Learning what not to do

Max takes very seriously the admonition to not do something.

While on a shopping trip recently at the hardware store, Alix had Max parked in shopping cart next to all the little drawers of screws, nuts, fasteners, and so forth. She told Max that he shouldn't touch them. For the rest of the visit, he would point occasionally at the drawers and say "nuh-uh".

We've told him that his crayons on for use only on his paper and that he shouldn't write on the table. While drawing, he will again remind us everyone once a while by pointing at the table and saying, "nuh-uh". He also gets a little distressed when he does write on the table, and wants us to wipe it off immediately.

We're putting some cream on Max's underarms to treat a mild case of eczema. When we sit Max down for a morning or evening diaper change, he raises his hand and starts pointing at his armpits. This is an improvement; initially, we put some thick diaper cream on the rash, which helped the rash but got Max's fingers a little icky, so we told him not to touch it. He wandered around the house for the next day or so pointing at his armpits saying, "nuh-uh", and I was worried he was going to develop an unfortunate nervous twitch. It got better :).

My favorite pancake recipe

This recipe, included here for posterity, is my favorite pancake recipe. It's my default recipe for Sunday morning brunch because it makes a lot and they are very good pancakes. It makes enough to serve six adults.

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups buttermilk
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

To prepare

1. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, beat together buttermilk, milk, eggs and melted butter. Keep the two mixtures separate until you are ready to cook.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. You can flick water across the surface and if it beads up and sizzles, it's ready!
3. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, using a wooden spoon or fork to blend. Stir until it's just blended together. Do not over stir! Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/2 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Max is an artist

Max drew this!  While Max has previously played with crayons and paper, this is the first time his creation has extended beyond a few lines and dots.  He managed to fill two sheets of paper before getting distracted by his trains.

We have told Max that he's only allowed to color on the paper, not on the table.  So now whenever Max is using his crayons, he points at the table and says "no".  Just to make sure that we remember.

Negotiations and tantrums

For lunch on Friday, Max had a tantrum.

My original plan was for Max to have creamed turkey, which he had happily eaten the day before. Max had other ideas: he wanted clementines ("apples") or apples ("apples") or cheese or blueberries ("balls"). I explained that he would have to have at least two more bites of his lunch before he was going to get anything else to eat. Max explained his position with a 30-minute tantrum: crying, yelling, beating the floor, pushing away, and so forth.

Half an hour later, when he finally calmed down, we went back into the kitchen and I started to put his lunch away...only to find out that Max had in fact been listening to me earlier. He yelled, "no!", marched over to where I was standing and opened his mouth.

He had two bites of lunch and then said, "apple?", and wouldn't take another bite. So Max got his clementine.

A mute button for email

Google recently added a feature to Gmail that I've wanted for a very long time. It's now possible to mute a conversation, which causes future messages in the conversation to bypass your inbox. You still receive the email and can view it if you wish, but the messages will no longer show up as "new mail" in your inbox.

The feature is particularly useful on mailing lists, on which discussions can occasionally go on for days or veer off into topics in which one has less interest.

A shower of success

We recently replaced our old shower head (anemic, underpowered, and altogether unsatisfying) with one of these:



It turns out that all of our problems were apparently with the old shower head. Suddenly, showers are a luxury again. Who knew?

Rolled beef with vegetables in soy sauce

This is a recipe from Practical Korean Cooking. The cookbook has very interesting recipes, but the instructions are often vague or incomplete. I'll be posting the occasional recipe here as we make them, rewritten to be somewhat easier to follow.

Rolled beef with vegetables in soy sauce
Serves 4

This recipe calls for burdock root. Burdock (한국어 in Korean, "Gobo" in Japanese) is a long, stick-like tuber. You can find it many Asian grocery stores; it is used in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese cooking. You can purchase it raw and prepare it yourself, or you can purchase it already prepared (cut and boiled).

Mix together:

1 C water
4 Tbsp. soy sauce
4 tsp. sugar

Cut into pencil-like pieces:

1 burdock root

Scald and simmer the burdock root in the soy sauce mixture until the burdock root is soft. You may also opt to use packages of pre-cut boiled burdock root. You'll want about as much burdock root as you have carrot in this recipe. If you use the pre-prepared burdock root, you only need to simmer it for a few minutes for flavor.

Cut into thin strips:

One green bell pepper
One carrott(make these about the same size as your burdock root pieces)

Cut into thin slices (you'll be rolling them):

1 lb. beef

The beef may be easier to slice if its partially frozen. You may also be able to ask your butcher to slice it for you.

In each piece of beef, wrap some carrot, burdock root, and green pepper and fasten it closed with a skewer (I used toothpicks).

Mix together in a large pot:

4 tsp. rice wine
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 ½ Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. Korean red pepper paste
2 Tbsp. finely minced ginger
½ C water

Simmer sauce until it thickens. Add the beef rolls and cook them until the sauce is almost evaporated. You may want to occasionally turn the beef rolls while they're cooking.

Cooking brown sticky rice

We recently purchased some brown sticky rice (aka glutinous rice) to cook as part of a Korean meal. Figuring out exactly how to cook it proved to be a bit of a challenge. We've finally found a solution that (a) works great, (b) works quickly, and (c) utilizes a seldom-used piece of kitchen equipment:

Mix 1 ½ cups of brown sticky rice and 3 cups water in a pressure cooker. Cook for 20-25 minutes.

UPDATE: Quiche for Brunch

That recipe was super awesome.

Quiche for Brunch

For our first brunch of 2008 I'm thinking of making the following quiche recipe, maybe served with some of the multitude of potatoes we received this week from Boston Organics.

Apple Cinnamon Quiche
(from Summerfield Inn Bed & Breakfast)

Serves 6

2 apples, peeled and sliced
2 Tbsps butter
8 oz grated cheddar cheese
1 unbaked 10-inch pastry shell
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups whipping cream

Sauté apples in butter for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over apples.
Layer apples in pastry shell.
Sprinkle cheese over apple mixture. In medium size bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs and whipping cream.
Pour over the apple/cheese mixture.
Bake in a preheated 375 oven for 35 minutes or until set.

And so it begins (again)

Late last year, we started the paperwork for a second adoption. The whole process involves a great deal of paperwork, and the occasional visit to this or that government office.

We had a mass excursion this morning to the USCIS office in downtown Boston. As part of our I600A application ("Application for Advance Processing of an Orphan"), all adults over the age of 18 living in our house needed to get their fingerprints taken. This includes Conny, even though, in all likelihood, she'll be back in Germany by the time we complete our second adoption. And not just one or two prints, but all ten.

Given that we hadn't received all of the appropriate paperwork before walking into the office, everything went surprisingly smoothly. Alix and I wandered over to Quincy Market afterwords, while Conny went on a shopping adventure.

Wow. WOW!

Until relatively recently, Max hasn't shown much excitement over our two cats. That changed after we spent several days with Alix's parents in Amherst, MA, over the holidays. We were surrounded by family (and one dog), but no cats. When we returned to our house, Max spotted Gizmo in the kitchen as soon as we were in the door. With a "WOW!", he pointed at Gizmo and went trotting off into the kitchen. He proceeded to chase Gizmo around the kitchen and into the dining room, all the while saying "Wow! Wow!" (this is, if you hadn't quite figured it out, the sound a cat makes if you're Max).

Since then, all cats are called "Wow!". He spots them outside, at our friend's houses, and variously around our house. At one point, after poking Gadget a little too much, a got a small scratch on his finger. He proceeded to tell us, "Wow! Ow! Wow! Ow!".

Wow.