Out & About – Page 7 – Casa Camisas

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: the Udipi Café

May 26, 2008May 24, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

One of our favorite places to eat in the area is the Udipi Café. This is a restaurant out in Monroeville that serves South Indian food. This is very different from the usual fare found in Indian restaurants. It’s all vegetarian, but what the cuisine is famous for is its unusual architectural features. The dosai are these thin rice crepes that are rolled into all sorts of crazy shapes, like a spiraling cone:

Jeffrey calls this “pyramid bread,” and loves dipping it in the coconut sauce. I prefer the cylindrical dosai that come stuffed with sauteéd potatoes, peas, onions, and lentils. Sooooo buttery good. The other dish we like to order are the uthapamm, which are these thick lentil pancakes cooked with tomatoes and peas. Mmmm.

We enjoy getting the appetizer platter too, which always includes these fluffy little steamed cakes made from rice flour. The name of them currently escapes me, but babies LOVE THEM. William just about hopped out of his high chair, waving his little fists for more.

For dessert, we always order a batura, which is this giant puffy fried bread. It’s essentially a ginormous scone. Here it is next to Wim-Wim’s head, to give a sense of scale:

Sometimes I sneak a small jar of honey in my purse to eat with the bread. It’s soooo good.

The best part of this place is how kid-friendly it is. The wait staff is incredibly patient and kind with my little ones, and like to play peek-a-boo with the babies. Almost all of the food is eaten with your hands, so I never have to nag my kids about using their silverware properly. There’s a tall fluffy stack of paper napkins on each table. And the restarurant is happy to split a mango smoothie between two lidded cups (a service that isn’t as easily found as you’d expect).

I’m going to miss South Indian food in Utah, but I’m sure we’ll find other cuisines that will work their ways into our hearts just as well. Already, I’m looking forward to a certain Salvadorean place on the west side of town, whose pupusas may juuuust make up for the loss of the batura. Just.

Loving & Leaving Pittsburgh: The Carnegie Museum of Natural History

May 24, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

It’s getting painful to write about my favorite things around the city — we have only 2 1/2 weeks left before we move out to Utah!

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History — or, as we call it, the “Dinosaur Museum” — is probably my personal favorite around the city. (Hrumm, the children’s museum’s a close second. Maybe a tie.) I’ve been going there regularly since before the kids were born, and even more so afterwards.

Usually, the kids’ favorite thing to see is the dinosaur skeletons. However, last October we took Jeffrey to see the Hall of Ancient Egypt, and he’s been an Egypt nut ever since. Here he is in the reconstructed tomb:

Eleanor likes the fact that the Egyptians wore necklaces just like hers. Doesn’t that one on the bottom left look like it was made from macaroni?

I, on the other hand, am a big fan of the Polar World exhibit. What’s more awesome, the polar bear or the baby Wimmy? Tough call.

And let’s not forget the awesome snowhouse (aka igloo) exhibit. In case you’re wondering, the mannequins inside are of a mother and son skinning an arctic fox together. Cool.

Just beyond the model snowhouse is the oh-so-endlessly fascinating video presentation, “How to Build a Snowhouse.” The kids always insist on stopping to watch it. It’s interesting the first twelve times you see it. After that, the interest wanes.

The secret to snowhouse building? You should file down your foundation ring of snowblocks to create a spiral. According to the video, “you don’t have to be Inuit — but it helps!” Oh glory. I have seen that video SO. MANY. TIMES.

Beyond Polar World is the Hall of Native Americans. Or, according to my kids, “the place with this really cool boat.” The boat has something to do with the peoples of the pacific northwest, but I’ve never been able to fully figure out what. Something about fishing. Fishing is important.

Oh, and you get to pet a bison! Cute, fuzzy bison! I’ve explained to my kids that we will get to see living bison in Utah. They usually give me puzzled looks when I say this. Note Jeffrey demonstrating the appropriate “two-finger touch” that kids are encouraged to use:

No visit to the CMNH is complete without a quick lunch at Fossil Fuels, the downstairs cafeteria. The staff there is sooooo friendly, I love them. We always get a chocolate pudding to share for dessert — it comes with such lovely whipped cream on top!

Very Brief Summary (and I mean it this time)

May 12, 2008 brookeshelf1 Comment

I wasn’t going to write this up, but Michelle requested it. And I am a slave to requests, blog-wise.

Last weekend I went to the Midwest Pilgrimage, a non-church sponsored retreat for LDS women. Eh, I’ll just say it — it’s a Mormon feminist conference. And it rocks. Next year’s conference is May 15-16, and it’s going to be sponsored by the Pittsburgh folks. No word yet on whether it’s actually going to be in Pittsburgh, or in Illinois again. Stay tuned.

The keynote speaker this year was Chieko Okazaki. Her first talk was about friendship, and her second about centering your life on Christ by sharing your life with him as a companion. It wasn’t until I got home that I heard that Okazaki has just come out with a new book, What a Friend I Have in Jesus. I’m guessing that her talks rely heavily on the book’s content.

The comment she made that has stuck with me the most was in talking about her attitude towards Christ since her husband’s death sixteen years ago. She said, “I told Jesus, ‘You took my partner away, so now you have to be my partner in life.'” She spends her time in conversation with the Savior, knowing that He understands her experiences and can guide her through them as a partner and friend, not just a deity.

The other notable part of the conference was a presentation on Sacred Dance. That’s right, liturgical dance. There were many skeptical raised eyebrows when this was announced, because it does kind of Reek of Lameness, but to tell the truth, it was very well done, and rather beautiful. (And hey, why not? We have sacred art, music, and writing — why not dance?) The troupe is an Evangelical Christian group, but — amazingly — they were happy to share their art with LDS women. (After writing this, I spent time looking up Christian sacred dance ministries to see if I could find the group, but I wasn’t able to. However — you would be STUNNED to know how many Christian hip-hop troupes there are in the world. STUNNED.)

The best piece was a solo to “Lord of the Dance” a very old Christian text set to the tune of “Simple Gifts.” The dance was folk-inspired (the dancer was a woman in her mid-50s) and portrayed the life of Christ, and the need to celebrate his life (in this case, through dance). She used a simple white scarf as a prop during the dance — as a fisherman’s net, or winding burial cloths. Incredibly striking; I loved it.

Anything else about the conference I enjoyed? Well, I did get to spend a lot of time talking with very smart women, reading as much as I wanted, and sleeping in the afternoon. Saturday evening was spent talking with a friend at the side of a pond, watching swallows dip in and out of their reflections. I had no babies with me, and I didn’t have to cook a single meal. Refreshing? You bet.

Okazaki didn’t plug her book once the entire weekend (what a classy dame!) but I will:

What a Friend We Have in Jesus. I haven’t read it, but I’m sorely tempted to.

And My Teeth Are Still Hurting

April 14, 2008April 13, 2008 brookeshelf1 Comment

Last weekend we went to the Pennsylvania Maple Syrup Festival. The 61st annual, actually. In Meyersdale, PA.

Why, you ask?

Well, part of is is because I read Little House in the Big Woods one too many times as a kid, and I’ve always wanted to see real, actual, “sugaring off.” The other part is because it sounded Kitchy Kool, which it certainly was. What were the features of the festival?

The Lion’s Club pancake breakfast! Which featured awesome pancakes, but the crummiest sausages ever consumed by man or beast!
A parade with giant tractors, the 61st Maple Syrup Princess, annnnnnd — Shriners. In real, actual, Shriner-cars.
An old-timey blacksmith, a display of old-timey cobbler’s tools, and an old-timey NICU incubator, with a really freaky-looking doll inside.
The biggest piece of maple candy I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a big 18″ sugar bear, which must have weighed about twenty pounds. Whoo.
A cute little grandma who mixed up a pot of Spotza (Pennsylvania Dutch for “spot on the snow”) which involves spooning thick maple syrup on shaved ice and eating it with a stick. (Little House fans, take note.)
A guy named Larry who demonstrated how to mix up maple sugar in a hollowed out log of “cucumber wood.” He also elaborated at great length about how his Grandpap used to make maple liquor using the same log. The Meyersdale natives standing behind me sighed heavily and muttered, “Jeez, hurry it up, Lar.”

But, most importantly, we learned The Maple Cycle, or whatever its official name is. If you have a sugar maple, here’s what you do:

Take a hand-drill and bore a hole in the tree trunk.

Then hammer a splinth into the hole, and hang a bucket on it. Sugar water will drip inside.

Then take the sugar water to a giant vat and boil it forever. Eleanor was a little scared of the boiling room . . .

But William thought it was just dandy.

Then you listen to a guy named Larry talk while spooning syrup into a log, and then you stumble outside and see Time Travelers.

Yes, the Meyersdale Maple Syrup Festival is popular with Civil War soldiers AND Revolutionary War soldiers. I wonder if they have some kind of rivalry going. Brian and I had some discussion of who would do better in a fight: Civil War Guy or Rev. War Guy? I think the Rev. War Guy would, ’cause he’d be more likely to throw a hatchet at someone. At least, according to the movies he would.

Oh — I mention this just for my sister-in-law, Kristen, who showed interest in it before. On the way home, we stopped at a convenience store and found a bottle of this:

I had sampled Birch Beer on our trip to New England last fall (it tastes like the purple Necco wafers). I had no idea that there was a Pennsylvania version — Black Bear Mountain Birch Beer! It has the life cycle of th black bear described on the back of the bottle! And what does it taste like? Wintergreen Life-Savers. I know, I know, it sounds awful, but trust me — it was kinda good, and strangely addictive. (For those of you keeping track, it was MUCH better than the Twin Bing candy bar, but not as good as a Peanut Chew. I’d say it was on the level of an Idaho Spud.)

Spring is in the Air

April 10, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

Little kids seem so much more receptive to the little changes. Sometimes this can be trying, such as when I use the –gasp!– wrong cup for Eleanor’s milk, or layer on Jeffrey’s blankets in the incorrect order at bedtime. (For the record, it is: cow blanket, polka-dot blanket, and then the blue pinwheel patchwork quilt. Which he then promptly kicks off as soon as I leave the room.)

But there are other times that my kids pick up on the best details in life. There’s a passage in Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins in which young Rose walks into her bedroom and immediately notices how the sunset is coloring the room, “with a child’s quick instinct.” That quick instinct — that uninhibited reaction to nature — is something I love in kids, especially when it helps me experience seasonal changes, like this burgeoning spring, through their eyes. (Oh, that old cliché. But it’s true.)

The wind is blowing briskly, and Jeffrey wants to go outside. “I like to play in the breeze,” he says. “Because it keeps me fresh.” He is always wanting to report on the weather at his preschool. “I felt a breeze today, Megan,” he reports proudly. “It must sign up for the weather report and say that it’s windy!”

Our first few flowering bulbs have come up, and our kids are enraptured with them, shining out like rainbow-colored coins scattered in our grey backyard. Poor little blossoms — they don’t stand a chance against my kids’ chubby fingers. Jeffrey made short work of the crocus, while Eleanor is slowly plucking the hyacinths apart. The realities of wilted flowers are hard, however. “Mommy, my flowers are melting,” says Eleanor sadly, tumbling a wrinkly, rubbery pink nub into my hand. “The flower melted, Mommy!”

A few mornings ago Jeffrey was quietly staring out the window over his breakfast bagel, his hand softly cupping his cheek. “Mommy, why is it pink all over?” I asked him what he saw outside that was pink, and he wrinkled his brow in thought. “Everything. Everything is pink,” he said, sweeping his hand across the window in a grand, yet vague, gesture. I looked, and it was all grey to me, but after gazing for moment, I could see it — how the sunlight slanted across the tips of the trees foresting the hillside, and if you didn’t look too closely at one in particular, you could see streaks of pink, like a gauze hung over the spindly, bare branches. It was the budding leaves, the raw pink tone they have just before bursting, the color of baby’s tongue. Birthing is hard, renewal is hard, the struggle to produce something new and gorgeous out of what essentially seems like a bunch of sticks in the mud. I love that Jeffrey can see it, this secret way of looking that he can show me, that we can share.

One of my favorite springtime books:

Rabbit’s Good News by Ruth Bornstein — There’s a big ol’ rainbow of pastels at work in these illustrations, although they aren’t showy by any account. Little rabbit uses all of his senses, from sniffing the air to listening for birdsong, to see if spring has really arrived. Then he bounds out of his den to share the news. Little kids enjoy the simplicity of this tale, and like being able to match up Rabbit’s senses with his body parts (“he hears with his . . . EARS!”). Sweet ‘n’ simple.

Loving and Leaving Pittsburgh: The Phipps Conservatory

March 30, 2008March 29, 2008 brookeshelf5 Comments

Jeffrey and Eleanor were on spring break this week, and I thought we’d take advantage of the spare time to see the always-gorgeous spring flower show at the Phipps Conservatory. I always try to take some good photos of the kids with the flowers; this is the third year in a row that I’ve done such portraits.

So many memories of this place! It was one of the places I visited on my first trip to Pittsburgh, back in May 2001. Brian and I were absolutely enchanted with the butterfly forest.

Over the years, I’ve learned a few hints about visits — go as early as possible to get a good parking spot, watch out for puddles, and never never never pay them a visit on Good Friday. The crowds are horrid on that day.

Just before Eleanor was born, I took Jeffrey for a visit on that fated day, and it was so stressful. He kept dashing ahead of me (he was only 2 1/2 then) and with my huge tummy, I could barely keep up. There were a large number of senior citizens there, and I was afraid that he was going to knock somebody over. We were attracting curious looks, stares, and a few not-so-quiet “Humph!”s all through the gardens.

Worst of all, there were two particular ladies that we kept running into over and over again. Every time I had to beg their pardon, I could feel my face getting redder.

I decided to cut the visit short and get out of there, when Jeff decided to run into the gift shop to take a look at the toys and — aaa! — expensive glass objets d’art. Lo and behold, who should be there at the botanical soap display other than those two same ladies again.

But before I could apologize once more for Jeffrey’s behavior, they both smiled and shook their heads.

“Such a good baby you have,” one of them said. “Most babies wouldn’t want to walk that far without being carried. He went the whole way through without crying to be picked up once.”

Oh!

I’m sure I wasn’t able to mumble much more than a thank-you before running off to catch Jeffrey once again. If only those ladies knew how much their kind words meant to me!

Jeffrey’s behavior has improved much since then. He and Eleanor were a couple of clowns for these photos. Whenever I sat them down and raised the camera, they immediately began to tickle, hug, and make silly faces at me and each other. They are such good buddies!

William, on the other hand, had a bad cold, so he didn’t get photographed much beyond this:

But he’s still awfully cute, wouldn’t you say?

Gotta Match?

March 20, 2008March 21, 2008 brookeshelf6 Comments

It’s the first day of Spring!

(ahem)

No, no. I said that wrong. Let’s try again:

It’s the First Day of SPRIIINNNNNNNG!

To me, there’s an inherent zaniness attached to the first day of Spring that doesn’t come with the other seasonal changes. The first day of Winter is claimed by earthy/granola/Wicca types who wanna wish you a Merry Solstice. The first day of Summer is anticipated by characters in the Great Gatsby, Shakespeare enthusiasts, and not much else. The first day of Autumn? Please.

But the first day of spring — that’s the day when life goes strange, goofy, loop-de-loop. Or could. The earth is shuffling off its slushy, ice-bound coil. The idea of warmth adds an extra zing of energy to every movement, every growth. Once the first signs of spring begin to appear — in Pittsburgh, that would be the miraculous, overnight filling of the winter’s crop of potholes — everything’s coming up daisies, and it’s crazy.

It’s also Match Day.

(ahem)

No, no — let’s try that again:

MATCH DAAAAAAAY!

The day on which the nation’s graduating medical students find out where they are going for residency! A residency which, depending on the specialization, could last anywhere from three to seven years! And — this is the kicker — it’s all decided via a COMPUTER PROGRAM. Matching up brand-new doctors with hospitals, a la an electronic dating service. Only, when an e-date goes wrong, it only lasts an evening (or, when it goes really wrong, an hour). If you end up in a residency program you don’t like, it could last YEARS. And there’s nothing you can do about it, unless you’ve suddenly decided that you DON’T want to be a doctor after all.

So today, all of the graduating members of Brian’s med school class filed into an auditorium (where the “Matchmaker” song from Fiddler on the Roof was playing on the speakers, alas) and waited for the dean of the school to announce names and hand out little white envelopes with a printout of where we were headed.

We were lucky — Brian was one of the first twenty people called up, so we didn’t have to sit in agony while the other 150 people in his class went wild & crazy and tore up little envelopes with their teeth before heading out to toss back a few at a pub.

We are going . . . . to the University of Utah!

(ahem — oh, whatever)

THE UNIVERSITY OF UUUUUUTAAAAH!

(hooray!)

It was a little anti-climactic for us, since we were pretty darn confident that this was what our printout was going to say. Brian and I had geared ourselves up for a shock, and how to deal with it gracefully (“Oh, Seattle! How dandy!) that when we saw that we had gotten what we expected, we just stared at it, going “Huh. Look at that.”

That’s the first day of spring for you, right there. Oh, and did I mention that Jeffrey had to come straight to the ceremony after undergoing oral surgery? And was still all woozy from the anesthetic, and so kept simultaneously falling asleep while applauding? Oh, and that the ceremony also included a med-school tradition that involved a goldfish bowl full of dollar bills? Yeah — the students fill up the bowl as they come up for the envelopes. Whoever has their name called last gets to keep the money. And is then expected to spend it all buying drinks for the rest of the class. (Ah, the doctors of tomorrow. Drinking tonight like there isn’t one.)

Part of me is a little wistful now, since it’s really beginning to hit home that we are leaving Pittsburgh, really leaving. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my entire life, although it doesn’t seem that way. (Each year of high school seemed just as long as the seven years I’ve spent here.) All day we’ve been fielding phone calls and e-mails from our ‘burgh friends, all asking about residency, all excited to hear the news. This afternoon, red-and-white balloons appeared on our doorstep — the Utah colors.

(“In Spring . . . and the goat-footed balloon man whistled far and wee . . .”)

But I’m very happy — weirdly happy, like I can’t quite believe how perfectly things have worked out for us. When we called our mothers on the phone, Brian’s whooped and hollered, and mine cried with joy. I’m glad they were able to show the emotions that I felt pretty sure I would have upon learning Il Destino, but somehow didn’t. I suppose that’s why I’m happy about moving closer to family: they always manage to support you through your shortcomings, even in the most unexpected ways.

This summer: Beehive State or Bust!

Balloon Fancy

March 16, 2008 brookeshelfLeave a comment

Tonight we went out to eat, and Jeffrey and Eleanor were given balloons at the restaurant.

Eleanor’s balloon popped about ten minutes after we arrived back at home — she sat on it (and then cried inconsolably) — but Jeffrey spent quite a few minutes lying on his back in his bedroom, quietly gazing at it while occasionally tugging on its string. What was he doing?

“I’m just fishing for clouds in the sky, Mommy.”

Can’t help but think of this book:

The Blue Balloon by Mick Inkpen. Yeah, it’s by the same guy who gave us the Kipper books, which I’ve always been kind of meh about. But I really adore The Blue Balloon — basically, it tells the story of a boy who finds a balloon on the street, which turns out to have all kinds of “strange and wonderful” properties. It’s unbreakable, can change shape, and even carries the boy into outer space. Inkpen’s ink-and-watercolor illustrations are simple yet expressive; best of all, he uses the occasional fold-out or pop-up device to show how wonderful a balloon really can be. A storytime read-aloud staple for pretty much every child librarian I know.

Oh, and I HAVE to mention this one. How could I forget it?

Emily’s Balloon by Komako Sakai. This Japanese import has a quiet magic very different from The Blue Balloon. Little Emily is given a balloon while out with her mother. She returns home to play with it, and it slowly becomes a friend — weighted down by one of Emily’s spoons, it bobs along right at her eye-level. Emily makes a flower crown for the balloon, and talks to it in the backyard. But then a gust of wind blows the balloon into a tree, and Emily is distraught. She tearfully describes how she had planned to help the balloon get ready for bed — but then sees the balloon outside her window, is struck by how it reminds her of the moon, and goes to sleep content. Soft yellow-and-grey charcoal illustrations are placed gracefully on the page; not a single stroke is wasted. This was probably my favorite picture book of 2006. Read it to your toddler, and it might become your favorite, too.

Ella by Moonlight

March 13, 2008 brookeshelf4 Comments

Last Sunday evening, we were on the way home from a friend’s house, and Eleanor saw something outside her window.

“Look! It’s the moon!”

It was just barely recognizable as the moon, in my opinion — a bright, thin eyelash of a moon, tipped directly upwards towards the sky. The dark side of the moon could be seen clearly above it, a circle of not-quite sky, the color of a faded black T-shirt. It gave me chills.

“Mama, I’m going to fly up to the moon,” said Eleanor seriously, still gazing out the window.

“Oh, on a rocketship?” I asked.

“No,” she said firmly. Eleanor is particular about her fantasies. “With my wings.”

“Will you take a walk on the moon when you get there?” Eleanor was puzzled by this question.

“No, I will fly up there with my wings and grab the moon with my two hands,” she explained.

Oh, now I understood — and I was delighted. I couldn’t help but think of the princess in James Thurber’s Many Moons, who insists that the moon is the size of her thumb, is made of gold, and can be worn on a chain around her neck.

On our car ride, Jeffrey and Eleanor continued to chat animatedly about the moon, and said “Goodbye, Moon!” or “There it is again!” as the moon dipped in and out of our view. I was thrilled again, remembering doing just that when I was a child.

As a parent, there are so many happy things I’ve remembered from my own childhood that I’ve gone out of my way to pass on to my kids — the fingerpainting, the digging up of treasured picture books, the carefully preserved Halloween costumes my mother made for me — that I sometimes forget that some of them, like DNA, will be passed down quietly to them, as a matter of course. As gently and quietly as moonlight streaming through a water-streaked window.

If you haven’t read this one, go directly to your library and find it. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Many Moons by James Thurber, illus. Louis Slobodkin. Princess Leonore is ill, and says she won’t get better unless she can have the moon. Her father the king is in a dither: each of his blustery assistants, including the Astronomer, the Mathematician, and the Magician, insist that the moon is too large and heavy for this to be possible, and recommend a series of solutions, each more comically outlandish than the last. Only the court jester, who spends time listening to Princess Leonore’s own theories about the moon, can save the day. This is a big-time classic — renowned author, Caldecott-winning illustrations — and on my personal list of Books That Must Be Read By Age 13. BUT — and this is a big but — it’s long, so save it for reading aloud (it must be read aloud) until your kid is six or seven. Or relish it all on your own.

President’s Day, Part II: The Hershey Factory

March 1, 2008March 8, 2008 brookeshelf2 Comments

On the way home from Valley Forge, we decided to stop in Hershey and do the free tour of the chocolate factory.

Well . . . you don’t tour the actual factory. You go on a ride that shows you simulated factory scenes. And singing animatronic cows.

To tell the truth, I went on this same tour back in the mid-90s, and it was vastly different then. More like a chocolate-based “It’s a Small World” ride. I prefer the cows.

But the fun thing this time was watching Jeff & Ella’s reaction to the ride. They didn’t quite understand what was going on, until our little cable car turned a corner and revealed rows of conveyor belts towing wrapped candy bars along. Then. . .

. . . well, it was like they had had some immense epiphany. They smiled and cheered rapturously, and burst into spontaneous applause. “So that’s what this is all about! To make CANDY!”

At the end of the ride, we told Jeffrey he could pick out one piece of candy from the gift shop for the ride home. He said he’d rather just go on the ride again. So we went again . . . and then again. After which, I was ready to kill the cows. But there was applause every time.