Quality Time

Small son goes into the bathroom. He's there a suspicious amount of time. I wander in to see him sitting on the pot with the empty dispenser of Kandoo in his hands. He's staring intently at the open lid. I assess the situation and assume

a) (correctly) he's out of wipes
b) (incorrectly) that he needs more and wants me to finish wiping him.

He's really too old for that, and we both know it. But sometimes the mom thing of a toddler still kicks in and I just act. Often, much to his and my embarrassment.

All business, I grab a refill of Kandoo, take the Kandoo dispenser out of his hands, bend him over, and do a quick and unnecessary wipe.

"MOM!!!" He shrieks. "You just interrupted my Internet browsing! You took away my computer and now I lost my web page."

Apparently, he was done with the actual cleaning post poo part and was using his "quality time" on the pot to check his Twitter on his Kandoo laptop.

It's started. Be suspicious of every Tweet from Tinyman from now on.

Soup is my Soup-er Power

So, I make soup a lot. Like three times a week. And they are awesome (usually, sometimes they look like my garbage disposal backed up, and I served bowls of the fluid that is sitting in my sink--but only sometimes).

Here is the soup I made tonight because
a) it kicks ass so much that it is WAY,
b) I made it up myself, and
c) it is vegan so if you eat it you will be better than everyone else (like the super power of an evil ex)


Celeriac, Apple, and Fennel Bisque
Ingredients:

olive oil
4 leeks, cleaned and sliced (white and pale green parts)
6 parsnips, peeled and sliced
2 celeriac thingies, peeled and cubed
4 stalks celery, cleaned and sliced
5 apples (maybe Fuji, but really whatever you want), peeled and cubed
2 TBS fennel

no-chicken broth or any non-tomato veggie broth(2 cups + more for thinning if needed)
3/4 c raw cashews

Salt and pepper to taste
Truffle oil (optional)

In a stock pot, heat olive oil. Add leeks, parsnips, celeriac, celery, apple, and fennel. Saute until tender making sure nothing gets brown or burnt. While that is going on, take 2 cups of stock and blend with the cashews until creamy like milk (could take a minute or so). Add cashew milk to the pot. Add a bit more stock to an appropriate amount. Simmer until everything is super soft. Blend until super velvety (again, patience, this could take a minute or so). Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer a bit more until it is the temperature you want.

Serve in bowls with the truffle oil drizzled over the top.

Oh wow. So good.
Make it!
Do it!
Now!

Burn After Reading

So, at the beginning of 2010, a friend asked me what the most influencial book I'd read in 2009 was. I really thought hard about that question, but the problem was that I couldn't only remember the books that I had read in the past few months and none earlier in the year. So for 2010, I decided to take a picture of every book I read and post a blog about them.

Well, I did take many pictures. The blogs . . . maybe that'll be my goal for 2011.

Here's a link to all of my books (my other goal was to read at least 60 books in the year). I know there are a few I don't have pictures of (like The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake) but this will have to do. Now that I know what I read, I still need to think about which was the most memorable.

Enjoy.