domicile

Making Dishes

  just some of the afternoon's dishes 
  Originally uploaded by emira

When I'm riding a wave of stress (and have I mentioned lately just how very stressed/busy things are? yes? oh good) things tend to go in two phases. Phase 1: abandon all sense of domesticity, eat out for lunch at work and forage from the fridge/eat out for dinner, cease all laundry habits and let piles of cat hair take up residence in increasingly conspicuous locales. Phase 2: freak out about total lack of domestic comforts, begin to make lists on bus rides/in my head while cycling of foodstuffs that will ground me, gently prod the lovely Martin to vacuum the house and say a silent prayer of thanks when he also tackles the laundry. This weekend Phase 2 began in earnest, and Sunday many, many loads of dishes were washed in our sink as the following items piled up in the fridge/freezer:

• Heidi's life changing lentil burgers. I do not jest. As a vegetarian I have made my share of veggie patties over the years and typically they take a long time to make, require too many ingredients and then fall apart when you cook them. Not these. No sir. They were seriously done before I knew it. Required ingredients which were already in my kitchen and now comprise my lunches for the week, while also leaving me enough to put in the freezer for a few weeks from now when I find myself in a similar time crunch. Oh, and yummy. For the record, these are similar to the garbanzo version in her cookbook, which I can definitely see in my future.


• Also from Heidi's cookbook I had made a batch of the roasted tomato/paprika soup earlier in the week, and at my friend Sarah's suggestion didn't add water to use it as a sauce. I took the remains of that (which for the record I didn't add paprika too), added some fresh sage and popped that into a pyrex freezer dish with some made-by-the-local-Italian-ladies spinach canelloni from my favourite deli to make a canelloni meal to pull out of the freezer and pop in the oven later this week. I whipped up a simple wholewheat breadcrumb/garlic/fresh herb topping thing to go on that too, with some somewhat sacreligious (to Italian cooking purists) hempseed nuts thrown in for extra protein.


• At this point in the day I started roasting some veggies for veggie quesadillas for our dinner that night. The recipe comes from the Rebar Cookbook and includes lemon zest, fresh basil and chipotle pepper with the roasted veggies (actually stirred into the veggies after roasting) which I think is lovely.


• Once the veggies came out of the oven I quickly attempted recreating the tofu sesame snacks they make at Capers (a local organic market) here in town. I've always loved them and consider them a kind of perverse hippy/veggie/healthy person treat to get each time I go. We recently brought some on a beach picnic with Miss P and she adored them and requested them for her lunches. Not wanting to pass up a chance to add something that simple and healthy to her lunches I decided to give it  a whirl, by simply using all the ingredients listed on the deli packaging. Turns out that works. The not-so-secret ingredient? Cumin. In about 15 minutes I had a whole tray of them. Next time I'll make two bricks worth as I couldn't stop Miss P from eating them over the day.


• What next? Ah yes, lemon squares. This was another Miss P request, though since she had mentioned it I had been overwhelmed with a craving myself. I realized I didn't have enough cornstarch as I was finishing up the recipe so used arrowroot powder instead. It didn't seem to set quite right and required extra baking, so the bottom crust ended up a bit tough. Oh well. Still lemony/tasty.


• Somewhere in there I made a pot of lentil soup as well, but looking back I'm honestly not sure how.

And with all that stocked and stored in the fridge, plus some red pepper pesto I taught Martin to make on Saturday night we've now got a fridge/freezer bursting with easy/tasty food so that even my actual time at home is precious, I can feel more grounded (and well fed) while I'm there.

Home Alone

  wee dress 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Well it's been a week now since we handed in our final draft of our book to the publishers and I'm just starting to feel like I've got some energy back. I spent this Sunday/Monday home alone (and took an extra day off) as Martin and Miss P went down to Seattle to visit with some friends and do some back to school shopping. This was the first time I've been alone in the house for an extended period of time, and while I love the two of them to pieces, I must admit I was kind of giddy at the thought of it. As the summer wore on I kept a little mental list in the back of my brain cataloging all the things I might do with my expanse of solitary home-time. That list included things like having a gaggle of girls over for champagne on the deck, undertaking a new garden project, starting to paint the house, countless dormant craft projects, and on and on. In the end, I flaked. Hard core. There were bubble baths (one day I even took two), there was tea, there was pie (store bought!), I plowed through a mindless novel, ate tofu and brown rice (Martin is allergic to the former and not particularly fond of the latter), and even went so far as to indulge in some truly vapid nostalgia (only one disk though). It was great. I certainly didn't "accomplish" all I had hopes of, but as I say I'm beginning to feel whole again.

I did get one project started: my gorgeous god-daughter's birthday gift. The photo you see there is of the dress I made her, and the rest of it (which will remain a surprise to the internets until it is safely in the mail to her and her mama) is well on its way. I feel like a bit of a nitwit that I hadn't yet thought of making little girl dresses out of some of the gorgeous contemporary quilting cottons out there. I think that's partly because many of the ones I've seen around have been a bit more crafty in design than I would be up for in an evening project. But earlier this summer I was at a very chic kids boutique and fell in love with a little girl's dress, that like this one here was a very straightforward pattern, but used a bright colourful print. I resisted buying it, as it was a long way from cheap, but this little number took almost no material and about an hour and half to make including hand stitching the hem. Ah the joy of little pieces of clothing. So much quicker. I hope it will fit her, I made it a bit big so she could grow into it, and if she outgrows it I figure she can wear as a tunic.

Anyway, now that I'm rejoining the world of the living I do have a number of domestic projects on my mind. Too bad summer seems to have up and left us, rather rudely. Perhaps it will come back for September.

You know what the internet needs?

More cat videos. For sure.

But seriously. Mr. Pluto is such a part of this here home, and while photos may come close to conveying his dashing looks, no still shot can capture his voice. And what a voice it is. He's a talker. Have I mentioned that before? Folks often don't believe me, just how much he talks. My dear friend (and old roommate) who gave him to me used to joke that she got him for me as a conversation partner so I could stop wandering around the apartment talking to myself. When I used to work from home, I regularly had clients ask me if I had "a baby that needed to be attended to" in a voice of thinly veiled concern.

As Mr. Pluto was an SPCA kitten, we had no idea he would grow into the mighty flame point siamese wonderkitty that he is. And so, we also had no idea he would have such a mouth on him. Anyway, for those of you who are curious click away. Now I just  need to try to get a video of he and Martin snoring together on the pillow in the morning, then the internet's cat archives will finally be complete!

the internet: now with more cats from domicile and Vimeo.

Oh red striped sweater. I miss you.

  my dutch bike! 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I can not for the life of me figure out where I left/lost my striped red sweater. And I so want it back. Or some version of it. Here it is in the basket of my dutch bike in Holland last Fall. I know I brought it back. I'm sure I've worn it since. But sometime this Spring it up and disappeared. It was among my most favourite accessories.

I've now officially given up hope, and on the top of my Fall wardrobe wishlist is a replacement. If you see one somewhere, do let me know will you?

Is this the face of a mouser?

  mr. pluto 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Normally, Mr. Pluto, like most of his feline brethren, is a hedonist. This translates into much lazing about, official sleeping, snuggling, purring, cuddling, eating and late evening strolls through the neighbourhood on warm summer evenings. When we go to bed, Pluto generally comes with us and chooses his favourite spot for the night. He has a few -- and like all cats he does maintain his right to change his mind on a whim -- but typically he can be found: curled up on top of the covers in the crook of my knees, curled up on top of the covers on the small of my back, or laid out "human-style" on the edge of martin's side of the bed wee cat head on the pillow. For real. Here he will generally remain until one of two things happen: 5:38am rolls around and he decides it's time to eat breakfast, so he begins his insistent siamese meow at my head, this routine always ends with me getting out of bed and putting him in the basement for roughly 30 minutes until I do get up; alternatively, he lucks out and I get up before him and then he can trot behind me to the kitchen, exclaiming his pleasure at my decision to wake and feed him. This routine is not regularly interrupted.

And so, it was that I was a bit surprised to be woken at 3am-ish earlier this week to the sound of my beloved cat wreaking havoc along the baseboards behind the bed. I tried, in vain, to call him back to bed and then tried, again in vain, to continue sleeping and ignore him. And so, to the basement he went until a more reasonable hour. Not sure what had caused the stirring I thought it might be a mouse, but hoped for a large moth or something a cat would enjoy chasing. The next night: same thing. This time I decided to investigate a bit more and discovered that Pluto was steadfastly focused on the crack between the baseboards and the floor (we still haven't replaced the quarter round in much of the house after sanding and refinishing the floors). Were it not for the fact that I outweigh him by 7 or 8 times (he's a big kitty) I would not have been able to get him to move from that spot. And, as I sat there observing him I heard a scutter behind the baseboards. Pluto sprang into action to see what was up. I determined that yes indeed, that was no moth that was a mouse. So, I decided he was better on active mouse patrol than locked in the basement and tried to get back to sleep. When I woke up three hours later he was still glued to his post  in the corner and could not be coaxed back to bed. He was reluctant to leave his post for breakfast. Clearly a mouse was in our house.

I'll admit my first thought was to call someone. I don't want mice in my house. At all. The internets all say that you need to find the hole the mice are coming in via and plug that up. But honestly, with our house? Which hole do you plug? Really, if we're counting holes that mice can get through we'd need to wrap up the entire house in steel wool I think. Martin, who grew up in the country and has more of a let nature take care of itself attitude than I sometimes, suggested that we just let Pluto deal with it. I figured I'd give it one more night.

That evening when we got home from work, Pluto was still in the bedroom at the baseboard post. By this point it was entirely possible he had not moved all day, though he showed increasingly less interest in it over the evening. I was on constant alert for "gifts" in the form of dead mouse carcasses throughout the house. Since then, no nocturnal bedroom hunting and he's been back to his usual sleeping arrangements. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nature has indeed won out here, and that the mouse either took off, died (though hopefully not in my walls!) or became a mid-afternoon snack.

I have many stories of Pluto's failed attempts at mousing in past basement suites and apartments of mine, but he has also had a few successes. Last night, I was in bed drifting off, while Martin was up watching a movie. Pluto wasn't sure if he wanted to stay on the couch or come to bed with me so was pacing between rooms making up his wee-cat mind, when Martin noticed one of those massive moths in the livingroom. "Get it Pluto!" he cried. And, judging by the whoops of delight and praise coming from Martin, he did. Sauntering into the room he jumped up, caught it in his mouth and proceeded to ... well eat it. I could hear Martin exclaiming from the livingroom, "nice work, our cat's a ninja!" which is surely the greatest praise Martin could give. So, perhaps he did catch the mouse after all. I just hope he's letting the other rodents in the 'hood know he means business.

A Tale of Two Weekends

We had our Canada Day long weekend this past weekend and contrary to all weather predictions that forecast rain, it was a gloriously clear and warm weekend. I'm running pretty close to empty these days, trying to balance a busy work schedule, working with Lauren on a near final round of book edits, rehersing a choreography that is kicking my but for an upcoming flamenco show,and dealing with some fairly draining personal stuff that is occupying both Martin and my minds lately. In light of all that, I'm frankly awed that Martin (whose life is no less full these days) had it in him to build a deck this weekend. Me, I made cupcakes. And I didn't even do that by myself.

I made the cupcakes with Melanie, while Martin and Mark worked on framing the deck Sunday afternoon. The cupcakes, which were delicious by the way, were for a fireworks watching party at their place later that evening. Martin and Mark managed to get the deck well framed in that afternoon, and Melanie and iced cupcakes over a wonderful cup of tea. Today Martin was up and ready to finish off the joists while I struggled out of bed after having had a particularly awful sleep. By the time I made it to the kitchen with my cup of coffee, he was nearly ready to head back to Rona to pick up the deck surface planks. Over the course of today, he worked on the deck, managing to finish off the surfacing in time for us to eat a kind of picnic dinner out there, while I puttered about baking bread, tying up my tomato and pea plants, watering the garden and making some soup. Now it's near dusk and he's still out there cleaning up and sorting the remaining lumber so he can start on the railings tomorrow.

This is the first big reno task we've undertaken that I've been so very absent for. It feels very strange to not be out there with my hair full of sawdust and an aching back, though I'm so grateful to have had this weekend to take it easy. I know I'm only delaying my own part as I'll likely take on treating and painting the deck, but as I sit looking at it out the kitchen window I'm so happy to have been able to sit this one out so far.

Meditions on Baking Bread

   
  Originally uploaded by emira

Two years ago when we bought our house, I took one look at our stove and thought: I should learn to make bread. A stove like that practically screams out "bake bread in me" what with all the 50s kitsch and the fact that is has a warming oven perfect for raising dough/warming yeast sponges in.

So, like the foolheardy overachiever I aspire to be, I went and took out several tomes on bread making from the library. And after redoing all the floors in the house and reading everything I could about the mysteries and wonders of breadmaking I became totally overwhelmed. And I put that hobby aside. But, I'm currently in need of some kind of meditative/relaxing hobby and bread making seems like it might be a good fit. I've read and heard endless accounts of those who love the task waxing about the quite joy of kneading bread in the morning before the house wakes, or the comforting smell of fresh bread enveloping a home, and that sounds about as close to paradise as I'm likely to get in the next few months.

I nearly hopped on the whole "no-knead bread" train a few months ago, but I don't have the right size of dutch oven and frankly it seems silly to me that with all the bowls, spoons and pans in my kitchen I couldn't make something as simple as bread without buying a new tool. And, really, at this juncture I need the ritual. I want to be forced to slow down a bit and "get a feel" for something rather than rush through life ticking tasks of a never ending list. So. I'm going to dive in. This weekend I think.

I've found a multigrain recipe in one of my existing cookbooks that seems straightforward enough. And I've been given a few pieces of sage advice from bread making mentors in my life. Now I just need to let go of any expectations that my first loaf will be the most awesome loaf of bread ever. My mother once told me that you should never make pastry when you're stressed out. And she's right, whenever I'm rushed or peeved my pastry turns to sheetrock. I'm guessing that even if I reach the point of bread mastery, there will similar times. I need to really try to get comfortable with the idea that it may take me months to make a decent loaf of multigrain bread and years to feel any kind of mastery of this skill. And really, that's where the challenge lies isn't it? In being willing to make bad, or even failed attempts, but still go back to it again and again.

Before I get started though, if any of you have any advice out there on the best pans for baking bread, ideal approaches to yeast, the best bowls to mix in, certain music you play while you make bread etc. bring'em on. I'm all ears. And of course, I'll let you know how it goes.

Cough, Wheeze, Hack

I'm on day 5 of a brutal summer cold and desperately trying to emerge from a very fuzzy head. In spite of serious couch time, we've actually been getting a remarkable amount of stuff done around the house and while I can barely taste I thing, I can not stay out of my kitchen. So, updates on all of that to come. In the meantime, some links Megan style:

• Martin and I were featured, along with a rather large photo taken approximately 4 hours before I changed back into PJs and succumbed to this bug, in an article in Friday's Globe and Mail. The article is on the theme of renovations and couples counselling basically and cites all kinds of stats about how couples who renovate separate. This has not been the case for Martin and I, as we actually really enjoy each other while renovating, though the drywall dust gets on our nerves plenty. I guess we buck the trend? How Gen-X of us.
• I can't wait until we have a deck so I can decorate it with many of these glorious pom poms and then I will sit down and drink a glass of wine. Swoon.
• I invaded our lovely friends M&M's house last weekend and helped her make the most delicious chocolate cake ever. You should make it too. The recipe is here or if you have the Sugar cookbook it's in there too. Honestly, I've been jonesing for exuses to make this cake ever since.
• The Bjork show at Deer Lake on Wednesday night was everything I could ever have hoped for, minus the creeping sore throat I was experiencing. Each time I have seen her live I manage to adore her even more, which truly is saying something.
• Felicia's cook brain thinks like mine. Read her latest post and recipe cook-a-long for curried pasta to see what I mean. Plus, I think Felicia's review of Super Natural Cooking is much better, and less overly dramatic than mine.
• Anyone got a copy of Clotilde's long awaited cookbook - Chocolate and Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen - yet?
• Oh, and if you're at all interested in starting up your own business and you're just dying to hear my Canadian accent, the podcast of our panel at SXSW is finally up. Link can be found here.

Cut Flowers

  anemones 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

While I certainly enjoy my garden in its natural outdoorsy state, one of my favourite things about having an abundance of plants outside my door is being able to bring some inside. The last two weeks the house has been full of lilacs, but alas the season seemed short this year and mine are all now past prime. This morning I tossed the wilting lilacs from the kitchen table into the compost and went about gathering something new. To my delight, my anemones, which didn't do as well as I had hoped this year, with one entire cluster of bulbs never coming up at all, were in bloom. I love the kinky stems of anemones and they're candy colours. When I bought the vase you see there at Peek Keep back in the winter, I imagined just such an  arrangement of brightly coloured petals would find a home in it one day.

I always find that I wish that the season for each flower in my garden was a bit longer than it is, but each time I toss away the last of one variety something new always seems to have sprung up in its place. Now I just need to figure out something to tide me through the winter.

Some paper, a pen and a hand cramp

Sometime last week Felicia Sullivan launched a fantastic project to find and match pen pals in her individual crusade to bring back the fine art of letter writing. I'll admit I'm sorely tempted to jump into the fray but know that I couldn't really participate properly due to other constraints on my time like the looming lack of a kitchen in my home, to be restored by my own blood, sweat and tears; and then there's that pesky project to finish my own writing project, aka finish co-authoring a book. Were it not for those kinds of life intrusions I'd be all over this.

The idea of getting off email and digital communication and back to the analog way of life is compelling for oh so many reasons. Primary among them my love of gorgeous paper and stationery. A friend gave me the Jill Bliss Mix & Match Stationery set for my birthday last fall and I finally had a chance/the time to pull it out and make use of it this week. I felt like a 10 year old on the first day of school. The kind of ten year old who gets very excited about the prospect of fresh new books, untouched pages and brand new writing implements, that is. It was so much fun picking combinations of pages and envelopes, and for a change actually having to slow my thoughts down so they could catch up with my cramping hand. I think that's really the other driving force that compells me toward some form of "unplugged" writing: the fact that I've reached a point where my body is really a physically honed machine better at typing as fast as my thoughts can carry me than it is at taking the time to roll ideas around in my head for a while. Plus, that whole hand cramp thing? It's for real. It hurts. And, it kind of freaks me out. If I attempt anything longer than a grocery list I start to feel actual pain in my hands. And, that, frankly is a bit bizarre, no?

Anyway, if I urge you if you've got the time and inspiration to join in with Felicia's crew. It's bound to be a wonderful ride filled with pretty papers and new friends. And who can ask for more?