Trikes

Well I love a bargain. Thrift stores, garage sales, second hand shops, hand-me-downs, all of it. I just love it. Sometimes it's the bargain itself but a lot of the time it's the thrill of finding something you were actually looking for and not expecting to find. Terry and I had been looking for trikes for the boys (hopefully two that were very similar so there would be less to fight about) but were not looking to have to spend a great deal of money TIMES TWO if we didn't have to. Now, as purveyors of kijiji, we know we don't ever have to. One never has to buy retail unless one specifically wishes to. We did not wish to.

I was actually at V-squared (as Heather calls Value Village - home of great deals, cool finds and lots of junk to wade through to get to it. I, of course, love it there. Anyhow, I was actually looking for a potty book for the boys (and found it, thanks for asking) and just flashed through my mind how I would love to find a trike for the boys to share and then hopefully come across another similar one somewhere else. Not two seconds later, I rounded the corner to find two MATCHING red and white trikes for the low, low price of $6.99. WHAT???? In my glee, I just about knocked a woman over, scrambling to lean over the carts clogging up the aisle to wrestle one into my buggy before anyone else could see the incredible find hidden away under all those laundry baskets and '80's exercise equipment. Truthfully, not many people are likely to be in the market for two matching toddler bikes but still, I had a moments panic before they were both safely ensconced in my cart.

A little bolt tightening and the white touch-up paint I picked up from the hardware store on the way home and they'll be good as new. Now, that's a deal. $6.99? ? ? You can't beat that. But I have to say, much as the thrill of the find and the bargain I scored hit the spot, the sight of those two boys desperately trying to reach the pedals (not succeeding) and the excitement of driving it backwards using their tippy-toes on the ground (succeeding) beat the bargain by a mile. They've thoroughly examined every bolt, screw and wheel spoke, stood on them and rode them, swapped them and flipped them and have been as excited about them as if I had special ordered them, outfitted them with all the gadgets and gone into debt over them. They love them. Now THAT's what makes a good deal; when you take something that should be expensive, get it for an outrageously low price and find the experience of having it renders it infinitely priceless.

Hollandaise From Scratch

Do you know that 1 cup of Hollandaise sauce has 1264 calories? It does. I know because I ingested at least that much last night. I always sort of thought that, with the exception of die-hard cooks with nothing but time on their hands, Hollandaise Sauce was made from a white-ish powder, neatly enclosed in a foil-lined packet. Not the case, as it turns out. Let me explain.

My boys, Sam in particular, are fierce asparagus / broccoli-loving toddlers. Give it a green colour and make it look like a twig or a tree and they are all for it. Needless to say, we are eating a lot of gas-inducing vegetables these days. Sam might not mind but, for me, these things have got to become a little more interesting if we're to consume so much of them. Hence, the Greek spiced pizza with asparagus, zucchini and broccoli of 2 nights ago and the Hollandaise covered green veggies of yesterday. That's Hollandaise from scratch, by the way.

Oh my. Oh my, oh my, oh my. Give me a vat full and let me lick off the whisk too. It's amazing to me that I can even write about this with any sort of authority; after all, it wasn't that long ago I figured pasta had to come with a packet of powdered cheese and pancakes with a note to "just add water." Who is this girl whose idea of a good time is a shelf of cookbooks and a pantry of exotic ingredients? I remember, not so long ago, a friend giving me a recipe for a chicken dish that called for a clove of garlic and I thought that meant the entire bulb. Thankfully, crisis was narrowly averted as I received a fairly quick rescue email from her before I dumped the entire spicy lot into the mixture.

For this miracle I can only blame pirated cable and the FoodTV Network. I was on bedrest, pregnant and large with the boys and became hopelessly addicted to the channel. I was mesmerized by the way a chef could make a complicated dish look simple enough for even my own basic (very basic) skills. I would check-out a dozen cookbooks at a time from the library and keep them all piled haphazardly on the coffee table or floor around it, to be pulled out and read through like novels. For his part, Terry didn't dare say a word about having to step over yet another stack of books stacked dangerously high as he'd never eaten so well since he said "I do."

Hence the Hollandaise and the minor miracle that the boys have, thus far, been raised to subsist on something other than instant mashed potatoes (although surprisingly good as they are) and frozen TV dinners. To that end, I will happily devise new and interesting ways to eat aspargus until they have passed on this particular culinary phase in favour of something even less likely for a toddler, like artichokes.

Old Bookshops and Little Boys

I love musty old bookshops; they're restful and hushed, like libraries. I love the ratty book covers with strings pulling down the sides from use that creak a little when you open them. I love the yellowed pages, so brittle that they crumble as you turn them. I could spend hours poring over the various tommes, completely perplexed as to how I could possibly choose only one or two from the hordes that are calling my name. I could, quite happily, immerse myself in the words of obscure authors for days on end. if only the store would stay open long enough to let me.

Sam and Ben do not love musty old bookshops. They are, in fact, quite annoyed by the constant admonitions to not touch, not to pull covers off the books, not to empty the shelves with a sweep of the arm, not to run behind the counter to press the cash register buttons, not to toss fragile antique books to the floor in a fit, not to run away from me in a stream of giggles and squeals like we're playing a game of tag, not to hide under the bargain table when I finally get within reaching distance . . . not to, not to, not to. . .

I don't know what I was thinking. Is it a surprise to me that these two particular toddlers would not be interested in sitting cross-legged in the children's section, quietly perusing picture books while I looked at my own options nearby? Oh wait - maybe if I just strapped them in the stroller with a couple of books to look at for a few minutes while I finished up making my purchases. Mistake #1: trying to harnass them after they've had even a small taste of freedom - never a plausible idea. Mistake #2: Keeping the stroller within arms reach of shelves on either side - a difficult feat to overcome with a side-by-side stroller as wide as the store aisles.

I don't know who breathed a greater sigh of relief when I finally managed to wrestle the stroller out the almost too narrow doorway - me or the store owner. To his credit, he did only grimace once or twice and, I think in sheer joy that we were finally leaving, did cover both boys' hands in a plethora of puppy dog stickers. And I did find an old Kitchen Garden book from the 1960's, so it wasn't a total wash.

Note to self: quiet, restful excursions to locations with pricey or priceless merchandise is best handled alone. There are a lot of activities that I can do with these guys that involve running, climbing, playing and squealing; an old bookshop is simply not one of them.

Dirt

It could be kind of embarassing when you hand a store clerk money with a hand creased brown and dirt under the fingernails, but I don't mind. I had been out digging in the garden, thinning the radish and carrot seedlings and found, to my delight, tiny breakfast radish. Wow - so there really is something going on down there under the ground, after all! Sometimes I wonder. I had wriggled my hand underneath the enormous potato plants to see if there were any wee little new potatoes I could sneak, but couldn't find a thing. Perhaps I was looking in the wrong place or, my great fear abounds, maybe there is nothing to show for my efforts but a gigantic bed of inedible leaves. Stranger things have happened.

What a thrill then to discover a little treasure ripe for the plucking. It gives me hope that maybe things really are growing under all that dirt in the garden (not just under my fingernails) and that I can't rush things just for wanting to. Patience patience patience, I say to myself (sigh). I could be patient, if only these things would hurry a bit.

The Garden Today

It's amazing what can happen overnight. Since yesterday's blog, I took a little stroll out to the garden this morning and was surprised to see even more tiny green tomatoes clinging to the vines. Where there was one pea pod, now there's two. The bean stalks are over-run with flowers now which makes me wonder, what is someone who doesn't like beans planting beans for anyway???

Gardener

It's one of those things; you do everything you can to give it a good start, but the results are pretty much out of your hands after that. Naturally, I'm talking about my vegetable garden. It's been freezing cold, windy, rainy and basically, sun-less in our backyard. The rain is giving me the biggest plants in the neighbourhood but if we don't get any sun, the plants might not set fruit in time. It's been my constant worry as I wander down the little rows, plucking this weed and pinching off that limb, watching the plants grow higher and higher with no evidence of flowering or fruiting on the horizon. What if they bolt? What if nothing comes of this little experiment and I'm fraught with disappointment after all this hope and toil?

But today!!!! Today it happened. Flowers on the potato plants, the melon, the beans, the tomatoes and the squash. One tiny pea pod poking it's little nose out from behind a bunch of leaves and carrots finally keeping up with their neighbour, the radish. On closer inspection, there are even tiny little green mini-tomato-wanna-be's clinging to one or two branches! It's happening! It's really happening! This foray into the gardening world will not be for naught (ha ha).

It's a wonderous thing to see something that was once a wee little seed become something edible. How incredible to know that something that will soon be a whole meal was once in a little $1.49 packet so slim it could fit in my wallet. It was today when I realized that I've caught the bug. This won't be a one-year-trial of "let's just see what happens". I've seen the miracle of vegetable life and am already planning next season's garden. I have become what I never dreamed I'd be. I am a Gardener.

100 mile culinary disaster

This 100-mile challenge is ... well, it's a challenge. I had a hankerin' for some rice today, something I don't eat a lot of normally, oddly enough. But I just had to have it today. What to do? Do I cheat? Again? NO. I won't. Not this time.

Oh the things we do for a cause. Pilaf with spelt berries. What the heck are spelt berries? Well, I can tell you this; they're chewy and . . . squeaky. Yes, squeaky. They're supposed to be a rice substitute but really, who wants squeaky rice? Me, apparently. And now, by virtue of me being the cook in the house, my entire family. Let me tell you something else; they taste nothing like rice. They're plain ol' chewing, squeaky, tasteless little kernels of nothing. Mmmm... dinner is served.

Maybe I can make up for this culinary disaster with a side dish. Let's see, what local vegetables do I have in the fridge here at the end of the shopping week? Hmmm... swiss chard. Oh great. Another new addition to the palate. One can only hope my young toddlers are adventurous eaters, or at least that I can scrounge up a little peanut butter and jam to smooth the ruffled baby feathers.

It's challenging to come up with new meals each day using less pantry items than we're used to. It's sometimes hard to come up with a substitute or to pass over the recipe book entries that look oh-so-delicious, yet carry at least 5 contriband items on the ingredient list. One thing could be said for the challenge though - it certainly pushes you to try new things as you become desperate for a seasonal vegetable (hence, the swiss chard) or a side dish (enter, spelt berries). It's challenging. It's interesting. It's too far from over.