was waiting in line.

The two boys seemed to just meet in the middle, began laughing and dancing around. There wasn't one speck of awkwardness, not one moment of hesitation, no aggression.

Kieran doesn't have this easy way of making friends. He is shy and hesitant, even when he boldly attempts introductions. There is a reserve to him. And when he finally makes a connection, he stumbles through the early conversations, the getting to know you.

I never really worry about Spencer in social situations. With Kieran, however, I'm always hovering nearby, holding my breath with my stomach in knots, waiting to intervene should he unwittingly insult someone or get hurt and lash out or sense rejection and start feigning an indifferent bravado I know he doesn't really feel.

I try not to label them, but it's true: Spencer is somehow "easier" than Kieran. Kieran is more "complex".

Of course, it's not like Spencer is some little angel. He throws temper tantrums all the time. He screams and screeches when he doesn't get his way. He rages. Kieran isn't immune to frustration, but he's never been like Spencer. We often find ourselves indulging Spencer just to avoid these rages. Even Kieran finds it easier to give in than face the fury!

Kieran used to love buses and trains and firetrucks and dinosaurs. Spencer isn't interested in those things. Spencer likes to sing and dance.

Kieran is a spirited child. Spencer isn't (though he doesn't lack in vivacity!). I don't really worry about Spencer. I have this feeling that Kieran is going to need a decade to finally feel comfortable in his own skin and I'm constantly struggling with how to help that along and managing my reactions to his spirted-ness.

I love both my boys differently and I finally know what that means for a parent. I don't love either less, but they are different relationships.

Kieran's love is tinged with shadows and fire. Spencer's is bright and full of sun. Together, they fill my heart up so much, some days I feel it might burst.

Broccoli Chicken Soup

2011-06-09T23:55:00.000-04:00

What do you do when you have chicken, broth and a couple heads of broccoli? Make soup! And it's paleo/primal/archevore, too!

We cook with whole foods. That includes chicken. It comes whole. We don't buy a dozen legs or a couple of breasts. We cook a chicken and then we divide up meat and other parts into different meals.

I get large chickens from a butcher at our farmer's market and they usually cover us for about three meals. I love to do the chicken in a crock pot. It's easiest to do this if you have one of those folding racks that you can then lift the chicken out of the crock with because 9 times out of 10, any attempt to remove the chicken from the crock results in the entire bird falling into a million pieces. That's not so bad, though.

I use a slotted spoon and a fork and pick out as much meat as I can. 1/3 of the meat is used at dinner, 1/3 is used for soup the next day and the last third is used in another dish.

After I take out the meat, I leave everything in the crock, add a few cups of water and turn the temp to high and let the last of the nutrients boil out of the bones. Get rid of the solids and keep the liquid to make soup the next day.

Broccoli Chicken Soup

Ingredients:
4C chicken stock
4C water
2 TBSP vegetable bouillon
1 onion (diced)
2 potatoes (diced)
2C broccoli (chopped, divided equally, including chopped stem in the first cup)
1TBSP preferred fat (tallow, lard, bacon drippings, butter, duck fat, olive oil...)
2C chicken (chopped)
seasoning (I used salt, pepper and a little Old Bay Spice)

Equipment:
large pot
immersion blender

Instructions:

Saute diced onion in fat until the onion is translucent.
Add diced potatoes, chopped broccoli, stock and water.
Cook until broccoli and potatoes are tender.
With an immersion blender, blend until smooth.
Add seasonings to taste, remaining chopped broccoli and chopped chicken
Cook until broccoli is tender.
Serve.
Swoon!

Convenience Foods & Overeating

2011-06-09T09:45:00.001-04:00

My grandmother used to say about a man we knew, "he's the kind of drinker who opens a bottle of whiskey and throws away the cap." The man wasn't always or even often drunk, but when he did drink, he couldn't stop. Convenience foods are like that for me.

If I open a bag of chips or popcorn, no matter how large, I have an incredibly hard time eating just one serving. I have small bowls we use to put our servings in, but I'll just refill it compulsively till the bag is empty.

What other foods are like that? Beef jerky, French fries, nuts, various snack mixes, pizza...

It's not just snack foods, though. Most foods that come pre-packed and take minimal preparation or are just delivered straight to our doors or car windows are generally eaten in huge volumes.

People eat more than they need routinely. We seem to always be challenging just how much volume our stomachs can handle (the stomach can go from holding 45ml to nearly 3L when fully distended), with little regard to (indeed, sometimes in spite of) how uncomfortable it is to be so filled with food.

I don't subscribe to the theory that says the amount of energy ingested must be equal to the energy the body expends or the surplus will be stored as fat, often referred to as calories in/calories out. Our bodies are far, far more complicated than that. However, if you add a couple litres of food into your body and an insulin reaction causes that food to be stored as fat, more food available will mean more fat stored.

There is a nice, neat way to side step this problem.

My first batch of beef jerky, still warm!

Make your own food.

When you make your own food, you are making an investment in your health. You are learning the value of the rewards of hard work. If you must sour your own dough, knead it by hand and let it rise for hours before baking it in your own oven, the chances of you eating half a loaf of it at a sitting are much diminished. Because when it's gone, it takes souring the dough, kneading by hand and hours of proofing before baking in your own oven before you can have more.

If you buy your bread, you could buy two or three loaves at a time. When they are gone, it only takes a few minutes to get to a store to acquire more.

The same with pizza. When you lovingly make the dough, spread the dough and dress the pizza, you are far more likely to eat fewer slices than if someone arrives at the door with it.

What about cake? I can't be the only one to notice that when I buy a birthday cake, I serve gigantic pieces but when I spend a day making and decorating a cake, everyone gets only a sliver!

Other things I've noticed this with: homemade jams, beef jerky and dried fruit. If I marinate that beef and then slice it just so before drying it for eight hours, I am not going to eat half of the batch at a single sitting, like I would with commercially purchased jerky. If I spend an hour slicing pineapples and apples before drying them, I won't sit in front of a movie mindlessly putting them in my mouth. I will savour them in very small servings, making the deliciousness last as long as I can.

Similarly, the cost of food inhibits overeating. If I buy a $2/lb roast from WalMart, I'm likely to eat two or three times as much meat at dinner than if I go to a local butcher and pay $4/lb. My butchered roasts last me two or more meals easily. And they taste better, too!

So, if you are trying to lose weight, the first and smartest thing you can do is to start cooking real food. Buy your own fresh meats and vegetables and fruit and cook them on your own stove. Live the principle that we value things most the harder it is to get them.

Are you trying to get away from convenience foods? Have you noticed you eat less of something if you make it yourself?

I'm a recovering addict

2011-05-27T20:52:00.006-04:00

But I don't smoke crack or drink alcohol (much) or snort coke or even smoke cigarettes. My drug of choice is sugar.

I love sugar and I'm helpless in the face of it. I can't eat a dish of ice cream; I have to eat a pint. I can't eat one chocolate bar; I must have two. If you are watching me, I'll only eat one cookie. Well, maybe just two or three. But if noone is watching, you can bet the entire plate will be gone by bedtime. And I might lie about eating them.

I used to think I was weak. I used to think I was deviant. But, I know that's not true, now.

In the last week, I've stopped buying processed sugar sweets. No desserts, no treats, no sugary drinks, no snacks, no chocolate, no ice cream, no cookies, no cakes, not even any sugar in my tea. And a curious thing happened.

At first I was bitchy. But I stuck to my guns. I tried to get Sean to buy me chocolate one night. But he forgot and I was secretly thankful. I made my unsweetened tea and drank more water. I told myself, "the sweet taste of that chocolate bar is not worth it."

And the more I abstained, the easier it got.

In fact, it got so easy that I went to the store tonight - a night when I am on my own while my children are at my mother's and my husband is out of the country, a night when I'm relaxing and treating myself out of view of anyone who might steal away my treat or remind me that I shouldn't be eating it - and I walked out of the store empty-handed.

I could hardly believe it.

Only a few weeks ago, I would have bought a pint of Caramel Cone Explosion Haagen Daas and a Snicker's bar - because I have to eat chocolate and nuts and I love the creamy sweetness of ice cream. But tonight, I walked out with nothing.

After 5 days with no sugar or sugary processed foods, I don't feel like I need it! I don't have the rush of anticipation that the possibility of eating sugar fills me with.

I had a slice of birthday cake last week at a grand-nephew's birthday party. And I had to give 1/2 of it to Sean. The first 1/4 tasted OK. The second 1/4 I ate out of a Catholic sense of duty. But I couldn't stomach it. It was so sickly sweet it wasn't enjoyable. (Make no mistake, I was honoured to be a part of the celebration and I'm thankful I was there.) And not liking the cake made me really excited.

At first, last week, my tea tasted bitter. It tasted bitter and vaguely like watery dirt. With a hint of white peach, of course, because I got a nice fruity oolong tea. But, by the third day, the tea started to taste fine. And now, I don't need sugar in my tea at all.

I could go on because there are more than enough oppourtunities for me to eat sweet, sugary foods, but I will stop.

I'm so happy to realise this sugar apathy because I've been putting on a crazy amount of weight in the last couple of years and it's almost entirely because of sugar intake. Abstaining from sugar this week - and not even the entire week, because I had a couple of Iced Mochaccinos on the weekend and that piece of cake and there may have been something the day before that - has resulted in 3lbs of weight loss. THREE POUNDS! In less than a week! Just from not eating sugar.

I'm doing a lot of reading about food, searching for the best types of things to eat and nourish my family with and I discovered a number of things that shocked me. One of those things is the fact that sugar is toxic.

Toxic. Not just no good. Not just bad: toxic.

And I'm starting to think people like Lustig and Taubes are on to something. Because, when I eat sugar I want more of it. And when I have more, I want a LOT more of it. I want sugar on my sugar! Nothing is sweet enough.

And when I stop eating sugar, the things I'm offered that have sugar in them are suddenly too sweet. They are so sweet I feel sick. But not the nauseous type of sick. More like heartsick and sad. Processed sugar, when you stop regularly eating it, tastes like sadness and desperation and emptiness. It's one-dimensional.

I'm not saying I'm never eating it again. In fact, after having a long think about what would be a great treat for my night alone, I chose two pastel de nata. They'll be sweet, to be sure, but I chose them because I know the woman who bakes them and I've decided that when I get a treat, I want to know who made my food. Because those people tend to put less sugar in their food. And they use whole food ingredients, like the eggs in my custard.

For some interesting information about sugar and what it does to the body, check out Gary Taubes article in the New York Times called Is Sugar Toxic? And check out Dr. Robert Lustig's talk about sugar below. More than 1.3 million people have watched it.

Anybody else ever given up sugar? Did it last? What were your experiences?

Goal: Hike Every Week

2011-05-22T19:08:00.000-04:00

I have goals for getting healthy. Some of them are short term and have specific numbers attached: lose 3lbs of body weight per week (hey, reach for the stars, right?). Other goals are "rest of my life" goals. Like this one.

Be More Active is ridiculously vague. I'd never make a change with such a limp wristed goal. So I've broken this over-arching goal down into specific directives. The first of which is to get out for a hike every week with the family.

This goal is about more than just being active. It supports one of our family values: being a good steward to the earth.

I have always worked to make my boys aware of the beauty of their environment, to understand our place within nature and to know that it is a complexity of delicate systems at risk and yet enduring and flexible. Admiring trees and bugs and birds and rocks are all things I do with the boys. They can often tell you which birdsong belongs to a cardinal and which to a robin. They appreciate the cycle of life the runs from birth to death and back around through various recycling methods.

Now that Spencer is almost 4, totally independently mobile and a fairly reliable listener, we can go out hiking. And we are spoiled for choice here in Hamilton, ON. We have an escarpment, part of the Golden Horseshoe, running through the middle of town, as well as a bay, a lake, forests, valleys, the Bruce Trail and more waterfalls than nearly anywhere else on Earth. With this wealth of natural beauty, there's little reason to venture very far for eco-entertainment!

Today we explored Tiffany's Falls.

So this is what 40 is like!

2011-05-19T23:41:00.000-04:00

I used to say that I felt like a nervous 18 year old. Even in my 30s, I felt like the me I was in my head didn't quite match the me I was trying to be in the world.Even when I became a mother, responsible for the life of another person, marked by time and my rite of passage birthing was for me, I wasn't quite the me I was trying to be.

Apparently, that feeling that you are somehow a fake, that you are only pretending to be responsible at your work, it has a name. It's called "Imposter Phenomenon". Most people feel that a little, I think.

I'm not special, but I always felt like someone was going to find out that I really sucked at being a doula, at being kind, at being a business owner, at being a mother, at being alive. It's one thing to feel young at heart, but quite another to walk through life feeling like an underqualified teenager.

Throughout my 30s, I spent a great deal of time repairing from previous relationships: with family, exes and old friends. Poor Sean had to put up with a lot of my dysfunction as I groped through our life together learning how to really trust someone.

Now, at 40, I am pretty sure I'm on the other side of that. For one, I no longer feel like a teenager about to be found out. What a bloody relief!

What I feel now is raring to go. I feel like I've wasted a LOT of time. I wasted a lot of my husband's time and I wasted a the formative years of my son's lives. I wasted them being depressed and angry and paranoid. And unhealthy. Unfocused. Unhappy. Impatient.

Things are turning around, though.

What was it that helped begin this transformation?

Food.

In January, Sean and I started making big changes in our diet. We began the process of cutting out processed foods, grains, sugar and vegetable oils. And we've seen some big changes.

We saw some big problems, though, too, when we got lax.

To get back on track, I've joined a 9 week challenge: Eat For You Challenge. In order to help myself track progress and maintain my goals, I'm going to posting here more often (well, once every six months seems to qualify as "more" around here!). In fact, I may be posting every day!

I'll be talking about my goals, about the food I'm making, about my challenges, about my results - or lack thereof - and about some of the ideas behind why I'm doing what I'm doing, both personally and from a scientific standpoint. There will be photos, too.

Come back and follow along. Maybe you need to make changes, too? Goodness knows I'll need the support from kind readers.

What's In The Pile On My Headboard

2010-12-13T11:41:00.002-05:00

That's where I keep my books. I don't get much of a change to read during the day with two little guys so my reading time tends to be immediately before sleep. There are nights when I read for three hours - and I pay the next morning - and nights when it's all I can do to make it through a couple paragraphs when I start falling asleep with the book open on my chest.

I love to read. There are days when I rail against the fact that livings must be earned, children minded, homes kept, mouths fed and personal hygiene to be tended to because I honestly just want to read books all day and all night, every day, forever. I resent the imposition that life makes on my ability to zip through a great book.

One definite solution to this is audiobooks. I am far too voracious a reader and far too poor to be able to buy them all, so I'm thankful that my library offers a digital library. It's got a handful or two of really great books and a few more that I'm sure are great but aren't really in my interest area or preferred genre.

It's just not possible to sit on your ass and do nothing while you listen to audiobooks, though I do sometimes just sit and knit and listen, so I have found myself doing a lot more housework than I usually do. Given a steady flow of audiobooks, I may just whip our apartment into shape one of these days soon. And by soon, I mean next week. The housewife productivity level I can achieve with a good audiobook going is mind boggling.

They even have kids books, which is awesome since we are considering getting Kieran an mp3 player for Christmas. He wants and iTouch and we were thinking maybe a $20 Coby.

This week I stepped out of my comfort zone and listened to the first Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel Guilty Pleasure by Laurell K Hamilton.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I was afraid it would be hardcore cheeze with a romance plot and too much "eroticism". What I heard was am interesting and strong heroine who I found myself identifying with - hates panty hose and things "foundation" makeup is stupid! A gal after my own heart! While there was a little sexuality in there, it wasn't in the form of actual sex scenes, which are notoriously badly written, but merely part of the landscape of what adults do in life. The narration was good and I'm looking forward to downloading the next one.

If I enjoyed the Hamilton book, I LOVED the next library digital download: World War Z by Max Brooks.

This book blew me away! While I suspect I would have gotten a closer reading from actually reading Hamilton's book, World War Z's award winning audiobook version is not just a good book, it's exciting! The book is presented as a series of interviews that piece together the overarching story, much like a filmed documentary would. My initial reaction to reading that "series of interviews" description was not promising. But I'm glad I forced myself out of my comfort zone, again.

What really makes this books so fantastic is the cast who act the parts. Did you catch that? I said cast. As in multiple voices. Normally you get one narrator and if you're really lucky, it's someone like Stephen Fry or Michael Pollen.

World War Z goes beyond simple narration and presents and unbelievable cast that includes Carl and Rob Reiner, John Torturro, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, Becky Ann Baker and many more. It was such a pleasure to listen to, so compelling, that I'm going to listen to it all over again this week. And, it's a zombie book! I love it.

There were two actual books I read over the last couple of weeks, too. The first was Lev Grossmans's The Magicians.

George R R Martin says it "is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea." And it was! It's about a college bound New Yorker who discovers he's a magician and that his favourite children's fantasy world is real. I was skeptical, but fell in love with the flawed characters who live real lives that includes the normal indulgences of youth: sex, booze, drugs and self-loathing. It went places I didn't think it would go and it's always good when a book surprises you.

The other book, one which I'll be buying this week and making my bible is Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.

If you have a child with so much energy and passion you find yourself apologising constantly for their dramatics, distractability and "hands-on" methods of social interaction (gosh, was that a diplomatic way of saying "your kid sometimes beats up other kids when they get wound up" or what?!)? Do you have a kid who is extra sensitive, extra loud, extra everything? You probably have a spirited child.

When I started reading this book, I felt a rush of relief so overwhelming I had to cry to let it out. My son, my beautiful crazy son was not a discipline problem. He wasn't wired wrong. He wasn't in need of medication. He wasn't a bully in the making. He was spirited! And as such, there are ways of helping him manage his extra-ness so that he can manage his own behaviour and get along in the world better!

I have found some wonderful books in the past couple of years that have helped me become a better parent, but Raising Your Spirited Child is definitely the book about children and parenting that will be the most profoundly useful to me.

Those are the things I've been reading lately. How about you?

Winning Tastes Good!

2010-11-23T14:31:00.003-05:00

The doorbell doesn't usually ring during the day, and when it does, it's usually a package of books or CDs or records for my handsome husband.(*see note at end of post!) So, when the package is for me it's a really good day.

Purolator was just here to deliver a bin full of holiday entertaining goodies from Loblaws, the folks behind the delicious President's Choice line of foods.

It arrived here due to a contest on fellow Canadian family blogger Dani of Postcards from the Mothership. I shared my lazy chili recipe with a twist (**see the other note at the end of the post!) and the universe aligned just so when Dani pushed the magic button at Random.org.

First observation: the box is bloody huge! That's my very tall very potty-training 3 year old Spencer pushing the giant box up the hall.

Spencer is so excited to open the box! Wowzers! It's like a birthday, or Christmas or something!

It's so big! And there are chips! And Spencer insisted on being a part of the picture. He's a total ham for the camera. I'd better take advantage of that because the time will come soon, probably, if he's anything like his brother, when he will hate having the camera pointing at him.

Isn't that a pretty package?

Here are all the goodies laid out for sampling!

And the stuff we couldn't keep our hands off of were super yummy! The chocolates: Fruit Fancies, Belgian and covered almonds were all delicious. The cracker assortment will be particularly handy since both boys like to have what I call "nibbly" meals: cubes of cheese and kielbassa with crackers that they can snack on at leisure.

Usually I'm a great baker and I make everything from bread to squares from scratch, but sometimes I can't be arsed. The mixes for cinnamon rolls, brownies and butter tart squares will be the perfect remedy. In fact, Sean was just asking the other day about those halcyon days when I used to make trays of brownies. I seem to recall that was in the days before I had children and before I started cooking from scratch.

Thank you Dani and Loblaws! I'm really thankful to have a fully stocked snack cupboard as the holiday season ramps up. The $10 gift card will be great for trying something out of the Holiday Insider Report. That Red Velvet Cheesecake has been calling to me.

Note #1
My awesome husband Sean Palmerston won Publicist of the Year for the third year in a row at the Hamilton Music Awards. And, as if that isn't enough, our heavy metal webzine Hellbound.ca won online publication of the year! He and the amazing staff of writers we work with consistently create the best writing about metal music around. Our photographers rock, too!

Note #2
Momcast's Lazy Ass Chili w/ a Twist

1 lb ground beef (lean if conventional, regular if from the farm)
1 large onion
2-4 cloves of minced garlic (Ontario!)
1 green or red pepper (or both, if you have ‘em)
1 can of diced tomatoes (No Name/yellow label – the big fat tins)
2 cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup (don’t do No Name or Heinz – you can taste the difference!)
2 cans red kidney beans, don’t rinse (No Name!)
1 can mixed beans (No Name!)
2-4 TBSP chili powder
1-2 TBSP Worcestershire sauce (No Name – can you figure out where we shop for our packaged foods?)
1 TBSP sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
*optional – other seasonings – give it a shake of this or that if you want to bump up the flavour
*optional 1 cup of frozen corn (add near end of cooking)

Secret Nutritional Meat Extender (I buy chicken hearts and livers at the farmer’s market, they are nutritional powerhouses, but ridiculously cheap, usually $1-$2 per 2 lb bag, grind them in the food processor, freeze portions in my metal muffin tin – which is only used for meat, incidentally, as I make individual meatloafs affectionately known as meat muffins – remove to a zip bag and add one to two into every pound of ground beef you prep for casseroles, stews, loafs…

Brown up the meat with the veg, add in your canned stuff, mix in your seasonings, let cook at a light, simmering boil for 20 or 30 mins and serve.

We serve with corn bread or buttered toast (LOTS of buttered toast!) on warm nights and it rocks and usually results in at least one extra meal for the freezer. To further extend for bigger families, add another tin of diced tomatoes.

I'm so boring I stopped talking, or writing. You get the idea.

2010-11-13T00:17:00.001-05:00

It's almost embarrassing how long I've gone since posting. I guess I don't have a lot to discuss. Though, really, there is stuff to discuss. I'll have to return soon. But, the archives are full of interesting stuff: my home birth story, with pics, me bitching, me bragging, me blathering...

A Few Pretty Things

2010-04-24T15:23:00.000-04:00

I recently rewarded myself with a few dollars in Paypal and the freedom to spend it guilt-free. Wanna see all the pretty things I've been buying?

A Honey Pot!

Since we switched from refined white sugar to honey, I've been craving a useful container. The jars we get at the market get all sugary and I hate dipping my spoon into the honey, even though I know honey has wonderful antibacterial qualities. So, I went looking for the perfect honey pot and found it here:

Anne Maries's Pottery

A Wee Pretty Platter!

From the same shop I also got this beautiful little platter on four lefs. It's really small, but so pretty that I couldn't resist.

The artist was really wonderful to deal with and the shipping was lightening fast. I'm thinking of getting a berry bowl next.

For The Love Of My Life!

I had attempted to get one of these made many years ago as a present to Sean but it never quite worked out. Luckily, someone on Etsy had one for sale. It's about the size of a quarter, perhaps smaller, and Sean loves it. I took him to the jeweler to pick a chain for it. So, my manly man will be sporting some silver around his neck next week.

Silver 999 also sells rings!

A New Pendant For Me!

I get a LOT of compliments on the pendant I currently wear. It's a simple narrow block of clear plastic with blue beads set into it. I haven't taken it off in years and the plastic is wearing away and the beads are becoming exposed. It was time to get a new pendant.

I've been thinking about placentas a lot and that lead me to the image of a tree (the veins and arteries that feed the placenta look like branches in a tree). So, I chose this. I'm still waiting patiently for it's arrival.

Check out the other work: Charming Ladies

Because I Want The Man Outta My Panties!

The pretty, pretty things are from Primmnproper and Randumosity.

I also bought a pelvis and some shors, but I don't think you need to know that.

Go buy something nice for yourself a great day!

The Inadvertant Comedian

2010-04-15T16:06:00.000-04:00

I love just listening in our my kids' conversations. They don't realise it, but they are incredibly funny. Listen in with me...

Kieran: Next year for my birthday, I'd like to invite Luke, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.
Me: Ugh, if you invite Vader and Palpatine, I'll have to really clean up a lot.
Kieran: Well, I want to invite them because they're really sociable and they like meeting people.
Me: *snork*!

The Omnivore’s Hundred

2010-04-11T19:58:00.000-04:00

Are you an omnivore? A vegetarian? A vegan? What won't you eat? What have you eaten? Check out this fun little meme for foodies.

I came across this blog ( www.verygoodtaste.co.uk) a while ago, the writer created a list of 100 things that he thought every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I thought we could do do:

1) Copy this list into your fb notes (or blog!), including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
(there are instructions on how to bold/cross out... down at the right hand corner of your notes page)
4) Tag your friends... so we can see how adventurous each of us really are! (Or just do this on your blog and leave me a comment with the link!)

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1.Venison
2.Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4.Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (alligator?)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10.Baba ghanoush
11.Calamari
12. Pho
13 PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18.Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27.Dulce de leche
28.Oysters
29.Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32.Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Lassi
34.Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36.Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49.Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54.Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58.Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60.Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67.Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69.Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71.Gazpacho
72.Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78.Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82.Eggs Benedict
83.Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87.Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98.Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake