same room, same sites

back at the Radisson in Alesund. Do you like the snow?

spotted in Copenhagen

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's warning to all the leaders who pass by on their way to the Climate Change Summit next week. Sorry for the blurry shot.

Sunday Squash

After a busy weekend cleaning out the closet under the stairs ( and just in time-- all my Christmas stuff was haphazardly stashed there from last year) and wrapping up a restful family sabbatical (Norway beckons Michael once mire) we enjoyed this bountiful Sunday dinner. I tossed some quinoa and toasted walnuts with brown rice, topped with apple chicken sausage and served with some nutty roasted butternut squash. Wash it down with a little smoky Pinot and call it a good night!


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changing shapes

ever since michael's been home we've all been completely addicted to stockholm band miike snow  and owen especially loves to get a good morning dance of "animal" before breakfast (we haven't had this much fun since "crazy" back in '07).  kcrw gives them a lot of airplay--sylvia, plastic jungle song for no one have had some good remixes and are also fun ones for a solid rumpus.  i posted some videos owen made but i wasn't totally comfortable with the auto-linking to itunes and getting an email from youtube about possible copyright infringment.  it's all "fair use" apparently (i take it on high authority--thanks john!) but i thought these picture collages might be just as fun (for now)...

here's owen marching his own beat to animal:

and here's owen playing the sierradog piano to burial:

fall feasting

today we picked up our last fall basket (michael did a great job spreading the bounty on the counter!) and it seemed a good time to catch up with the snaps i'd been collecting over the last few weeks of everything from october sunflowers to fall tomatoes.  owen and i had fun making the collages (although he did want to include some rocket doodle art from my phone--but that'll be a later post. . .).  i love how the late harvest tomatoes look like squash, and they've been wonderfully robust (not at all mealy).  they're certainly no august tomatoes, and they're especially delish roasted and spread over some whole grain crostini with a bit of creamy goat cheese. . .

since we bought a salad spinner (thank you home goods-- $19 for a kitchen aid pump spinner!) prepping our greens has been lots more fun.  owen washed, rinsed and spun these beet greens all by himself!  we enjoyed these in a simple foil steam pouch thrown on the grill with some onion, salt, pepper and EVOO.

before i put these root veggies int he oven to roast i couldn't resist taking a snapshot--i parboiled the potatoes with the beets and everything turned a lovely lavender.  on the right are the pictures of my first ratatouille effort--i came across an old cooks illustrated that had a recipe for roasting the zucchini and eggplant and it was well worth the effort!  next time i'll make a double batch!

finally, the best part of the harvest has been sharing it with friends. . . we had some of our favorite people over for a "fancy food" dinner party and were gifted with the most gorgeous persimmons and pomegranates (fallen right off the tree).  michael and i made our favorite spatchocked grilled chicken and opened up our "swedish" red quinoa--a first for all of us and apparently we have an insider who can get his hands on this amazing grain (i'm not even sure if that's the right classification?) so watch for it in trader joes!  i followed the swedish directions (more or less) to cook and tossed with some couscous, toasted walnuts and dried apricots.  very tasty!  of course the "fancy" wasn't over until we savoured the "fancy quince" dessert and michael and i knew it was time to open our bottle of harvest reisling we'd been saving.  i knew it was a good evening when the next morning lined up next to the sink was a water xylophone of all of our "fancy" glasses. . .

and this is all but a prelude to thanksgiving!

Update: I came downstairs to find Sierra had figured out if he knocked the back cushions down he could outsmart the cardboard (or us) and still sleep in feathered luxury


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a place in the sun

i'm in my morning spot and sierradog is out on the little balcony next to my desk.  he has an old dogbed out there which started as a measure to keep him off the futon/couch in the office but it's become a morning ritual for us these last few weeks--he enjoys the sun and i enjoy the writing companion.

but we've been having trouble keeping sierradog off the couch--in his old dog age not only is he getting more stubborn but demanding less dog-ish accommodations and more princely places to rest . . so lately we've taken to leaving a flattened cardboard box on the cushions when we leave the house and at night (sometime around 2 am he sneaks downstairs and cozies up until he pokes michael out of bed at quarter to 6 for his morning walk).  owen has eagerly joined the crusade: "NO! sierradog THIS [pointing to sdog's new ortho dog bed fluffed up with a velour blanket] is YOUR couch!)" and has enjoying policing someone besides himself (i  know i know he needs a younger brother).

so yesterday we went out for some errands and decided to stop for lunch before heading home.  right when we were getting to leave owen said smiling : "oh, mom, dad, don't worry.  sierra is NOT on the couch.  i locked him on the patio so he can just stay on his bed outside!". my little problem solver. . .

(at that point michael said "oh YOU locked him in there?" and he had, indeed, been let back inside before we left...)

PJC

We're driving back from Nana & Papa's place and Owen (who had a bath and is wearing flannel-y pants and a tee shirt) just explained the following useful distinction:

I'm not wearing pajamas but these clothes FEEL like pajamas so they're Pajama Clothes. You can just call them PJC.

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Mmmmmm

Reason #73 why we love trader joe's: proof & bake chocolate croissants.


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haunting halloween highlights!

while i baked my favorite orange chocolate cupcakes (with limoncello frosting delish!) the boys worked on carving up some super spooky jack-o-lanterns.  jack is my favorite and well, the spider is just eeek!  we learned that owen LOVES toasted pumpkin seeds but isn't such a big fan of the slimy prep work (he makes a much better cupcake helper!).

 

halloween morning owen was proud to put on his "science guy" costume-- with a donated lab coat (thanks janae!), some carefully applied rit dye (thanks nana!), a serious bowtie search (who knew? jcrew!), and plenty of fun science-y scrapbook stickers we assembled a costume i think bill nye would be proud of! ("i am NOT a doctor, i'm a SCIENCE guy")

then off to owen's first costume party--blake's 4th birthday bash where owen had a fine time with the princesses.  my favorite snap here is the special "lab goggle" wearing for eating pizza.

and finally, all hallow's eve.  this was by far the best halloween i can remember (there was that taxi ride in seattle and those parties up on campus view...).  a progressive party with my awesome neighbors--note the fancy "appletini" drinks, pumpkin cupcakes and father-son spooky hide and seek; trick or treating with lily and stella; and just enjoying the holidays at home with my family (nana, sal, jenn & lily joined us too!).

"This is no ordinary island"

last night owen & i finished reading our first chapter book together-- moominpapa at sea.  we had run into moominmania over in scandanavia and got our first moomin book at junibacken along with some other treasure tomes.  when we were in helsinki, finland in july we made the pilgirmage to the moomin shop and decided to get something we'd all enjoy this as a bedtime saga-- after all, moominpapa at sea is about how the  funny little moomin  family gets on their boat the adventurer (insert plane here) and sets sail for a dot on the map where there's nothing but a lighthouse and the sea and the weather, with boats in the far distance.  it reminded us of our norwegian "boat" room, watching the hurtigurten dock outside our window, snuggling up in one big bed and where the rain came every day and the sun never set. . .

but enough nostalgia, owen is clamoring over me to tell his side of the story, and to keep me focused on the story.  here's the book as owen explains it (he's making sure i write every word):

[warning! spoiler alert!]

there are three moomins: moominmama, moominpapa and moomintroll.  there is also little my.  moominmama paints flowers on the lighthouse walls.  moominpapa is writing about the sea in his notebook.  moomintroll he gives the groke the lamp outside. the groke loves the lantern outside.  and the fisherman is really the lighthouse keeper!  my favorite part is the sea horses because moomintroll watches them dance.  the funniest part is when the ligthouse keeper puts on moominpapa's hat! oh, and i love the part with the ocean gives them a gift (what are those sticks of wood called?) oh driftwood!  that was magic!

and here's my summary with some thoughts as well-- the moomins leave their grove because life has gotten too easy, too predictable.  moominpapa in particular feels unimportant and that his family doesn't need him.  they find an island on a map and set out on this adventure.  the island and the sea work their hardest to make life inhabitable--the roses moominmama brought won't grow (so she paints a garden inside the stark lighthouse walls instead), the peaceful hollow moomintroll finds is inhabited by red ants, and the sea washes devastates any attempt at making the island home.  they are utterly alone on the island with a few exceptions--the beautiful sea horses that moomintroll wants to befriend (but he learns they are  vain creatures who are only meant to exist in his imagination), the icy groke that is drawn to moomintroll's lantern and freezes everything in his path out of fear (but becomes his unexpected friend and the better dancer after all) and the fisherman who avoids the lighthouse and the moomins with nothing short of hostility (but he too isn't what he seems!).  the lighthouse has been abandoned and all traces of the lighthouse keeper show a lonely, and at times, terrified man who has mysteriously vanished.  and to top it all off, the lighthouse won't light.

so, the driftwood and the magic--the sea (which has been terrorizing the island so much that all of the plants and bushes literally up and move away from the shore until they are clinging to the walls of the lighthouse so that the moomins can barely get in and out) finally destroys the fisherman's home and leads to a (i think this is the denoument if i remember my book reporting) a confrontation between moominpapa and the sea.  moominpapa has been obsessively keeping a notebook to "understand" the sea (conducting all kinds of experiments and trying to devise equations that lead only to more questions) and not until the angry storm does he lay down and realize  the island has a heartbeat.  moominpapa approaches the sea, not in hopes of mastery but in defense of the entire island:

You've pestered us in every way you can, but it hasn't worked.  We're getting along somehow, in spite of you.  I've learnt to understand you, and that's what you don't like, do you?  And we haven't given up, have we?  By the way. . . to be perfectly fair, it was jolly jecent of you to give us that crate of whisky.  I know why you did: you knwo when you're beaten, don't you?  But to get your own back by taking it out of the island was a petty thing to do.  Now, I'm only saying all this because--well-because I like you.

The sea responds by sending a plank of driftwood--and then another, and another.  This was one of our favorite parts--and then we started to suspect the fisherman was really the lighthouse keeper all along.  It ends with the fisherman-lighthouse keeper's birthday and the moomins give him a party.  The cycle of loneliness and isolation is broken and the now-named lighthouse keeper goes up to the lighthouse loft, moomintroll goes to see the groke even though he doesn't have any more parrafin in the lamp, moominpapa goes out on his ledge and they see the lighthouse lit for the first time. . .

And I'll stop here because owen wants me to write:

Moominpapa is just a sea guy.


tonight we began James and The Giant Peach!


(funny enough, we read Roald Dahl's Boy on our first stay in Norway--it was one of the few English books at the ark bookshop--where he talks about growing up in Norway and eating pickled herring for breakfast!) 

"science rules!"