5 kitchen tools that I love and 1 that I hate

I'd like to take a moment to celebrate five kitchen tools that I really enjoy using and one that drives me crazy. I've limited my list to (mostly) hand, non-electric or electronic tools. In no particular order:

1. Spoon rest
When my cousin sent this device to us as a gift (sans spoon, obviously), we had to call her to ask her what it was. Turns out it's a very space-efficient spoon rest. It lives in the middle of our stovetop, and has something standing in it virtually whenever we cook. Great for big wooden spoons, spatulas, rubber spatulas.

2. Egg separator
Not a great picture, but I love an egg separator because it is such a crazy one-use-only device. It does its job really well, and it does no other job at all.

3. Chocolate chunker
This is a new edition. It solves the problem of how to break off a chunk of chocolate for baking. It is very effective, chunks the chocolate with precision so that you don't get more than you want and, ahem, looks bad-ass.

4. Mezzaluna
A double-bladed mezzaluna (half-moon) knife with its own round-welled cutting board. This makes cutting the fresh herbs that we love so much not feel like drudgery. I look forward to using it both on the herbs we get from the farm and on the ones we're (finally) growing to grow ourselves this summer.


5. Timer
Also a new addition, and the one electronic tool in the bunch. This device has four timers that you can set for different times. It's terrific when half a batch goes in the oven and then the other batch goes in 6 minutes later. It's also great when there are three different things cooking on three burners, all with different cooking times. It can "remember" a time, too, so we tend to keep one of the four timers set to 4 minutes, yielding a perfect pot of tea.

And one I hate:
The Pastry Bag
Every time I use the pastry bag, whatever is going in it squishes out all over the place. This one has a good nozzle design, so I don't get leaks there, but I do have trouble filling it cleanly, and then stuff inevitably squeezes out the back end. I'm perfecting my twisting technique, which helps, but I recently saw a recipe that tipped me off to what may be the problem. It called for filling to 10 inches of a 14-16 inch bag. My bag is only 10 inches total; its small size forces me to either put very little pastry/frosting/whatever in the bag and refill a bunch (suboptimal) or squeeze it out the back end (sub-suboptimal).

Differential Parental Awareness

We have a two-year-old who does not seem destined for a career in radio or public speaking. Perhaps his speech will clear up before he writes his first resume, but for now, he's hard to understand. The way he only honors consonants in the t and d family (eschewing the c and k consonants) and shortens words he considers too long (dessert becomes ert) makes for a language all his own. Occasionally, I'm at a total loss. But more often than not, I can understand him.

I can understand him because I go through the morning routine with him. Plus, I spend Wednesdays and Fridays with him. Not only do I hear his wacky words more than most anyone else; I also have context. When he tells a story, chances are that I was there to see the dump truck or the balloon or the birdie.

It does not surprise me that I have to translate for Teddy with strangers or people who don't spend much time with him. But I also often have to translate for him to mommy, who is not enjoying the same privilege of time that I have with him. It's emblematic of a gap in awareness of what's going on with Teddy day to day. With our current family arrangement, I'm the one who knows what he had for lunch and how long he napped and whether he sat on the potty for 10 minutes with nothing to show for it (ok, he has "hurray! you sat on the potty! high five!" to show for it). Sometimes I think I should fill out a little sheet like the child care centers do: Teddy napped from 12:30-2:15. He had his diaper changed twice. He ate his whole (half) sandwich at lunch. This kind of knowledge, has, of course, been the provenance of moms in so many families. It's one of those things that I sometimes have to remind myself to treasure as a stay-at-home dad.

Floor-level Foosball

On a visit to the home of our friends Kenny and Liz, I saw a brilliant idea: their foosball table, sans legs, on the floor. Floor level foosball seems much easier and enjoyable for the six-and-under boys that we have and Kenny and Liz have. This morning, our two-year-old fell off the box he stands on to play foosball at our house. He was fine, but it was a little traumatic for the two of us.

Kenny and Liz have one thing at their house that we don't at our house: floor space. Their farm house has a lot more space than our 1920s humble city home. Our foosball table might be safer on the basement floor, but it would not be hospitable on the frigid concrete. Maybe your house has a spot for legless foosball. It's great for the short-legged crowd.

The Vader Project @ The Warhol

Boy, did I enjoy the Vader Project exhibit that opened today at the Andy Warhol museum. Paige sent me off without the boys this morning for a quick visit, and it was wonderful to view the 100 helmets each decorated by a different contemporary artist with no one to carry and no worries that someone in my party was going to touch a helmet or knock over a pedestal. I'll go back at some point and take the boys, who have not yet seen one minute of any Star Wars movie.

One of my favorites was the Vader helmet reinterpreted as a Kangol hat by KaNO.

If you can't go in person (everyone who can, should), check out this set of Flickr photos from an earlier mounting of the exhibit.

25 Things I Won't Miss Giving Up for Lent

Here's my list of things I wouldn't miss if I were giving them up for Lent:

1. SUVs
2. Reality TV
3. Brussels sprouts
4. Jazz recorded before 1960
5. Jazz recorded since 1960
6. Live jazz
7. Yogurt
8. Mountain West Conference basketball games
9. The comic strip Cathy
10. Waxing
11. Grapefruit juice
12. The Left Behind novels
13. Orange flavored chocolate
14. Coffee
15. Actuarial tables
16. Catherine Zeta-Jones
17. Caramel popcorn
18. Caramel apples
19. Carmel, CA
20. MySpace
21. Ugly Euro-looking sneakers
22. Support hose
23. Echoes with John Diliberto
24. Music on cassettes
25. Pilates

Bodily Functions

One thing about parenting young children is how front and center bodily functions become. No, I'm not going there...well, I am going to go there, but not just yet. This reality starts out very early in the day when my boys wake up wanting breakfast in a way that suggests that they've been wandering in a dessert for 12 days. Their hunger is so urgent. Some days, with all that needs to be done, after I fix them breakfast first thing, I do another hour's worth of stuff before I get to sit down and eat. Or, if I sit down while they're eating, my meal is punctuated by 1,100 trips to the kitchen for something they want or need. Yes, I can and do say no, but our family seems pretty unorganized at this stage, and often something has been left off the table that needs to be there.

Then, there are the noses. My 2-year-old says very endearingly "my nose are running" and "peez wipe my nose". I much prefer these reports and his willing blowing to the wrestling match that occurs over sinus-sourced mucus with some children. Still, there's an urgency about it. And then, there are moments when I'd really like to blow my nose, and I can't because I'm carrying a) children, b) groceries, c) my work bag, d) my cell phone, trying to arrange a sitter or e) all of the above. Dont' get me started on coaching my 6-year-old to blow his nose with the kleenex rather than pick the dead-of-winter monster boogers he picks and arrays nicely on the kleenex.

Finally, of course, there's the bathroom. The fact that our toddler doesn't use the potty, and sometimes I need to very badly and can't get there for whatever reason.

It all just makes me realize that parenting young children is primal. We are in charge of people who grow slowly out of their helplessness, and it forces us to put some of our most basic wants and needs on hold.

Welluary

I feel compelled to write a word of thanks to the germs that inhabited my toddler from November 1-December 31 (but only on the most inconvenient days) for staying away all of January. My first two-months as a part-timer were marked by constant scrambles for care on the days when Teddy couldn't go to child care because he was sick.

Maybe he got a stronger immune system for Christmas, but the child didn't miss a day in January. And the snow days and delays that peppered January didn't derail me too much either. Thanks especially to neighbor Mary for help with that one delay.

It's become clear that this part-time work, part-time SAHD arrangement can work as long as everyone goes where they're supposed to when they're supposed to. It's also clear that I can't depend on that; something will always come up. That said, I'm grateful for a disease-free January.