Day Care

What do you do with 4 children between the ages of 5 1/2 years and 2 months on a rainy day?

You look at the fish...

And argue about who gets to hold the baby...

And use your guitar as a weapon "like in 'Left for Dead'"

And pet the baby...

And get outside to explore the treehouse for 20 minutes when the downpour slows down to a drizzle...

And look at the fish some more...

And ATTACK!!!!

You also eat mac & cheese, watch the Little Mermaid the whole way through (even the bonus features on the disc after the credits, even Ashley Tinsdale's horrid version of "Kiss the Girl,") and play every board game in the house at least once.

Bunkered Down

Yeah, the past two weeks I've been silent. I know. I've been reluctant to post because things lately have been... Difficult.

It was last week that the problems started. First, I need to explain that my mom has been preparing for surgery. She has thyroid cancer, and so needed to have them remove her thyroid and some of the attatched nodules. Now, as her doctor said, "no one dies from thyroid cancer." They remove the cancer, they run a test about a month later to check if it's spread anywhere else, and usually the test itself (which uses radioactive iodine dye) is enough to kill any small cancerous cells. Then from then on, she'll need to take medication for hypothyroid the rest of her life. She has been taking something for hyperthyroid and she says that that is actually a relief because there is only one med for hyperthyroid, and the side effects are pretty discomforting. For hypothyroid, there are several options, so she'll be able to try a few and see which out best for her.

But there are risks to any surgery and the recovery will be grueling, so we've been worried about her, and we've been worried about Dad as well. I have been trying to be there for him, calling to see how he's doing and letting him know that I'm there if he's struggling. I know my brother has, too.

Still, last Saturday, I got a call from Joe. "Hey," he said to me, "ahhhh.... I'm calling to tell you, Dad got picked up again."

Dammit. He was picked up while he was "out running errands." Joe went to get him out, and he was home by the time Joe called me. I was right in the middle of getting things ready for a dinner I had invited them to, and other people were coming over as well. I was looking forward to it, all bubbly and excited. Suddenly I was numb, deflated. "I don't even know how I feel," I told Joe. "I don't know if I'm angry or sad..."

"yeah, I know," he said.

Since then, I have been processing, trying to figure it out. I didn't know what to write, and I didn't want to write anything else until I'd processed this. Since then, Mom's had her surgery and came through it well. I haven't spoken to my dad since then, and I am a coward because I haven't gone to see my mother because I haven't wanted to see him.

I know I shouldn't put it off, but I don't know where to begin. I have been mulling it over this whole time and I can't figure it out. I don't want to be like my sister, Julie, who has said that she is done. I don't want to just accept it, but I also know I can't control it.

So I pray. And I'll try to get back to a regular posting schedule.

Love Notes

Coming out of a hot shower this morning.

A secret message revealed in the bathroom window. Yep. He's pretty awesome.

Fish on Friday

About 2 months ago, Matt was given a few bags of Pollok from a guy he knows through the truck stop. If you've never heard of it before, let me refer you to the wikipedia entry for Pollock, which describes it as a "grey fish" used mainly in commercial preparations - think frozen fishsticks, although the Norwegians are apparently fans of using it to make fish balls.

ahem...

cough.

Moving on...

The first time I made it, it was very fishy. I mean very fishy, and I didn't like it at all, though Matt thought it was okay. So I've been reluctant to make it again. But it's Lent, and we have the fish so I really can't justify not using it and going out to buy Haddock or Salmon. It's supposed to be a sacrifice, right? I talked to a friend at work who loves to cook, and he mentioned soaking it in milk for a few hours to draw some of that fishiness out of it. I vaguely remembered reading this before, so I decided to give it a try for dinner last night. And since when I made fish for Tanya and Mike a few weeks ago, Tanya said she wanted the recipe, I thought I'd post it up here.

So first thing to note is that I put the fish directly from the freezer into the milk, and then put it in the fridge, covered, before I left for work in the morning. I had thought it would thaw, but what actually happened was that a lot of the milk froze to the fish and made a kind of milky, fishy slush. MMMMmmmm. Doesn't that sound good? It did partially thaw. Just not as much as I expected. So when I got home I rinsed the fish in lukewarm water (which thawed it the rest of the way) and patted it dry. Of course, if you're using Haddock or Cod you can completely skip the milk bath, though you still should rinse and pat dry with paper towels.

For breading, I take the recommendation from Cooks Illustrated, which is Melba Toast. My mother always used Ritz crackers and butter when I was a kid, and that was delicious but much higher in fat. Melba Toast is low fat and makes a crispier crumb. Don't expect crunchy, it won't get you there, but I like it a lot.

Since Tanya didn't know what Melba Toast was, here's a picture. I use the whole grain because I think it's more flavorful than the original version.

Toast goes into the food processor and is pulverized. For a pound of fish I usually use a whole box. This means a good amount of leftover crumbs when I'm done, which feels a little wasteful but it's impossible to get good even breading on the last few pieces of fish if you don't have extra crumbs. Once the toast is completely crumbled, I add a dash of cayenne pepper, a 1/4 tsp of garlic powder, and 1 tbsp vegetable oil and pulse until combined. The result should be even crumbs that kind of look like damp beach sand, the kind that's perfect to build sand castles with.

For the egg wash, I whisk together two eggs, 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard, and 2 tbsp water. I find that some takeout containers recycle perfectly as breading trays. These came from a sushi order at Chen Yang Lee two years ago, and are still going strong. So here's the set up: fish, egg wash, breading, cookie sheet lined with foil and metal cooling rack placed on top. The pan set up is important because the cooling rack allows air circulation under the fish and keeps it from getting a soggy bottom.

I didn't take pictures of the actual breading process because it gets your hands pretty messy and I wasn't about to touch the camera in that condition, but it's the standard drill. Dip in egg, roll in crumbs, place on rack.

This gets a spritz of pam or other vegetable oil spray, and then you roll it over to get the other side. That's the final step to making it crisp on the outside. Bake in a 375 degree oven until it flakes evenly, usually between 10-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish.

Pollock shrinks when you cook it. This plate is small - about 7 inches in diameter - and these came out very much like fish sticks, which I guess is appropriate since they were made with pollock. We make a killer tartar sauce to go with any fish we have (well, except sushi). It's 1/2 cup of mayo, 1/3 cup of sweet pickle relish (pressed slightly to reduce the amount of juice, otherwise it gets soupy), 1/2 tsp creamy horseradish, and about three dashes of Tabasco-type hot sauce. It's got that sweet, creamy, spicy, kicky flavor that goes with with this breading. Also, leftovers of this fish make awesome fish sandwiches the next day.

Not that we have any left over.

Lenten Prayers

This Lent, Matt and I have given up soda. We're also taking the money we would have spent on soda and donating it to the rice bowls from the church. We both drink a lot of soda regularly, and we probably spend anywhere from $15-$25 a week on it if we're not paying attention.

I have to admit, giving up soda has been very very hard. I'm a big fan of carbonation in anything and throughout the week I find myself just craving the bubbly tingle of any kind of soda at all. I even love the poland springs carbonated waters (the orange one's the best!) and mineral water with bubbles. In the past fews weeks finding myself thinking "You know, I'd love to have a beer." Plain water tastes so flat and boring to me. So I've discoverd that Hawiian Punch Lite is delicious, and so is the Snapple "on the go" sugar free ice-tea packets. But still, Sundays have become my favorite day of the week because I can indulge in diet coke to my heart's content. It's probably a good thing that we're doing this, because when and if I get pregnant, I'll need to give up drinking so much soda and focus on drinking healthier options anyway.

The other thing we've been doing is praying together every night. On Ash Wednesday we picked up the Magnificat Lenten prayer book, and so we've been praying the stations of the cross (one each night) and the prayer for conversion. Praying together is the one thing we said we would do together when we got married which we really haven't. Sure, we'll do it occasionally, saying a rosary in the car or saying an Our Father before a youth group night, but we don't really have a regular prayer life together. I usually pray in the mornings when I get up. That's been my habit for several years now, and part of the reason I like to get up early, so I have time to do that. But Matt loves to sleep in, so even if I wake him up to pray with me, he's not awake and may not even remember it happened later in the day. And I never think to pray later in the day (yeah, what does that say? Apparently I've been treating prayer like brushing my teeth or washing my face - do it, get it done, and don't think about it for the rest of the day. Sorry God). So we've been praying together before we go to sleep, and it's been really nice.

The other night, we couldn't find the book. It usually gets put on the stand by the bed, but it was missing when we went to use it. We pulled back the covers on the bed, looked in the drawers, brushed aside the dust bunnies and laundry on the floor but no dice. So we wound up just kind of making up our own prayer, knowing kind of what we'd been praying so far but by no means knowing the prayers by heart. That night's station was "Jesus is laid in the tomb." We lay in bed together, Matt's arm around me, my head on his chest, and he began "They took him down from the cross, and wrapped up his cold body and put him a new grave..." I took it up, "And they were scared, and doubtful, wondering if they'd been fools to believe everything he told them..." "But his mother was there, helping them, teaching them how to pray..."

We prayed like that, and it was so different to do it this way. The prayer book was good. I am a fan of structure, always. But being forced to think it through, to pray it through in our own words and to phrase what that particular station meant to us was powerful and tender and moving in ways that I hadn't anticipated at all. I hadn't realized how much I love to hear Matt pray from his heart. It was beautiful and I was in love with him and with God all over again, and I was so glad to discover it.

Neither of us have really looked for the prayer book since. The only problem with that is that we actually don't know the stations by heart, and we find ourselves confusing stations with sorrowful mysteries. Have to look that up and prove to him I was right... ;)