Slobbermeister

So my baby slobbers a lot.

Before Maxine was born, Horyon bought a lot of fabric and made it into handkerchiefs for the baby. Very thin material, all cotton, about 10 inches square. She must have made 20 or 30 of 'em, and I had no idea why.

Now I know. At first, they were used mostly for spitting up. Spitting up is an expression that means vomiting, except only for babies. But if I have too many beers and spit up, no one calls it that. One of those little ironies in life. Anyway, they were mostly tied around her neck and used for spitting up, but for the last week or two, they have been mopping up drool pretty much constantly.

And so, the first picture with today's post represents an activity that Maxine and I both enjoy a lot, though there is an element of danger in it for me. You see, if one considers this activity to be "Flying" (holding my baby in the air), Maxine's role would have to be "Bombadier" (Fraeulein Slobbermeister), and my role would be "Target" (wet t-shirt contestant). I still do it every day with her, because the opening to the "Bomb Bay" (a.k.a. Mumbai) is this huge grin. Fr. Slobbermeister holds her legs, arms and head up, and looks around at the world from this amazing perspective. She doesn't see targets, just wonderful sights. I almost wish that someone would pick me up like that to have a look around. Perhaps I'll join the WWF.

I know it's a bit late, but didn't figure anyone out there would complain if I wrote a bit about our New Year's Eve celebration. We invited three friends and one stranger to our home for dinner. The stranger didn't come. Seriously. He said he would, but he must have found something out. Horyon ordered a turkey for me to cook. 5 kg worth of bird, about 11 pounds. Freshly killed and mailed to me. Korea is a small enough country that you can send meat through the mail, you know.

Anyway, this is my fourth or fifth turkey, and it came out quite well, I thought. As did my guests. (Excuse me? My guests came out well?) Unfortunately, after taking a picture of the turkey, the camera got put down and never picked up again. However, you can take my word for it that D.A., Jay and Kalai all looked at least as good as the bird, if not as hot.

I splurged on a wintertime treat that my own mother makes quite often when it's cold outside: corn casserole. It's so easy that I can tell you how to make it right here and now without even going to look up the recipe. And I'm sure that if I get it wrong my Mom will post a comment to set the record straight:

1. Melt a whole stick of margarine in a casserole dish.
2. Cut an onion into little bits and cook them in the butter till they're soft and a bit clear. (The word for that is saute, but I didn't use saute because my dictionary says that saute means "in a small amount of fat", saute uses one of those ` marks above the e and I can't figure out how to do that, and it's a French word and true Americans no longer do French stuff.)
3. Throw in a box of corn muffin mix, a cup of grated cheddar cheese, a can of creamed corn, and a can of regular corn. I like a dash of freshly ground pepper in it, but that's not on the officially sanctioned ingredients list.
4. Mix it up real good.
5. Cook it in the oven for 45 minutes at 177 degrees Celsius. I leave the temperature conversion to you, because without it this recipe is not challenging at all.

Unfortunately, when my timer went off, I turned off the oven and decided to leave the corn casserole in there for a few minutes while I made space for it elsewhere. Fifteen minutes later, I slapped my forehead and muttered "corn casserole!", and took it out of the oven. It had burned to the dish, but the Visions cookware stuff cleans up real nice after a little soaking, and some people like it a little crunchy on the bottom.

I also made mashed potatoes and gravy. It was one of the best batches of gravy ever, in the entire history of gravy. If I had served my guests nothing but bowls of gravy, they would have gone home satisfied and raving about my cooking skills. It was that good. And I didn't take a picture of it. Curses! I will not tell you how to make it, because some secrets are better hidden away and lost forever.

Our guests all cleared out by 10 p.m. The five of us made a huge dent in the turkey, and ate all but one serving of the potatoes and a couple of cups of gravy that didn't look as good as it did when it was hot. We drank cranberry juice to make up for not having a can of cranberry jelly, and we drank almost two bottles of wine to make up for not having our families to be with.

At midnight, to bring in the new year, Horyon and I were cleaning up after putting Maxine to bed. Happy New Year!

Peace,

Rob