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family

A very belated birthday

August 11, 2016 by Edlyn

Right before I could share photos from my birthday trip to Shelton, WA, I got new that my uncle had passed away in Goa. As sad as it was, I felt silly writing about how wonderful a time I had walking around Matt’s second cousin’s bathtub garden in front of their home. She done a great job with it. It was the peak of spring and everything looked so new, so full of promise. I liked that.

We got similar sad news from Matt’s side of the family and considering the circumstances, it has been even more painful. I had one of my most life-affirming moments with his Aunt Agnes in the most ordinary of times. I don’t know how to describe what might seem like the most trivial thing. It wiped my anxiety slate clean and it keeps doing so when I need it the most. I’ll tell that story when the time comes. For now, here is a healing part of our world. I will miss her so.

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Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: family, forks WA, Olympic National Park WA, shelton WA

Eggs in dal tadka, 2 ways

June 8, 2016 by Edlyn

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I was going to write this whole different story. I was going to say something about how I never order dal in a restaurant in America even though it’s all I always want. I can never get myself to pay the money they ask knowing that this is the food every class of Indian eats but it is a staple for those who can’t afford much more. I was also going to ramble about how annoyed I get when people talk about lentils like it’s a “trend” and I just. can’t. handle. it. when they put coconut milk in dal.

I can’t write about that in the long format because it doesn’t matter. People are going to do what they do to clean out their insides, like they do all over the world….

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Filed Under: Eggs all day, savoury Tagged With: dal, egg recipes, eggs in dal, family

Hello, Uncle.

June 6, 2016 by Edlyn

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It was an unspoken thing – after our paternal grandmother passed away – that we would spend that Christmas with Uncle Edgar at the home they lived and he took care of her in. She lived with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy as a result of it. After her surgery she wasn’t treated further owning to the fact that she probably wouldn’t be able to tolerate the side effects at her age. Uncle Edgar never married and so he saw his mother through all of her ailments, falls, bed sores – all the bits and pieces of getting old we talk of like we’ve lived it many times over. She laid on a bed and a long rope hung above her from the ceiling. No, it’s not what you think. It was long enough for her to reach with her hand and pull herself up so she could sit down on her own. I remember that they covered the noose that was made at the end of the rope with cloth and cloth bandages to make it easier on her frail hands. We never saw it but Uncle helped her with everything. He sat her on her bedside commode. He bathed her. He fed her. Maybe he complained but I don’t ever remember it. I wouldn’t want to think back on him as being anything but selfless, strong-willed and independent.

A few days after I celebrated my birthday, Uncle Edgar died. In a strange turn of fate, he went through almost the same things I described above except in a shorter and more sporadic way and with a different type of cancer. After 5 months of being bed-ridden at the very end, he breathed his last at a nursing home. My dad’s famous words, “I thought he was gone”, while speaking about Uncle finally rang true. It was heartbreaking. Uncle fought hard to live a life that was his own. He accepted his fate better than the modern world allows us to and he kept on living his life in the way he knew. There was so many times when we thought it was the end but he always came back fighting. This time we wanted to believe it would be that way again.

One of the heaviest weights any person who moves away from home has to carry is the one that comes with having to say goodbye. It’s especially hard when you’ve crossed continents and you know you can’t be there when you need to in a short and (emotionally) painless time. Since the last time I visited Goa, I lost my great Aunty Pacy, our 18-year-old family dog Gypsy (who was Uncle Edgar’s dog first) and my cat Bidli. When I left Goa again to come back to Washington this March, I knew I would be saying goodbye to my uncle for the last time.  On the morning of the day I was to begin the first leg of my journey, I drove the nurse to his house just as I had being doing for a large part of the start of this year. I didn’t *have* to do it. God knows I had a million things on my mind but I wanted my last day at home for a while to feel like I wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted to feel like I wouldn’t be waking up on an airplane that night. I wanted to know I could see my people whenever I wanted. This was maybe why I didn’t say “goodbye” the way I’d intended. How do you do it? “I’ll come back to say bye,” I told my father. I meant I would drive back after taking his nurse home but I really meant I wanted to come back in a year or two and see him there. And say bye once more.

There are many, many vivid memories I have grabbed onto and kept in the back of my mind. Having Uncle Edgar live less than a 10-minute drive from us turned them into more than I can count. Of all his nieces and nephews, it was us that had the luxury of being dropped off for the afternoon and asking him if he could find or make us fishing rods so we could go to the river. It was us that could visit and be guaranteed a bottle of Gold Spot and Thums Up  (popped open and cap saved in a bowl that was too high to reach) and a slice of La Vache Qui Rit cheese. When we grew up a little, those drinks turned into Port Wine. My sisters and I played in his garden and fought to water the plants, even though we never offered to do the same at home. I got one of my worst skinned knees I can remember while running back from the gate to the house. I can’t imagine that house being empty. Part of me grew up there. It’s where we always expect to see him – sitting in the balcony, reading the paper, people-watching, scolding the help or shooing away the cat.

We got to spend Christmas with Uncle this December. My dad, mama, Jane, Sidney, Matt and I sat in the balcony as close as you can possibly imagine should you have seen how narrow it is. Uncle had his first whiskey in a year and we had the usual plate full of Christmas sweets on the table in front of us. I thought that the previous time I was in Goa would be the last time I saw him but still I told him I better see him next time. It was cool in the shade and the light breeze felt good. Gayle called to wish everyone after pulling a slave shift at work. The cat was begging for sweets. To be sitting right next to these people doing the usual was a present like no other.

If you’re family or simply interested, you can read more about my Uncle in my sister’s words here and see some of her beautiful photography here.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: family, Goa, Writing

Dreamy eggs on a Sunday

June 16, 2013 by Edlyn

For Turkey and especially for my father, both of which/whom have a lot to do with my dreams.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, the main streets of Istanbul were empty on Sunday mornings, and as we drove through neighbourhoods I’d never seen before, we’d listen to “light Western music” (the Beatles, Sylvie Vartan, Tom Jones and suchlike) and my father would tell me that the best thing a person could do was to live by his own lights, that money could never be the object, but if happiness depended on it, it could be a means to that end; or he would tell me how once when he left us and gone to Paris he had written poems in his hotel room, and had also translated Valery’s poems into Turkish, but years late while travelling in America, the suitcase in which he kept all his poems and translations had been stolen. As the music rose and fell in rhythm with the city streets, he would adjust his stories to the beat and I knew that everything he told me – of having seen Jean-Paul Satre many times in the streets of Paris during the 1950s or how the Pamuk Apartments in Nsantasi had come to be built, of the failure of one of his first businesses – I would never forget. From time to time he would pause to admire the view, or the beautiful women on the pavement, and while I listened to his offerings of gentle and understated wisdom and advice, I would gaze at the scenes of the leaden winter  mornings as the flashed across the windshield. As I watched the cars crossing the Galata Bridge, the back neighbourhoods where a few wooden houses stood, the narrow streets, the crowds heading to a football match, or the thin funnelled tugboat pulling coal barges down the Bosphorus, I’d listen to my father’s wise voice telling me how important it was that people followed their own instincts and passions; that actually, life was very short and that, also, it was a good thing if a person knew what he wanted to do in life, that, in fact, a person who spent his life writing, drawing and painting could enjoy a deeper, richer life, and as I drank in his words, they would blend in with the things I was seeing. And before long, the music, the views rushing past the window, my father’s voice (“Shall we turn in here?” he’d ask) and the narrow cobblestone streets all merged into one, and it seemed to me that while we would never find answers to these fundamental questions, it was good for us to ask them anyway; that true happiness and meaning resided in places we would never find and perhaps did not wish to find, but – whether we were pursuing the answers or merely pleasure and emotional depth – the pursuit mattered no less than the attainment, the asking as important as the views we saw through the windows of the car, the house, the ferry. With time, life – like music, art and stories – would rise and fall, eventually to end, but even years later, those lives are with us still in the city views that flow before out eyes, like memories plucked from dreams.

– (a very large) Excerpt from Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk

Broccoli and paneer omelette

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This Sunday, my main aim is to gross my husband out by showing him broccoli in an omelette. We’re told so much through American TV and its picky children that broccoli is “ewwwww” (another term we learn from the Americans in the TV). Mr Stretchy Pants embodies this spirit and I still don’t understand why (“the smell, the smell!!”). It tastes normal to me, which is why I went ahead and made this breakfast…TWICE.

Muwhahahahaha….*ahem*. Must have a sore throat or something.

I like coming up with omelette combinations and this is a definite winner.

You will need two eggs, a handful of broccoli florettes, green onions and some paneer, sesame seeds, chilli-garlic sauce, salt and pepper.

Beat the eggs into a bowl and then head for the broccoli. First, run cold water over it. Separate the broccoli head from the tougher part of the stem and then peel what’s remaining of it. This will tenderise the it and make it easy to cook. If you don’t want to use it at all, chop off the whole stem and save the broccoli florettes. Break them apart randomly. Roughly run a knife through the broken florettes until they are broken up into smaller sections (like in the picture). Put these pieces into the bowl with the beaten egg. The paneer part is easy. Just chop the block into small 1/2 inch cubes and put them into the bowl as well, along with the chopped green onions.  At this point it’s going to look like there are more add-ons than eggs. To that I say, great work team!

Heat up a pan and coat it with oil. Let the oil heat up and then add the egg mix to it. Spread out the broccoli and paneer around the omellete-to-be and then put a lid on the pan. Let the bottom of the omelette cook for about 4 minutes. It should be well-cooked and golden brown on the underside. This makes it so much easier to flip-over without turning it into a scramble. Which brings us to the next step: Flip it over, very carefully. It’s going to be heavy. Let it cook for a minute more on the other side. Slowlyyy slide it onto your plate. Season with salt, pepper, sesame seeds and drops of chilli-garlic sauce.

Happy Father’s Day to all the father’s and father figures, in the stars and on Earth. And to my own, thank you for Sunday breakfasts, loving Bidli, my mother and your spawns.

Filed Under: Eggs all day, food, savoury Tagged With: breakfast, Eggs on a Sunday, family, Istanbul, OccupyGezi

Eggs on a Funday, winning style.

May 19, 2013 by Edlyn

There’s an expression in this country, which I’m going to use right now. It’s “blue collar” and relevant. Urbandictionary dot com, the know-all of pop culture references (because it allows common folks like us to look up the meaning of dumbass) should have a somewhat appropriate explanation of it. Look it up because 1:07:48 and just one 30 second break later…

Git r done.

And since I’m going by urbandictionary.com definition #1, this next expression seems fine as well…

Woooooooooooo!!!

Egg bhurji with dal

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Sometimes I feel this is the only reason I make dal, so I can scramble it into eggs the next morning. As if I need any reason to make dal in the first place, right ladies?! Ladies? …Erm. Okay, I’ll rephrase that. Right, nobody?

That’s what I’m talking about.

If you’re wondering what bhurji is, it’s eggs scrambled with onions, spices, tomatoes, chillies and mostly I don’t even remember what else. If you’re wondering what dal is, it’s all the pretties from the family of split lentils that my Indian peoples make into this stew-like dish. It’s usually eaten with rice or roti/chapati/paratha and I am so lucky to live with another human who won’t touch it with a 10-foot-pole. It’s better that way. More for me.

More for eggs the next morning.

I was trying to post my easy recipe for it this week but I forgot (conveniently) the food blog requisites. When I did remember, I took this picture.

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Oh, sometimes you also eat it with bread.

The universe was on my side this week though. Ms Hungry & Excited made dal and it’s just what I was looking for on her blog a week ago. I didn’t find it then, which forced me to make my own (FORCED, right) and then I took that ^ picture in the middle of stuffing my face. I meant every second of it.

Ingredients

  • 2 eggs
  • Bread of your choice. I picked up some panini loaves because they reminded me of Goan paav (bread)
  • 1 dal recipe 

What I didn’t use from her original recipe is the kasuri methi, asafoetida and red chilli powder. Instead of using red chillies, I used serrano peppers. Also, toor dal is yellow split lentils. I cook one cup of the lentils (soaked overnight) in a pot with 1 cup of water for about 25 minutes or until soft. It’s only because I don’t own a pressure cooker and I don’t plan on owning one either.

If this made no sense to you, the comment space is all yours.

Once your dal is ready, don’t eat it! Well, eat some because it’s freakin delicious.

The next morning, it will be even more so. That’s the thing about food from my hood. It just gets better with time. At least until it can’t anymore. Stop talking, Edlyn.

Break two eggs in a bowl and beat them well. Pour the eggs in a hot, greased-with-oil pan and scramble until it just begins to set. As soon as it gets clumpy, take about a serving spoon scoop of dal and mix it into the eggs. Keep scrambling until some of the water from the dal evaporates and the eggs are scrambled through (or done to your liking).

It’s best eaten with bread. In Goa. At my house.

Filed Under: Eggs all day, food Tagged With: 10K, breakfast, Eggs on a Sunday, family

Look ma, no hands + Roasted red pepper lentil soup

May 13, 2013 by Edlyn

I saw a lot of mothers yesterday. Dark, pretty, wrinkled, big hair, soft smiles, heart-melting and there. Alert, present and there. There’s a reason why your troubles can melt away in their presence and another reason why they absolutely must. I didn’t want to get lost in the whirl of mother tributes (all 1000% beautiful) yesterday so I let my thoughts sit for a while. I looked at each and every one of them and not a single thing annoyed me. I saw all these young women talking about the inspiration that their mothers are and felt thankful that I get to feel the same way.

My mother was born in the 60s. My youngest sister looked most like her as a baby but there is this one picture from her pre-teen years where we could be the same person. I’m glad the similarities end there because I could never be like her. My sisters and I used to try when we grew tall enough to reach the top of her cupboard for the keys (by standing on the bed). Lots of lipstick and nail polish later, we grew out of it. To her, I’m sure we never will.

I couldn’t buy you a present this time mama (trust issues with postal service) but wait 6 months and there I’ll be. As for yesterday, the best I could do was go watch the Seattle Rock Orchestra play songs from Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band and think about you all through. That’s how I always remember you, singing along to U. Frankie’s guitar with dada and the rest and wondering if I could ever be that brave.

I try mother. Thank you for letting me. Happy one day after Mother’s Day day. Today and everyyyy other day in the year, thank you for letting me dream. <3

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To my sisters. I order you to make this for our mother. If you don’t, you’ll both remember you took her to see Star Trek. Star. Trek. Your mother. It’s like the time Ignatius and John gave Roma a bottle of jam for her birthday.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of yellow and black lentils, moong (mung) beans and kidney beans (they have to be soaked overnight* in water before being cooked)
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric powder (optional)
  • 1 cup vegetable stock
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 cup roasted red pepper sauce
  • 1/2 cup coconut milk
  • Salt to taste

To garnish, if you must

  • Toasted walnuts
  • Croutons
  • Parsley
  • Squeeze of lemon juice

As of right now, the Internet has decided to go bye-bye and I’m writing this on a little post-it note app thing on the computer. I feel incredibly empowered, why thank you for asking.

The lentils and beans don’t care. They have one life to live. At this point, you should have soaked a mix of them in water the night before making this.

If you like more yellow and less black, soak it like that.

If you like only yellow, soak only that.

If you like black beans and nothing else, soak black beans and nothing else.

If the moong beans walk into a bar and the bar doesn’t serve moong beans, tell them you’ll soak them next time.

My point is, do as you wish with proportions and colours and shapes. This lentil bean crazy town all cook more or less the same way. Like pasta!

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Take the lentil bean mix and put them in a pot of vegetable stock and water on medium high heat to bring it to a quick simmers. Sprinkle the turmeric powder in the water if you’re using it. Once the pot starts to simmer, turn the heat down low to a slow simmer and let it cook. If the water dries up too fast, add more to keep the lentils and beans covered till they’re done. The lentils should be ready in 20-25 minutes and you’ll be able to tell that they are when they’re tender and no longer crunchy. Season with salt depending on how much is already in the stock.

Leave the pot on the stove and add the red pepper sauce to it. Let it have fun times with the lentil+beaners for 5 minutes. Next add the coconut milk to this and cook for 5 more minutes. Keep stirring throughout this process. Take it off the heat, taste and season with salt (if required) and a crack of pepper.

If you want to eat this with croutons, cut some bread into cubes, drizzle them with olive oil and place them in a single layer on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F oven. Take them out when they’re in the golden to almost brown stage. You can also make them on a pan on the stove by taking the same olive oil coated bread squares and stirring them until they turn the right colour.

For the toasted walnuts, I’m too lazy to type over an already amazing bunch of instructions so go here.

Sprinkle with parsley if you have any and squeeze some lemon juice over before digging in.

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(*Lentils and beans go a bit crazy by increasing in size when soaked overnight. The 1 cup measure I used is post-soaking. If you soak 1/2 cup, you should get 1 cup the next morning)

Filed Under: savoury Tagged With: cooking, family, Love what you do, Real-est housewife, The Beatles, Things I love, vegetarian

Super Sunday eggs + Resurrection rice cakes

April 7, 2013 by Edlyn

Hello another Sunday where I’m ready to pass out from eating a much too heavy breakfast in the morning, doing nothing in the afternoon,  and then shamelessly passing out like I had initially planned. No wait. That’s not the shameless part. There is something worse than that. It takes me back to Goa when I lived with my parents, followed this Sunday routine except after I woke up, I expected more food.

Seriously, Indian children are so spoilt in the parents making them food department. No matter how old you get, your mother and in my case my father too, always want to feed you. So yes, blame them if you must. What horrible parents they are for wanting to feed 27-year-old children (Hi Jane. I meant you).

Gathering whatever was left of my will to survive, I climbed up the stairs from the lower part of my house and made my way into the kitchen. As soon as this happened, my mother would appear from nowhere as if she was standing behind me all along and say, “Hungry? Wait I have to make rice.” Oh okay mama, I’ll just pretend you said pulao and that my stomach is not ready to crush every ounce of my brain that’s telling me it’s stuff your face you lazy arse o’clock. The lazy arse being me, of course.

My mother, never disappointed. She’s the best rice-maker I know and to say I’ve learnt to make amazing pulao from her would be a big lie. I know nothing about the first of it and if I do, it’s purely by chance. From watching her I learnt to wash the rice (twice) thing, the one-cup-rice-two-cups-water thing, the simmer-boil-close-open-stir thing, and the drain-the-water-once-you’re-done thing. Sometimes I get all these “things” mixed up perfectly.

As for the pulao, I can make my mother proud. I don’t know how. I’ve never bothered learning about it as much as I worried about biting into a cardamom pod while eating.

The things that take you back home…

I miss your pulao, mother!

Super Sunday eggs + Resurrection rice cakes

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Claire, I stole the rice cakes idea from you. That’s right. I took it. You were asleep and I said “To hell with her!” Don’t feel bad. If I can make the pain go away, I’ll say two things: I love the names “resurrection risotto cakes” and Donna Chinona. You inspire me to copy you. Feel better?

You’ll need one cup of leftover risotto or vegetable pulao, 2 eggs, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, 1tbsp plus a little more buckwheat flour (can also substitute with all-purpose flower) and some salt and pepper to taste. For the side (if you prefer sides), you can use slices of tomato and salad greens drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

Take a cup of the pulao and mix it with an egg, buckwheat flour, Parmesan cheese and some pepper. Ideally you rice should already be salted because it’s made from leftovers but I don’t like to predict these things. If you need more salt, don’t let me stop you. You should be able to make about 3 small rice cakes or 2 big ones. The cakes should be easy to shape so if 1 tbsp buckwheat flour isn’t enough, add a teaspoon more and see if it does the trick.

The end.

Haha.

Heat olive oil in a non-stick or stick frying pan and gently add the rice cakes to it. Like a sniper. Three to four minutes later, turn them over. They should be golden brown on the cooked side and easy to turn over as well. It’s easy when the bottom is cooked. These things are connected and written into the fibre of the universe. I might sound like I’m making it all up but I’m not. Repeat this on the other side and take it off the stove and place it on a paper towel or plate. Paper towel to soak the extra oil or plate because you used olive oil and your worries should have disappeared by now.

In the same pan, crack an egg and cook until the white is set. You can cook the egg as you choose, I’m not going to be an egg Nazi.

Decorate your plate with edible plant-based nourishment (tomatoes and salad greens) and breakfast is ready.

I’m going back to bed.

(PS: I will have a mother’s special vegetable pulao recipe up on here this week. It’s only fair)

Filed Under: Eggs all day, food Tagged With: cooking, Eggs on a Sunday, family, kitchen memories, life, Real-est housewife, Things I love

When I say: “He’s the one”, I mean chicken salad.

January 9, 2013 by Edlyn

Just yesterday right after Awesomepants came home from work, I served him the chicken salad he wanted. It had spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and chicken marinated in lemon/garlic/pepper/cumin. It was the last thing from “special” but I already knew it was a very good day. My boy, he’s very specific with his food cravings. Specific in a way that’s not too picky and it let’s me do my thing. Specific is a good way to describe this here what I’m going to write. Or maybe not at all, knowing the way I usually write (Miss Bounce of the Walls G D’Souza).

Honestly, this is supposed to be a “I’m so lucky. Yay, I’m married and my life is amazing” kind of post. I am not going to do that. Yes, my life is amazing.

Yes.

Oh, the chicken salad. Metaphor maker activated.Image

I always thought I hated to cook. Always. I had no desire to cook anything because I saved all of that desire to stuff my face. Cooking? Hahaha. My mother will do it. I could chop onions and all that and sometimes when I was 10 or 11, our house help Sumita taught me how to cook the basic vegetable fare so she could rollerskate with Gayle in the hall. I couldn’t rollerjam so I was okay with the arrangement.

In 2010, when I came here to be with my future husband, I cooked. Something was wrong with me. I tried the chickens and salmons of the world and I was really good! The boyfriend was also on a healthy-eating kick which made my experiments even more fun because I loved known what we were eating was going to give our insides big hugs. He taught me how to make cheeseburgers (with turkey mince!) and I was captivated. Sounds so lame right now. Captivated by a cheeseburger. Maybe this should be the title of the post. His early lessons were the small wake up calls. When he showed me how to grill salmon, I went online, found other recipes and tried to make it a bit more interesting. His reactions were always encouraging…not like it was important or anything.

I went on with my kitchen fun until I had to go back to India. Then, things slowed down a bit. I didn’t stop cooking completely, but I lost some interest. Gayle was usually the cooking star daughter so I let that be. That and my mother would complain that I use too little or not enough salt. Awesomepants has high BP issues so maybe I did try to spread my less salt theory to the happily less developed country. Maybe I’ll never do that again.

Fast forward to yesterday. 2013 and the year or the chicken salad. The chicken salad I’ve spent a few paragraphs trying to turn into a metaphor for my marriage to this boy. (Yes, he’s mostly a boy. Just like some puppies are always mostly puppies). I now love cooking. I dream of doing it for a living, or something like that. It’s a little bit of his fault.

Which brings me right back to the salad. That chicken salad is nothing to make. I start with nothing and slowly as I add more of this and that, it became something. Something he really loved even though it’s nothing at all. It’s leaves, fungi and chicken, COME ON. What I’m trying to say is that it’s ALL about the chicken salad.

It’s exactly like last week when I was in the middle of my flu, looking like shit, playing Yahtzee with him and he stops and says: “You’re beautiful.” Whoa. No alcohol was involved.

We’re not striving for a perfect marriage. I admit I’m very shallow at times and expect fairy tales and storybooks to come alive every time our eyes meet. Nope. Not going to happen. What I want our marriage to be is chicken salad. Any salad. Boring when you see it separately but when it’s all in a bowl, I’ll hear that line I never get tired of:

“Salad was good, bb.”

(*I’ve made him a lot (A LOT) of salads in 2012. Always to take to work for lunch. That’s the one thing I can remember so vividly about this past year.)

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: awesomepants, family, love

1 year

October 9, 2012 by Edlyn

That’s how long it’s been since my Grandma died. I remember writing a post about it in this blog but I don’t remember it being a year ago. It feels closer. Just like she does.

I remember how everything about that day was wound around fate. Every single thing. “What if” is always at the tip of my tongue. I can’t forget a single moment. It played out like a movie and there we all were. There she was. Fate? I don’t know for sure. I don’t think that should be anybody’s destiny.

As I sit here, a million and a half kilometers away from my house, all I feel is sadness. She never wanted me or anyone to be a million and a half kilometers away. Never. That would mean she was alone and yes, she would be alone. But what she didn’t know is so would I. In a different way, but how can we say our sorrow is more important that anybody elses? That’s not true. If misery loves company, I wish I could be there.

Fate, what a silly, loaded word. What a silly, loaded world.

Rest in those golden meadows Gramps*.

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(*We called her “gramps, even though it’s short from “grandpa”. We had seen it on this Cartoon Cartoons cartoon on Cartoon Network once in her house. Flashbacks. Got to hold on to them.)

Filed Under: food Tagged With: family, love

This was two Saturdays ago

August 8, 2012 by Edlyn

My real name is Bad Blogger D’Souza. I know I’m supposed to post these things “as.and.when.they.happen”, but I fail sometimes.

Not to worry because I did make a blueberry cheesecake and I’m willing to share the recipe with you for one night only. I mean forever. Forever and ever.

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So last last Saturday, we were visited by the in-laws (mine, not his) and we all drove down to Shelton, about 2 hours away from home. We took the happy dogs along since they love the outdoors and went on our way to visit my person’s dad’s cousins Jacque and Glen. 

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Saying that they have a cute house that I want is more than I want to say. I want a cozy house like that with a bathtub garden, and a huge lawn with a well in the middle and berries that you can pick and snack on while you garden. Sigh.

They also have bees.

Bees live here

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This is le bathtub garden. Angels watch over it because it’s so heavenly.

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It’s all very whimsical to me. You can’t blame me for getting carried away. I’ve only seen these kinds of places in my dreams or in Hallmark movies. I love it!

The Johnsons’

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We ate good, home-cooked and mostly homegrown meals and my cheesecake (I haven’t forgotten the recipe!), played with the dogs and just enjoyed the weekend. My person and I had to stay in a creepy motel room but breakfast the next day made up for it.

Oh, I forgot about Dos! He’s their 13-year-old Jack Russel Terrier. He could be 14 too, but deep down he’s still a baby. The dogs thought he was their new horsing around friend and Dos did try too. Poor boy, they really wore him out.

The silly dogs being silly faces

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Little Dos and his tennis ball

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Itty bitty berries that grow up to be my food

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Okay so, I know you only waited this long for the cheesecake recipe. I honour your bravery.

This is the recipe I go back to time and time again because it’s delicious and you can make it with almost any fruit because the fruit is only the topping. BBC Good Food, I’m still working on perfecting this recipe, but boy is it amazing!

Ah, the sweet side of life.

Filed Under: food Tagged With: BBC, dogs, family, love, travel, yum

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