This final installment of "me" posts will answer the riddle of the name of the blog. But there won't be any pics, because I'm away from home at the moment! Sorry!
But first...My
Favourite colour: Blue
Favourite author: C.J. Cherryh
Favourite music group of all time: Depeche Mode
Some things I'm bad at:
politics, religion, money, swimming properly, and anything motion sickness-inducing!
Some things I'm good at:
memory tasks (especially spelling), cooking, languages, downhill skiing, gardening.
Favourite foods: tomatoes, pizza, pasta, spinach, chocolate cake.
Favourite destinations (so far): Great Barrier Reef, Bermuda, Sydney, Mesa Verde (CO), Paris.
Scared of: deep water/drowning, overdue bills, fast spiders, telemarketers, U.S. healthcare system.
And finally...the boring story...
Disposable Aardvarks Inc was created in high school with my best friend. He and I were/are big creative writers and partners in crime, (I'll have to scan the mural I made for us if I can find it when I return home). Anyhow...lots of bizarre philosophical banter about cherries, clouds, cucumber sandwiches and the nature of the universe...some fiction and poetry.
After transferring to Syracuse University (and getting Douglas Adams' and Carl Sagan's autographs before their premature deaths), I took my first computer writing workshop where everything was discussed via email (which at the time was Eudora and a relatively new technology to everyone back in the early '90s). A classmate and I who were already quite computer literate (hence my FBI record, oy, but hey I was still a minor so it doesn't count right?!) started spamming people with offers to buy llamas and aardvarks...very unique llamas and aardvarks...such as "Ukranian fluffy vending machine repair aardvarks with toothpick attachments" for only $34,000.00. You get the idea. Total nonsense to fill up people's inboxes and drive them batty.
This exquisitely exhausting list resurfaced when I was a nanny...middle child was an intelligent computer savvy 10 year old who even papier mached an aardvark/armadillo for me and made clay figures for them so we could have pint-sized jousting competitions.
At that point, anything creative I did earned the Disposable Aardvarks title. I used it for senior titles on online forums, created dummy junk-email accounts under the alias, and stamped various permutations of it on giftable cooking creations.
So when Blogger asked me for a title for this blog that I started on a whim (still unsure of what exactly I'd be posting about), it seemed the logical illogical choice.
That's really all there is to it. I fully intended to start another more serious blog with a more mundane proper name, but decided since I don't take it all that seriously myself, I didn't want to encourage others to either.
TTFN...see you back home on tuesday!
Showing posts with label me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label me. Show all posts
Friday, May 29, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Month of Me, Post 3
I did not learn to cook from my parents. Or any relative. Or even a friend.
I am primarily a self-taught cook, picking stuff up here and there and messing with it.
My mother was born in Latvia, a professional ballet dancer, and she does not like to cook--or really even eat. My father was mostly english and scottish, a medical photographer in NYC, and he baked bread, lots of it, for anyone and everyone...also self-taught. He could cook when he had the time, quite well, but he usually had better things to do, like play in a jazz band or fly a plane.
My mother usually cooked some version of "rice, chicken, & broccoli" for most dinners. And when my father was away on weeknights, I would frequently get served a plate of rice or noodles, with raw veggies, fruits & nuts made into a face. It was her way of avoiding cooking, but really it probably set me up for my later preference for artfully arranged food.
I remember our first microwave, when I was 10 years old. I was finally "allowed" to cook. I'd offer to nuke a hotdog for anyone who walked through the door. By the time I was 16 I would cook most family dinners during the summer months, frequently dusting off old cookbooks not touched in decades to try something new.
I bought my first house in
Vermont when I was 21,
and quickly started container
gardening on the porch, in a
raised bed, among the rocks
on the hill in the back...
anywhere something would
grow. I knew little about what
I was actually doing, but
seemed to have a green thumb. I once grew 39 varieties of tomatoes (I recommmend Juliet Hybrid for an easy prolific crop for the whole family)...much more than the dozen tomatoes I'd try to sell for 20 cents each from the tv table set up by the street as a kid.
The best advice I can give to
parents is to always offer
healthy food AND model eating
it (if you MUST have junk, hide
it, save it til the kids are asleep,
but don't have it be a part of
your child's daily food choices).
Include children in the picking,
purchase and preparation of
meals. Even I went through some years in childhood when the only "green" food I would touch was mint chocolate chip ice cream. But in the end I prefer lots of vegetables, the staple of every meal for me now, and our family.
I am primarily a self-taught cook, picking stuff up here and there and messing with it.
My mother was born in Latvia, a professional ballet dancer, and she does not like to cook--or really even eat. My father was mostly english and scottish, a medical photographer in NYC, and he baked bread, lots of it, for anyone and everyone...also self-taught. He could cook when he had the time, quite well, but he usually had better things to do, like play in a jazz band or fly a plane.
My mother usually cooked some version of "rice, chicken, & broccoli" for most dinners. And when my father was away on weeknights, I would frequently get served a plate of rice or noodles, with raw veggies, fruits & nuts made into a face. It was her way of avoiding cooking, but really it probably set me up for my later preference for artfully arranged food.
I remember our first microwave, when I was 10 years old. I was finally "allowed" to cook. I'd offer to nuke a hotdog for anyone who walked through the door. By the time I was 16 I would cook most family dinners during the summer months, frequently dusting off old cookbooks not touched in decades to try something new.
I bought my first house inVermont when I was 21,
and quickly started container
gardening on the porch, in a
raised bed, among the rocks
on the hill in the back...
anywhere something would
grow. I knew little about what
I was actually doing, but
seemed to have a green thumb. I once grew 39 varieties of tomatoes (I recommmend Juliet Hybrid for an easy prolific crop for the whole family)...much more than the dozen tomatoes I'd try to sell for 20 cents each from the tv table set up by the street as a kid.
The best advice I can give toparents is to always offer
healthy food AND model eating
it (if you MUST have junk, hide
it, save it til the kids are asleep,
but don't have it be a part of
your child's daily food choices).
Include children in the picking,
purchase and preparation of
meals. Even I went through some years in childhood when the only "green" food I would touch was mint chocolate chip ice cream. But in the end I prefer lots of vegetables, the staple of every meal for me now, and our family.
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