Confession # 6--I dream of pizza

Tonight I am in the mood to cleanse my soul so it is time for another confession.

This is it: I like to cook and I love to bake. And by cooking and baking, I mean from scratch…. like from scratch scratch.

I know this seems like an odd confession, not something you would hide in the closet with your Snuggie and your dog-eared copy of Kama Sutra. It is something that has taken me a long time to come to terms with, and something I struggle with now. It is silly, I know, but cooking is, at times, one of those chores that makes me feel too much like a “wife.” I hate doing things that feel like gender duties, it is something I struggle with on a daily basis. The feeling that I end up doing something because I am the woman is not something I embrace, it rubs my inner feminist the wrong way (and trust me, you don’t want to irritate her).

The internal conflict is compounded, of course, by the fact that my husband, though he does grill, like a lot of men, doesn’t cook much. I mean, he CAN cook (though it takes him forever) and he has made some very good meals… and he WILL cook, if I ask him to, but his schedule doesn’t really allow it much during the week and he doesn’t get excited over finding (or even looking for) a recipe for French Onion Soup or the perfect pizza dough like I do. So I do most of the cooking.

I do not like the daily grind cooking—the what-do-I-make-for-dinner pressure. That is exhausting, and I’ll admit that we have easy, quick, or sometimes overly- processed foods several times a week. We also have leftovers a lot… and by leftovers, I mean exactly what we had last night: it is not dressed up or changed up or altered at all. When I cook, I make a lot so I don’t have to cook the next day.

I love finding new recipes and trying them out. I love cooking for other people. I love making something that makes people have to ask: “How did you make it?” I love knowing that my cupcakes have brought tears to peoples’ eyes (slight exaggeration), that my chicken braised in white wine or the smell of my homemade bread will make your mouth water, and that my husband will never leave me because he is addicted to my flan.

I love cooking shows on PBS. I love cookbooks. I rarely subscribe to magazines… except cooking or wine ones. At night I dream of All-Clad, Le Creuset, and KitchenAid.

Since I have come clean, I will share my latest acquisitions with you…

The first, thanks to a blogger friend who received more than one and wanted to share (thanks again Mosey!)




The second, thanks to a birthday bookstore gift card… and because I love America’s Test Kitchen.




So I am getting ready to make pizza, with a long (1-3 days), cold-rise pizza-dough recipe I found, supposedly the closest thing to pizzeria crust. One pizza I have been dying to make from PW’s book is a potato leek pizza (it has bacon and goat cheese too, if that makes it sound more interesting—I think it sounds fabulous) and then I will attempt to imitate the most delectable pizza in the entire world which has a cilantro pesto sauce, topped with buffalo chicken, red onions, banana peppers, and blue cheese (which, strangely enough, I do not like, but on this pizza it is divine!)

Then I am going to make French Onion Soup, I think I’ll try the America’s Test Kitchen recipe, though it is not the one in the book above, I saw in a recent episode that they have perfected it since then… now I just have to find it…

Consulate trip 1

We drove to the Chilean Consulate in Houston this week to complete the first steps in the process of moving to Chile.

We registered the kids--this is strangely the lengthy part, as it can take up to 6-7 months. As with all things in Chile, though, a "pituto" (someone you know on the inside) can speed things along. The woman at the consulate said that she knows someone in "extranjeria" (immigration) that she can ask to speed things up.

We registered our marriage. We were technically supposed to do it in San Francisco, but they allowed us to sign here and then they will send the papers there (where they will presumably be accepted--we hope). Registering our marriage involved deciding what kind of economic contract we wanted--this determines how assets acquired during the marriage are divided should the marriage end (in both death or divorce, I think). I read up on it a little before going... then totally forgot which one I had decided on. We ended up deciding on "separacion de bienes" (separation of assets--which means that what I acquire is mine and what he acquires is his) Jokingly I said that I wanted the kind of contract where what is mine is mine and what is his is mine, kind of like the system he and I currently operate under. Who knows if we have made a colossal blunder...

I inquired about my visa and was pleasantly surprised to find out that once I fax my paperwork, it only takes about a week. I have to get an FBI background check and an HIV test/medical check-up but apart from that it will be fairly quick. Of course, it costs about $400. I think I remember reading that if I were to do it in Chile it would be free... but that it would take an eternity and lots more paperwork. Plus I want to land with the authorization to work.

For all of those who understand the complex system for buying the simplest of things in Chile--order at one counter, pay at the register, then hand over reciept and pick up goods at a third counter... you will be happy to know that the same process applies at the consulate in the US... I had to go downstairs and deposit the $10 it cost for the registrations in a their bank account, and then take the receipt back upstairs.

I have also started looking into schools for G for next year. The cost of some of them is enough to give you an anxiety attack.

The Fantasy List

At the Christmas Day dinner with our friends, we were talking about “the list.” You know that list of hot celebrities that your significant other has graciously agreed to allow you to engage with in amorous diversion, should the occasion miraculously present itself.

They had been talking about the list when they went home to visit their families. They had asked a sister’s husband about his list. He said there was a girl who sat in front of him in Spanish class who was pretty hot.

I am guessing that he didn’t understand the rules. I am not sure exactly how it works, but I am pretty sure it has to be someone you would never really have a chance at convincing to play.

So, our friends… the wife, M, had gotten a little loopy earlier in the week muttering some obscene insults about Selma Hayek to her husband, J. Come to find out, Selma is on his list and M had just seen a photo of her on the computer, in her 40-something-year-old glory, looking all voluptuous and sexy.

So we talked for a minute how the list works and whether M would just let J run off with Selma, if Selma should be so inclined. M said, “Yeah, go for it J (encouraging him). I’d love the time to myself.” I wondered aloud if J would have to take the kids with him, of course, I am sure Selma has nannies.

So I asked my hubs who was on his list. He just shook his head and chuckled. So I said: “come on! what are you afraid of?… that you’d wake up with her name carved in your chest?

Nah, really…I am pretty sure there are people he thinks are good-looking, but I am also pretty sure he doesn’t have a “list”. I don’t have a list either, actually, or the desire to make a list. I really don’t care about celebrities.

So now I am curious…I am sure these lists are not really all that serious, but even that people have that fantasy is so interesting. So, how common are these lists? Do you and your other have a list? Who is on it? Or do you have a secret list? Or are you not into that kind of fantasy?

Entertainment

It is almost a waste of money to buy toys for kids... at least for mine.

G, after playing with every play kitchen, everywhere we go, was given a little kitchen for Christmas. It has been played with very little, and without excesses of enthusiasm.

However, when papi came home with this foam tubing for insulating the pipes for our upcoming hard freeze, they played for hours and had a blast. We even had to cut it in half to end the bickering over who was going to hold it.



When we play outside they abandon all wagons, carts, push toys, trikes, balls, swings and throw little red berries down the driveway... ALL AFTERNOON. I was worried at first, that the little berries might be poisonous and Nico might eat some... but then I remembered he would never ingest anything we call "berry" since he doesn't do fruit.

Also entertaining this week: saying "coco" 500 billion times a day back and forth to each other. They say it to each other at the dinner table instead of eating: G--"coco" (hahahaha) Nico--"coco" (hahaha). It is mildy amusing up until "coco" number 150 million, anything after that is just repetitive.

The first two days of 2010 in retrospect--a sarcastic analysis

It is day 2 of 2010.

My quest for inner peace and happiness has already been thwarted.*

Was it Jean-Paul Sartre that said “Hell is other people”?

He was a wise wise man.

One of my good blogging friends said once in an email that (paraphrasing) “happiness has to come from inside; which is annoying.” Annoying indeed!... and ironic, since most major irritations tend to come from the outside.

I was all set to embrace happiness, but 2010 surprisingly started out much like 2009 ended… with excessive amounts of whining and messes. I guess it is to be expected with two little kids, but it has a way, nevertheless, of undermining and tossing aside all of my peaceful mantras.

My little N-man is such a beastly brute. He will seriously be a lucky lil’ man to make it to the terrible two’s (I can’t wait!!) if he doesn’t stop throwing things.
1) He throws food. As soon as he is done, which may be when he is full, or bored, or afraid he is not getting enough attention, or at the very beginning of a meal if it is something he has decided not to eat, he starts chucking whatever is left in his bowl onto the floor. We probably committed some major parenting sin way back when it started by paying any attention to that behavior at all. Perhaps we should have ignored it all together. Because now, it doesn’t matter what we do, and we have tried everything, he does it anyway and finds it hilarious. Now he is adding bonus behaviors like spitting his food out to entertain his older sister, who finds it raucously funny. He has to clean up any food he throws and his meal ends, but that doesn’t seem to bother him.
2) He throws toys, blocks, magnets, books, trucks; he knocks things to the ground and pulls all the books off the bookshelf. He is required to pick up any messes he makes, but it involves at least one time-out because initially he refuses to clean up.

He has also started whining. If there is one thing that drives me bat-sh** it is whining. Most kids whine and I already know from experience that the battle from whining to non-whining is an arduous one.

G is actually at a really good age. She is pretty independent and has learned to “use her words” more than whine. She is having trouble, however, with a few things. One is eating in a timely fashion--she is the slowest eater of all time. She is also coming to grips with having to dress herself.

(I was talking with a friend the other day about all the things you never think about in regards to having kids—you think about all the cute cuddly stuff: all the baby-glory, learning to walk and talk, reading bed-time stories, going to piano recitals and soccer games, going trick-or treating...no one imagines all the ins and outs of daily existence—how long you will have to help wipe little bums and how getting oneself dressed is not an innate human instinct—it is painstakingly learned).

So, yeah, I tell G to dress put on her shoes and socks and she immediately shrieks in agony “I caaaaaaaaaan’t” and wilts to the floor in a sobbing heap. She has shoes mastered, but socks are tricky. I help her identify the heel section and help her position the sock just so, and she pulls it on a little and then get frustrated when her little toe becomes jammed or the toe-section doesn’t fit quite right. (of course, to be fair, the poor thing inherited my insanely low tolerance for frustration).

My sweet hubs is also trying to sabotage my inner-zen by annoying the ever-lovin’ crap out of me. (I am also blessed with lightning-fast irritation reflexes--that with my low tolerance for frustration--make for some fun relationship dynamics).

My hubs-- sweet, kind, and generous as he is-- seems to believe that once he has told me he needs to do something (that has nothing to do with me), it suddenly and miraculously passes into my realm of responsibility. Do all men do that, or just mine?

He calls me on Monday and tells me he needs to change the oil in his work-truck and can I please pick him up. I tell him it is not the best day for that and explain why. He agrees and says it needs to be done urgently this week and can I please remind him. (later for purposes of his argument, Monday becomes the "perfect" day to do it, and I said no, for no reason).

I remind him by writing a note and placing it by his “essentials drawer.” He remembers one evening mid-week, I tell him to go the next morning.

Friday he lets me know that he also needs to clean his truck.

It is Saturday, we are talking about our major TO-DO list during nap time. At some point, talking about some such thing or other he accuses me of not making sure he got an oil change and then he told me YESTERDAY that he needed to clean.the.truck. and he hasn’t been able to clean it yet and he doesn’t want to do it during the week and when is he going to be able to do it…….

So I am thinking (read: hissing out loud)… so go clean it!!! He doesn’t need me to schedule it into our day, does he? Then he complains that I didn’t remind him well enough about the oil change (as in: I didn’t put the keys in his hand and shove him out the door threatening not to let him back in until he changes the oil). It’s like once he has told me he needs to do it, I have to arrange it for him.

So he goes outside to clean the truck and immediately starts rearranging the garage. I was with the kids outside, and kindly suggested that he clean the gosh-darn cotton-pickin' truck if it was really so urgent... so I don’t have to hear about it ever again... for the love of Pete!

Ahh--good times! It was actually a funny little argument, with lots of laughing, which is why I can even tell you about it.

My husband’s grandfather used to tell him that the first 12 days of a new year basically dictate what the next 12 months will be like. Great, that gives me great hope!


* This post, while true, is greatly exaggerated and meant to be taken with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Don’t worry, I am not totally jaded on 2010 yet, I still have loads of naïve optimism.