Tragic Sandwich

Tragic Sandwich

  • Mawwiage is What Bwings Us Together Today

    I try not to get political here, or in a lot of areas of my life. It’s not that I don’t have opinions–it’s that I’d prefer to find common ground. There is far too much that we allow to divide us, and I think that’s one of the biggest problems our society faces. All too often, we shun those whose opinions differ from our own.

    But there are some exceptions.

    Today, Mr. Sandwich and I are celebrating our ninth anniversary. I am so grateful for this man who loves and supports me. I appreciate the fact that we could mark our commitment to each other in front of friends and family. I am reassured that our relationship and our family have legal protections.

    I think everyone ought to be able to have that.

    Your house of worship doesn’t want to marry couples who are gay? They don’t have to. And no matter what the Supreme Court decides in either case it’s hearing on the subject this week, they won’t have to. But the reasons for and purposes of marriage have varied widely throughout history, and across social classes, so I don’t buy the argument that marriage has a specific and unchanging purpose.

    And the argument that gay marriage undermines straight marriage? Let’s not even delve into the question of celebrity marriage rates, or the nationwide divorce rate. Those miss the point, which is this:

    The only people who can undermine our marriage are Mr. Sandwich and me. No one else’s marriage affects ours. Not my brother’s to his wife; not Britney Spears’ or Elizabeth Taylor’s or Mickey Rooney’s to–between them–20 people; not our friend from the bus who went out of state to legally marry his husband several months ago. Whether strong or weak, those are their marriages–not ours.

    Your house of worship can choose which people they will or will not marry based on any number of criteria; mine certainly did. But the government’s true interest in marriage is not based on love, or birth rates, or a specific vision of society. It is based on property rights and access.

    If you love someone and spend your life with them, you should be able to get information about their medical care when they’re critically ill. You should be able to easily inherit. You should be able to say who you are and who you love and build a legal life together.

    Mr. Sandwich I have had those rights for the past nine years. I want more people to have what we have.

    Marriage Equality

  • Macaroni and Cheese

    When my brother was two, my mother asked our pediatrician how she could get him to eat more foods. The doctor said, “Well, what does he eat?”

    My mother said, “He won’t eat anything but hot dogs, orange juice, and Hershey bars.”

    The doctor said, “Eh, don’t worry about it. That’s not so bad, and if you fight him about it, he’ll dig in his heels longer. Just don’t let him eat more than one candy bar a day.”

    Now, you may take issue with that, and to me, a Hershey bar a day does sound like a lot for a small child. But it worked, because now my brother eats Thai food.

    Baguette likes hot dogs just fine. Pizza, too. But her current favorite is macaroni and cheese.

    She wants it all the time. Yesterday morning she woke up early, so she had breakfast at home. I put her usual scrambled egg in front of her, and she looked at me and said, hopefully, “Macaroni and cheese.”

    I said, “I’d like you to eat your egg first.”

    She said, “Nooooo! Macaroni and cheese!”

    On the plus side, she’s not picky about some aspects of it. I want to make it from scratch, but I don’t always have time. And she doesn’t care whether it’s homemade or Kraft. So sometimes I succumb to the lure of simplicity and speed–but then the next round is homemade.

    On the negative side, she is picky about other aspects. Last week I made it from scratch and added pureed butternut squash (Is sneaking vegetables into dishes good or bad? I don’t care–I’m doing it.) No, that’s not what she cared about. The problem was that in what was clearly a fit of insanity, I purchased a box of bow tie pasta.

    In my defense, I thought she’d think it was fun.

    I know, I know. The outcome was totally predictable. She asked for macaroni and cheese, and I placed a bowl of my lovingly crafted meal in front of her, and she instantly screamed, “Noooooo! Macaroni and cheese.”

    I tried, but there was no reasoning with her. And in her defense, that wasn’t macaroni and cheese. It was bowtie pasta with cheese.

  • Meal Planning

    I want to do it. I just have a lot of trouble finding the time to sit down and think about it.

    Fortunately, last night we had friends over for dinner (afterward I realized that this was the first playdate we’ve hosted, and it went pretty well overall); we made pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw, Ranch Style Beans, mashed potatoes, and roasted asparagus.

    And when I say “made,” I mean that the only things we actually made ourselves were the potatoes and asparagus. Everything else came straight from the store or was assembled.

    But we have lots of leftovers (except for asparagus), so there are a few meals there.

    And I’ve got a Crock Pot full of steel-cut oats, so there are some breakfasts.

    Really, I think we’ll be pretty set as long as I make one more dish today. So should I clear out some space in the freezer by making meatball and tortellini soup? Or should I have something hearty but light and make more curried lentils and brown rice?

    Decisions, decisions.

  • Jobs I’ve Had

    Shalini of Reading and Chickens wrote a post that I liked so much, I thought, “I want to steal this idea.” So I said, “Can I steal this?” And she said, “Yes.” So here goes.

    1977. I wanted a newspaper route, but even the weekly local throw-away refused to hire anyone under the age of 10. So somehow I wound up with a doughnut route. You read that right. I was a door-to-door doughnut salesperson, taking orders for and delivering boxes of cake, glazed, and jelly-filled doughnuts. But doughnut delivery day and swim team practice were the same day, and the first made me too tired to do well at the second, so I quit.

    1980-82. I babysat for several families in our neighborhood. Generally the children were only a year or two younger than I was, which meant that it was less babysitting and more keep-them-from-killing-each-other-and-get-them-out-if-the-house-catches-fire. Which may sound like a joke, but our next-door neighbors’ house burned to the ground when I was in sixth grade, so everyone was actually very aware of that. Note: The next-door neighbors never hired me as a sitter because some of their children were older than I was.

    1984-1986. A newspaper route! Finally! Thankfully, it was an afternoon paper (See how old I am? I remember afternoon papers), so I didn’t have to wake up before dawn. Although I had to do that anyhow to catch my school bus, so maybe that didn’t matter so much. I also feel that my earlier desire for a route was vindicated, because I won a state-wide award for newspaper delivery. Yes, I did.

    1987-1989. Checking IDs in my college dorm. I was a little tyrant, which was completely unnecessary. To this day, if I meet anyone who had any reason to even try to come into my dorm building during that time period, I apologize to them on principle. So far every person has said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you,” and I reply, “Really, that’s for the best.”

    1992-1993. Nanny for the son of one of the professors I’d had in grad school. I lived in her house and provided post-daycare coverage in exchange for room and board. We all got along well (I’d been babysitting her son for a year before I moved in), she gave me incredible flexibility for my job search (see below), and it was a great experience. Plus her son was a bright and adorable toddler, so taking care of him was fun. Also it gave me a tiny bit of parental street cred long before Baguette.

    1992-1993. Tour guide. I also led student tours at a nearby historic site. This is where I learned that you can walk 3rd graders past a half-naked statue and they don’t care at all, but 4th graders will just stand there and snicker endlessly.

    1993. Marketing Assistant/Apprentice to Willy Loman. I spent two weeks filing faxes for a company that was transitioning from an award-winning ad agency to an import-export firm, which still doesn’t make sense to me. The first day I was there, the head of sales took me out to lunch. He kept talking about all the deals he’d made. I kept wondering when he was going to tell me that he wasn’t just liked, he was well-liked. They tried to underpay me by $2 an hour for the two weeks I was temp-to-permanent. I don’t remember if they offered me the job on a permanent basis, but it was so boring that I didn’t want it anyhow.

    I have only pursued one of these fields, although I still love doughnuts. Maybe a little too much.

  • Cooking Like Crazy

    I’m continuing to try to change my eating habits. Last week wasn’t bad; lots of eggs and yogurt and fruit. I did have bacon once, as well as one doughnut, and both times I followed up those choices with something healthier and lighter, to try to balance out the day. That’s new for me, too.

    This weekend, I made quite a few things, with plans for one or two more. Saturday I made a batch of baked French toast and a black bean enchilada casserole–both of those went to a friend who had her second baby a couple of months ago–and Sunday afternoon I put together another enchilada casserole for a neighbor with a new baby of her own.

    Yesterday was also St. Patrick’s Day, so that means that while breakfast was a small serving of baked French toast and some strawberries, followed by a lunch of yogurt, fruit and granola, dinner was Irish bangers and mash with brown gravy.

    I also made a batch of slow-cooker oatmeal, and chopped onions and bell peppers so I can make a pot of vegetarian chili tonight as well (I’ll add some seitan to that for protein). That should take care of quite a few breakfasts and lunches–which hopefully will also help keep my food costs down during the day.

  • I Don’t Care About Your Xanax

    Please don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t care about you.

    Far from it. I want you, the individual, to live a life that makes you happy.

    That means that if you don’t want to work outside the home, then I hope you are able to stay home.

    If you want to work outside the home, then I hope you find a job you love.

    If you want to be CEO, then I hope you find a way to make that happen.

    If you just want to enjoy your job, work hard, and then go home, then I hope you find a way to make that happen.

    If you need medication, then I hope you find the kind that works best for you.

    If you don’t need medication, then don’t take any.

    But none of your needs and decisions affect me or my family directly. And that means this:

    How you make things work is none of my damned business, and I’m not going to judge you for it.

    Just keep doing what you’re doing.

  • 3 A.M. Wakeup Call

    From Baguette, naturally. So this is how I feel today.

    sleepy_mk

    Photo by beccafrog, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

  • That Smells Wonderful

    This week’s Monday Listicles is “10 Fantastic Smells.” At first, I thought that the topic wasn’t really grabbing me. But then Baguette spent the night throwing up, and I realized that what really smells bad is vomit on your couch. So to distract myself from cleaning, here we go:

    • Doughnuts. When we were first married, we lived around the corner from a doughnut shop. The scents that wafted from that block to ours were amazing.
    • Vanilla. I once walked into one of my favorite stores and said, “It smells amazing in here–what is that?” The salesperson said, “Vanilla. Apparently it’s supposed to make people buy more.”
    • Shalimar. This was my mother’s perfume, and something about it makes me feel like Christmas.

    Shalimar

    • Oranges. Fresh and clean. I still remember the year that my office got so many chocolate holiday gifts from vendors that all I ate (aside from chocolate holiday gifts) was navel oranges.
    • Spices. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and more. Again with the Christmas, but also very cozy.
    • In-n-Out. Meaty, oniony, saucy, cheesy, yum.
    • Newborn baby. That milky sweetness.
    • Coconut. Hardly a surprise, considering how much I love Kauai.
    • Lavender. Not only does it smell clean and calming, it’s sometimes the only thing that keeps my hands from stinging. Thank you, Avalon Organics!
    • Chocolate chip cookies. Oh, my, yes. And they taste good.

    So those are the first 10 that come to mind. Clearly food matters to me. What are your favorite scents?

    Photo by Sheila in Moonducks, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

  • Food and Health and Stuff, with Lentils

    My diet is a mixture of excellence and trash.* I know this, and most of the time it works well enough for me. But this week it became evident that it’s skewed much too far toward trash.

    Thursday and Friday I felt horrible, and every time I ate something, I could tell almost immediately whether that particular choice had been a mistake. Most of the time, it was a mistake.

    So–at least for now–no more bacon. I love bacon, but bacon is not loving me. And that goes true for salt in general. I was able to cut way back on salt when I was pregnant with Baguette, so I know I can do it now. And I’m cutting way back on meals out and prepared foods, because those are part of the salt-and-other-chemicals problem I’m having.

    I’ve stocked up on fruit and Greek yogurt (oh, wait, I think I need more by now), and am trying to have a Yakult a day for more probiotics. I’ve pulled a loaf of pumpkin bread out of the freezer, and later today I’ll fix a bunch of hard-cooked eggs.

    Also, last night I made curried lentils and brown rice–my first time cooking lentils. And I loved it! Lots of leftovers mean I’ll have several lunches during the week, too.

    Curried Lentils and Brown Rice (adapted from Supermarket Vegan)

    3/4 cup brown rice (I only had 1/2 cup and supplemented white rice for the remainder–it still turned out okay)
    3/4 cup lentils, picked over and rinsed
    1 can vegetable broth
    1 can plus 1/4 cup water
    2 Tbsp. olive oil
    1 tsp. dried minced onion
    1 tsp. garlic powder
    black pepper
    coarse-ground white pepper

    Put everything in a sauce pan and bring to boil. Lower heat until it is just simmering and cover. Stirring occasionally, cook for 45-50 minutes, or until lentils and rice are tender and water is mostly absorbed.

    Further confirmation that it was time to overhaul my diet? I already feel much better. Not 100%, but much, much better.

    *Not actual trash. I’m not Oscar. Even if I do have my Grouchy moments.

    hackney council's newest recycling collector

    Photo by clurr, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

  • Easy Weekend Breakfast: Monkey Bread

    I remember monkey bread from my childhood. It wasn’t one of my mom’s regular weekend breakfast dishes–in fact, I’m not sure she made it more than once–but clearly it made an impression. With only three of us in the house, and one of us quite small, I don’t make a lot of big breakfasts. Most weekends, we eat pretty much the same things we eat during the week–eggs, some sort of breakfast bar or pastry, and fruit.

    But I want to have some “company” meals on tap, for the years we host family at the holidays, or for when we have other out-of-town visitors. First up? Monkey Bread.

    I read a variety of recipes, and yes–I am sure that making the dough from scratch is better. But who has time? People who aren’t me. And while I have a Bundt pan, I wanted to see if I could make it in a regular pan. Spoiler alert: I totally can.

    Monkey Bread

    Monkey Bread

    1 can jumbo biscuits
    3 Tbsp. butter
    1 tsp. honey
    2 Tbsp. brown sugar, divided
    cinnamon and nutmeg, to taste

    Heat oven to 375. Spray a 9×9 pan with cooking spray. Melt the butter and honey and use half to cover the bottom of the pan. Distribute half of brown sugar in bottom of pan.

    Cut each biscuit into quarters and cram all the pieces into the pan in a single layer. Top with remaining brown sugar and drizzle remaining butter and honey over everything.

    Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until top is beginning to turn golden brown. Cool pan on rack for 3 minutes and turn onto serving plate.

    This was just what I was looking for–easy and quick, and sweet-but-not-TOO-sweet. It’s definitely a keeper.