advent calendar

Are you on Pinterest? If you aren't, and you value your precious free time and already spend way too much time on the computer, then DON'T GO THERE. DO NOT ASK FOR AN INVITE. RUN. RUN LIKE THE WIND. Otherwise, go check it out because it's fantastic fun and very addictive. I've come across several clever ideas recently, and have shamelessly pinched quite a few of them for the holiday season. First, there were the reindeer cupcakes:

Stolen from With Sprinkles on Top, with my thanks!

Maybe it's middle age and maybe it's motherhood, but I had to find an excuse to make these. My inner Martha Stewart demanded that I put down the gin and tonic and fashion cute cupcakes. As a bonus, they kept Mia occupied and happy, as she was put in charge of noses.

The second Christmas crafty endeavour was inspired by Craftastica and her recycle bin advent calendar. Although ours isn't nearly as tidy as hers, the kids enjoyed putting it together (despite all the fighting about things like stickers, the number of envelopes decorated, and who got to use the coveted glue stick.) The envelopes are made from parcel paper (I had a roll of it around, thanks to many years of sending parcels home to Mom and Dad), the main board is the side of a box I got from Amazon recently, the board is covered in cheapie wrapping paper, and the decorations are from various stores.

I'd like to think of it as "folksy".

I've been meaning to make our own advent calendar for years now, mostly because I'm too cheap to buy one. I had the idea last year to make one out of felt (how hard could it be?), but never got around to actually purchasing any felt. What I liked about the homemade/unfilled calendars is that you can put whatever you want inside. Sure the kids love their chocolate calendars from Grandma, but I love the idea of filling each pocket with things other than sweets or toys. Again, this is probably middle age talking and I'm doing something akin to handing out apples at Halloween. But I digress.

This is the list of stuff that will be a part of this year's calendar. I think - I hope - that as the kids get older, they'll come up with some ideas for their calendars themselves. This isn't about being smug or all like "Look at my perfect family, aren't we clever? Not like you. YOU SUCK." With three kids under the age of 7, I need to find things to keep them happy and occupied, especially after school and during holidays. If that means subjecting myself to crafting and things involving glitter, I'll do it. Otherwise, they will drive me utterly batshit crazy. Also, on a more positive note, I really like Christmas and having kids is a great excuse to get extra excited about it. Anyway, here is the list so far:

• Popcorn, hot chocolate, and movie night
• Make teacher presents
• Make a paper chain for the tree
• Make a gingerbread house
• Visit Frosts garden centre for Christmas fun
• Choose toys to donate
• Make a garland tree for the front door (another Pinterest idea!)
• Make salt dough ornaments (yeah, ditto.)
• Go out for supper
• Write letters to Santa
• Pancake breakfast (with Christmas cookie cutters)
• Cut out snowflakes for the windows
• Watch Santa videos
• Read letters from Santa
• Treasure hunt
• Game night
• Watch "Muppet Christmas Carol"
• Sing a Christmas song/make a movie for Grandma and Grandpa
• Buy a Christmas tree
• Watch "Elf"
• Read "The Stinky Sprout"
• Make Santa's cookies
• Read "The Night Before Christmas"
• Erm...maybe stick a toy in the envelope. I'm running out of ideas here.

you're entitled to my opinion

If you're on Facebook, you're probably more than aware of the changes that took place over yesterday (and strangely, the changes were present for some users for the past few weeks although no one I know recalls signing up for beta testing. But I digress.) You've also probably had it up to HERE with people talking about it, so I apologise for this post in advance. The day started with a lot of "WTF Facebook?!" statuses in my feed, progressing to expressions of anger and/or general annoyance. By the end of the day, dozens of graphics about Facebook made the rounds, clearly dividing those who were fed up and those who were fed up with all the people who were fed up. 

I was on the side of "WTF Facebook?!" as I struggled to understand the new layout and features. I wasn't bothered by the concept of change, it's the fact that the change was unannounced, seemingly without any user input (or consultation with anyone in the UI design industry), unintuitive, lacking in documentation, and largely unconfigurable. It simply made little sense. 

Having used it for a day now, I think I'm familiar with all the new stuff and slightly less vexed by it. I just have to be more mindful about commenting on anything (I now check that the privacy setting is set to "Friends of x" to avoid spamming the feed more than necessary) and I've enjoyed being taunted in the live ticker, thanks to crafty friends who realised that comments they post on certain friends' walls would show up in the feed. I understand that comments on "Public" and "Friends of friends" statuses and photos were always visible on your wall (not in your feed, as far as I can remember), but you could hide this activity and it would never appear on your wall. Now these actions are displayed in the ticker, and you can't do squat about it. Furthermore, I cannot get my head around the incredibly vague and seemingly random classification of subscription updates - what are "most" and "only important" updates? What parameter are they using to determine these categories, and how are we supposed to know what they are? From what I can gather, you need to go to every friends' profile page and select "All updates" to see everything they post. Otherwise, you get a lucky dip assortment of statuses that some bit of code has deemed feedworthy. No, really. 

The only documentation I've seen regarding the new changes is this rather terse page here: http://www.facebook.com/help?page=189712557768134 that doesn't really tell you how to do anything terribly useful. A friend posted a link to this video, which is far more informative (and not produced by a Facebook employee): http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1989051093764 This morning I saw a link on Mashable about further, rather ominous sounding changes brewing ahead for today. Fabulous. Unleash more amusing graphics!

At the end of the day, after the ten millionth status complaining about the new Facebook, the statuses and images telling us to stop our bellyaching began to fill up everyone's feeds (or on a less angry level, many people simply didn't understand what the fuss was about.) For me, the fuss was about rolling out a UI that's confusing with a lot of important issues that users aren't aware of. Facebook is free to use, but we are still their customers and without us, they don't generate revenue. With hot competition from sites like Google+, it's in their best interest to keep their users happy and to actually listen to user feedback.

In the larger scheme of things, changes to Facebook aren't going to ruin my life. But I think there's no excuse for being arrogant and lazy in the business world, and this is what I've been vocal about. Usability is a fundamental part of any web site, regardless of whether or not your visitors are paying customers. Write some docs, add some tool tips and online help, and I'll be a little more forgiving, Facebook.

lessons i need to learn from my kids

How To Make Your Life More Carefree and Enjoyable, by Jack, Mia, and Isla:

• It's perfectly okay to dance around in your underwear and in fact, this should be done at least once every single day.
• No matter how silly anyone else thinks it is, never let anything stop you from laughing. And laughter is best when done with mild hysteria whilst rolling about on the floor.
• There is no taste combination that is too weird and not worth trying at least once.
• Bubbles are really, really exciting. Look, bubbles! BUBBLES!!!!
• All animals must be greeted with a hearty hello, even if you see them from your car.
• Never let the lack of lyric knowledge prevent you from singing a song. Alternatively, just keep repeating whatever lyrics you do know.
• Forget Michelin stars - things covered in chocolate, deep-fried, and/or covered in ketchup are where it's at.
• If you're ever questioned about why you're doing something that someone else may not approve of, answer with: "Because I am." And say it like they're a total idiot for asking.
• Whenever you're going down a hill in a car, shout out "WHEEEEEEEE!"
• Cutlery is always optional.
• It's okay to cry.

we can be heroes

My children have the following superhero powers:

• The ability to know when you're eating chocolate, even if you're behind a closed door in another part of the house.
• Total clothing removal in less than 5 seconds, particularly in public places.
• Constant and persistent "I'm screaming like my arms are being chewed off by lions/I'm perfectly happy now" oscillation.
• Camel Stomach: the ability to drink 50 litres of liquid without having to go to the toilet once, and requesting more liquids every 3 minutes. And conversely...
• The Tardis Bladder: the ability to expel incredible amounts of wee, despite just having been to the toilet and insisting that there is no further need to wee (i.e. during toilet training.)
• The ability to start crying the moment a parent begins to eat/fall asleep, or more impressively, when the adult merely considers these concepts. (This power seems to be present in under 2s only.)
• Stealthy Depositing and Spreading of Sticky Things
• Complete Green Removal From Anything Edible AKA The Meticulous Search and Removal of Every Speck of Chopped Basil From Spaghetti Sauce

My children adhere to the following rules:

• I'm not hungry, unless it's food on someone else's plate.
• As soon as the adult steps out of the room, start beating the crap out of each other. Deny existence of conflict as soon as the adult returns.
• When in doubt, blame the baby.
• Alternatively, blame the dog. Or dinosaurs. (True story.)
• There is always an excuse not to sleep. For example, "I can still hear [the baby] crying in my mind."
• Everyone wants to see your bum/willy/belly. 
• When eating dip, use your finger to scoop it up and lick it off. Repeat until an adult tells you the tub is all yours.

pop goes the cake: part deux

After my trial run this morning, I have come to quite a few conclusions about this cake pop business:

• It's tricky to make them all the same size, or to even make them spherical. Mine look like meatballs. Meatballs that have been whacked with squash racquets by very uncoordinated people.
• They keep falling off the stick when you dip them and tap off the excess. I suspect my cake crumble mix has too much icing in it. I've dipped the sticks in chocolate and popped the balls in the freezer before dipping (as suggested here: http://veronicascornucopia.com/2011/05/12/cake-pops-balls-truffles-troubleshooting-faq/), to no avail. Which leads me to...
• The chocolate coating has cracked. Apparently this is from either overheating the chocolate (which I don't think is the case) or keeping the balls in the freezer for too long.
• When using candy melts, you've got to get your sprinkles on very quickly after dipping as it hardens fast.
• If you don't have a styrofoam block and lollipop sticks (e.g. for testing purposes), you can use a colander and bamboo skewers cut to length. The pointy ends of the skewers don't work well though, as the balls slip off the ends more easily.

My rather sad attempt at cake pops.

 Cake pops are a cute idea and if you've got the knack for it, they'd be fun to make for parties. For me, they're far too fiddly and temperamental (especially with small children in the house who constantly need to be fed, watered, and pried away from breakable things). I'd happily make these in a small batch and do a little more practicing to fix all of the issues I mentioned, but I'm planning on doing something for roughly 70 people in just over 2 weeks, and I will lose the will to live if I carry on with the cake pops.

I do have an alternative plan (supplies pending) that may save me a lot of time and headaches that will hopefully still have that itty bitty cakey cuteness factor. In the meantime, I've got two little girls who are very eager to taste test the cake pops, cracks and all.

pop goes the cake

I've embarked on yet another "That Looks Easy; I Bet I Could Do That" project this week: cake pops. For those not in the know, cake pops are little balls of cake that are put on to lollipop sticks, then dipped and decorated in some sort of creative manner. The plan is to do the pops for the kids attending Isla's naming ceremony, so this week the test kitchen is in full swing as I attempt to fashion something resembling tiny cakey cuteness. On a stick.

Now look, I know cake pops are the latest fad and even Starbucks have started peddling them to the public, but I don't care much about being behind the times. I still make meatloaf. With ketchup on it. I have no culinary shame. To further induce horror amongst the foody elite, most cake pop instructions call for the cake to be made from a mix with prepackaged icing to help bind it together (the argument being that they take so long to decorate, time shouldn't be wasted making a cake and icing from scratch.) I'm no food snob (witness my love of Kraft Dinner and Denny's), but despite having grown up on the stuff, I don't like the taste of cake mixes. For testing purposes though, I am using a mix to save on time and effort. And these things do take a lot of time, even before you get to the decorating.

After baking, the cake supposedly needs to cool overnight before you crumble it with the icing. Why? No clue - I can't imagine that a cake gets progressively cooler beyond a couple of hours out of the oven, but it may have something to do with needing to use slightly staler cake to help hold its shape. After cooling, the cake needs to be blitzed into crumbs then mixed with whatever icing or binding agent you want to use to form a truffle-like substance. This then needs to go in the fridge for another day or so to firm up, and THEN you're reading for dipping n' decorating.

So today, I'm merely at the baking and cooling stage. Mostly this involves explaining to your crying, screaming children why they can't eat the cake that's sitting there, tantalising them from the cooling rack. Tomorrow, I roll.

pancakes: they're not just for breakfast

It's Shrove Tuesday (AKA Pancake Tuesday), which gives me an excuse to make pancakes in the middle of the week. And when I say "pancakes", I mean the fluffy kind of my childhood, possibly with a side of bacon. I've got nothing against the crepe-style ones traditionally served here (especially when smeared with Nutella), but they just aren't pancakes to me. We like to do everything in North America bigger and fatter because we're awfully good at it. I loved Shrove Tuesday. The idea of pancakes for supper was incredibly exciting, and I'm not sure who was most excited about it - me or my Dad. It was one of the first things I ever cooked on my own at around age 7.

I've been using the same pancake recipe for decades now, from a very worn and much-loved copy of "The Joy of Cooking". In fact, the pancake recipe page fell out of the book from overuse and is now in another recipe folder. This recipe makes around 10 teacup saucer-sized pancakes, or 6 of these utterly amazing Star Wars pancake molds from Williams Sonoma.You can make the batter ahead of time; I don't think it really matters and it doesn't seem to "improve" it (I have the same philosophy about Yorkshire pudding batter). You don't have to separate the eggs and whisk up the whites if you don't have time, but I find it does make the pancakes much fluffier. You can't get double action baking powder here, so just use regular baking powder if you don't have it. The double action variety does make the pancakes quite a lot lighter, but they'll still turn out fine with regular baking powder.

Now for my Canadian secret tip: knowing when the pan is the right temperature. Warm up your pan over medium heat, and when you think it's ready, flick some cold water onto the surface with your fingers. If the water sizzles and disappears immediately, the pan's too hot. If the water sits there and does nothing, it's too cold. If it forms into a plump bead that merrily sits there and sizzles a bit, it's just right. I use a nonstick pan or griddle, so I just put a little rapeseed/sunflower oil on a paper towel and grease the surface very lightly.

Big Fat American Pancakes

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 3/4 tsp double action baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 tbsp sugar

2 large eggs, separated

3 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

1 cup milk

Into a large bowl, sift the flour and baking powder (you can then sift it again, if you like). Add the sugar and salt, and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they're dry, but not stiff.  In a large measuring jug, stir together the milk, melted butter, and egg yolks. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry, and whisk by hand until most or all of the lumps are gone. Carefully fold in the egg whites with a spatula until combined. The batter will be quite thick - like drop scone or crumpet batter - so don't be tempted to add more milk. I usually scrape the batter back into the large measuring jug and use it to pour the batter into the pan. 

Pour the batter into the hot pan in whatever shape or size you'd like - it will spread a little as it cooks. When the top is covered in bubbles and the sides start to look dry (or lift the pancake and check it to make sure it's not burning.), flip it over and cook for another 2 minutes or so.

Put a little butter on top, drown it in maple syrup, and watch your kids go nuts on the sugar rush. And enjoy.