Easy Recipes Part Un-French Toast

Kids,

You are a priveleged lot. Born into a time where information and material things are at your fingertips (not everyone's, but your's at least.)  Maybe it's a time when kids grow up faster, or it could even be that it's a time that allows anyone to retain (or regain) their childhood for as long as they want.

What's my point? Even though you can reach out and learn anything at any time in today's world, from amateurs and professionals, how often will you do this, and how much of it will you retain?

When I was a child your age, I didn't come anywhere near the barbecue or the stove, and I'm certain I never heard the revved up crunchy whirlwnd of a blender liquefying my morning breakfast. You three? You're well on your way to becoming culinary masterminds. Ok, so I exxagerate.

Here kids, is why the Easy Recipes posts are vital to your existence! They come from a trusted source, me! And you've already tasted them, giving your wretchedly honest opinion on taste, ingredients, consistency and so forth. Only the winners appear here. It's a virtual compendium of recipes pre-approved and tested by you, for you!

With all that in mind, here is recipe #1:

French Toast

This is so easy it's laughable. Unless you don't know how to do it, and then, well...

Ingredients:

-Bread of choice (you all seem to prefer Orowheat's Buttermilk bread for this, but I think sourdough rocks.)
-Stick of butter (for greasing pan. Please don't use oil for this.)
-1/2 cup milk
-2 eggs
-Cinnamon
-1 tspn. Vanilla extract

1. Warm up the pan to medium-high. When it's warm, grease the pan with butter. Just enough to coat.

2. Mix up the eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla extract in a bowl big enough to place the bread into.

*How much cinnamon? As much as you like, but at least a 1/2 tspn.

3. Next, and when the butter has started to sizzle slightly, use tongs to gently lay a piece of bread into the egg mixture and soak on both sides for a few seconds (about five for white bread, 10 for sourdough.)

*Oversoaking will make it near impossible to pick the bread up without it falling apart. Be gentle when lifting it out and let the excess mixture drip off before laying in the pan.

4. Cook in the pan until golden brown and no egg is drippy and/or wet on the bread. If you prefer it underdone, that's ok, just make sure it's cooked.

Pull it out when both sides are done, and if you like, sprinkle with a little confectioner's (powdered) sugar. I said a little guys. Don't forget the maple syrup!

***You may need to re-grease the pan and add extra cinnamon to the mixture as it coats the bread and dissapears quickly.

That's it. An easy recipe that is easy to remember once you've done it, and easy to alter or upgrade too.

Cheers,
Dad

Letters to My Kids-Start Here

Dear kids,

That’s all three of you, including the just-turned 21-year old that I technically didn’t raise (I want you to know this idea started with you twenty one years ago.)

That parenthesized sentence is lesson number one. Start important ideas now. Not necessarily the most profitable, or the most interesting, and certainly not the biggest, but the most important.

Start small and stay consistent:

I’d like to “(fill in the blank)” someday should be changed to “I’m going to _________ one day and here is the first step I am going to take. God help me this doesn't involve doing drugs, binge drinking ('cause that will never happen, or ugh, promiscuous sex. Plus a host of other illegal activities, moving on.)

Twenty-one years ago I seriously began writing this idea down. I’m lucky I’m still alive to do it.

Don’t get me wrong, I tried an entry, maybe two, in one of the cheesy diaries they sold at bookstores back then. It might have been interesting, was probably sentimental, and is now lost in a trash dump somewhere biodegrading.

The three of you, my big girl Alexandria (21,) my little girl Hannah (8) and my big boy Zachary (10) have given me (and continue to teach me) life lessons I can’t imagine having come across without you all in my life. 

I’ve always wished I had more to offer you, more success to emulate, more money to impress you with (look what Dad can do!) But that’s just ego talking. 

Even though I still owe your mother over $6,000 in back child support, Alex, I’ve learned that there are much more poignant experiences I have to offer. (Don't worry, she's getting the money, just slowly...)

In fact, all three of you, who get along so well despite rarely seeing each other, seem to thrive with my focused attention. That’s not bragging. I’ve seen it. When I’m attentive to your needs, your wants, when I’m rational, and of course fun, our unit operates under an umbrella of happiness, contentedness, and ridiculous fits of laughter.

I’m 42 this year. For the past several years we’ve (your Mother and I) thought about how we would ensure your well-being if anything ever happened to us.  Fortunately, your Mom is who she is, and she took care of that. Thanks Life Insurance! 

Yet for me, that isn’t enough. 

My own mother died when she was my age, and I remember that in her last few years she made an extra effort to instill some sanity, spirituality and important life lessons into my sister and I. As you know, Grandpa has never been much for rationality, except in his own head. More than anything else, I remember those lessons, and her sincerity and effort. (It was nice remembering her as a calm, rational person, although I do recall how happy she was driving in some tiny red sedan playing Michael Jackson's Off the Wall in the tape deck over and over. That's "tape deck," Google it.)

That got me thinking. No matter how much money we end up leaving for you all when we’re gone, it can’t compare to any life lessons and experiences together you remember and carry with you throughout life.

There’s this movie with Michael Keaton I watched several years ago. In it, he plays a cocky, arrogant, even ruthless boss who finds out he has cancer and only has a few months to live. Rather than wallow in his misery and feel sorry for himself, he takes action. All that time spent becoming a successful professional took him away from his family and especially his son. So he decides to start making videos for his son to watch after he’s gone. He knows he won’t be there when he starts to cook for himself, for example, so he makes videos on how to fix some simple dishes.

Today you have a million ways to learn things on the Internet, and the three of you are already adept at learning and doing for yourself when you want to. Still, these entries will serve to share my personal experiences with you, or my ideas on how to handle situations, on life philosophy, or maybe to just eternalize the recipes for the smoothies you like so much.

I know a lot of what I say to you on a day-to-day basis doesn’t stick, so I’m hoping this will give you a reference to look to, a trusted source if you will. You could even think of it as an archive (albeit a subjective one) about special events in our lives together, of your individual achievements and struggles, of good times and bad. Of course, these are my thoughts and observations, and above all I want to remind you that although they may be about you, you are not doomed to feel the same about them. But if you do, that’s okay, too.

It’s my sincere intention that each of you will find something interesting and useful here one day. Find it, use it, internalize it and move on.

***Disclaimer: There is no particular order to the letters to come. When I think of something that should be written, I’ll start writing. Which, if you know me, is not at all unexpected. J

Write. Retreat. Ponder. Repeat.

Starting this blog was a whim. Things, life, the first few years (a decade for one) need to be talked about, hashed out in an external arena. The exterior of my self within the inner circle of my marriage doesn’t count either. In other words, my wife and I are of one mind on these things most of the time, maybe it’s all been said. I need an extra sounding board, so here I am.

This is difficult for me, and I haven’t even gotten warmed up. But writing is cathartic. Once you smash a crack in the dam, a little of that pent up water seeps through, and the swirling, violent mass behind it senses blood, or freedom, we’ll go with that, and wants out. Don’t we all crave freedom? Movement?

I wrote the blog’s intro post, the one with my kids still a baby and a toddler. Then that night I wrote this: “After setting up the blog and thinking about it, even making a post, it seems like a distraction. I didn’t want to write about it then, and I don’t really want to now. Maybe come back to this idea in the morning; if it still doesn’t gel, squash it.”

Then I went to watch an episode of the 4400 on Netflix, came back up and wrote post #2 so the night wouldn’t be a total waste. I wrote it in Word and didn’t think it would make it to the public eye. But there it is. I haven’t squashed the blog yet. Maybe the flood is coming.

The Pieces of the Puzzle Go Like This...

It takes years to understand the bits and pieces of our lives that make us complete, a completeness only imagined because this understanding of how the pieces fit together is only individual perception, isn’t it? Sure, there’s a collective consciousness, but each one of us could have approached the puzzle differently. But I guess this is the catch-22; we all arrive at the completed puzzle no matter how we choose to get there. 

Once the pieces have been jumbled together, not fitting into pre-cut curves and angles, but mushed together like playdough or dough dough (like bread, y’know?,) we realize we have just spent years creating new boxes of pieces that hopefully, hopefully, our experience with the first pieces will help us sort out and mash together. With less struggle, with more cohesion and fewer cracked and dried bits around the edges. Good God. Did I just write that?

Ok then, whatwhat? We’re all looking for cohesion, a flow in our lives. We want things to make sense. The puzzle box is my favored analogy (today.) You have this beautiful picture on the front of the box of a mystical unicorn, a big strapping, er, horn, on it’s head, riding a vividly-hued rainbow bridge into a warm tropical ocean, or what the fuck, a Siamese cat licking it’s paws, the picture isn’t what matters, only that there is one.

Anyway, here’s this picture of what the puzzle should be, but when we dive into the box we are stuck with all of these pieces. Where do we start? Which ones go where? What is the optimum strategy for maximum time efficiency with minimal labor output? And of course, is this puzzle piece more important than the other one?

No, they are all puzzle pieces. They will all contribute to materializing the indifferent Siamese cat licking itself when you finally figure out how they go together. The pretty pieces, the ugly pieces, the blocks of bland and vivid color, the incomplete pieces. They all count.

If I were to use this analogy to describe parenthood, especially being a stay-at-home Dad with former/better than they were/it comes and goes insecurity issues, I might say that the box is ever full of new pieces and the picture continues to change. OR, I might say that the puzzle represents so many years of fatherhood, say 0-5.

BAM! You’ve finished it, but a new one is ready for you, this time with a picture of your own precocious, mischievous, curious 6-9 year old child on the front; or Pikachu, it could be that little yellow lightning bolt throwing pen splotch, or God help us, Dora or Barbie.

You’ve faced down the early years and with them, self-doubts about surviving parenthood (the first year,) concerns about creating a future for your child, a child without anger/biting/sharing/inappropriate touching/constant tantrum issues (and who also doesn’t like to hurt small animals and dismember Barbie dolls. That’s important too.) A WELL-ADJUSTED CHILD DEVELOPING APPROPRIATELY FOR THEIR AGE.

Right. Now, after five years, you’re gaining confidence, and if you’re like me, far too many glances into the dark pit of your soul that gapes wide open and shows you just what a monster you can be.

But back to the puzzle. You’ve made it through the first five years. Now that they’re starting to comprehend shit, how are you going to start explaining your actions? Past Present and Future? I started by first explaining my actions to myself, then, like tossing the meaty carcass of yesterday’s roast chicken, I stopped trying to get any meat off those bones and moved on. It’s a nice illusion, anyway.

Love is Not What I Expected

I didn't think it would amount to anything, this giant leap into the world of parenting. Two babies, born in-vitro, 22 months apart. We were starting a family, but I didn't think it would amount to much. Or maybe I just couldn't fathom what we would become.

Sleep was a dream, those first three months a blur. Hey, some people function better on a fucked up sleep schedule than others.

I remember soothing my little girl to sleep to the sounds of The Grateful Dead. "It Hurts Me Too."

Our anthem, the only song that would put her back to sleep, or was it because we danced?

I rocked, I soothed, I spun a graceful waltz across the carpet in a darkened bedroom.

And my son! The first child. The experiment. Because let's face it, I hadn't done this before. Not really. My older daughter visited; stayed for extended periods of time, but I didn't raise her, not really. His first months were truly a blur. A wonder.

His first moments out of the womb: Wide-eyed, bright and examining everything in the nursery. Recognizing my voice? My presence? I remember:

The first time he fell asleep on my chest. Nothing would calm him. I laid on the couch with a fussy bundle in a royal blue footed onesy; a Gap beanie on his head. A bundle that once fit on my chest and slept as I slept.

And I remember Striped Jumper Photograph day. The window light perfect, the eyes reflecting just so. A peaceful moment to hold onto.

But I never thought it would come to so much. That I would get past my own demons to guide this ship through rough and calm seas, damn the metaphor.

I remind myself through these memories, through the photographs we took, that this family has become a vital entity, and also that moments weren't so important, awful or absolute in their power to affect as they once seemed. These memories change as time moves on, but we have made love a constant.

I don't mean it in the fluffy pink teddy bear red valentine's box of chocolates sense. Real love can be a four letter word sometimes. Hard won, fought for over days, months, years, and often gratuitous.

But it's the last thing I expected when we started our family. I didn't really know what it meant.