I :heart: Tofu

Who'd have thunk it?  I started eating tofu several months ago because I wanted to expand my food horizons and all that jazz.  I was wary but I quickly discovered that when prepared correctly it's quite tasty.

Correctly prepared consists of draining thoroughly between towels and two weighted plates for several minutes, preferably an hour.  Then I slice the tofu into small cubes or triangles and marinate them in olive oil and either soy sauce or balsamic vinegar and whatever spices and herbs suit me that particular day.  I've sauteed the tofu in a skillet with mixed results.  I think I've discovered that braising chunks of tofu in the marinating liquid is best.  It provides the greatest consistency in texture.

Two of my favorite tofu-containing dishes, for your drooling pleasure:

This is quinoa, prepared in a tabouleh salad.  The recipe is from T.  She's an awesome cook.  I haven't actually eaten any of her food but the pictures she posts of her food make me wish I had eaten it.  Lots of it.  For the purpose of full disclosure her recipe did not have tofu in it but I added some because I wanted to.  Also, I put mushrooms in it this particular time because I was lacking some of the other stuff that I would normally put in it.  Yum.

This is spaghetti squash, recipe courtesy of me.  I roasted the squash in the oven.  After the strands were separated out I tossed in some sauteed onions, garlic and mushrooms.  There are also tomatoes but I don't saute those because they get too mushy.  Instead I remove the pan from the heat and add the tomatoes so they are just barely cooked by the heat of the vegetables already in the pan.  I added in an alfredo sauce which was quite creamy and delicious.  (And yes, there is a chip on my plate.  Please ignore it.)

I have also made pita sandwiches with tofu that was marinated in olive oil and lots of red pepper flakes for a spicy kick. The tofu and wheat pita were accompanied by shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, sliced avocados and sharp cheddar cheese. Those were really, really good.  Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of those.

Anyway, those are a few of my recent forays into tofu consumption. You should try them. You know, if you've never tried tofu but have been curious about how it might fit into your diet. Or not. I suppose it's not necessarily for everyone.

Other Worlds? Or No?

Last Post re: Samuel's Pockets (Maybe)

I decided to document the growing pile of crap on the top of the dryer.  If you can't stop the madness you might as well join in, right?  So every week after I did a round of laundry, I photographed the pile of stuff and captured the new additions.  Here they are, in order.

Here we have some pebbles, a Starburst wrapper, an arm from an action figure, staples and some other unidentifiable stuff.

This week we added some silly bands, a weird bolt/screw thing and a bobby pin.

This time we found a dollar!  It was quickly reclaimed.  There are also a hair clip, part of a broken earring, a day-glo spider, a tiny bubble wand and more pebbles.

More of the same.

This week we added the remnants of a busted balloon animal, beads and more pennies and pebbles.  

How does one kid find, become attached to, and collect so much crap?

Did You Know ...

... that there's a Donald Trump game that's not The Apprentice?  I could have lived my whole life without knowing this.

Open Letter to My Next Door "Neighbor"

Dear "Neighbor",

Before we go any further, let me just explain the " ".  You get " " because neighbors are supposed to be neighborly.  You, my "friend," are not.  Neighbors sign for packages for each other or maybe they come over and ask how long the power has been out in the building when they can't turn on the lights after work.  They wave at each other on the sidewalk or they chit chat at the pool.  Sometimes they give each other a squirt of ketchup when their pre-schooler is begging for ketchup on his hot dog and they've run out.  See, that's the kind of passing relationship I have with the chick across the breezeway.  And I'm not saying that you and I have to have that relationship because not everyone does.  That's okay.  But can I ask that I not know the better part of the goings-on in your place?  Please?

I do not need to hear you slamming your kitchen cupboards or your bathroom door. I can live without knowing that your current favorite song is "Bottoms Up" by Trey Songz.  (What kind of a name is 'Songz' anyway?)  I can especially live without hearing "Bottoms Up" at full blast at 6:20 on a morning when I do not have to go to work and my children don't have school.  Thanks for getting us up in time to make it to school though.  If this was yesterday I might be writing you a different letter.

Also, I do not like your children gallivanting all through the breezeway, knocking on my door and then running away, asking my children for their phone number, slamming their bikes into my walls and screaming at each other.  Although, I can see why this is appealing to them; I'd rather do those things than be in your house with you screaming at me constantly, too.   That's another thing -- your children did not ask to be born to you and from what I can tell, they deserve much better than you.  I'm very close to calling CPS on you and that's not hyperbole.  While I'm at it, I'll file a complaint against you with the landlord for noise violations, too.

Signed,
Your Ticked Off "Neighbor"

P.S.  I drew that picture up there just for you.  I meant the angry face to be me but now that I'm looking at it again, it looks more like a constipated bunny.  That's okay.  It's the thought that counts, right?

In Which We are Accosted by Zombies (& I Fear for Humanity)

Downtown Denver was overtaken by zombies a couple of weekends ago.  Paul and I, along with our friends, Jen and Scottie, were caught unawares.  It was weird.

It began innocently enough while in line at the liquor store.  Paul and I were buying ingredients to make martinis because we wanted martinis later in the weekend.  The people behind us were dressed up like zombies and said they were going to a zombie crawl.  I thought, "Huh.  Interesting.  Their make up is pretty cool,"  and then, "What the heck is a zombie crawl?" Then we moved on.

Later, we went the train station to meet Jen and Scottie.  The plan was to take the train downtown for an evening of dinner and live music.  While we were waiting on the platform at the train station I saw a small crowd of zombies join the rest of us humans.  And then a larger crowd of zombies arrived.  All of a sudden it hits us: the aforementioned zombie crawl is a Zombie Crawl (capital letters necessary) and it's downtown.  The accumulating crowd of zombies does not strike me as so interesting and/or cool any more.  They're kinda freaky and slightly disturbing.
 
Finally the train arrived and we boarded with the zombies.  With each successive stop the ratio of zombies to normal people became more unsettling.

By the time we arrived at the 16th Street Mall and we were surrounded by zombies.  And these were serious zombies.  Some of them had chainsaws.  Some were covered with blood.  Some were chasing each other and other humans and screaming.  Some were staring blankly and wandering aimlessly.  Others were limping on partially disabled limbs.

It was all rather obnoxious.  It seems that zombies are not terribly clear on who is involved in their game and who is not. Or maybe they enjoy running into innocent bystanders and then offering a half-hearted, "Oops, sorry, dude," before turning to run into another victim.

On the train ride into the city we had decided that we would eat at Tokyo Joe's so we got our bearings and took off in that direction, on foot.  Paul remarked, "This bothers me.  It seems like people with nefarious purposes could get away with a lot under the cover of a zombie uprising."  I agreed.  Who could tell real screaming from fake screaming in this mess?  How would you tell if someone was really being chased or just pretending for the sake of the zombie "fun?"

Tokyo Joe's was completely overrun with zombies. I think maybe they congregated there because raw fish flesh can be similar to raw human flesh.  It took forever to get our food -- something like 25 minutes to get our sushi.  That is much longer than is normal for Tokyo Joe's.

When we finished eating we needed to get to the club where Jen's friend, Josh Fischel, was playing.  It was several blocks away so we walked a bit to the train and re-boarded.  After we took our seats, we were joined by some young tweens.  They were in the 12 to 14 years old range and giggling hysterically while glancing warily down the train car at a trio of 30-something zombies.  The tweens were not zombies.  It appeared to be a game of tag between zombies and humans that had migrated to public transportation.

The zombies began to lumber toward the group of tweens.  The tweens shrieked with hilarity as the zombies approached.  It was quite the ear-splitting cacophony.  My ears were ringing.  Jen, Scottie, Paul and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes and gritted our teeth.

By this point in the evening we'd had about enough of zombies.  We'd been bumped into repeatedly by bloody zombies, been subjected to screaming and wailing and had to wait extra long for our food.  Patience was thin.

So Paul leaned across the aisle and said, "Excuse me, do you mind taking the zombie uprising that way?" and motioned toward the opposite end of the train.  No one heard him amidst the screaming and thrashing around in the aisles so he stood up, stepped closer, raised his voice a bit and repeated himself.

One of the 30-something zombies finally looked at him and said, "What? Are you serious? We're just having some fun with the kids! You should sit down.  Just sit down, sir!" Paul was rendered speechless, as were the rest of us.  She continued to shriek at Paul and demand that he sit back down.

I was in shock.  I've never seen someone over-react to a such an extent over a simple request for politeness and consideration.  I could only sit there and laugh awkwardly.  Jen refused to look at them.  Scottie, who might be considered a little hot-tempered, was not about to sit there and let the zombies take over.  So he stood and began shouting back at the 30-something zombie.

Her friends got into it then and one of them called Scottie "Tattoo."  Clever, huh?  Now, let me explain: Scottie is, indeed, tattooed.  Very tattooed.  He's proud of his tattoos and he has a right to be.  He has a large star on the side of his neck which, at first, was all anyone could see.  Almost every other inch of his body is covered with ink as well.  He decided to take this opportunity to show everyone on the train the tattoos they hadn't seen and began pulling up his sleeves, his shirt in the front and the back, his pants legs and anything else that needed to be moved to show off his artwork and shouting, "Oh?  Tattoos?  You want tattoos?  How about this one?  Or this one?  Or maybe this one here?  And there's one here!"

Meanwhile, zombie and friends are still screeching away in the background.  There's a lot of, "It's just for fun!" and "Chill out!" and, my personal favorite, "It's a free country, isn't it?"  I'm going to interject something else here -- I hatehatehatehate when people use "It's a free country" to excuse their obnoxiousness.  Yes, this is, to an extent, a free country.  However, a great founding father once said something like, "The right to swing my fist ends where another man's nose begins."  I'd like to extend that a bit and say, "The right to act like a raging idiot ends where someone else's peaceful evening with friends begins."  Can I get an amen?

By this time, the tweens had become very emboldened by their zombie aggressors and started shouting things like, "Asshole", "Dildo" and "Penis wrinkle."  Yep, you got that right.  A bunch of junior high kids using a bunch of words that they'd most likely never use in front of their parents and probably aren't entirely certain of said words' meanings.

About that time 30-something zombie gets tired of yelling at Paul to sit down (because he was still standing in the aisle, dumb-founded) and begins saying things like, "You know what?  I'm a bitch.  Yup, I'm a bitch and I'm proud of it."  Well, at least she's right about that, huh?  And then, the best line of the night: "You have ruined my spirit! Ruined it!  Are you happy now? Ruined my spiiiiiiriiiiiiit!!!"

I guess her ruined spirit took the fun out of screaming at a perfectly normal, polite person because they began to wander off then, while muttering more obscenities and insults to our collective intelligence and parentage.  Two stops later we had to get off the train for our destination and as we disembarked we got another earful of "Penis wrinkle."

We spent the rest of the evening telling each other how ruined our spirits were.  And we've all had several good laughs about the situation since then.  But holy cow.  Ridiculous over-reaction much?

Sustainable Food

I'm so excited!  It's Thursday.  And it's an "other" Thursday!  That means it's my day to get a big box of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables delivered to my doorstep.  I wait for this day every other week like it's my birthday or Thanksgiving or something.

I was recently directed to this service, Door to Door Organics, by someone on a message board.  It's a service that brings food to you, for a fee, of course.  Some of it is local and some is not.  All of it is organic.  I clicked on the link thinking, "There's no way they'll be delivering in my area. And if they are, I'm sure it's not affordable." But I was wrong on both counts. Yay for being wrong!

I started out ordering the smallest box available in my area because I wasn't sure what to expect.  Then Paul and I decided to go in on a larger box together.  There's enough in the bigger box to last both of our households for 2 weeks until we get another box.  I have had to supplement occasionally with a few store bought carrots or broccoli because we're always running out of those things.  I also bought grapes last week because Miriam and Samuel have been begging for some and we haven't had any in our boxes.  But for the most part, this is how we get our produce.

Several months ago Paul and I bought 1/8 of a locally raised, humanely slaughtered Longhorn.  We anticipated eating that beef for a long time but the animal wasn't as large as we expected and my meat was gone pretty quickly.  Paul and Cole, who consume considerably less red meat than we do at my house, just finished off their portion last week. Now, in January we are going to buy 1/4 of a Black Angus bull.  It's been grass-fed up to now and will be for a few more weeks.  The last few weeks of its life it will be fed organic grain.  We're okay with that because the guy can assure us it has been given no antibiotics or hormones.

So between the beef and the organic fruit and veggie box, we're getting a large percentage of our food from sustainable sources.  Love it!

And for your viewing pleasure, an apple we got in our first organic box.  It actually had a living worm in it!  Do you see it?  It's the white-ish, wormy looking thing coming out of the seed pod.  The kids didn't believe that actually happened.  We gently transferred the worm to a pot of dirt on the patio and then ate the apple.

In a Blogging Mood

I'm in the mood to write.  My house is clean, the laundry is (mostly) done.  (There's a large basket that needs folding but I'm going to ignore that.) A really funny episode of The Office is on.  I lit approximately 17 candles around the house and they smell incredible.  I have a glass of decent merlot at my hand. There's a formerly happy chicken defrosting in my kitchen; it'll soon be roasted and made into chicken pot pie.  It's fall and I'm fortunate to have a comfortable, warm, well-stocked home.  For some reason I feel the need to describe all of this to you.

Also:

• Solomon lost a tooth today.  It's the first tooth he's lost in at least 2 years.  I know he hasn't lost one since we moved to Colorado.  I told him that he should check under his pillow tomorrow for the Tooth Fairy's prize.  He said, "Can you just give me the money now?  Like you're buying my tooth?"  So I did.  And I laughed heartily.
• I took Solomon to the doctor today because he's had increasingly worse heel pain in the last few days.  Instead of being something worrisome, it's just inflammation that happens sometimes in kids who are growing and healthy and active.  He should be fine in a couple of weeks.  I'm grateful for all of this.
• I'm taking the Spanish placement test tomorrow so I can register for not-Spanish I next week.
• I bought lots of bulk spices today for less than $1.00.  Total.  Not each.  Total.
• I saw my endo today for a post-op appointment.  Everything is good.  Assuming my thyroid panel is all normal I'll see her again in 6 months and if the thyroid panel then is all normal and if I never have any weird thyroid symptoms, I'll never see her again.  She's a nice person and all but this makes me happy.  She said I was her easiest patient all day.

And that's all for now.  I should probably have made some of these items separate blog posts but I didn't.  That's how I roll.  I reserve the right to elaborate upon any, all or none of these items in the future.  That's also how I roll.  (You know, until now I didn't know I 'rolled' at all.  That just came out of no where.  Apparently I roll that way, too.)

Poor Little Buddy

Samuel has recently become engrossed in a game called Spore.  I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's similar to TheSims in that you create a being and live as that being until you die.  In Spore, the main difference is that you also evolve.  Your character begins life as a single-celled organism that moves about eating other organisms and growing appendages and adapting to its watery surroundings until it can live on land with the other legged creatures.

Well, Samuel began a civilization a few weeks before the kids left for their fall break.  Tonight he went back to his saved game and continued playing for a while.  When he and I went into the bathroom to work on his teeth cleaning routine he told me that his character's buddy had died.  His little creature was living in a nest with another similar creature and the two of them went off to conquer a band of other creatures.  During the fighting his buddy was mortally wounded.  He seemed a little sad when he told me this but he quickly rebounded and said, "It's okay, though.  I'll find another buddy," and that was that.  Conversation moved on.

About 20 minutes ago Solomon came to me and said that Samuel was in bed, crying.  I went to find out what was wrong.  He was sobbing really hard and couldn't talk.  I asked a bunch of questions and finally surmised that he was crying over the loss of his creature's buddy.  Poor little dude.  I feel so bad for him.  And at the same time I can't help giggling a little to myself because it's kind of silly, too, you know?

Also, it reminded me of my own brush with virtual mortality.

When I Grow Up ...

Around the dinner table tonight, we got on the topic of future plans for making a living.  It comes up every once in a while and I'm always interested to hear what the kids have sprouting in their imaginations.  Miriam said she wants to be a teacher, probably an art teacher.  Samuel wants to be an artist or an inventor.  Solomon wants to be a scientist or a veterinarian or an astronaut or something else that I can't remember at the moment.  That boy thinks big, and I do mean BIG.

I don't know if I gave enough thought to the "When I grow up ..." stuff when I was a kid and I want to encourage my children to think about it a lot. I want them to feel confident that they can do whatever they want to do.  I want them to explore different ideas and dreams.  I want them to pick the most satisfying and fulfilling one they can.  I want them to know that it's going to be difficult, that it will take a lot of hard work and discipline and determination. I don't want that to be a surprise to them.

I'm glad they're seeing me in school. I hope to be an inspiration to them in their future endeavors. I also want to be an example of how not to do things: for example, finish school before you move on to having children. Because both things are very hard to do, but they're exponentially more difficult when you're doing them both at the same time.

When I grow up, I'm going to have raise 3 amazing human beings.