The Weird Kid

Anyone who has either met our family, or read our blog with any regularity is painfully aware that Pinkone is a kid who marches to her own drummer. Her unique brand of "Pink-ness" is kind of taken for granted as normal by the lot of us who are in the trenches with her every day. Generally, there isn't a problem until she, or we, are forced to interact with the world at large. Suddenly her new found love of Swedish Black Metal is looked at as a cause for concern rather than totally bad ass.

We had parent teacher conferences the other day, always a source of anxiety for me. The teacher had already called us a couple of weeks ago to let us know that apparently, our kid had a disconcerting odor. This was news to me, as she was given a shower that very morning. When she came home, it turned out that she had decided that simply standing under the water and not actually using soap was an adequate means of cleaning ones self. As I have mentioned in previous posts, it is still shocking to me that hygiene is not something all people are inherently born with.

So after a long and detailed discussion on how to properly wash ourselves and the importance of clean socks, we sent the child back to school thinking all of our problems were solved. Parent teacher conferences come up and Boss and I go like the good Queer-rents we are. Pinkone show's us her desk, her illustrated guide to the life cycle of  a spider and the book of wacky learning songs she uses every day. We see the chart illustrating the teeth lost by each member of the class, see the quiet reading corner and learn about Kelso's choices. Kelso usually chooses to not be a jerk, so we like him.

Then comes the part where Pinkone goes to play with the student teacher and we sit down to talk to the teacher one on one. She starts off with all of the stuff we already know. Pinkone is great at math, she is super smart, has a little trouble focusing sometimes, but is generally doing very well academically.

Then we get into the bits we did NOT know. Apparently Pinkone has an issue with sneakiness. After work time the kids are supposed to bring a  crayon to the magic carpet and circle the answers they got wrong. Pinkone brings her pencil and erases the answers and writes the correct ones on the paper instead. They are supposed to put the math blocks in the box after math time, Pinkone quietly stuffs them in her pocket and takes them home with her for no apparent reason. Teacher is concerned about the amount of sneakiness Pinkone is displaying, did we think there was something going on we weren't aware of? Did teacher need to be brought in on some sort of deep family trauma that resulted in the stealing of math blocks?

Awesome.

Pinkone went through something of a Hudson Hawk phase shortly after her bio-dad left as well. There were several instances of finding small toys and things in her pockets after returning from her friends houses. She would return the toys, apologize and be grounded, eventually the phase seemed to subside and we hadn't had an episode in months.

Has our child become a criminal mastermind? Is she a tiny sociopath in training?

I don't think so. The deal here is that Pinkone has embarrassingly developed a habit I myself, and most of my family seems to have. It is an issue with scarcity. Though we have never had an instance in which we have had to truly want for anything, we are all always afraid that there will suddenly not be enough of it when we want it. If we don't get this thing NOW it won't be there when we legitimately can get it. This is the issue that most often results in shop lifting, hanging on to abusive relationships, and disordered eating.

Where does this issue come from? I see it in myself, I see it in my family, and now here it is in my daughter. I take portions bigger than I want because I am afraid the food won't be there if I want more. I hold on tight to my partners whether  I want them there or not because I am terrified they might disappear at a moments notice and I won't be able to get a new one. I either buy whatever it is I need the MOMENT I can afford it with NO research whatsoever or buy nothing at all.

While swiping the math blocks may not have been a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, the anxiety that goes along with the desire TO swipe the math blocks has the potential to be a life long issue if we don't nip it in the bud ASAP.

Pinkone has also been on a kick lately where she keeps trying to convince Boss and I that we should get married. She has even offered up her own pink plastic butterfly ring if only he would be willing to propose to me. While incredibly sweet, we aren't planning to get married any time soon, or possibly ever, its not really a priority for us. After her 11th request for us to get married. I asked her the other day, "Honey, are you worried that Boss is going to go away if we aren't married?." She admitted that yes, that was her concern. We had a long talk about  the differences between commitment and marriage, and that the two do not always have to equal the other. Her bio-dad and I were married and it didn't stop him from leaving.  Just because Boss and I are not married does not mean we are any less committed to each other than any other couple. She attended the "document signing ceremony" of our dear friends with us and we reminded her of what they told her that day. "Our relationship is no more valid today than it was yesterday. We are just letting the state of Washington know that we plan to file our taxes together next year".  A fantastic lesson the true meaning of marriage if you ask me.

As I am telling her this, I realize that I have thought and felt the very same sense of urgency regarding my relationship, whether I have said it out loud or not. If we aren't married, or working toward getting married, our relationship seems somehow...less than. That is not OK.

What do you DO when you see your kids playing out your own issues in front of your face?  How do you correct a behavior in them that is so ingrained in yourself? I didn't even realize that this was a problem for me until very recently. I have been trying to expend my energy reminding myself that if I don't have something RIGHT NOW it will either be there when I am ready for it, or if it isn't, then it wasn't meant to be. How to communicate this to Pinkone? I didn't realize I was communicating my scarcity issues to her in the first place so how do I communicate my attempts at eradicating them from my own life?

Have any of you been shocked to see your own issues mirrored in your kids? What did you do to correct it?

Tah-Boo-Lee!

I love Levantine cuisine.  Everything from the basic olives, Hummus and Shwarma to the more "adventurous" like Shashlik, Dolma and Kibbeh and if you have never tried Baklava you have never truly lived.  Often some of these foods can be difficult to prepare, I mean who has a Shwarma spit in their kitchen? (one day it will be mine, oh yes it will be mine!) However, one of my favorite dishes from the Levant region of the world is Tabbouleh.  Originally from the mountains of  Syria and Lebanon, tabbouleh has become one of the most popular salads in the Middle East. Traditionally made with bulgur wheat, Tabbouleh is a super easy and delicious salad that can be served as a main dish or a side.  One of the best things about it is that you can make a large amount, store it in the refrigerator in a tightly closed container and its flavors develop more and more as the days pass.  We are trying to reduce the amount of gluten we eat in casa DR and experiment with new grains and seeds so I have adjusted my usual tabbouleh recipe to use quinoa instead of bulgur, this give it a softer texture but I really like the taste and this recipe could be used to make tabbouleh with almost any grain.

Fun Fact!

The largest recorded dish of tabbouleh to date weighed 4,324 kg and was created on 13 November 2009 by the Yaldy Association at Alaayen Elementary School in the Arab town of Shefa-Amr in Israel.

Here is my recipe for a traditional tabbouleh with a few of my own tweaks.

So for this you will need:

1 cup dry quinoa*

3 ripe Roma tomatoes

1/2 long english cucumber

1/2 red bell pepper

1/2 yellow or orange bell pepper

1 bunch Italian Flat leaf parsley.

1 cup kalamata olives

1/2  red onion

2 cloves of fresh garlic

2 whole lemons

1 cup quality olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 fresh ground black pepper

*You can make this with either cooked quinoa or raw sprouted quinoa.  To see how to sprout quinoa visit our post on sprouted grains  or if you are going to cook the quinoa, here is a great tutorial on how to do just that! If using cooked quinoa I recommend cooking it at least 3 hours prior to making the salad so that it has plenty of time to fully chill. The best is to let it cool in the fridge overnight.

To begin, put all your cooled quinoa in a large mixing bowl. Chop up all vegetables with the exception of the onion,garlic and cilantro in small cubes, I find the smaller cubes work better than large chunk vegetables to maintain a consistency of texture and to ensure you can get a bit of each ingredient in each bite! Add all chopped veggies to the quinoa.

At this point I attack my parsley.  Usually I will wash it and trim off the bottom third of the steams. Also pick through it and make sure there are no wilted, blackish bits...trust me, you do not want to get one of these in your bite..very foul! After I have made sure it is all good to go I bunch it up tightly together as if I am going to do a chiffonade of the bunch. The tighter you hold it the smaller pieces you can cut it in the first go around, otherwise it tend to explode and go everywhere!

Toss it in with the quinoa and veg. Now, on to the dressing which brings this all together in a mess of tangy freshness.  Combine your olive oil and lemon juice, add in the salt, cumin and pepper. Whisk well so that the lemon juice and olive oil combine.  Cut up onion in a small dice and mince both garlic cloves, add to lemon and oil mixture.  Whisk well to incorporate. At this point my mouth usually starts to water as the heady garlic and onion and the tart lemon scent hits me.  Pour dressing onto salad.

Slice up your olives and combine with your salad, mix well.  Now comes the best part...the taste test.  Take a big spoonful, close your eyes and..NOM!!  This salad just gets better as it sits so usually I will make it at least 1 hour ahead of time and cover it and put it in the refrigerator to chill and let the flavors mingle.  Drop me a comment and let me know how yours turned out and what, if any, adjustments you made.  Enjoy!!

Apple Butter Business

Two weeks ago  I started a campaign on craigslist for canning supplies. Preserving is my cause du-jour at the moment. I am getting super excited about things like canning, fermenting, and dehydrating. Oh the possibilities!

During my quest for free canning supplies, I was contacted by a person that worked for an older gentleman with a plethora of canning business cluttering up his shop since his wife passed on. Boss and I immediately planned a trip out to the nether reaches of the county to pick up our free swag and start the canning fun times.

When we got there, we found the COOLEST gentleman either of us have had the pleasure of meeting since our own grandpa's (who are both extremely awesome mind you). Farmer Jim had not only canning supplies, but an industrial rock tumbler, gads of shiny rocks from all over the US, a stuffed owl and so many amazing handy craft projects I think etsy would blow up if it allowed him to post to their site.

Farmer Jim loaded us up with jars and a canning set up and also sent us home with a HUGE bucket of apples to start off our adventure in canning. Boss now has his old gentleman mentor, and I now have my canning supplies...all in all, a prosperous trip.

[caption id="attachment_943" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="above: a veritable shit ton of apples"][/caption]

When I got home,  I couldn't decide what it was I wanted to DO with these nifty canning supplies and all of these apples. We are big fans of apple muffins in this house, but it seemed a little silly to make 600 of them just to use up my apples. After a quick offering to the Oracle, it was decided that apple butter would be the coolest thing we could make with the ingredients we already had on hand.

The process begins with a veritable shit ton of apples. We used two bags from the grocery store as well as 10 of Farmer Jim's far superior apples. We filled the crock pot with tiny chunks of apples and thought smugly...this shall make thousands upon thousands of gallons of delicious apple butter! MWHAHAHAHAHA! It of course made...2 pints of delicious apple butter. According to the interwebs, if youw ant to make gallons of the stuff, you will need to keep adding apples as it cooks down and you will need far more than like 30 apples. SO the recipe I am posting here is for a small yield batch that you can do in a weekend with your crock pot. The apple butter purists will do it in gigantic pots over fires and such. I am no apple butter purist.

Let us begin.

Ingredients:

A bunch of of apples (30 or so) -cored and chopped. I leave the skins on because they cook down and it doesn't make any difference to me. Plus...the lazy...

[caption id="attachment_944" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="like-a-so"]