Happy Cooking Accidents

I started off looking through the How to Cook Everything app to find an easy dinner to make. I decided to look up arepas because my friend out west made some for breakfast recently. I was not able to enjoy her arepas, but she said when she comes to visit, she will make them for me. Anyway, surprisingly, I found a recipe in the Mark Bittman app. I was not excepting to find it, but there are recipes for almost everything.

Unfortunately, as per usual, I did not read the recipe carefully, and it turned out I started making deep fried corn fritters instead of arepas. The arepa recipe was a variation on the recipe I had found. I decided to work with what I had created, and morphed my meal into a combo fritter/corn pancake. I really try to avoid deep frying anything in my home.

My husband loved the meal. I served the pancakes with meatballs, salsa and raw veggies on the side. Even my notoriously picky children ate the corn pancakes, without syrup! My son tried the pancakes with the green bits (basil and coriander), but decided he liked the non-green ones. My daughter refused to eat the pancakes because there was stuff in them. She does not like things with things in them. Somehow she caved, took a bite, and she realized she actually liked them. Hooray!

My husband is convinced if I make these again I will never be able to reproduce the pleasure he experienced eating the corn pancakes. He said it would not matter if I used the exact same recipe, his expectations are already high, so nothing will match this initial surprise. I asked if I would have to wait some time for the memory to fade, and he said time would have no effect. This left me feeling down. Was he telling me never to make this meal again?

Apparently, he feels I should continue to strive to improve upon this meal. I suppose his sly way of saying to make this meal again.

SAVOURY CORN PANCAKES

Neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, as needed

¾ cup cornmeal, the fresher the better

½ cup all‐purpose flour (I used a mix of whole wheat and all purpose)

2 teaspoons baking powder

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup grated cheese

¾ cup milk, plus more if needed (it ended up being over 1 cup)

1 large egg

2 cups corn kernels, preferably just stripped from the cobs, but thawed frozen is acceptable (I used the kernels from one large cob)

Chopped fresh herbs (optional)

Combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, cheese, and some salt and pepper in a large bowl. Beat the milk and egg together, then pour the mixture into the dry ingredients, add enough milk to make a batter the consistency of pancake batter. Stir in the corn. If you want to make "plain" pancakes, add the herbs after you have cooked a few pancakes without.

Melt some butter or oil in a frying pan. When the oil is hot enough, dropped two tablespoons worth of batter into the pan for each pancake. Cook as you would regular pancakes, flipping when they are golden.

Serve with salsa.

Oh, and this year's cherry tomatoes made a great Caprese salad with basil and fresh mozzarella cheese.

 

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Monster High

My daughter turned six years old this week, and for her birthday, my mother in law bought her a Monster High doll. I would not have bought her one myself, and her grandmother asked a girl, my daughter's age, which toy she would buy if she had a choice, and the choice was Monster High. For those of you not familiar to Monster High, the dolls are very leggy, and very skinny (skinnier than Barbie) with larger heads, eyes and lips. The faces are not as bad as the Bratz dolls, but the bodies are much skinnier.

Right now, most of my daughter's friends are crazy about My Little Pony. The cartoons are pretty funny (which explains the whole Bronie phenomenon), but as with many cartoons, the humour is above the heads of six year olds. My Little Pony seems to be cashing in in the Monster High craze. They have designed their Equestria Girls dolls to look a lot like the Monster High ones. My Little Pony toys are now fashion dolls. Who would have thought? I liked the idea that they are ponies. Making them leggy girls has taken away some of their innocence.

Bratz dolls have come up with a line called Bratzilla to mimic the monster theme. I have not taken a good look at this product as I am particularly unimpressed by Bratz. When they came up with a line of baby dolls with makeup, and pouty lips, I wanted nothing to do with them.

The Monster High marketing scheme is pretty good. I kind of like all the different kinds of "Monsters" they have created, usually based on a popular culture beastie. My daughter's doll is called Operetta, and she is the daughter of The Phantom of the Opera. They have funny profiles, taking into consideration the history of the monster or its parentage. Aside from the appearance of the dolls, it is a clever concept. I find myself wanting to get Skelita Calaveras because of my year spent in Mexico and my fascination with the Day of the Dead.

The appearance, leggy, skinny dolls in skimpy clothes is a problem for me, especially with my daughter being only six years old. I want her to stay young and innocent for as long as possible. Maybe the look of the dolls is so extreme that kids realize it is make believe. Barbies are more "normal" looking in comparison, but equally unrealistic as far as body shape. They could be more dangerous because girls might try to be like them. I doubt anyone is going to try to be a steam punk robot. (Really, that is kind of a cool character).

So, I let my daughter have her Monster High doll, without judgement. I will just monitor what she consumes as far as related media is concerned. We tend to watch French language only programs, so unless I find a DVD with the French track, she will not get to watch shows like Monster High and My Little Pony. I know there are French versions of these shows available, but I will wait until she is a little older. For now, we will stick with the innocent shows of miniTFO (kind of like French Treehouse), without commercials. It is bad enough that their father is exposing my children to Avengers, in French no less!

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Our Camping Trip, 2013. Pinery Provincial Park.

Last year was the first time we went camping with the kids. We decided on Whispering Pines at Santa's Village near Bracebridge because it was close to the amusement park, the town of Bracebridge, and the campsite has a pool and playground. It was quite a successful trip. Being close to civilization meant I was able to pop into town for things like a smaller air mattress, and food for supper. We also spent one of the three days exploring the parks of Bracebridge.

We have been going to Santa's Village for a few years, and my children are still young enough to enjoy their time there. However, I have been feeling of late that this amusement park is small, outdated and quite overpriced for a day trip from Sudbury. Camping last year was perfect because the amusement park was not our ultimate goal.

We saved on entrance costs because Fridays are two for one. We were already at Santa's Village the day we decided to go inside the park, so we did not have to wake at the crack of dawn, and drive for three hours. The pool and the playground at the campsite were just as fun for our kids as Santa's Village, and it was included with the camping fees. We also had the opportunity to rent a canoe.

This year we had a different camping experience. I did not feel like another year at Whispering Pines, but I still wanted a short camping experience for our family. I decided on Pinery Provincial Park, on the shores of Lake Huron. We were already in southern Ontario visiting my parents, so the drive to Pinery was only 2 1/2 hours from Oakville.

For a biologist/ecologist, this is a pretty amazing park. The succession happening on the dunes, the different habitats, all of the rare plants, it was quite interesting. On top of that, their visitor centre is extremely well set up and interactive.

There are displays, aquariums, a movie theatre and an outdoor amphitheatre. They have daily activities, for free, as well as programs in the evenings, and children's activities. You can rent bikes and paddle boats. If the weather is nice, there is a long shallow beach with kilometres of soft sand. Even if you do not camp there, it is worth a visit to the day use beaches when the weather is cooperating.

Unfortunately for us, the weather could have been better. We only ended up at the beach the first day, and it was not a sunny or particularly warm day. However, my kids still had a lot of fun playing in the sand with their Manitoban cousins as my parents had driven out for the day.

The next couple of days were cloudy, cool, and the wind started to pick up. It was quite spectacular, seeing the waves on the lake. It felt like being at the ocean. For a day and a half there was an underlying sound of waves roaring in the distance. Without the option of going to the beach, we had to find other things to do.

We ended up walking a lot. I was surprised how well my kids, aged 4 and 6, did with all the walking. We misjudged the distance to one trail, and missed a mushroom hike. I ended up running back to our campsite to get the van. The kids wanted to watch "tv" often, and at one point I had to drag my daughter out of the movie theatre because it was playing a cartoon, and we had somewhere to be. Otherwise, they seemed as fascinated by the insects, plants, and animals as we were.

When you only do a three night camping trip, it is a gamble whether or not you will have good weather. The day we left, the sky had cleared, and they were predicting warm, summer temperatures for the weekend. It was still a great experience. The campsite was well equipped with washrooms, and warm showers. Most of our neighbours were quiet, and we stayed dry during the rainstorm our last night.

I know my husband was not impressed that there was no play structure for our kids, but we had other things to keep them occupied. I had brought along some pages to paint by adding water. We also had some "board" games found in the kids' Pomme d'Api magazines. I forgot to bring scissors, so we could not play the games that were not already cut out, but this leaves something for the next trip. Really, they needed to get a little bored as well. They often came up with imaginative games to play around the campsite. Unfortunatley, the prevalence of poison ivy prevented them from exploring too much in the bushes, but it was a step in the right direction with regards to camping.

Next year, maybe we will head out East. Three of our friends went out to PEI this summer, and I have heard nothing but good things about it. Maybe we will plan an epic road trip for next summer.

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Playgrounds

It is summertime, and we are spending a lot of time visiting various playgrounds and splash pads. My kids used to look forward to playing at the playground near their grandparents' home in Oakville, but the play structure was totally revamped last month. It seems as though all of the parks in Oakville were overhauled, regardless of whether or not they needed to be. My kids miss the spiral slide from the old park. The new park is supposed to be handicap accessible, but they replaced the tunnel slide with three shorter bumping slides.

They put in a couple balancing toys, a wake board, and a skate board. My daughter barely weighs anything, so it was quite easy for her to balance. She also liked the climbing wall leading to a fireman's pole. In fact, she said she did not like other play structures as much when they did not have a pole.

There are other parks nearby with shorter spiral slides, but they are not within walking distance from Grandma and Grandpa's. My son was particularly amused with the bouncy bridge at one of the further parks. This park was good for when we, the parents, wanted to play some tennis because the park was close to the courts.

In Mississauga, just off of the Lakeshore, there is a very interesting park called Lakeside. They have the closest spray pad to us. At first, the spray pad looked boring because it was just a series of fountains coming out of a cement pad. However, the kids loved it. I always said a bidet would be a hit at home. My kids love water that spurts up. Plus, the fountains will go on together, following a programmed pattern. There is even a misty vent. My biggest gripe is that the other misty vent, the one the kids can contriol, is at the top of a flight of stairs. Not well thought out. Makes me wonder if someone has gotten seriously injured yet.

The play structure part of the park is quite fun. Lots of spinning things, and a first nations, exploration, musical theme going on. At first, I was leery about the large climbing merry go round, but as my husband pointed out, it requires cooperation on the part of the children, and encourages communication. Often, the kids would try to recruit an adult to turn the merry go round, but with ten kids trying to get into place, it got quite tedious. I let the kids figure it out for themselves, and they usually did.

I think I was having more fun on the other spinning structures than my kids. It was one of those parks where it felt like it was giving the children the chance to explore and try out things. It was not too sanitized, but was safe because the smaller kids could not get on the bigger structures. Having just listened to a podcast asking if playgrounds are too safe, it was neat to see some innovative ideas for new parks. Listen here to the Q podcast.

Our playground explorations concluded with a rec centre in Burlington. For $3, kids had access to a splash pad, a wading pool, a big pool, and a playground. Plus, there was a bigger playground outside the fenced in Nelson Park, and a BMX jumping area. It looked as though there were sports fields in the back too.

I wish Sudbury had shallow pools for younger kids, either indoor or outdoor, but something other than just sprays coming out of the ground. I suppose we have all our beaches around town, but there is no truly family oriented swimming area for us. I was extremely jealous of my friend in Edmonton. Their rec centre had an indoor playground, plus two pools. One for laps and diving, and a family pool that was very warm, with a lazy river, and a waterslide. Also, there was an even warmer mom and babies area. Amazing. Of course, Edmonton is much bigger than Sudbury, but Burlington is about the same size. We have no outdoor pools in Sudbury nor indoor playgrounds, unless you count McDonald's or Burger King.

Have you found any fun parks in your neighbourhood? Where do you live?

 

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Advertising to Kids

Last week, while we were visiting my friends in Edmonton, my daughter was exposed to more commercials than she had ever been exposed to, and it was kind of scary. My friend did not have Treehouse, and she only had three "kids" channels to choose from. YTV was not playing stuff I thought appropriate for my almost six year old daughter, so we opted for Retro Teletoon.

I am not sure who the target audience is for Retro Teletoon, but I do not think it is young children. Maybe they are trying to market to adults reliving their youth. Regardless, most of the ads were infomercials for products not geared to kids. After watching this channel with my daughter for a few minutes, she quickly told me I needed to buy several of the advertised products. Apparently, I need a No No hair removal gadget, and my husband can get one too. Our cat needs to have the Cat's Meow cat toy. I am surprised she did not encourage me to use the pay day loan service as well.

I was struck by how easily influenced my daughter was by such a brief exposure to these ads. My children do not normally watch TV with ads. At home, we watch DVDs, TFO and sometimes Treehouse. The channels we do watch only advertise their own shows. She also asked why I did not buy Frosted Flakes cereal. It must be good for us since the tiger is so sporty.

My friend took us to the library a few days into our visit and I was able to get her commercial free, french programming for a few days. I have been quite good at sheltering my children from most of the advertising frenzy geared toward children. My kids are mostly influenced by their fellow classmates and daycaremates. This exposure is plenty. My kids come home talking about products and TV shows we never watch at home. I still have no idea how my son knows about Skylanders.

I sometimes worry that I shelter them too much, but there is access to current media everywhere these days. I try to keep them watching French language shows, if at all possible. We almost always listen to French music, or Kindermusik, and their books are in French too. They are constantly bombarded by ads for toys through print, video games and movies, and I want to keep them sheltered as long as possible.

I am even quite strict on iPad use. I might be on my iPad every day, but until my kids are old enough to buy their own handheld devices, I will decide how often they play on mine. I will probably limit their access when they do buy their own too.

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Reminiscing with Good Friends

My daughter and I are rounding up a week long visit with some very dear friends of mine. The three of us met while teaching high school in Monterrey, Mexico, 12 years ago. It was an amazing experience and I count these two women as some of, if not the, best friends that I have. They are at the top of my contact list on Facebook, and we have managed to see each other almost every two years since we have been back in Canada. Considering I live in Sudbury and they live in Edmonton, I count this as impressive.

I was saying to one of the friends a sign of a good friendship is when you can stop talking about what you did in the past and enjoy each other's company in the present. Of course, after that, we got out the photo albums of our Mexican adventures and proceeded to reminisce, again. But, as the other friend said, no one else was there, and there is no one else can we talk to who will understand what we experienced.

Friendships are odd things. I have many people in my life I would consider good friends, but we do not see each other very often because we live so far apart. I grew up in Manitoba, therefore many of my high school friends are still there. We see each other about once a year. We tend to not relive the "good ole times" because they were so long ago, but whatever drew us together when we were younger is still there. We are able to spend time together, talk about our lives and let our kids play.

I see my university friends even more seldom. I went to UBC, and since I graduated, I have only been back three times. These friends rarely come out East to visit. We stay in touch mainly through Facebook. However, it is as though no time has passed when we do finally see each other. Most of these people know who I am, and love me for the good and the bad. I count myself fortunate to have travelled so much, and to have maintained these connections for such a long time.

I do not have many people near my home I would consider good friends. Last year a relationship, I had considered a family type relationship, fell apart. The women decided, over what seems like an overnight b$&&h session, that they no longer wanted me in their lives. It hurt me deeply because it was never clear exactly what it was that I had done. I still do not know what I did, and I was never given the opportunity to make up for my "failings".

It was made even more awkward because they live in our community, they were important at our wedding, and our children are still close. I do not like to talk about it a lot because I do not know how much they said to others. I also do not know how many of my circle of acquaintances know them. It made dealing with the loss difficult because I had no one to talk to about it.


My friends here in Edmonton were very supportive throughout the ordeal. In fact, they are a testament to a strong friendship because we have all put our feet in our mouths with regards to each other, but we still love each other. We are like sisters, and despite the time and distance we are able to pick up where we left off, as though the years have not passed.

We were fortunate to have two visits this year because the fourth member of our Mexican quartet got married in Toronto in May. Unfortunately, he has not been as easy to stay in contact with, being a doctor now and basically eschewing Facebook. Our reunion with him was not quite the same since he was busy with his wedding (the nerve!), but we have had some good visits after Mexico when I was pregnant with my kids. We can still have a super reunion one of these years, and maybe focus on our present selves instead of our crazy, young, Mexican selves. Not that those younger versions of us were bad, but I think we have grown a lot since then, and we still like our older selves.

We are all mothers now, and our girls play together (our sons too). We are all teachers and we commiserate with each other and cheer each other on in our careers. After 12 years, we are still the best of friends, and I am so glad for the opportunity to see them as often as I do. As my visit comes to an end, I look forward to the next time. We will stay in touch through Facebook and Skype, but nothing beats being in the same room as my chiquitas!

La silla is a "pinche" mountain! ¡Jejeje!

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To Air Condition or Not To Air Condition

For some people there is no question. They must think us crazy for not having air conditioning in the summer. Generally, though, we rarely have heat waves that last longer than a few days, and usually the humidity is not too bad. We are normally able to cool our house down in the evenings by opening up all the windows. The basement stays cooler than the rest of the house as well. As a last resort, we could just lie down on the tiled floor.

This morning, however, I was wishing for AC in our home, if only to decrease the humidity. Currently, it is 32C outside and with the humidity it feels like 42C. Our house had heated up to 28C last night, and only cooled down to 26C this morning. Most of the people I met along my morning run at 7am said, "It is too hot to be running!" "Better now than in the afternoon." said I.

We are supposed to have cooler temperatures come Saturday, and if we open up the whole house, basement included, we should be able to get back to a reasonable temperature in our home. That will be up to my husband this week, as I am going away. Once we get back to having cooler evenings, we should be fine.

Our biggest problem with heating up our home is the westward facing patio doors in our bedroom. We have no trees blocking these doors, so in the summer we have light coming into the house from 3pm until 9pm. In the seven years we have lived in the house I have tried several types of black out curtains with varying success. Last year we put UV blocking film on the glass. It cut down on the heat, but we still have light getting in and that is what warms up the room, and then the house. I wanted to get an automatic blind on the outside which would prevent light from entering through the window. I suppose another option would be a gazebo on the deck.

In Europe, houses have shutters on the outside of the house which stop light, and heat from getting in. I am not sure why we have not adopted this practice in North America. Maybe it is aesthetics. Our friends had hidden shutters that would automatically roll down and block all light from entering. Seals the house up like a vault.

I often think about how my next house should be oriented with respect to home energy efficiencies. Which side of the house should have all the windows to maximize heat gain in the winter, but not in the summer? If we had a deciduous tree in front of our patio doors, it too would greatly reduce how hot our home would be. Alas, these are all things I know for my next home, whenever that happens.

For now, we are hiding in the basement, playing at the splash pad, taking advantage of friends with pools, or going to the lake. In a few days, a cold front will be coming through, and we will no longer be jonesing for air conditioning. Maybe we'll hang out at the mall tomorrow.

This is what we need. Northern Solar Screen. Now, are these available for Canadians?

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