Just Another Day

Is there anything more chaotic than the weekday mornings of dual-working-parents?  Sometimes it just aint pretty.

This morning we woke up to Noah with a cold (seriously, are toddlers sick ALL winter long??), and he was a snotty, clingy, cranky disaster.  So between our getting dressed, packing lunch, prepping for dinner (yes, 12 hours before!), making tea, etc, we were passing him back and forth, cleaning out his nose, and entertaining him to alleviate the whining.  His sickness-induced clumsiness meant that he kept stumbling between me in the kitchen and Adam in the bedroom, tripping over his toys and spilling milk.  And then crying.  It was just..chaos.  After my daily debrief with our nanny, my hubbie and I both leave.  (Not without each of us taking out 2 bags of trash, of course!)  Finally in my car, I blast the new Alabama Shakes song and I feel a bit relieved to drive away.  But then I feel guilty for feeling relieved.  All he wanted was for one of us to pick him up and give him undivided attention, and neither of us had time for it.  He wanted a weekend morning.  On Sat/Sun mornings, we bring him to our bed and watch Mickey (or "dickey" as he calls it), play for a long time and enjoy a slow start to the day.  It's one of our favorite times of the week.  A far cry from M-F mornings when I'm trying to do 18 things at once, am always running late, and only get 15-20 mins with him (it's a good and bad thing when you're kids aren't crazy early risers).  He desperately needed a weekend morning today and we couldn't give it to him.  And so I felt shitty.  Guilty and shitty.

The pre-work chaos followed me into work.  Within a half hour, my nanny texts me about a problem with the window in Noah's room, and that he is acting really exhausted.  She sends me pics of his window, and also pics of him laying down half asleep in the middle of the living room on his stuffed monkey.  Daggers to chest.  I call people to come look at his window this week, reschedule some other stuff to make that work, and bite my nails over Noah feeling sick.  Our nanny is more than capable of taking care of him when he's not feeling well, but shouldn't one of us be there?  Adam can't go home because he has a client meeting, and I can't easily go home because my work situation isn't as flexible and I have work to do (especially now that I have just spent half the morning dealing with all of this).  So we don't go home.  Oh, there's that guilt again. 

For every morning like this, there are several others that are just another day in paradise (if you're not a country music fan, Phil Vassar has a song that always reminds me how rewarding and beautiful family chaos is).  The bad ones make you feel guilty and doubt your ability to do the work/parenting thing, but the good ones make you feel superhuman and whole.  It's a tension I'm learning to handle more and more each day.  I'm very lucky that we have a wonderful nanny to rely on (how do moms get kids ready for daycare in the morning on top of everything else? I am not worthy), a helpful and supportive husband, and most importantly a healthy child.  I'm also very lucky to have a great job that I truly want, rather than one I hate or feel stuck in.  Sometimes reminding myself of that makes it easier to stick out the inevitable hard days like today.  And the truth is, if I were a stay-at-home mom, we wouldn't be watching "dickey" in bed on the weekdays......would we?

Stir Fry Crazy

Stir frys make quick, tasty and healthy dinners.  I'm a big fan of making meals that you can constantly change up, so that you don't get bored and you can use whatever ingredients in your fridge that particular week (this is also evidenced by my soup/stew post back in November).  Here are some tips on a good stir fry:

1)  Start a base by heating up oil (on medium heat) in a wok or a deep pan.  I like canola or peanut for Asian style stir fry, or olive oil w/ butter for a lighter taste. 

2)  Add veggies.  Anything!  Spinach, onion (white or red), broccoli, mushrooms, baby corn, julienne carrots, peapods, bok choy, etc etc.  Like I mentioned in my soup/stew post, I often buy pre-cut veggies at Whole Foods and just throw them in.  Saves a lot of time and sometimes they think of veggie combos you wouldn't.  Toss with the oil, add a few pinches of salt, and let the veggies sweat for a few.

3)  Add a protein.  Chicken (buy tenderloins so you can just throw in w/o needing to cut), shrimp (pre-peeled and even pre-cooked makes it faster), tofu, beef (pepper steak works well), etc. 

4)  Make a quick sauce.  Can make separately and pour in, or just start throwing stuff in (I prefer the latter!) Here are a couple options:

• For an Asian-inspired stir fry, I like to combine fresh ginger (I buy pre-chopped), fresh garlic, sesame seed oil, soy sauce and/or tamari sauce (richer soy), fish sauce (don't have to use if it scares you, but it's delicious in cooking), and some sort of chili sauce (if you like a kick).  If you like a sweeter taste, use hoisin sauce and nix the fish and chili sauce.  There are lots of pre-made Asian stir fry sauces you can buy, and it makes the dish even easier, but I think they taste kind of "fake" and much prefer to use separate ingredients.  The best part is that you can't really go wrong - just don't add too much soy (it's easy to) because that taste can overpower.  Add a little, taste, and then add more if necessary.  Simmer uncovered for a bit.
• For a lighter lemon wine sauce, remember you used olive oil/butter as the base for this and that's a lot of the sauce already.  When your protein is nearly cooked, add 1/4-1/2 cup of dry white wine, let it cook down a bit, and then add lemon juice (a couple of tbsp).  Salt, thyme and any kind of lemon herb you may have all the spice you'll need.  I also add a little more butter at this point (who doesn't like more butter?) because the butter you originally added as the base has cooked down a lot and I want that taste to be fresh and my protein to feel nice and moist.  Simmer uncovered for a few, but don't keep on heat too long.  This is a great sauce for shrimp, crab, etc. 

5)  Toss with rice or Asian noodles (for the Asian stir fry) or angel hair pasta (for the wine sauce) or eat plain if you're anti-carb (yuck). 

You can get this done in 30 mins, esp if you go the pre-diced route on protein/veggies.  If you're really short on time or not confident about making a sauce, just start with canola or olive oil, simmer some white onions and garlic for a few, add the veggies, protein, salt, cover and let simmer for a while, and be done.  I do this all the time for just plain veggies. 

Go crazy.

Nature vs. New Trier

When my husband and I bought our condo in the city, the decisions we had to make felt fun and easy.  Walk-up or high-rise?  (Walk-up!)  Lakeview or Bucktown? (Lakeview!)  But now that we are starting to think about moving out of the city, it feels like we have to consider life choices that go way beyond the choice between Brazilian cherry or oak hardwood floors (cherry!).  And it's tough.

The main issue we're wrestling with?  Schools.  And, more specifically, HIGH SCHOOL.  Yes, I realize our son is only 16 months old and our other children don't exist yet.  But assuming we will stay in the same home and/or neighborhood for the long-haul, our decision now could very well determine where they will attend.  We are pretty decided on living somewhere along the North Shore and are very pro-public school when there are great options.  So it's an easy decision, right?  New Trier is regarded as the best school in the Chicagoland area, it's public, and it's on the North Shore.  Done and done?  I'm not entirely convinced. 

From what I hear, the school is huge and extremely competitive.  I would worry that our kid(s) would feel a lot of pressure in that kind of environment.  And given the wealthy neighborhoods that feed into it, I would worry about the lack of diversity in background and ethnicity, as well as social pressures to fit-in (exacerbating my lament in Keeping Up With The Patels).  But, to some extent, these pressures exist at any suburban high school in an affluent area, right?  Should we purposely not choose something that, on paper, is the "best", because we fear that our kids - some of whom don't even exist yet - aren't going to be able to handle it?  Can't we just raise them right so that they can?

My husband and I came from completely different environments and both ended up in the same place.  I went to a small magnet high school in inner-city Fort Worth where white people were the minority, academics were the focus, and where walking through a metal detector before prom seemed completely normal.  He grew up in small-town Illinois, where there were no African Americans in his class (a few Indians, though, because their parents were doctors or motel owners ha), and where going to college wasn't a given.  But we both did well in high school, graduated from Northwestern and became lawyers, and look back on our unique experiences as fun and fulfilling.  So perhaps success is more a function of the individual person and the family in which he or she is raised, rather than where his or her school ranks.  I know that's true, and that success means a lot more than grades or college admission, but there's also a tiny Indian mom inside of me who wants what is considered to be the "best."

Anyone have strong opinions on New Trier, other North Shore schools or schooling decisions generally?

Everything is Fine

Have you ever noticed how much women dish on their boyfriends, but how little they talk about their marriages?  When your girl friend is dating someone, you hear about their fights, what she loves about him, what she hates about him, what her greatest fears about the relationship are, how good (or not good) he is in bed, etc. etc (men - do y'all do this too?).  But as soon as couples get married, they rarely talk about their relationships.  It's as if, miraculously, everything is always fine.  Why the veil of secrecy?  

When I got married, I felt an intense sense of peace and certainty.  It wasn't just a piece of paper to me.  It was finality.  Perhaps that's why couples don't talk about their marriage with others, what's the point?  Either you are happy and content, and discussing that seems irrelevant and braggy or if you are dealing with a problem, you tend to just find a way to work through it or chalk it up to regular relationship stuff.  This is a far different approach to when you're dating.  When you're dating, you overanalyze everything, if you get into a big fight you may question whether you should be in the relationship and when things are lovely you acknowledge how lovely you feel.  While it's a huge relief to leave the bipolar land of dating, maybe having an external outlet to check-in on your feelings regularly and having friends to talk through issues is something we shouldn't give up when we tie the knot.  Ideally you are able to do those things within your relationship, but you may need help every now and again. 

I mean sure, the my boyfriend-hates-when-I-talk-to-my-ex stuff is usually more interesting.  But consider the long-term implications if we talked more about all of the wonderful things and the challenges in our marriages with a few trusted people, as well.  Maybe we'd learn that others deal with similar issues.  Maybe we'd be reminded how strong our marriages really are.  Maybe we could borrow ideas from others on how to make our relationships even better.  The risk of sharing is that you'll feel insecure about your issues, of course, but my guess is everyone navigating a long-term relationship goes through some variation of the same things.  Don't judge your friend's stuff and they won't judge yours.  And know what to keep sacred.  The reward within our relationships could be great. 

One thing I read somewhere that's totally true, though - if you have no one else, bitch to your spouse's mother, not your own.  Their mother will forgive them.  Yours never will.  :)

Can We Slow Down Time?

The older you get, the faster life seems to move.  We all know that, and generally accept it is a reality of life, but maybe it doesn't have to be so.  After all, the spacetime continuum does not actually change as we age,  just our perception of it.  And if it's just a matter of our perception, can't we just choose to slow it down?

I started thinking about this because I got a notification from a financial institution about our 2012 tax documents the other day and, as I think I do every year, I exclaimed "is it that time of year AGAIN?" as if it were an f'n surprise.  But alas, January 2nd waits on no one. While you are still closing the loop on the prior year by returning gifts from Christmas, the world has moved on to new deadlines and plans.  It seems like you have to stay on that moving train and actively manage what really amount to redundancies that recur in your life year after year...whether it's planning life around your kids' school schedules (back- to-school, Christmas, spring break, summer, repeat!), buying your tx/ou tickets, booking your annual summer trip to [x], coordinating holiday traditions with particular sides of the family, whatever your annual "stuff" is.  The year sometimes feels a bit pre-determined.  Though interspersed might be important and unpredicted life events like starting a new relationship, having kids, or getting a new job, the general structure of our year in large part stays the same after we reach a certain age.  And as each year gets busier and we are forced to think about what we're doing next week/month/year instead of just living in the present, life seems to move faster and faster. 

Interestingly, if you think about it, your memories of the past probably aren't sorted by specific bouts of time in your mind, but instead are grouped by experiences.  Time, or our perception of it, feels more stretched out in the past.  You may think back to the overall experience of high school generally, rather than specifics from, say, 1997 (unless you're my friend D.S, then you do think in terms of specific dates).  Or if you used to spend just a week each June at a lake as a kid (a trip that whizzed by while you were there), it may feel like you spent your whole summers there.  I think back to opening one measley gift  (a Barbie Ferrari!) as helping define my overall memories of Christmas as a child.  Perhaps it's all of our past experiences (including those "redundancies" I mentioned earlier that in retrospect are valued traditions) clustered together over time that ultimately give us a sense of our "life." 

So why shouldn't we be able to think like that in the present?  What if I thought about today, January 8th, not as a day when I have to accomplish xyz, but instead as a small piece of a longer arc of experience -- being mom to a fun toddler, being in my 30s, living in the city, etc.  Then maybe it doesn't seem like today goes by quite as quickly, because those experiences will still be true tomorrow and for awhile thereafter.  By defining today as part of those longer-term experiences that I love instead of in terms of ephemeral measures of time, perhaps I can be more present and appreciate them even more (smell the roses, if you will).  It's quite possible that none of this makes  sense to anyone else and I swear I'm not smoking anything, ha,  it's just a theory about how we perceive time/our lives that I'm willing to test in order to slow it all down.  Thought I would share it in case anyone else was having a "where did last year go!" moment :)

My Favorite/Not-So-Favorite Restaurants in 2012

As I mentioned in my "Cooking Corner" introduction, food (cooking it, eating it, going out to eat) is one of my biggest passions.  Trying new restaurants is my favorite way to spend a night out, and it's made so easy in a food-lover's city like Chicago.  I thought it would be fun to recap my favorite and not-so-favorite restaurant experiences of 2012.  By the way, I'm a foodie, but not a food-snob.  Looking at this list, 2012 seems to have been a bit of a fancy year, but rest assured we were also frequenting Franks 'n Dawgs and Flub a Dub Chubs...they just weren't "new" to me in 2012 and thus didn't make the list :)

BEST (in no particular order)

- Goosefoot:  It's teeny, situated in a bit of ghetto stretch of Lincoln Square, and we had to make reservations 3 months ahead of time (and even then could only get a 9pm on a Tuesday).  But the food was spectacular.  9 courses of straightforward, modern food with a French twist.  This place is no frills, it's a small space with little flair, and the food is served with zero pretension.  Most memorable to me were the soups and the beef dish, though the menu changes all the time.  The chef is Chris Nugent and we spoke to him for a while after the meal.  He was so modest and so thankful people were coming to his restaurant (we had to remind him that people weren't only coming, they were waiting 3 months to come).  Best part about this place?  BYOB. 

- Elizabeth:  24 courses.  Yes, that is correct, 24.  Most of any restaurant in Chicago.  (There was another menu choice w/ fewer courses, but, come on, 24!).  This place is another no-frills, "all about the food" type of place and the food is, simply put, flawless.  The food is clean, very much inspired by nature, and the chef Iliana Regan cooks right in front of you as if you were in her home (which, interestingly enough, is what she used to do!).  She came over several times to ask about the food and we were able to tell her what we enjoyed most - I love that.  It's communal seating, and our party of 4 soon felt like a party of 8.  The seafood courses were stand-out.  My only complaints?  Like Next, you have to buy tickets for this place, I'm still a traditionalist in this respect.  Also, it became a 5 hour meal....and with 24 courses with wine pairings, this meant I was black-out drunk by the end of the meal.  Fun, sure.  But don't come here if you have somewhere to be after (or the next day, as it were).  My guess is that's a new-restaurant kink that will get better with time.

- GT Fish & Oyster:  I had heard so much about this place and was excited to try it.  It did not disappoint.  Seafood, small plate style.  Stand-outs were the oysters (but not the shooters, eh), the shrimp bruschetta, oyster slider and fish tacos.  We splurged for the caviar service as well which was really good, but probably won't do it again.  We also tried a white wine that I had never had before, but was spectacular.  Nora Albarino (Albarino is the style).  The vibe is fun, loud, and sceney (it's River North), but not annoyingly River North-y.

- Other two notables of the year were Acadia (South Loop) and Wood (East Lakeview).  Both very solid overall.

DISAPPOINTING

- Charlie Trotter's - It's a moot point because Trotter's is gone now, but I was so surprised that I was let down, that I had to note it.  Trotter's has been regarded as one of the best restaurants in Chicago (and the country) for many years and we were able to go right before it closed down.  The food was good, but not memorable.  The ambience was pretty old-fashioned (and not in an endearingly traditional kind of way, just sort of outdated) and I expected nicer service for the level of restaurant that it was.  We did tour the kitchen after, and that was pretty neat, but I wasn't blown away by my meal. 

- Tavernita:  Go for the drinks and the scene, but not necessarily for the food.  The main entrees were better than the small plates.  We went here on our first real post-baby date night and a loud, River North spot may have been a bit much.  But fun place for a group.

- Nellcote:  Beautiful restaurant, disappointing food.  This place is pretty scene-y, as well, and I think is better for pre-dinner cocktails (they had a really interesting drink menu and the space is just visually stunning).  The flatbreads were probably the best thing on the menu. 

- Anteprima:  Everyone always talks about how much they love this place, but I didn't really get it.  Loved the space and the vibe in Andersonville, but thought the meal was just ok.  Also, we had reservations but still had to wait 30+ minutes.  No likey. 

TO TRY IN 2013

I'm excited to try BellyQ, Au Cheval, Acre, RPM Italian, Nightwood, and a host of others in the upcoming year.  We also haven't been to Next, yet (I know, I know, but it's that ticket thing and the inability to decide in 2.3 seconds that we're going out with a baby at home to plan for).  If you have any spots I have to try (or should steer clear from), would love to hear it!!

Keeping Up With The Patels

A non-Indian friend of mine joked to me recently that she was going to an Indian couple's party and she knew she was in the right place because her Lexus was the shittiest car in the parking lot.  I laughed it off, but then it got me thinking.   Many first-generation Indians have gotten rather....fancy, right?  The striking engagement rings followed by the lavish 700-person weddings, the expensive cars, the big houses, over-the-top vacations.  It's certainly not the norm for all of my Indian friends and I think it may be more prevalent in certain geographies, but the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) extravagance feels more commonplace now and perhaps - dare I say it - expected?  On one hand, the fact that many first-generation folks can afford the finer things is a wonderful tribute to our parents, all immigrants who worked their butts off to give us a life they did not have.  They seem to have collectively succeeded, as Indian-Americans are wildly overrepresented in most professional categories, and have attained higher levels of education and earn a higher median income than all other ethnic groups in the U.S. (whites and other Asians included) despite making up only about 1% of the population.  But are we setting a standard that strays far from the ideals with which we were raised and, if so, I wonder if people are feeling a certain pressure to reach that new standard.  Are we still trying to keep up with the Joneses?  Or are we now trying to keep up with the Patels?

My parents left India and moved to London in 1968, and then moved to the United States in 1980.  A fairly typical immigrant story, they worked extremely hard to build a life for my sister and me.  Though my family had the means, we didn't buy fancy cars, we didn't wear expensive clothes (though in the 5th grade I got a pair of $60 Girbaud jeans for Christmas that were freakin awesome), and we didn't go on luxurious vacations (we went many places, though.  My dad would come home from work on a Friday and declare we were driving somewhere like Florida - from Texas, mind you - and off we'd go with a cooler full of Indian food and we'd stay in HoJo's (at best) along the way.  Kind of awesome, really).  My mom still, to this day, randomly sends me packages in the mail of groceries that she thinks are cheaper in Texas than in Chicago.  I've gotten things like Pam non-stick spray, lots of Goldfish, boxes of cereal and after I got married we started getting pickles and Reese cups (if you know Adam that makes perfect sense to you).  It's pretty comical, but it's the mentality that allowed them to provide us everything we needed, including giving us a pretty profound (and often unappreciated) sense of security.  I think most of the Indian kids I grew up around in Texas were raised pretty similarly.

When our immigrant parents left India, they didn't have parents to fall back on if they hit a tough patch like many of us have.  They navigated American culture from scratch, with Indian educations and English as a second language.  They came with nothing, yet somehow gave us everything.  How amazing is that?  And now, much to their delight (at least to my parents') their kids can now  maintain nicer lifestyles and can provide even more for their kids than they could.  But what are we doing with that gift?  Are we too interested in show?  Do people in our generation feel pressure to attain a certain amount of wealth/success?  Are we focused enough on paying it forward to society, future generations and back to our parents?  Maybe it's more prevalent in certain cities, and maybe it's not unique to the Indian-American community?  I am curious to hear others' takes. 

My husband and I work hard so we can enjoy a great lifestyle, but I try not to feel too bogged down by external pressures to do so.  Even so, there are times where I will catch myself thinking so-and-so is doing xyz, maybe we should be too.  Often it is in the context of wanting the best for our son.  But I have to remind myself that we have to always do what we think is best for our family, regardless of what others are doing.  And if we ever needed to scale back because we weren't happy anymore, I think (hope) we would without worrying too much about our decline in social status.  After all, we could always take last minute road trips and stay in HoJos.  Sounds pretty good to me.