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My thirty-fourth birthday was on Thursday. It was a long day at work and a few times, I felt the urge to yell into the phone: Dude, back off! It is my birthday and if you don't cut me some slack, I am not going to give you a cupcake.

The day wasn't a total loss however because I received a deluge of "happy birthday" shout-outs on facebook. I also talked with my sister on the phone for an hour in the middle of the day which may have contributed to even more phone calls from high-maintenance projects, but it was worth it.

This year, for me, has been about striving for consistency and constancy. I tend to do things in short intense bursts and then focus on something else. It is a different thing than procrastination, because I am a master at that and I know the difference. This tendency is great for making progress and meeting milestones, but as a strategy it is not good for things like raising kids, being a good husband or maintaining clients.

So I have been trying to even things out. Trying to spread out the good and eliminate the times when I am neglectful or irritating. Consistency is the mark of mastering something; to have the ability to alter performance based on varying conditions to produce a predictable and pleasing result. It is an altogether different goal than training to do one thing for years, reaching the pinnacle, and fading away. The dividends are more immediate and are on an easily appreciated scale.

I have been having trouble writing a list of things that mattered to me this year. There is nothing poignant that really summarized daily life for me other than: good. Things have been really good. We found a nice house to rent in a nice neighborhood and we own comfortable couches. The kids cling to my legs when I come home in the evenings. We eat very well. And most importantly, I think Mary and I make a good team.

The year hasn't been all rainbows and lollipops. We have a new dent in the car, I got a few bloody noses in training when my ego told me I was better than I actually was, and other incidents that have kept me grounded. Mainly though, we have blue skies above us and it is a wonderful feeling. I know it is sappy, but it is too easy to be dismissive and trivialize such a thing.

I miss my family and friends that are so far away from here, but we are living a good life to the fullest.

food, glorious food

We have been cooking a lot of desserts lately. I think this has to do with Autumn weather and kissing beach season goodbye. We feel we can indulge a little more and take comfort in what a beautiful thing butter is. Also, we moved house at the beginning of May and we now have a large kitchen in which to frolic.
I rediscovered how good cocoa drop cookies are. Cole and I were hanging around the kitchen one Saturday afternoon and we both wanted chocolate chip cookies, but we were out of chocolate chips. I looked around and saw that we had cocoa powder and oatmeal and set off to my favorite recipe sites to find a recipe. I didn't have my mom's recipe in my recipe box and it was too late at night to call Wisconsin.
My sisters used to make these in the summer because they were quick and you could chill them in the freezer. I found about six different recipes, and looked them all over and settled on one which included peanut butter. My mom's recipe doesn't have peanut butter in it, but it sounded good and with the main ingredient being oatmeal, it practically made them a health food.
Mary also remembers eating these as a kid, so we greedily squirreled away a pan for ourselves and would sneak cookies from the tray during the afternoon when the kids weren't looking.
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The other dessert highlight of our month has been the apple tart tatin. It is like an upside-down apple pie that only takes 45 minutes to make. brilliant. I wish I could take credit for this, but we saw the recipe on Australian Master Chef and I had to try it.
Again, this was another evening dessert emergency. We had successfully used up all the cocoa powder in the house perfecting the cocoa drop cookie recipe and there were apples sitting in the fruit bowl.
I cored the apples and set them aside, got my crust ready and then started in on the caramel. My first try is bubbling away in the pan in the picture above. I used butter and raw sugar, which seemed like it was going to work until it quickly turned on me and burned. Raw sugar is a fickle beast not to be trifled with.
After successfully chipping out the burned residue from the pan, I looked up another recipe and used brown sugar and water for the caramel base. It is certainly not as nice as a caramel made from refined sugar and butter, but it worked and we were able to start simmering the apples on the stove.
After the apples have cooked on the stove for a few minutes, I slapped a sheet of pastry over the top of the bubbling apples, tucked them in and slid the whole thing into the oven. twenty minutes later, it was ready.
After it has rested for 10 minutes, you flip the pan over on a plate and if you did everything correctly, the caramel hasn't welded the apples to the bottom of the pan and it comes loose. A perfect blend between a baked apple and a pie.

My cousin the fire walker

My cousin, Diane, is doing a fire walk for charity on June 6th (She told me about this a while ago, but I have been away from the blog lately.) If you are curious about it, head on over to:

http://dianesfirewalk.shutterfly.com/

Personally, I like my feet, so I limit my foot abuse to wearing uncomfortable shoes and jamming my toes in the dark on randomly placed furniture. Diane assures me that it just makes your feet "tingly. like walking on snow tingly." Right.

So, check it out and tell me if she is smiling or grimacing in the photo of her fire walk from last year.

Great moments in the O'Brien household - #476

30 April 2009

"Daddy, this peanut butter tastes different. It is not a good peanut butter."
-Cole dogging me out for buying the store brand peanut butter instead of Kraft.

"blagh"
-Cora spitting the peanut butter out of her mouth.

If only they knew how nice American peanut butter tastes in comparison to the good stuff here.

The kids start almost every day asking for a spoon full of peanut butter. It is one of those things that has sort of evolved into a ritual. It began with me letting Cole dip his finger in the jar as I was making toast and has now become a vital part of breakfast.

Mary and I were thinking back to this photo, taken when Cole was 1 1/2 years old.
Lesson learned: we will keep our cost saving gestures to generic cans of tuna, and shopping at the markets for vegetables. We will not skimp on condiments. Global economic crisis or not.

Oh Jif Creamy, how we miss you.