Bloody Football

Every kid who has ever been injured in any game of junior football I have ever watched has brought tears to my eyes. I knew it would eventually be one of mine and the Universal Mother in me grieved.

Then it happened – just two weeks before the grand final – and he is now 12 weeks out of action.

Love you Dan. X

Taking Things Into Your Own Hands

I remember how funny it was, when my boys were still at kindergarten, to see the occasional little girl with an odd asymmetrical haircut. One day they would be adorable, neat, clean, symmetrical miniatures of their mums, but with lace-frilled ankle socks and wispy piggy tails, and the next day they would turn up to kindy, equally well dressed but with monster hair – ragged and choppy. Of course the little version had played hairdressers and now the horrified mum needed to explain the cute travesty to anyone who would listen.

Fast forward 10 years – they say boys develop more slowly than girls – and my 14 year old decides to cut his own hair.

Okay, so that’s not actually him. There was some other overly confident teen in this world who went down the same pathway in life. Truth was, when I first saw my own son’s hair, I went into shock and just had to fix things up!

Just now I went on a Google search and found a whole lot of little folk who took the scissors into their own hands.

 

Food Boys Love To Eat: Punjabi Cabbage

I was a little surprised when my son requested I make this very, very healthy dish. I hadn’t made it for ages and he missed it. This recipe is from a brilliant book called A Little Taste of India.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons oil1 onion, roughly chopped

3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

1 inch piece of ginger, chopped (OR add ground ginger later—this is the cheaper option)

2 green chillies, seeded and chopped

1 tsp cumin seeds

4 cups finely sliced cabbage

1 tsp ground turmeric

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 TBSP unsalted butter

METHOD:

Put the onion, ginger, garlic and chilli in a food processor and chop until fine but not a paste. This can also be done by hand. Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan and fry the onion mixture until soft but not brown. Add the cumin seeds and turmeric and stir for 1 minute. Add the cabbage, stirring thoroughly until all the cabbage is covered in the yellow paste. Add the salt, pepper, cumin, coriander and cayenne pepper. Stir to coat the cabbage well, then cook for ten minutes, with the lid of the saucepan on, stirring occasionally, until soft. If the cabbage becomes too dry add 1-2 tablespoons of water. Stir in the butter and add salt to taste.

So Judge Me #6 – My Son Did Work Experience At Gatehouse!

My oldest son was totally unprepared for his upcoming weeks of compulsory work experience. We had hooked up one week with a mechanic at Toyota, but he hadn’t shown a whole lot of gumption in arranging his second week of experience. So I suggested he spend the second week with me at Gatehouse. He flatly refused at first. But then, as the idea began to take form, and the empty week began to loom, he agreed.

He couldn’t eat breakfast on his first day. He was dreadfully nervous. And I guess I should have been a little more understanding as it is not a typical day for a school kid, to be hanging out in the heart of Melbourne’s Red Light district, with a bunch of women who work, and sometimes even sleep rough, there. However, I reminded my son that he has always visited prisons and helped support ex-offenders in the community, and that our women are pretty much the same, many of them having been prisoners in the past.

I had to run my son through our volunteer training program, and this is when I realised the unique opportunity which had presented itself to instill and reinforce in my son a respect for all women – a rare opportunity in this day of on-line pornography, continuing objectification of women, and extreme violence towards women which exists in our entrenched paternalistic society.

And then I took him across the road to the drop in centre. It was cosy on that cold June day. Food on the tables. Big inviting couches and smiling faces. Babies. Laughter. I saw my son begin to relate and relax. Gatehouse was working its unique magic on him.

He had a wonderful week. He encountered many people who warmly welcomed him. But, best of all, was the feedback I received from my son and from the clients. On his last day, as we walked away to our car, he said, “There really are so many good people in the world, aren’t there, mum?” Then yesterday, one of our women approached me and said, “You have done such a great job with your son. He was so polite and respectful. I wouldn’t expect that from a teen-aged boy. And…” she added with a cheeky smile, “…he’s very good looking.”

 

What Was He Thinking #2

Dan is going to high school this year and last night he tried his brand new, slightly oversized, still shop-creased uniform on. Whilst he kept it on for the whole evening I truly did not not expect, with two whole days of school holidays left, to see him in it again this morning.

 

Food Boys Love To Eat: Banana Cake With Maple and Cinnamon Frosting

(Not my photo but it looks just like this)

Ingredients for the cake:

1 1/2 cups Gluten Free flour (I like Orgran)

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

3/4 cups of sugar

3 bananas, mashed

1/2 cup lightly flavoured vegetable oil

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon real vanilla essence

Method:

Grease and line a standard sized loaf tin.Sift flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Add the sugar. Make a well in the centre and add the bananas, oil, vanilla essence and eggs. Stir until smooth then bake in an oven at 150 degrees Celsius for 1 hour. Allow to cool then ice with Maple and Cinnamon Frosting.

Frosting:

100 grams soft butter

1/4 cup pure icing sugar, sifted

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and cream until light and fluffy.

Gluten Free Note: The gluten free flour in this recipe makes the cake moist yet light. It is best eaten on the same day.

Living With Boys #1: American Football

This is the first post of an ongoing photographic essay documenting life with teen aged boys.

 

What Was He Thinking?

I know this is a terrible photo. Sorry. I was trying to document a strange phenomenon which occurs in my house every Saturday. The phenomenon goes unnamed as I am almost sure such behaviour has never been observed anywhere ever before in any culture or throughout any era in history. It is only by luck I was able to capture a shimmery glimpse of this strangeness today on my Iphone. The situation I am trying to describe is my nearly teenage boy wearing school uniform on Saturdays. Every week we have an altercation over it. I say, “You hate school! Why are you wearing your school uniform? Its Saturday! I can’t take you out looking like that.”  Reply? “Hrumph.”

If I hadn’t photographed him I doubt you would have believed it could be true.

Post script: Late in the afternoon – same day as photograph – I was able to convince him into taking a bath and washing his whiffy, greasy, pubescent self. When he alighted from the bathroom, all shiny, fragrant and easy to love, guess what he was still wearing???

Food Teenagers Love To Eat: Lemon Slice

Ok, to be completely honest, I love to eat this one too. But being a Coeliac means a few small modifications to the ingredients. In Australia you can buy Arnott’s Rice Cookies. Because the cookies have a largish component of coconut in them and the recipe already asks for coconut, I would use fewer cookies and add some almond meal to make up the weight difference. It is a slice that should be eaten quite quickly as the butter icing can become dry if stored a couple of days in the refrigerator , but yu-um. At our house it doesn’t usually last that long.

Lemon Slice Biscuit Base:

125 grams butter

1/2 a tin of sweetened condensed milk

1 cup of dessicated coconut

250 gram packet of Arnott’s Marie biscuits, crushed                                                    (Gluten Free Note: substitute Marie biscuits with 2/3’s Arnott’s Rice Cookies and 1/3 almond meal. Next time I make this gluten free I will try 1/2 Artnott’s Rice Cookies and 1/2 Leda Gingernut Cookies.)

Juice and rind of one lemon

Melt butter and add condensed milk. Stir in other ingredients and press firmly into a paper lined slab tin (approx. 24cm x 24cm). Put in refrigerator to cool. Ice with lemon icing and cut into squares.

Lemon Icing:

Lemon juice from 1/2 to 1 lemon (and rind if so inclined)

1 teaspoon of soft butter

Approximately 1 cup of pure icing sugar – add more if the icing is too runny

Mix all ingredients together and whip until fluffy and light.

Food Teenagers Love to Eat: Kiwi Crisps

(photo is from http://www.foodlovers.co.nz/recipes/kiwi-crisps.html )

I have been making these biscuits ever since my mum ceased baking them herself, due to her making a “lifestyle change”. Prior to that dreadful day of my mum’s retirement she never had a freezer which did not contain a full spectrum of baked goodness. So I had to start making my own Kiwi Crisps. They are a solid, never-fail, chocolate chip cookie recipe, which are even delicious if you cannot wait for the defrosting process. Yum.

Kiwi Crisps:

1 375 gram packet of chocolate chips

3 cups of plain flour

4 teaspoons of baking powder

250 grams of softened butter

1/2 cup of caster sugar

4 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk

Cream butter and sugar with the condensed milk, until white and creamy. Work in sifted flour and baking powder. Add chocolate chips and distribute well through cookie dough. Roll into walnut sized balls, place on a baking tray which has been lined with baking paper and flatten with a flour-dipped fork. Bake for around 10-15 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius, or until golden brown.

Note: This recipe can easily be doubled and is suitable to freeze.