When C wakes up from his nap, he comes and finds me and Ruby in the front room. Usually I am working on my computer, with the projector on. We stared playing around with it one day. He’d put his hand up on it, and I would “paint” his hand. This evolved into writing letters (he recognizes c and r; we were working on w and j). I made a big X up in the right hand corner, and he claimed it was a plane, so I made it look more like a plane. Then I had him stand up against the screen and I traced his face in the bottom left corner. He thought that was pretty funny, and of course would not hold still, so it’s all jumbled!

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 11:07 pm)

Time to make chili paste! You can’t make good mexican food without it. We imported dried chilis especially for this purpose. One big bag of dried New Mexico chilis and one smaller bag of pasillas. I know in the past we have also used ancho chilis. C is wearing the plastic gloves, for the faint of skin, because your hands can get irritated from the capsaicin. Just slice open the dried chili, take out the seed and ribs (we save the seeds and occasionally sprinkle them in certain dishes — mostly at a whim), then soak them in warm water for about an hour. Then grind them to a paste in a blender or food processor. We actually bought a new blender specifically for this task, having left our really nice blender in the US along with the rest of our kitchen appliances. So, we loaded it up with soaked chilis, only to discover that it didn’t work! Frantically, I ran upstairs to our neighbors and asked to borrow their blender. This is not a popular appliance here, and he only recognized the word after I said “You know, to make milk shakes.” He said they only had a food processor, so I borrowed that. It worked great. I’ll have to get one of those some day… Anyway, after you paste the chilis, freeze the paste in ice cube trays and pop ’em out into a bag and they will keep in the freezer for a really long time. We had one big batch for 18 months!

One or two cubes with a pound of meat (we prefer ground turkey), a can of chopped tomatoes, some chopped onion and garlic, some cumin, oregano and salt… yum yum tacos, nachos or burritos! Half of a cube with a little cinnamon, sugar and some chocolate and cream enough to make it fluid makes a fantastic chocolate-chili sauce for plantains. Mmmm…

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 12:02 am)

C got the baby backpack on today, and was walking around with it. I think he finds it challenging to balance with it on, which is interesting for him. After I took this picture, he continued to walk around with it for a while, and then would take it off and put things in it, and carry them around.

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 12:09 am)

Krips invited us to celebrate Dīwali at her place. From Wikipedia: Dīwali or Dīpāwali (also transliterated Deepavali; Sanskrit: row of lights) is the Hindu Festival of Lights. Dīwali festival symbolises the defeat of evil and the lamps are lit as a sign of hope for mankind. It is one of the most popular and eagerly awaited festivals of India. It is celebrated for 5 consecutive days in the Hindu month of Ashwayuja which usually corresponds to the month of October or November. Hindus, Jains and Sikh celebrate Dīwali and use the occasion to celebrate life and strengthen relationships.

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 12:15 am)

Just like the days of yore, when they carried their infants into battle! (Or is that his baby doll? It’s hard to tell). There’s got to be a story behind this one, but I don’t know it.

Katy(posted on Jun 2, 2006 at 12:11 pm)

“Vitamin C” is one of C’s numerous nicknames… and this is Vitamin C named “C-Max”!

Katy(posted on May 22, 2006 at 10:12 pm)

Another quiet afternoon at home — we had lunch, read in the reading room for a while and then cleaned up in the kitchen.

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 3:28 am)

I love this old lady! She is making a big crispy cracker (I guess it’s pretty traditional). They are really good with soup. I bought the package purely for the picture of Mor, though (that’s Norewgian for “mother”), before I found out the crackers were great. Can’t you just imagine Mor taking on Aunt Jamima? My money’s on Mor.

Katy(posted on May 22, 2006 at 10:15 pm)

We did some baking today after dinner. Ruby mostly hung around on the floor, or with papa, but C did some of the work with me. He likes to use his little children’s baking implements, like his rolling pin and dough crimper. Unfortunately he has this habit of licking the dough. So he always gets his own piece, just for C.

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 1:14 am)

Chris took C out of the bedroom when he woke up early this morning, so Ruby and I could get a little more sleep. They went in the reading room, where Chris napped a little more and C read quietly, sitting in the curl of Chris’s legs. How cute!

Katy(posted on Feb 5, 2006 at 1:26 am)