For these I am Thankful

Our feast from (L-R): roasted dumpling squash with maple syrup; roasted tri-colour capsicums and sweet onions with garlic rosemary breadcrumbs; mashed new potatoes with scallions; herbed bread stuffing; green bean casserole with mushrooms; roasted herbed chicken; cranberry and orange relish; roasted thyme and olive oil carrots and gravy.

Thanksgiving was on Thursday and since the hubs and I are only one step away from being sworn citizens, I felt obliged to celebrate it because the kids have come to expect a turkey on the table. Never mind that the history of this day that Americans recognize as a cheesy Kumbaya-singing integration between native Indians and the pilgrim settlers is actually a myth rigorously enforced at elementary schools, but like Christmas day, we’ve turned it into a day of observance where family and friends gather to spend quality time over a festive spread; and those horrid historical details are best swept under the burgeoning carpet of delusions.


Washed scarlet cranberries

But being nearly American means ‘hi-five-ing’ my new found enthusiasm and leaving my cynicism at the door. And in true American spirit, I dug deep into my soul and tried to list a few things for which I’m grateful for -- the way my kids had to at school this week. My list is rough around the edges but I’m certain 10 years later, I’ll hone it to an art. For now, it reads something like this:


1. I’m thankful that my turned-vegan hubs means that I’m spared from cooking a turkey heavier than Sophia. Anything that looks like an animal crouched on my plate makes me nervous. Will it rise up on its hind legs and attack me? Will it serve me up with gravy and mashed potatoes?


Quartered navel oranges ready to be chopped

2. In any case, I think the turkey really is the uglier and drier-tasting cousin of the chickens and if it weren’t for Thanksgiving, no one would really bother going through that much effort cooking one. So, I’m thankful that my mind was still sound enough to choose the tastier bird for the feasting.

Three cheers for Chicken!


Cranberry and orange relish, tart and tasty -- Sean's favourite

3. I’m thankful for my hardworking oven, for which without it, our Thanksgiving food might have sparked great misery and ‘un-thankful’ feelings across the table.

4. I’m thankful that someone created a recipe that made green beans tons more exciting and even when I’d tweaked it to turn it vegan-friendly, it was still kick-ass delicious!

Sweet carrots ready for roasting with olive oil and thyme -- Monique's favourite

5. I’m thankful for Google for without it, I wouldn’t have zoned in so quickly on recipes that looked and sounded good. Bet the native Indians are kicking themselves for not discovering Google first, instead, they discovered White settlers with big guns who robbed them of their land.

Roasted sweet dumpling squash with drizzled olive oil and maple syrup -- 2 thumbs up from the hubs

6. I'm grateful for living in this land of the plenty and never having to see starving people walking the streets. Never mind if the truly unfortunate are really the hugely obese surviving on food stamps and on cheap, sugary and processed food. The government is going to do something for these people, right?? Sarah Palin for Walmart central America 2012!

Roasted tri-colour capsicums and sweet onions with garlic and rosemary crust

7. I'm also thankful that no one actually reads this blog or my politically incorrect words will come to bite me on my fat arse one day.


Berries and apple in lemon juice for double-crust pie

8. And I'm thankful for those who still read my blog and enjoy it without trying to find the hidden meaning in my words or probe me to explain what I meant in #5- #6 and/or if I have a problem with white people and/or people with big arses. For the record, Sarah Palin does not have a big arse; she is Barbie, darn it! Respect her intelligence!



Apple & berry pie with custard base. The best flaky crust ever -- thanks to Alan Carter! Google him, he will not disappoint.

9. I'm counting my blessings that all this leftover means no-cooking for a few meals. Bet every Mom is rejoicing at this one!

10. Bless the farmers whose sweat and hardwork grew these produce possible for our enjoyment. We are, forever, grateful.

Lastly, I'm thankful to have my family and the other only known Singaporean in the area recently relocated from New Jersey --Uncle Sim -- as the kids call him, to share this feast with. 

Burp.




Vadai-tastic

Every time I stumble on a vegan-tastic tasting food, I’m bursting to share it with whomever is willing to listen. You can imagine that it would just be me, the hubs and the layer of dust on my floor. It’s true; and I think that is partly because the term “vegan” appears to be synonymous with healthy, bland and “where’s the cheese?”

You’ll not find many vegetarian recipes that do not include cheese, butter or eggs to liven them up. That innocuous cheese hiding in the vegetables means it brings the yummy rating scale from a ‘meh-4’ to a very high 8 or 9 and even a perfect 10. Vegetarians have better luck than their stricter vegan friends. Being able to eat dairy products means heartily enjoying a vegetable lasagna (never-mind if it is 4-cheese laden between thin layers of eggplant) and still able to feel smug and righteous when you spy that carnivorous glut shoveling the mince meat laden ones. Plus, unlike vegans, vegetarians can always wash down the healthy meal of vegetables (and copious amount of cheese) by binge eating a decadent cheesecake (more cheese) or the innocent pound cake (more like a pound of butter) drizzled with strawberry compote, enjoyed with their non-vegetarian friends.

But try looking at a list of vegan foods that trigger the salivary glands and it makes the Amish telephone book appear to be bursting at the spine. Pasta sauces are always made from tomatoes and never the creamy luxuriant carbonara sauce. What about vegetable gratin? It is tasty no doubt but add the cream and cheese layer and it immediately pushes all the right buttons. As for vegan desserts, I’m already hearing the sad violins in the background when I think of the chocolate cake made with vinegar in place of eggs (yes, I have also made this strange cake and one made with tofu too) or boring stewed apples, pears or plums in some sort of glossy sauce made artistic by sticking a mint leaf in just to jazz things up. They are nice but it isn’t going to set off spontaneous drooling the way it does when you mention chocolate gateau with molten ganache. You get my idea.

Whatever the case, I can now name one wickedly yummy vegan snack that hits the perfect 10 – without needing cheese nor egg to lend support. The simple and nutritious vadai made from lentils is bursting with protein and fiber never mind if it is fried which makes it a little less wholesome. But what the heck, fried and oil are to vegans like cheese and eggs are to vegetarians. These spiced fried Indian donuts -- that I’ve loved back in Singapore -- are wickedly tasty and when combined with chopped greens like the often overlooked cabbage and pungent coriander, make a darn tasty guilt-free snack or light lunch. If someone had said vadais are vegan, I would never believe them because they are much too delicious to be tied to my impression of vegan food.

My favourite Southern Indian cookbook said to soak 1 cup of urad dal (black gram lentils) for 2 hours after which I pureed them with 4 green chillies, salt and a splash of asafoetida. I then mixed in chopped onions, cabbage and coriander into the pureed lentils, adding a little water as needed. I would have taken some pictures but the paste wasn’t particularly photogenic. Then, the hardest part of the whole preparation was trying to shape the gluggy mess into donuts rendering my hands too sticky to bother with messing with my camera. Trying to get the shaped dough (or misshapen in my case) into the hot oil was tricky; the dal mixture inevitably clung onto my palm and fingers with fierce tenacity. They needed a good shove into my wok, but as they sank and bubbled in the oil, their texture stiffened and held shape.

Next, I served it up to Monique -- my pickiest food critic – who instinctively turned her nose up at it but her suspicious expression gave way to pleasant surprise after one small bite. And when my back was turned, she returned to the dish and stuffed another into her mouth saying, “hmmmm… this is so yummy, Mummy!” giving the green light to the others who proceeded to descend on the vadais.

Vegan/vegetarian/all meat-loving rating: a perfect 10.

The grass is greener in Canada

Nine years ago, the hubs and I jumped into my white corolla and drove it as far out of upstate NY across the patrolled border and into downtown Toronto Chinatown. I was then pregnant with Sean -- my first-born -- and it was the furthest I had ever traveled (in a day) just to satisfy a craving. I’d even packed my leftovers for our return that evening, brazenly defying customs restrictions about bringing food across the line and praying that they wouldn’t ask about the white foam boxes reeking of barbecued pork and the stink of dried shrimp.


Sean's 9th birthday -- homemade spider cupcakes for his classmates and presents from the family


Thankfully, the pregnant bloat on my face won us the sympathetic wave back across the border without the expected prying in the car trunk. But sadly, our visits to Toronto became far and few between, never mind that the Cantonese cuisine was tauntingly delicious.


View of Niagara Falls from the Canadian border and our hotel room

We’d always said we would return to visit Toronto one day but 4 kids later and our lives in constant disarray, those plans never fully materialized until last Friday when we decided that celebrating Sean’s 9th birthday was good enough reason to return. The city that taught him at a tender age -- in utero -- what authentic Cantonese cuisine was, beckoned us once more and this time, to sample their Dim Sum which we had yet to try but were certain that it would not disappoint. Plus, we had incentive to visit Niagara Falls where Sean’s best friend, Eva, now lives. What better way to celebrate a birthday than with good friends and food?

Awww.... too cute!

Now, Eva isn’t just any 9-year old girl. She’s curiously free-spirited and less giggly girly-girl obsessed with glitter, dress-up, Hannah Montana and the likes of those who start their sentences with verbs -- “like, he’s so not cool”. Action packed Pokemon fascinated her so it wasn’t surprising that she launched the spy club, presiding as the club’s president and enlisted Sean as the sidekick. Her creative juices set life to the game where they had code names and a host of gritty details that only Sean and her obsessed over. And when the two weren’t plotting other games, her other favourite pastime was to lie back on the grassy field with Sean, and watch the lofty clouds float past (her mom shared this endearing memory). The two were inseparable, and by the end of last semester, when she readied for her return to Canada, Sean began to withdraw from other social interactions in class already mourning the imminent loss of a close friendship. They were the proverbial two peas in a pod.



Jane ladles a good dollop of goulash

 

Over a good homemade meal with family L.

I like Eva, plus her mom Jane is a real sweetheart and I can’t deny that if I didn’t like Jane much, then, the chances of driving Sean to see his best pal would be mostly zero. That’s a fact. We had the privilege of dining with the Ls, were entertained by Thomas’s liveliness (Jane’s husband), chatted over a hearty homemade Hungarian goulash and vegan burrito lunch that both warmed and comforted the soul, and I got to catch-up on Jane’s new life since emailing doesn’t quite encapsulate all the details. Eva and Sean spent their few hours reliving their tag days with nerf guns,and my other kids manhandled Eva’s toys and the cat -- it was all good.



Thomas shows several uses for a dish rag

Dim Sum the next day at Thomas’s suggested tea house lived up to my expectations: the egg tarts, shrimp dumplings, sesame balls, pork buns and various items were spot-on delicious and swallowed in a hurry. I knew it was going to be good judging by the looks of that elderly weathered Asian lady who was happily tucking into her breakfast Dim Sum alone, and the presence of several Asians speaking Cantonese was reassuring. Never mind the fair number of local westerners who had also come with their Asian friends or on their own -- this is Toronto, even the local westerners know authentic Cantonese food from pseudo-Asian rubbish. Plus, when they serve up coarsely grounded whole chilies in oil and not from a squeeze bottle, I know I’m in good hands. Needless to say, I pigged out.


Waiting impatiently for Dim Sum

So what if it took us 4 hours to drive to Toronto just for a decent Dim Sum spread? When your town (in my case, Corning is technically considered a small city) has little to offer beyond fairly decent pizzas and so-so chain restaurants, the Dim Sum drive didn't seem too absurd in our minds. Plus, we got to see the Ls along the way. Good friends and Dim Sum are much too enticing to pass up!

L'Enfant Terrible

“Does he have structure at home?” the teacher of my 5-year old asked.

“Absolutely, he does. I’m not a permissive parent!” I answered, half indignantly yet the earnestness in my voice might have easily been decoded as “guilty-as-charged”.


One of these kids is not like the others

I spent the last 3 weeks putting a brave front sitting in at each of my 4 children's parent-teacher conferences and listening to shocking tales of my children's progress. It is that time of the year again. This school year, I will be sitting through 7 parent-teacher meetings because all 4 of them are at school. Meetings with Sean's and Monique’s teachers are nearly always uneventful and sound pretty much the same. Team Good (as we call the older 2) get the blanket glowing report and the only raps on the knuckles are Sean's tendencies to read during lessons and Monique's constant nattering. Both are benign flaws in the larger scheme of things, and I always walk out of the conferences wondering if those 2 really are my kids.


The naughty, the conflicted and the lost-in-space

But going to see Aidan’s teacher needs more courage and steeled nerves. This kid is, after all, captain of Team Naughty which comprises of him and Sophia. This same kid, 2 years ago, once did attempt to punch a music teacher in his knee caps (obviously too short to reach for his face) in retaliation to a punishment he felt was unjustified. Granted that his teacher who’d informed me about the matter, at the time, was shocked and vouched that she’d never seen him react so violently. Nonetheless, Aidan did display this side of him even if at another teacher. This same kid also furiously and fearlessly chased after a vicious and hungry monkey that had taken off with his sweet tempura leaf biscuit while the rest of us just allowed the furry bandits to run off with ours, rationalizing that it was better we went without than to be hissed at and/or bitten.



Evil Dr. Pork Chop

Even if Aidan's current teacher had no such violent stories to report, she did, however, point out that he is rather willful and stubborn. Of late, he’s learnt a new trick of spitting – a new fad amongst a couple of boys in his class – and has since gotten into trouble for it, just as the other boys have. Regardless of the deed, Aidan isn’t Sean nor is he Monique. He isn’t the kid who trembles in fear at the thought of being caught by authority, neither is he the kind of kid who would repent after being caught. In fact, he would continue with the inappropriate regardless of the consequence, and when the punishment is served up, he might cry but then right after you’ve turned your back, you get the inkling that he’s thumbing his nose right back at you.
 

Taming the unruly

I wonder if this is karma’s way of getting back at me for being a stubborn ass towards my mother?

Mrs Coger (Aidan’s home room teacher, a.k.a my hero) did sing some of his redeeming qualities; like how he’s extremely curious and enthusiastic during lessons, and how he likes doing puzzles and helps the other kids when they can’t figure out the pieces. She then added -- in an attempt to comfort me -- that her sister had a willful son quite like Aidan at the same age but at 22 years old now, is a fine young adult in a reputable University. I was heartened. But then she sighed and said, “He still has some issues like now he wants ‘sleeves’”.

Sleeves? What’s wrong with sleeves? The puzzled look on my face suggested how utterly un-hip and un-cool I’ve become these days and it qualified for a further explanation on her part.

“Sleeves,” she added, “are tattoos that run down the whole length of one’s arms -- on both arms. He is a drummer in a band.” She explained wryly.

Great. That’s re-assuring to know. Did I also mention that Aidan has a penchant for blasting out Neil Yong’s “Rocking in the free world” whilst playing air guitar in front of my full length mirror? Is this prophetic?


Hopefully, not life behind bars one day

Karma, obviously, is still pissed at me.

Halloween's treat

Chocolate castle cake, specially baked by Holly

My baby turned 3 last Sunday, on Halloween itself. I’ve been trying not to let that happen – her growing up, I mean – but by some freak of nature, she was determined to continue sprouting. I’d delayed my potty training target, but at 2 yrs old, she’d gone ahead and weaned herself off nappies over the course of a couple of accident-free months, before her older siblings did at the same age. She’s articulate; she catches the flaws in our arguments and throws it back at us with such sweet innocence that we don’t know whether a good neck throttling or rousing applause would be more befitting. And at school, she’s no light-weight even if she is very little amongst her American-sized peers but her teacher said that she “stands her ground” more notably seen in Hercules yet second nature amongst youngest siblings.

Where did my baby go? What’s the hurry my dear baby?

Trick or treating in the neighbourhood on a frosty Sunday evening

Unfortunately, I know that she’ll always continue to defy age limitations by achieving more daring feats -- it is part of nature’s twisted tale amongst youngest siblings. I know that, because I am the youngest of 3 daughters. But unfortunately, this time, I’m at the receiving end. Trust me, it was more fun at the other end. Watching her boundless drive and energy tackle situations too advanced and not being allowed to help -- because amid her frustrated cries, she is too proud to accept any -- is a hard thing to do. It is all part of growing up, that I understand.

But it is a bitter pill to swallow. I dread that one day my babies will no longer be and I will cease to be their world. It is ironic, isn’t it? Here I am lamenting that my life is one great insanity with 4 kids buzzing around me incessantly but yet, I know that these are the best years of their lives that I’m lucky to be part of. Because, one day, they’ll have families of their own, they’ll visit less and when they do, they wouldn't look as cute anymore and can’t be cuddled on my lap lest I’m desperate about wanting broken hip bones.

Dorothy from the wizard of Oz -- Sophia's first time trick or treating.

Who knew that parenting was going to be so hard? If someone had said, “do you want to have the job of looking after the cutest of babies, watch the same cuties grow up and then have them leave you one day”, who on earth would sign up for that job especially when no one bothered to read the fine print about lots of testy tantrums, sullen and defiant teenage years, and numerous heartaches abound? Duh, not me for sure!

But I did, unwittingly, sign up for it. It hasn’t always been easy. But when I think of my children (sans the times they’ve driven me nuts) they make my heart glow, and I feel that I must have done something good to deserve my lot.

Waiting patiently for treats

And that must be why 3 years ago on Halloween, we were blessed with a dark-haired impish treat who sometimes poses as a trick on our good senses. Happy 3rd birthday, my dear Sophia!

My Halloween treat -- very sweet and a hint of spice

Much ado about 'Jack'

Meet Jack and his mate, coincidentally also named Jack, bright, heavy and boldly waiting to be carved.

Meet their carvers -- gleefully excited inspite of having elbows deep in slimey pumkin guts.

Readying Jack + Jack for some serious carving.

With quiet intent, the carvers with their small and sharpened tools, dig deep into the flesh. This Jack had the right constitution and the carving proceeded easily.

Unfortunately, the other Jack was picked too green and neither serrated nor butcher's knife could cut through its crust. So, we abandoned hard Jack and the girls worked on mini-pumpkins instead and carved out more holes than in cheese.

The boys' Grim Reaper -- a spooky ending for Jack.