Colour Taste Texture: An Autistic Cook Book
My daughter is autistic and has a number of unusuakodd behaviours in relation to food. For example, we went to the zoo (she loves animals) and when I asked her the best part of the day she said it was the Chocolate Caramel Slice (just what a parent wants to hear after spending so, so much money). She is obsessed with junk food! But she frequently skips meals because she’s “not hungry”—and that includes meals that are simply us parents begging her to eat a sugary treat (like chocolate caramel slice) rather than nothing at all.
When she does eat, there is an extremely small range of acceptable dishes. We are constantly perusing recipe books to find more foods that she is willing to taste (often even a bite is too much to ask). And she loves recipe books, too! She brings them home from the school library all the time. Of course it’s mostly about the treats, but there’s usually one non-dessert item that she’s at least hypothetically willing to try. Having said that, I’ll often choose and cook something with her input and assistance only to have her change her mind at the end of the process and still refuse to try it.
[Memo to self: WHY does she get full so quickly? Investigate. Maybe it’s some kind of medical thing.]
Every so often, though, we have a real victory. For example, she has been eating a stick of celery almost every day for the last two years. It has to be slathered in peanut butter (smooth not crunchy) and choc chips, but she eats it. This is a HUGE deal. It’s currently her only acceptable green vegetable and if she required it to be deep-fried and served with ice cream we would do that. (She also takes iron and vitamin C tablets, because she would otherwise be literally malnourished due to her many food aversions and her general lack of appetite.)
Celery (and food therapy) was also key to my understanding that a crunchy texture is something that Lizzie really enjoys. (Which was quite a revelation, since I dislike almost all crunchy foods myself.) Today I made her cucumber sandwiches, and even though she ate only three bites before getting full, she said she liked it! (Then Chris and I finished them, and they were so good I made another just for myself.)
Sidebar: Cucumber sandwich recipe
Thinly slice some cucumber, and thickly butter two slices of white bread. Lay out the cucumber slices on the chopping board and press a paper towel on them to absorb the moisture (otherwise they’ll immediately go soggy, plus make your bread soggy). Spread mayo on the lower slice of bread, then arrange the cucumber in a single thin layer and sprinkle it with salt. Cut off the crusts and serve in triangles immediately (or it’ll get soggy). Watch the film “The Importance of Being Ernest” as you eat them for extra flavour.
So that was a win today!
As soon as I heard this book might be helpful for autistic kids, I wanted it.
It literally has chapters on colours, tastes (sweet, bitter, salty, etc), and textures—what autistic people tend to like and dislike, and how to modify dishes based on those criterion!
Autistic people don’t “hate vegetables”… they probably hate bitter tastes, or that farty smell (looking at you, cabbages), or crunchy foods (hello salad), or foods mixed together (again with the salad). If you can figure out WHY they love or hate a food, you might be able to expand their list of safe foods by changing the texture, colour, or environment. Incredible!
The author is autistic, which gives them excellent insights as well as some blind spots (eg his editor pointed out that in the colour section he had completely left out green, a colour to which he is so averse he forgot it existed). He clearly loves bread, and recipes with yummy dairy in them (buttermilk, cream cheese, butter) as there are loads of those.
The book isn’t written with a kid audience in mind, so although I started reading it aloud to Lizzie we quickly decided it was best for me to read it and for her to look at the recipes and pick which ones were best for her (interestingly, not every recipe had a picture with it, which was frustrating for her).
The author also uses cooking spray to stop things like dough sticking to other things, which to me is nothing short of a slap in the fact to autistic people in general and me in particular. Doesn’t he know that cooking spray has a horrible bitter taste that ruins almost everything it touches? And he says to use it on SWEET dishes? IS HE EVEN AUTISTIC??
Ahem.
My daughter likes sweet things, salty things, crunchy things, smooth things, and soft things. She always wants to eat while watching YouTube because that is soothing to her. Understanding these things is key to offering her food she is more likely to eat (it is extremely difficult to get her to eat much at all).
She jumped on the French Fry recipe and I managed to not tell her that it’s extremely similar to the way I roast potatoes almost every day (a safe and delicious food for me). I adjusted it a bit—cutting out pepper (which a lot of spicy-averse people like her also hate) and adding basil and garlic (both sweet flavours) instead. She liked them, and so did every other member of the family. They need to cook for 30-40 minutes, but they’re not super difficult. Given that Lizzie doesn’t even eat potatoes (I KNOW, weird) this is a win! Potatoes are actually a really great food with lots of fibre and other goodies. And I can easily cook her some fries every time I cook roast potatoes (so, about five times a week). Three baked potato chips a few times a week is actually a great improvement in her diet. Here’s how they looked:
I’m in the (long) process of cooking cinnamon rolls right now. They’re rather finicky (eg including fresh orange juice) but clearly they’re also the author’s absolute favourite recipe, honed over many years, so I have to try them at least once!
The author likes specific cooking tools like a dough hook (okay, what is that?) and meat thermometer (ooh, I could do with one of those), and uses Fahrenheit (ugh… why YES I already boiled some bread dough today) but their insights are so incredibly valuable. It’s definitely worth scribbling all over the book as I figure out what works for us and what doesn’t.
I haven’t seen anything like it before.
Pic of the finished cinnamon rolls:
They. Were. Incredible.
The edges were crispily delicious, and the middle was a crumpet-esque land of chewy bread perfectly intermingled with air pockets thanks to the author’s beloved tangzhong (aka roux) method).
I made the icing, which was great (and mercifully simple) but honestly there was way too much. I think the tiniest little bit of icing would be best, so the buns can shine. I also think this icing would take lemon or other flavours really well. Orange would be the perfect thing for these, since they already have a tiny bit of orange in them.
The icing also ruins the look, but perhaps a perfect swirl of icing along the line of the bun would work really well.
Now I’m all excited and I’m looking through the book with newly trusting eyes, thinking, “What other wonders lie in these pretty pages?
I normally get one let’s-give-it-a-go savoury recipe per book, and a few sweet ones that sound good. This book is batting waaay above average.
Of course, I adore bread too.
The Virus Diaries: Kids
I just had someone call me for a medical survey and I was WAY too excited to talk to someone outside of my immediately family. It’s been =almost= six days.
Whatever “it” is, I’m losing it.
Unimpressed cat is unimpressed.
I managed to get both kids outside for a bit today (TJ is a ball of energy at all times; Louisette… takes after me). And we’ve all showered, and the kids have both done some book learnin’. I am winning at life, and I’ve survived a whole week of home schooling.
Proof Louisette went outside today:
Louisette also had stomach cramps today, which means our family is 4 out of 4 for having SOME kind of illness (probably a very minor gastro episode). So the question of, “Should I keep my kids home from school?” is moot for us, because everyone everywhere agrees that if your kid is sick at all they should be home.
But here’s some general advice from five experts, most of whom reckon schools should stay open and non-sick kids should stay at school (for the moment; things can change in an instant of course).
I find it absolutely astonishing that kids are not (currently) identified as the major disease vectors that they usually are. It goes against everything I know about children, hygiene, and infectious diseases. Noting for the record that I am NOT an immunologist and so you shouldn’t listen to me, allow me to give you an extremely fresh example…
TJ had a bath today. When it was time to get out, I did what I always do, and asked him to squeeze out his facewasher and give it to me so I could put it straight into the washing machine. He fished it out, started squeezing it… and then shifted his head underneath the dripping cloth so he could drink his own bath water.
It was like my very own real-life reenactment of this infamous scene from “Man Versus Wild”:
Not so cute now, is he?
Ah, who am I kidding? He’s still cute as pie.
Extremely gross pie.
When it comes to the question of, “Should I keep my kids home from school?” the answer is YES if your kids are the tiniest bit sick with anything.
(You’re probably aware that a lot of people have COVID-19 and are infectious without having any symptoms at all. Fun! And that kids tend to have much milder experiences with this virus than adults, which is good in the sense that no-one wants kids to die. Ever.)
Resource of the day:
Ten questions to ask yourself when considering keeping healthy kids at home.
1. If my kids are home, is there someone who can stay home with them, who is NOT over 60 years of age or otherwise immunocompromised?
My answer: Sorta. I’m immunocompromised but I’m also their Mum. If I wasn’t writing this blog or chronically ill I’d even be able to keep up with my work (with a certain amount of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”-related disruption).
2. Does keeping my kids home cause an essential worker (eg a health or store worker) to be unavailable?
My answer: Nah; we’re good.
3. Will my children fall behind at school if I keep them home?
My answer: Yes, a bit. But not as much as most since they’re both enthusiastic learners and Chris and I both have teaching experience. Primary kids require more input from parents while older kids are more likely to take time off school as a chance to go and see friends (which is clearly even worse than having them at school) but can also, theoretically, do homework to keep up. I think two hours a day is plenty of time for high schoolers to keep up with schoolwork. If your kid definitely can’t do school work for two hours a day at home (or can’t be trusted to stay at home), that’s going to be tricky.
4. Are my kids or any other members of the household at higher risk?
My answer: Yes, me.
5. Will my children suffer from the social isolation?
My answer: Mine barely saw people in the Christmas school holidays, so they’ll be absolutely fine.
6. Can I keep this up, possibly for months?
My answer: Looks like we’re going to find out 
7. Do I want to take a conservative approach while evidence is not 100% clear?
My answer: Yes. Although it does look like the evidence so far suggests kids are way less dangerous than usual germ-wise.
8. Is isolation going to risk the mental health or harmony of my family?
My answer: Yes, a bit, but we’re all pretty good at coping with this sort of thing (introversion helps, plus experience with my chronic illness, plus all of us are screen addicted in a big way).
9. Can the parents still work and/or earn money?
My answer: We’ll take a hit, but fundamentally yes.
10. What if the schools are all shut down completely and your isolation period is longer than you would have chosen?
My answer: At least I wouldn’t feel like this was all an over-reaction on my part. Plus we’d have official school resources to work with. In any case, if this goes on for months we’ll cope—one way or another.
Bonus kittypic.
Recommended donation of the day: Who do you know who is a single parent? They often have less secure working arrangements as well, so check they have food and toilet paper and (if you’re up to it) offer to mind their kids for X number of days (making it clear if you are/are not able to mind sick kids).
Recommended personal action of the day: Pick one area (cleaning the bathroom, washing bedlinen, washing towels, cleaning doorknobs) that you probably don’t do quite as often as you should, and choose what your new normal will be. Something sane and manageable eg I theoretically wash our bathrooms every week (that’s what I did before I got sick) but it’s more like twice a year in reality these days. Official guidelines are to wash the bathroom every time someone uses it (definitely not gonna happen—apart from anything else, us diabetics pee about 20 times a day), so I’m going to make the effort to clean the bathrooms once a week. But no more than that, or I’ll be overwhelmed and definitely fail.
Recommended hoarding item of the day: Go and see your dentist while you can. (Lockdown guidelines will allow essential visits but not checkups.)
The Virus Diaries: Fear
Happy news, shoppers: Australia produced enough food for 75 million people (those links are to two reliable sources), and we are absolutely not going to run out*. Seeing empty shelves is at the same time terrifying (“Are we going to run out of milk???”) and annoying (“Ugh, I have to go without such-and-such for a bit.”). Also dangerous, because of course shops are a great place to pick up COVID-19 and a LOT of people are visiting shops more often rather than less due to being unable to find particular items.
Once enough people realise that we will NOT run out of food (or toilet paper), things will calm down and shops will look normal again. Apparently even on total lockdown in Italy grocery shops are still open (but only one household member can shop at a time, no kids are allowed, and only a limited number of people can go in at a time in order to keep them physically separated). So there’s actually no need to stock up at all.
I understand the fear, of course. Empty shelves are an absolute classic apocalypse scenario, just under “mushroom cloud” and just above “zombie attack”. And it is dead scary when I can’t find the milk I need (‘need’).
But this empty shelf thing is going to stop as quickly as it began, and probably very soon (based on those two news articles being in my news feed on facebook, which means the reassuring facts are going viral rather than the usual panic and misinformation).
*there may be a shortage of citrus fruits at some point due to a lack of labourers. I think we can all survive that.
In other news, my portable air conditioner is SUPER DELIGHTED to see you!
Wahoooooooo!
I’m too lazy to look up the term outline of subjects that my kids’ impressively organised school emailed out at the beginning of the year. But I did get Louisette to read with me yesterday, which is just about the best thing to do with any kid. (If you’re one of those parents who gets their kid to read to them every day, you’ll do fine with home schooling.)
Dr Seuss is an interesting author. Some of his books (“Green Eggs and Ham”) make fantastic early readers. Others are full of difficult-to-read made-up words (recommended for Year 4+ I reckon) and others are a mixture. The above pic is Louisette reading “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” (doesn’t that book title sound kinda ironic suddenly?) which was quite challenging but perfect for us right now. (If in doubt, always give kids something that’s easy for them to read. Confidence and fun are MUCH more important to the reading experience than “getting challenged”… and obviously I’m talking to myself here.)
Here’s TJ looking impressively academic as he does a spelling test (“Don” and “bed” was the entire test).
Learning to read is an incredible task, taking years and years and years. But there’s no thrill like seeing one of your kids read to the other.
Other than, perhaps, the thrill of getting your standoffish cat to sprawl over your feet.
She was especially gorgeous today, I gotta say.
Zipper has three main expressions. First is her, “I despise you” expression, which you’ll see in most photos—and indeed, most of the time in real life. She has resting feline face, that’s for sure. Second is her, “Ah, poor me! I’m starving and trapped! Please have pity on meeeee!” which is the face she applies when she would like me to check her food level (it’s easier to have me check it than to bother doing it herself) or open a door (why YES she has a fully functional two-way cat door that she is perfectly able to use). The third is the expression above, which I call, “Medieval maiden disturbed while bathing in a picturesque pool in the forest”. She is beautiful, and wishes to be admired, but is far too classy to actually let people look directly at her without being offended. So yeah, she’s a cat.
That bit of broken blue plastic is a ball pit ball that was smashed by hail back when Australia was burning/flooding/storming. We haven’t fully cleaned everything up yet.
It does feel rather like we’re being hit by several apocalypses one after the other. Technically “apocalypse” means the end of the world. As in, Jesus comes back but not in a nice way. But language is flexible, and it’s come to mean “the end of normal society” which is a very different thing. Any war is utterly disrupting, and therefore apocalyptic. So is the COVID-19 pandemic. Us scifi writers have been predicting various kinds of major societal change since science fiction was invented—not because we definitely think the world is doomed, but because we have enough imagination to think that it could, and to wonder what that might look like.
There are loads of fictional books on pandemics (many of them predicting this year, since 2020 has always been a cool and futuristic-sounding year), because we have a very connected and populated world, and infectious diseases are a thing. A major pandemic was always going to happen, much like worsening droughts, fires, and extreme weather temperatures (although, as I pointed out yesterday, one of the likely side-effects of the COVID-19 virus is that the environment will benefit as people realise society is a lot more flexible than we thought). So here are my wild guesses as to what our post-coronavirus world will look like:
*A lot more people will homeschool, because they’ll discover a knack they never knew they had.
*Rights and protections for casual workers will be dramatically increased.
*Health Care (both infrastructure and staff) will suddenly be a higher priority around the world.
*Politicians, celebrities, and business-people of various kinds will use less air travel. Because no one actually LIKES long-haul travel, and because the appeal and the sheer habit of face-to-face contact will be considerably lessened.
*Many businesses will fail, including airlines, small businesses (such as escape rooms and book publishers, sadly), and restaurants. Other businesses (steaming services, DISNEY, internet services, delivery services, chatting services (Zoom especially), and home-schooling programs will make a considerable profit.
*Book sales, on the whole, will go up and even when the major demand period is over, will stay higher than they currently are—especially ebooks. Because people will most definitely have more time for reading, and some of them will form habits that last.
*Sales of antiseptic/antibiotic hand washes will go up and stay up as a lot of people add them permanently to their daily routine. (The next pandemic will of course evolve to be immune to antibiotics.)
*The world will develop a cooperative system in which health care workers travel across the world to assist when pandemics happen. They will have paid quarantine periods after returning home. Those who do get sick and recover will be in the front lines when their own country is having a surge of whatever illness it is, because they will be immune. Governments will issue immunity passes, and those with them will be paid well to do a lot of important jobs (health care of course, but also food delivery, child care, etc).
*More companies will organise themselves so that they can manufacture what is needed when there is a surge in value eg a paper towel company switching to toilet paper, perfume companies switching to sanitiser (this is happening in France), and so on.
*There will be a lot of divorces, and a baby boom.
*A lot of people will quit their jobs to start small businesses, to home school, to write a novel, etc. Most of them will get over it within 12 months.
*Most people will know somebody that has died from the COVID-19 virus (or the inability to get medical care due to an overwhelmed health system), and the world population will dip by 1% overall (the world population is steadily growing, so it won’t actually decrease the population, just slow it). People’s grief won’t be lessened because we had some warning, but it will be shared on a global level (for better or worse). It’ll be a little like Princess Diana’s death, in that strangers will be deeply affected—but those who lose someone close to them may or may not be soothed by the “shared grief” effect. (Remember your manners when others are grieving: if the person you are talking to is closer to the dead person than you, then your grief is less important than theirs. Don’t talk, listen. If you’ve lost someone very close to you, go ahead and talk. Or be silent. Whatever works for you and doesn’t harm anyone else is healthy. Don’t talk excessively about your connections to dead people you barely know.)
*Many countries around the world will crack down on those who spread fake news online. It will never be as easy to spread misinformation as it is now, although trolls and politicians will get creative in attempting to circumvent new laws. There will be a lot of people whose whole job will be to monitor and fact-check stuff before it gets to the public. People who spread deadly misinformation will be charged with manslaughter and will go to jail.
*People will, unfortunately, be even more xenophobic than they are now. (Please don’t let it be you, Dear Reader.)
There are many types of fear at the moment.
*Fear of actually dying. That’s something I’ll talk about another day.
*Fear of losing a loved one. Unfortunately, this is moderately rational. Right now is a good time to make sure you’re at peace with your parents, grandparents, and siblings. And to teach your elderly relatives to Skype, if you possibly can. (Or you can learn to talk on the phone again.) And then, unfortunately, to stop visiting them for several months.
*Fear of the invisible enemy. It really is like a horror movie where we can’t see the baddie, isn’t it? My favourite thing about being in isolation is that I feel like I can relax in some ways. If my kids get it, I’ll get it—that’s just life, and I could spend my life scrubbing or I can just accept it.
*Fear of running out of food/toilet paper. This is paramount for most people at the moment (so much closer to where we live than the fear of dying), although I think it’s going to get better in a week or two as shops return to normal and we all look at one another and say, “Er, sorry I panicked a bit there”.
*Fear of infrastructure failing. Hospitals are the most at risk, obviously. The whole point of self-isolation is to slow the virus down and flatten that curve so things don’t get as bad as they are in Italy. I’m terrified of power and/or the internet cutting out, and I think it’s possible that could happen for up to three days. Ditto drinking water, and garbage collection. And toilets (handy hint: a half bucket of water poured down a toilet will cause it to flush just fine)…PSA: DON’T flush tissues, wipes, etc down your toilet if you don’t have toilet paper. Put them in a bag in the bin or you could be the a-hole who blocks up sewage in your neighbourhood. I have some water bottles filled up and I’ll be careful to keep my laptop and the kids’ devices fully charged as much as possible. Phones will likely be fine as long as we don’t have a major event like a bushfire or hailstorm (in which case everyone calls everyone in the same five minutes and the system gets overwhelmed). But with skeleton crews of staff due to quarantines/illness, it’s possible even our phones will die for a bit. At least we’ll likely be at home with our loved ones when that happens. Don’t worry: everyone knows that any of these disasters are Serious, and they WILL be fixed quickly. Like I said, I reckon if there is serious disruption it won’t last more than three days at the absolute maximum. This coronavirus thing is a big deal, but it’s not a movie. Not everything will go wrong, honest.
*Fear of lost income. I’ve personally lost a few thousand dollars due to the cancellation of various events. It’s not fun. Others have it much worse. I don’t have any answers for you, except to make sure your friends know if you can’t buy food. This is one of the times when we have to support each other.
*Fear of keeping kids at home. Yeah, that’s a big one isn’t it?
In unrelated news, TJ now likes to sing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” at full volume, and has also begun making up new verses including the following: “In the poo poo, the mighty poo poo, the lion poos tonight…”
So that is the soundtrack of our personal corner of the apocalypse. But of course I appreciate that most families with young children will have them shouting “Into the unknooooown! Into the unknooooown! Into the unknOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWN!” and it would be a rather extraordinary 5 year-old who could hit those notes like Idina Menzel.
So. I’m one of the lucky ones.
I deliberately bought Nutella (hazelnut chocolate spread) because it’s an awesome treat that might inspire the kids to continue eating sandwiches. We’re low on bread so today we used wraps. My kids are already enthralled with the novelty of wraps (as opposed to… er… bread) and Louisette was especially impressed that I cut hers into “pretend sushi”.
Then I made both butter chicken and lemon chicken for dinner (a big effort) and both of our little punks refused to eat it. At which point I said, “I’ll be in my room” and let Chris negotiate them into eating… something.
* * *
Fear is a big deal, and it’s okay to feel scared as the world changes around you.
The most important thing is not whatever is screaming at you in your head (The LION POOPS TONIIIIIGHT… and he’s never ever going to stop and I’m going to snap and burn our house down just to make it stop), but make sure that before you act on your fear you ask yourself this question:
When this is over, who do I want to be?
Do I want to be the screaming woman snatching toilet paper from another woman in a supermarket?
Do I want to be the one with a full cupboard of hand sanitiser whose neighbour died because they kept going to the shops looking for some sanitiser of their own?
Do I want to be the one who was so concerned about the kids touching their faces that she screamed at them until they cried?
Do I want to be the one ignoring scientists and endangering the vulnerable by refusing to obey medical advice about hygiene and isolation?
Do I want to be the one spreading misinformation that makes people less safe?
Do I want to be the one yelling at an overworked and scared nurse who is too busy to answer some questions that I could probably google for myself?
Or, do I want to be the mum that made up dumb songs for the kids to sing for 20 seconds as they wash their hands?
Do I want to be the one who sorted the pantry and found a whole lot of canned vegetables to give away to a health care worker right when there were none to be found in the shops?
Do I want to be the one who made their diabetic friend feel safe by checking in on him every day, and doing his grocery shopping so he could self-isolate?
Do I want to be the one who decided that a single mum I barely know would be officially part of our family, so we could self-isolate together (eg swapping the kids back and forth, but not seeing or visiting anyone else)?
Do I want to be the one who keeps their own family close, but remembers to be considerate of the rest of the world too?
Do I want to be the one sharing happy or funny content to help other people to remember that we’re more than our fears?
Resource of the day: The weather is gorgeous! Go outside and play. It’ll tire out your kids and adorably freak out your cat!
Recommended donation of the day:
If you either have kids or like kids and you know someone who is going to struggle to keep their kids home from school, adopt them into your family and share the child care load together. (Be aware that child care is a big deal and a lot of parents will instinctively say no. That is fine.) Bonus points if they’re a health care or supermarket worker. We want those people to stay at work if they can!
Recommended personal action of the day: Wash your shopping bags and/or hang them in the sun.
Recommended hoarding item of the day: A hammock and/or tent so you can feel like you’re on vacation in your back yard.
The Virus Diaries: Rationing
[Day zero and day 1 of the Virus Diaries.]
We had our first ration rage incident last night.
For context, you should know that 8 year-old Louisette has inattentive ADD and she takes Ritalin. She barely eats as a rule—here is the aftermath of a typical breakfast:
That is lemon butter and honey on white bread. Most kids would kill for that. She has eaten one bite and then declared herself full.
Obviously, we’re long since given up on the idea of a healthy breakfast and we just try to get her to eat SOMETHING. Ritalin is known to suppress appetite but this is a typical breakfast even when she hasn’t taken her tablet yet.
One thing that DOES happen in the late afternoon/evening is that the effect of the Ritalin wears off and she is suddenly very cranky and starving. And also super duper vague (as in, you can tell her there’s a new toy for her on the kitchen bench and she won’t be able to hold the thought in her head long enough to walk through the house and get it).
A meal that’s easy enough for me to make and that she consistently likes is frozen chicken nuggets and fish (it’s a victory if we can even get her to have hot chips). She has 3 nuggets and one battered fish fillet, with tomato sauce, mayo, and lemon juice. I have stocked up on nuggets but we only have two fish fillets left. So last night I added a nugget to the usual tally but only gave her half a fish. While it was cooking I told her that I had done so and explained why, and she seemed fine with it.
When she collected the cooked meal, however, she screamed and sobbed because her piece of fish was so small. Chris calmed her down and she ate her dinner in the end. But that was our first rationing experience and it sure wasn’t pretty. Poor Louisette. She is an extremely sweet and gentle girl but coming down off Ritalin severely heightens her emotions. She and TJ are both slightly flagged (not tested yet but Louisette is on a waiting list) for being on the autism/asperges spectrum as they’re very very particular about certain things, especially Louisette eg how her shoes feel when she puts them on, and ALWAYS having a hat on outside even if it’s literally just to walk to the car. (The one exception is when swimming.)
I don’t cope well with rationing either, so there are fun times ahead. In fact, I’m so bad at rational that I often drink a full glass of water right before bed, knowing full well it’ll make me get up to pee at 2am. Just the thought of, “I shouldn’t drink anything now because it’s too late at night” is enough to make me desperate for a drink. So desperate I can’t sleep. Brilliant.
Yesterday Chris and Tim were both feeling much better and I had some errands to run (picking up and dropping stuff outside people’s houses). My junk food supply is very strong but low on non-chocolate lollies (I’m intolerant of pretty much everything but if I eat a variety of things I think the effects are less). I really love Kool Fruits (they’re like round mentos) and there is a particular local shop that usually has them, but didn’t have them the last two times I went there. So I thought I’d go in real quick and see if they had any, since no one is making me quarantine myself and it would be a very quick visit with theoretically less people than a big supermarket.
It was unusually crowded, so clearly I wasn’t the only one targeting a smaller shop in hopes of getting some food supplies. I bought a LOT of lollies and 1 litre of lactose free milk. I’m quite anxious about running out of lactose free milk because it’s one thing I’m NOT intolerant to. I have enough for about a week, and it’s extremely hard to get at the moment.
Chris has actually gone to work today, so I’ll most likely ask him to attempt to do some shopping too. I would rather he stayed at home, but at the same time I can see that it’s important to not abandon society altogether just yet. And I want more STUFF.
We have settled into our coronapocalypse outfits. I wear pajamas; TJ wears undies and nothing else; Louisette wears undies, a dressing gown, and gumboots.
With the exception of hangry Louisette, everything is quite peaceful. My kids love staying at home doing nothing. You should have seen the joy on TJ’s face when I told him we’d skip school for at least the rest of this week. Here’s an approximation:
I’m doing some school work with the kids each day (less than half an hour, which is actually plenty for most primary schoolers). TJ is in Kindy, which like many schools is doing Jolly Phonics, in which letters are introduced in roughly the order of usefulness, and each letter comes with a song and a dance move. I was able to quickly figure out where he’s up to (‘h’) and do that with him. The only hard part is that he desperately wanted to keep going. Adorable, non?
Today is ‘r’.
Louisette is in Year 3. We’ve already been practising Spanish numbers as her class has been doing Spanish for years whereas she’s only just started. I only got around to doing school stuff with her quite late yesterday, so I stuck to Spanish because I knew that even hangry Louisette would enjoy that. Today we’re doing clocks—every time I get up, I adjust the hands of a clock and ask her what time it is on my way past.
Uh oh. Tim just had diarrhea. Still no sign of fever, but that’s ominous. Or not. He had dried fruit on his breakfast, which is a classic diarrhea-inducing food.
Speaking of my cute little disease vector, here’s a fun fact: he always insists on having company when he goes to the toilet. He then sings songs (“The Lion Sleep Tonight” is a favourite at the moment; I love hearing him sing it around the house… Louisette does not), asks maths questions (“Mum, what’s 7 half of?”) and talks about computer games (yeah, that’s gonna be a thing forever I think). Last time he went to the toilet he decided it would be funny if he threw his undies around and played with them like a kitten with string.
And now he’s singing, “Peach is a stinky butt-butt” over and over. (He’s playing Mario Kart.)
Kids are gross, is what I’m saying.
Chris and I decided long ago that if any member of the family got covid-19, we would separate the house into two zones: diabetic me in the master bedroom and ensuite; Chris and the kids in the rest of the house. At the moment we’re doing a soft version of that. Chris sleeps in his study and only uses the main bathroom. I only use the ensuite. This is great for me, because I get the biggest bed to myself. (This of course inspired the classic pre-divorce question, “Daddy, why don’t you and Mum sleep in the same bed any more?” which amused me because I’m odd. And because we’re actually not getting divorced. Side note: I bet divorce rates go up after mandatory quarantining. I recommend quarantining your house in sections, for both health and sanity.)
Hmm. Tim just had diarrhea again. It’s a rare symptom of covid-19 and there’s still no fever in any members of the household, but it is a bit suggestive that he’s had a sore throat and diarrhea.
Now that I’ve told you that my 8 year-old still has tantrums and my 5 year-old is just a windmill of gastro, here’s a little dialogue I overheard yesterday:
Louisette: TJ, is it all right if I go into your room and play with your blue monkey toy?
TJ: Sure. Actually you can keep it forever.
What little angels, right?
Last night I dreamed that I ended up with twelve orphaned kittens that I oh so graciously offered to find homes for—hoping, of course, to get Chris to agree to keep at least one.
I have dreams about getting another kitten at least once a week. If I can think of a decent excuse to get a second kitten in real life, I will grab it with both hands. But of course we have Zipper, and one cat is sufficient for survival. With a cat, my immediate family, chocolate, books, and the internet, I can survive most things.
Here’s Zipper yesterday, annoyed as usual that I’ve gotten the camera out.
And I noticed yesterday that my potatoes have sprouted. Which is good!
About two weeks ago I set aside three potatoes (ie one of my rare safe foods) to plant a “The Martian”-style food source in our front garden. We’ve actually grown potatoes there before, so I feel mildly confident that I can make them grow. Of course, things escalated a lot sooner than I expected so it’s unlikely they’ll have time to grow before all of Canberra is on lockdown. Still, I’m proud of them. Especially since the basil plant I bought a week ago is already looking melancholy.
Anyway…
Resource of the day:
Fried Rice
Ingredients:
Cooked rice
Any vegetable you got, cut up small.
Any meat/eggs/tofu you got, cooked and cut up small.
Soy sauce if you have some.
A dessert spoon full of sugar.
Any oil you got.
- Fry in a pan.
- Eat.
Tim is currently liking fried rice with peas, corn, egg, and soy sauce. (Can you tell that that’s what he eats when Chris and I are eating maple marinated salmon?)
Recommended donation of the day:
Order some Chinese delivery or takeaway food. Restaurants may well close soon, and apparently some Chinese restaurants are being avoided due to people being racist. Eat that yummy yummy food while you can! Order lots, and freeze some for later. I know meat (and for that matter potatoes) are in short supply at the moment, so this is a handy way to stock up on protein.
Recommended personal action of the day: Disinfect (but don’t wet) your phone and keyboards.
Recommended hoarding item of the day: Order hot water bottles online. If a lot of people are staying home with heaters on (when the weather gets colder), we may have power outages. Save electricity and protect your family by having something that only requires ten minutes of electricity (to heat the water) every coupla hours. In fact, most hot water taps are sufficient for a hot water bottle even after the electricity is off (as you have hot water stored up in your water heater).
Alrighty Then
A few days ago, I decided to give up on NaNoWriMo (aka National Novel Writing Month, in which writers attempt to write the first 50,000 words of a novel during November each year), which was the right thing to do (the book was under-ripe and I was meant to be editing other books anyway). I love NaNoWriMo in part because I’m slightly manic depressive—enough that I can survive the inevitable depression, and live with the decisions I make when manic.
Anyway, so having left the mania train of NaNoWriMo I’ve spent my days watching TV and eating chocolate. But every so often, more or less accidentally, I did something useful around the house. Which is, you know, good and stuff.
Today, in a wild burst of enthusiasm, I set up what we call our “big pool”. We specifically bought it so I could hop in with the kids, which I did. Then I continued to supervise from a hammock. It was awesome.
Flushed with enthusiasm, I decided to attempt the impossible: feeding Louisette a Green Vegetable. To be fair, she has said to me more than once in the last week that she wants to eat more green vegetables “because I hardly eat any vegetables”.
THIS WAS THE MOMENT TO STRIKE.
Zucchini is my safest green vegetable (in terms of food intolerance), and has hardly any taste. I fried slices of zucchini in butter, garlic, and powdered fennel. Fennel, because I had Louisette sniff several herbs and choose her favourite. I had her smell it again as it was cooking (yum), and choose a cheese to go with it. Then I cut tiny squares of said cheese. When the zucchini was cooked perfectly, I turned the fry pan off and placed cheese on each slice, so it would melt juuust enough to be extra delicious.
And it was. Each slice of butter-saturated zucchini was a mouthful of glory. Louisette picked up a piece before declaring it inedible.
TJ didn’t get as far as physically touching any of it.
I also made risotto with roasted sweet potato, sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, and bacon. TJ had some of the rice, and I managed to convince him to eat some bacon. Chris and I enjoyed the risotto.
So, all in all, I’m reminded why I don’t generally make an effort.
But I did have a win this week. I bought fish fingers for the first time, and both kids loved them.
Yay.
In other news, John Scalzi mentioned “domestic felicity” in his blog a day or two ago, and I realised that should absolutely be the name of my blog. Oh well.
A thousand ingredients, and not a bite to eat
There are four people in my family: Chris, my partner, who is more or less normal food-wise; myself, intolerant of FODMAPS and salicylates (ie most fruit, vegetables, alcohol, artificial sweeteners, processed meats, and nuts); Louisette, age 7, who is intolerant of honey and sulphites, and TJ, who is more or less normal except for being 5 years old.
Standing up to make a peanut butter sandwich is enough to give me a sore back, so dinner is a real challenge. I wouldn’t say I’m succeeding, as such. Unless the bar we’re setting here is “no fatalities, no starvation”.
For example, this is what we’re eating for dinner tonight:
Chris: Literally frozen and reheated airplane food (I get some truly weird meals from a charitable food pantry at St Paul’s Anglican Church in Melba; I feed it to him so he gets a bit of variety). As usual, he doesn’t get served any vegetables because it’s too hard (he usually has a carrot at work, and sometimes adds baby spinach to his sandwich). Sad but true. On very rare occasions, I will find something at St Paul’s that the kids will eat. Usually even if they like it once, they don’t ever eat it again.
Me: Lamb chop roasted with potatoes (and usually sweet potatoes and sometimes carrot, but not today). This is my “safe” meal and I usually eat it about 3 times a week (my doctor said to cut down on starches and red meat, and I just laughed. Then I started taking fish oil tablets). Potatoes, sweet potato, and carrots are all in my top 5 best veggies (potatoes are the only fully safe vegetable for me, which is actually not that awful; potatoes are awesome). The only hazard is the brown flavouring in the gravy. Sometimes I make my own gravy, but not today. Chris will also eat lamb chops, but the kids won’t. (I could have made lamb chops for him today, but I’m on day 3 of the same thing so I thought something else might be good.)
Louisette: Sausages in bread with tomato sauce (a la BBQ sausages). She loves it, and had two full sausages and two slices of bread. Even with no vegetables (does tomato sauce count?) that’s a win: no whining, and a solid meal. Since she’s on Ritalin, she often eats very little and is in danger of losing weight. We worked hard over many months to get her to just sit at the table every night, and even harder to get her to take more than two bites of pretty much anything. And sausages are nice and easy to make. Chris also likes them; Tim has gotten over them; I’m strongly intolerant of sausages.
TJ: “Spicy noodles” ie ramen ie mi goreng ie 2-minute noodles (the kind with several sauces including chili). With grated cheese and ham added. He didn’t eat all that much today (his first time eating beef rendang flavour, which is hotter than the norm and he said it was too spicy but he “don’t feel like a sandwich” so I guess that’s it for him today. Also very easy to make in a single portion (we have a great bowl-and-lid set that has an inner bowl that’s also a strainer, which is perfect for mi goreng), which can be a lifesaver.
Other meals that we eat:
All of us:
-Eggs… sometimes. Poached, boiled, or eagle eyes. Daddy is usually the chef when it comes to eggs.
-Butter chicken with gnocchi and Greek yogurt. (Somewhat… international, I know.) This is delicious AND I’ve gotten to the point where I can sneak some zucchini (the only green veggie I tolerate well) into the sauce AND TJ will sometimes let me add frozen corn and/or peas to the sauce. Louisette doesn’t eat the butter chicken… but I set aside some of the chicken and add Ayam’s Lemon Chicken sauce, and she loves it. The butter chicken with sauce (but, interestingly, NOT the lemon chicken with sauce) freezes and reheats beautifully, so that can serve TJ or Chris or me again (with a bit of fresh-cooked gnocchi and some yogurt). We’ve been having this 2-3 times a week, so I’m starting to get a bit sick of it (plus spicy probably isn’t great for a sensitive stomach like mine). And I can’t stand chicken breast or tenderloins (unsurprisingly, I’m quite neurotic about food) so I always get boneless thighs and then have to cut them up. Handling raw meat is a lot of work, and gross. Still, for the moment, I can still stomach butter chicken—and it works really well for the whole family. The below photo is a classic scene, with the main pan having butter chicken, the pan on the right having lemon chicken, the bowl on the left cooling down TJ’s gnocchi (removed from boiling water with a slotted spoon so the water and heat isn’t wasted) and the pan at the back right waiting for the second lot of gnocchi to go in.
-Rice paper rolls. These are unusually healthy for me, including snow peas/cucumber (snow peas for me, cucumber for TJ; Chris is flexible as usual) and carrot. Louisette won’t touch them, but I use a Woolies roast chicken and I give her lemon chicken… ie some of the chicken pieces with the same Ayam lemon chicken sauce. And that works with relatively little effort. But rice paper rolls are a LOT of work and, again, handling the chicken sometimes grosses me out. Even though it’s cooked.
-Mini pizzas. I use English muffins so it’s easy to vary who gets what. The kids both accept basil pesto (tomato paste is anathema even though tomato sauce is ambrosia) and have pineapple and ham. I’m intolerant of pineapple and ham and aware that they’re basically just a sandwich, so I usually make mini pizzas for the kids when Chris and I are eating something completely different. Plus making two instead of 3-4 pizzas means less time spent standing up without a break.
Louisette only: Frozen nuggets and fish (1 meal, with both—but she’s over frozen chips) with tomato sauce, mayo, and lemon juice.
TJ only: Corn on the cob and ham. (Also he apparently eats a wonderful variety and quantity at day care. It will be a real shame to lose that when he starts Kindy in 2020.)
Chris and I only:
Beef stroganoff (although I think it’s awful as leftovers, so I rarely make it—plus I’m highly intolerant of mushrooms, but refuse to leave them out because they’re delicious and sort of a vegetable).
Lasagna/bolognaise (you and I both know they’re the same thing). Great for adding zucchini and carrot (my top veggies), and great for leftovers. Also our thermomix does a good white sauce without needing a human standing and stirring—it stirs and heats at the same time.
Maple marinated salmon with semi-fried rice (I add the leftover marinade to the rice and fry it for a bit). I can deal with frozen corn and peas in this context (mentally, at least). And yes, I know corn is technically a grain. Shut up.
I feel super gourmet sprinkling sesame seeds on top, too.
So that’s where we’re at with meals at the moment. It’s… not great.
I’m about to attempt to get Louisette onto honey carrots (probably made with either golden syrup or maple syrup). Wish me luck.
Oh, there is one bit of good news. Louisette loves to have apple and hommus. She also likes lemon butter and Vegemite.
Parenting is weird, is what I’m saying.
Addendum: A Bloody Fantastic Cake
Here’s Cassie’s own pic of the cake she made, next to Shauna’s picture. Artists are so amazing! They never cease to impress and delight me.
It tasted good too.
PS The launch for IRON LIGHTS was pretty cool too. Cat Sparks did the photos and I already have them. They’re so incredible I’m going to have to write a seriously impressive blog entry to go with them.
Here’s a pic to tide y’all over until it’s ready:
Hilariously, the quote behind me is, “I’ve always loved politics. . .”
Murder in the Mail Art Exhibition Opening
Today is Saturday, August 25, 2018.
Today MURDER IN THE MAIL: A BLOODY BIRTHDAY was officially launched with the beginning of a week-long art installation at The Front cafe & gallery (1 Wattle St, Lyneham, Canberra).
It featured all eight pieces of story art (you can see them here), plus several bonus pieces (three Octopus pics/puns from Annabelle Lee, who designed both the MURDER and MAGIC logos; a Ditmar Award-winning piece by Shauna O’Meara; a second portrait by Jane Virgo—of the famous writer Isobel Carmody; and one sneak preview of the MAGIC IN THE MAIL exhibition which will run at The Front on precisely this weekend in 2019).
And cake, by Cassie’s Custom Creations, based on the cake drawing by Shauna.
All the Canberra MURDER artists attended—Annabelle Lee, Adam Lee (yes, they’re husband and wife as well as being two extremely different visual artists), Jane Virgo, and Shauna O’Meara. (Tash Turgoose lives in Brisbane and Keely Van Order lives in Melbourne.)
I very much enjoyed having several of “my” artists in the same room, and although all the artists are scattered about Australia and the world, I was able to gather all but one of their books (Phil Hore’s book is soon to be published by Odyssey Books) which was awfully enjoyable for me too.
You can see them all rather more clearly here, of course. It’s rather a respectable bookshelf—and all Odyssey and Obscura authors, naturally.
But of course you want to see the cake, don’t you?
Well… you can’t.
The above (and below) photos were taken on my phone just before I packed up. My good friend (and printer) Jason Tankard was the official photographer, and he took about a billion photos, especially of the cake… so I knew it would be most thoroughly documented… and didn’t take a single pic of it myself.
Here’s the art by Shauna O’Meara, if that’s any comfort:
And here are some lollies. That’s Lindt on the table, and the mini trifle dish has Kool Mints, dark chocolate Maltesers, and Jaffas.
But of course it’s the art you really want to see. This is a terrible picture, but it’s better than nothing:
The art will stay at The Front for at least a week. If you like coffee, art, or cafes in general, go and check it out!
The food is rather good too (I was careful to test it, because I’m a professional in such matters).
That’s ginger and sweet potato hotcakes on the left, and “AVOCADO” on the right (with sourdough bread, beetroot hummus, etc).
The crucial questions:
Did I sell billions of dollars’ worth of stories, books, and art?
Just hundreds.
Did I have fun?
So, so much yes.
Was the cake good?
Yup.
UPDATED: Here is the cake!
I realised alarmingly recently that everything I know about running an art installation I learned from Ocean’s Eight. So there were certainly some bumps along the road (to this day I don’t know what percentage the cafe gets from my sales… somewhere in the vast gulf between 20% and 60%) but the art is in a great public space, MURDER IN THE MAIL: A BLOODY BIRTHDAY is on sale there, and it was an incredible day.
Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling debrief of the Antipodean Queen 3: Iron Lights book launch at Kings Hall, Old Parliament House (aka the Museum of Australian Democracy) 2:45-3:15pm.
Or, you know, just come 🙂
Bloody Cake!
So I panicked and ordered a custom-made cake for the MURDER IN THE MAIL: A BLOODY BIRTHDAY opening/launch this Saturday 3:30-5pm at The Front.
Cassie of Cassie’s Custom Creations is the amazing lady whose response to “Canihaveacustom3tiercakebysatudayohplease” was, “YES!”
And this is what she’s working off—the incredibly intricate pic by Shauna O’Meara:
I can’t wait to see it! And also eat it!
The Banana Bread of Destiny
The only good thing about banana bread is that is uses up bananas.*
Ingredients
1 and a half c buckwheat flour
1 c coconut sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 c mashed banana
1 egg
1/2 c yogurt
1/4 c grapeseed oil
1/3 c maple syrup
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
Method
1. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
2. Add banana, egg, yogurt, oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Mix.
3. Pour into a lightly greased 21cm x 10cm loaf tin lined with baking paper.
4. Bake for 1 hour at 160 degrees or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
Obviously, the kids loved this. Even Louisette.
Yum Factor: 0
Health: 2
Easy: 4
Will make again? Nope. Bananas are evil.
*Apologies to the 6 year-old child who lovingly contributed this recipe to her Year 1 class.
Aaaand we’re done!
While in the waiting room today I looked over my last three months of blood sugar readings. It turns out I spoke too soon when I blamed that delicious baklava for my record-breaking blood sugar reading the following morning.
As is utterly obvious to anyone who glances at me in passing, I eat a lot of chocolate. Like, every day. (I’m gonna go analyse that habit sometime soon.)
Despite this, my blood sugar has been remarkably good ever since my stomach operation last year. (Pause for cheering!)
Except these school holidays.
Was it all these not-usually-healthy recipes?
Actually, nope.
I looked back over the past three months of daily blood sugar readings, and guess what?
There were a total of 10 high blood sugar readings.
1 was due to getting up at stupid o’clock to drive to Sydney.
1 was just random.
2 were due to medical appointments. (Often deeply stressful.)
The other 6—that is, 60%—were ALL on the one day a week that I look after the kids for the full day (that is, from 8am until 6pm, while Chris is at work and there’s no day care or grandparents).
So that’s informative. Unfortunately for everyone, I associate the kids with an increase in physical pain and panic, which of course is a self-fulfilling thing.
So school’s about to start again, which is going to help with my sanity a bunch, but I clearly need to think about this some more. For one thing, I’ll make sure Chris takes more time off work next holidays.
Felicity Banks 