Tragic Sandwich

Tag: cooking

  • Sand Pail List

    Pail

    The latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens (and with that, I am officially my mother–or, since she read Woman’s Day and Family Circle, perhaps one of her close cousins) encourages people to make a “Sand Pail List” of things you want to accomplish before the end of summer. It’s like a Bucket List, but only for summer. And presumably without bringing death into the equation. So here’s what I’m thinking about:

    Going to the park
    Baguette loves to run free, and we’re lucky enough to live near several public parks. I want to make the most of them.

    Summer concerts
    One of my friends lets us know about outdoor concerts in a park close to her. It sounds like a great family event, and I’d love for Baguette to meet her boys. Plus I’m not sure I’ve seen this friend since shortly after Baguette was born.

    Going to the beach
    We live close enough–why don’t we go more often? I want to go at least three times this summer.

    Swimming lessons
    Baguette loves the pool, and she finally loves the tub–she’s even teaching herself to put her face in the water. I want to make sure we start her on swim lessons this summer.

    Cooking
    This is a perennial goal of mine. Baguette and I love summer produce, and there’s a farmers’ market near our house every Sunday. I want to get back into the habit of buying food there and making healthy family dinners.

    How about you?

    Photo by k.l.macke, via Flickr.

  • My To-Do List

    There are a lot of things I want for Baguette. The big thing, of course, is an innate sense of self-worth. She has that now, and I want to do everything possible to help her hold onto that. It’s good to question yourself and your actions–but I want her to know her entire life that she has inherent value.

    I want her to get an education. I want her to learn to question herself and others. I want her to be not just tolerant, but truly accepting of difference. I want her to learn when to be kind, and when to protect herself.

    But there are also things I want her to see me do, because I want her to see the world as a place of possibility that is not limited by her gender.

    1) I want to do more triathlons. My last one was in 2009 (I think), so it’s been a while. I had planned to do one this fall, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen. But I definitely want her to see me, and not just Mr. Sandwich, be active. Because I want her to be active.

    2) I want both of us to learn to drive a stick shift. (I want her to do this a long time from now.)

    3) I want to cook and clean and garden, but I also want to learn woodworking and minor home repairs, beyond just tightening the occasional screw.

    4) I want to learn another language. My high school and college Spanish classes are long behind me, and considering that I live in L.A., it is ridiculous that I don’t speak decent Spanish.

    5) I want to volunteer. It’s very easy for me to focus on the ways my life is challenging. But I have it so easy in so many ways, and I want her to realize two things: that we’re fortunate, and that we owe it to others to help them when they’re not.

    There are many, many others. I want to teach and show Baguette so much. But this is a start.

  • If I Could Turn Back Time

    IMG_7480

    . . . I’d have done more cooking a few months ago, when Baguette was willing to actually GO TO BED.

    Mr. Sandwich gets home from work at 5, and picks Baguette up. I get home a little after six. As far as we can tell, she’s eaten fairly recently at that point, so she’s not hungry. What she does want to do is go out for a walk and see every dog in the neighborhood (yes, apparently they all are named Wicket). The walk around our block is about a half mile, and it takes about an hour. Wicket didn’t take that long to make the trip even when we first found her and she could barely walk at a snail’s pace.

    So now we’re at 7:15–7:30, and it’s time for a little food. Then it’s time for books, tooth brushing (she likes to do it herself), and Pajanimals. If you think this means she’s in bed before 8:30, think again. Of late, Baguette has decided that she will only go to sleep if Mr. Sandwich and I are both in bed with her.

    Last night we tried something new. We went to bed, and when she finally fell asleep, I got up and fixed her lunch, put dishes in the dishwasher, and ate dinner.

    What was that dinner? Scrambled eggs–half of which went to daycare with Baguette this morning. Because nowhere in this schedule is there time for me to make an actual meal.

    I know about planning ahead, cooking in bulk, and using leftovers. I’m delighted to find the comments on this post from Casual Kitchen (a blog I’m new to, but clearly must start following). But I’m doubtful that I’ll be able to make much of anything work while I have a toddler who won’t nap, won’t sleep, and won’t let anyone else take care of her.

    So I guess my only option is to invent a time machine. If only I had the time to do so.

    Photo by Ateupamateur, via Flickr.

  • My Balance: Tragic Sandwich

    Rock-Scale

    I don’t know anyone in this photo; I just liked it!

    I got this idea from a post on Oil and Garlic; she got it from A Cup of Jo. Does that make it a meme? At any rate, here goes:

    1. What’s your work schedule?

    I start work at 8 a.m. (or thereabouts, depending on whether my bus is on time) and leave at 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Mr. Sandwich works 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., so our schedules are a little staggered. We used to commute together, but when my maternity leave ended, we needed to shift it a bit. Each of us comutes by bus, although I sometimes drive to work if I have a late-afternoon doctor’s appointment, or if I miss the bus and my day doesn’t allow for me to be 15 minutes late. Or if I’m super tired and the bus is SRO by the time it gets to my stop.

    My alarm goes off at 5:20, and I get up one snooze-button hit later. I drop Baguette off and drive like a crazy person to get to my bus stop. Mr. Sandwich picks Baguette up, and we all get home a little after 6 p.m. Then we play with her, take her and the dog for a walk, feed her, and bathe her when she needs it. (The order of these events varies depending on the day.) She hates to go to sleep, so there is usually a fairly long wind-down period, with lowered lights and hushed talking and a final bottle. We want her to go to bed between 8 and 8:30, but all too often she isn’t ready until about an hour later. Then we get our things and hers ready for the next day and watch a tiny amount of TV, and get to bed between 10:30 and 11:00–about an hour later than I’d like, but that’s how the time goes.

    2. How do you handle childcare?

    We found a wonderful day care center that is about a two-minute drive from the house. It’s like paying a second mortgage–and I am not exaggerating–but we have so much confidence in them, and Baguette really likes the teachers and her little friends. If she gets sick, one of us stays home with her. Mr. Sandwich’s parents live in town, so sometimes they will come over on the weekend and help us with supervising Baguette and completing tasks around the house.

    3. What do you find best about your current set-up?

    It works. I really like her day care, although I wish it weren’t so expensive. I wish my commute were shorter, but I live in the real world of Los Angeles, and that’s how commutes work here.

    4. What advice would you give to other moms about the juggle?

    Establish priorities, and don’t beat yourself up. I had fantasies of cooking meals for the three of us. This could work, because Baguette is a pretty flexible eater. This absolutely does not work, because I just don’t have time. I felt bad about it for far too long, and then I acknowledged that I really can’t do anything but supervise her when I’m with her–she’s just too active. So now I hope to be able to do that in the future. But it’s completely unproductive to feel bad about not doing something that I just can’t do.

    One of my friends has a daughter a couple of months older than Baguette, and she makes amazing meals every night and spends time with her children. I used to wonder how she managed it, and then I mapped the distance between her house and her work. Guess what–she doesn’t have my commute! So she’s got more time to work with. It’s not realistic to compare my life to hers, because they just aren’t the same. That’s true for everyone else, too.

    5. Do you think the juggle is harder for women than for men?

    Yes. Mr. Sandwich is a very hands-on dad, and he’s also done pretty much all of our laundry for much of the past year. But Baguette is a very hands-on baby, and she wants me when I’m home. I feel like I’ve been mommy-tracked at work, and I made every effort that I could think of to avoid that. He’s got his own work issues (don’t we all?), but I haven’t gotten the impression that he’s been daddy-tracked. That can happen, of course, but I think it’s much less common.

    Photo by neurmadic aesthetic, via Flickr.

  • Nesting

    I’ve been doing a lot of cooking over the past week, in spite of (because of?) being sick. I made homemade chicken soup, although I used boxed vegetable stock, and I made slow-cooker BBQ pork, although it also relied on a store-bought ingredient–the BBQ sauce. (Big fan of KC Masterpiece, BTW)

    Last night was our usual grilled salmon–marinated briefly in Worcestershire sauce and topped with Old Bay or the generic equivalent–cheesy mashed potato casserole, and broccoli.

    Tonight will be a bit of a cop-out, because although I want to cook, I’m still getting over this sinus infection and couldn’t think of anything I specifically wanted to make after getting home from work. Therefore we will be having spaghetti, with our usual array of jarred sauces.

    I’d like to use the slow-cooker more during the week, but mine runs hot, which would result in burned dinner by the time we got home. People have suggested leaving it on a timer, but I keep hearing horror stories about houses burning down because of slow-cookers. And why would it be good to leave the food sitting out for several hours before the timer kicks on? I guess it would be less bad this time of year than in the summer, but it doesn’t seem like a great plan.

    Oh well. At least there’s spaghetti and jarred sauce.

  • Happy New Year!

    New Year’s Eve was very low-key at our house, with one friend joining us for what turned out to be an evening of conversation and South Park. The menu:

    chili (ground beef, no beans)
    cornbread casserole (good, but needed to bake longer in the center)
    make-your-own brownie sundae based on Ghiradelli brownie mix, Dreyer’s ice cream, and homemade hot fudge sauce

    Now there’s chicken soup cooking slowly in the slow cooker, so we’ll be eating left over comfort food for the rest of the week.

  • Speaking of the George Foreman Grill…

    Last night we made one of our easiest summer meals. Take a salmon fillet and marinate it in something (yesterday I used Newman’s Own Sesame-Ginger salad dressing; Worcestershire sauce also works). Then grill it for four minutes and 20 seconds. Goes great with garlic mashed potatoes, but what doesn’t?

    Also, Costco salmon fillets are individually packaged and easy to use.