This Is Not Delicious

** IMPORTANT NOTE FROM THE BLOGGER: This post is actually about how a certain class of cookie embodies the futile, broken dreams of Western civilization, but I take a really long time to get to the point. Sorry about that. In my defense, brevity might be the soul of wit but a didactic ramble is often its elaborate coffin, so, you know, have some respect. Also, writing about my doubleplus cute daughter is the only way I can smuggle in pictures that people actually want to look at and when you write blog posts this long it really is important to have pictures.** 

We've crossed a sad milestone here on Gumpen Village Street. It used to be that the child distinguished between things that were delicious and things that were disgusting. Now she recognizes that a lot of stuff is just...kind of okay. And I'm sad about it, because it is the beginning of the end of innocence.  

Waffles are delicious...for now.

There was a time when all food was good. Then she started rejecting stuff on the grounds that it was "yucky", "disgusting," or "spicy" -- more recently, "sour" or "nasty". These judgments are delivered with a look of horror, a grasping of the tongue and sometimes tears and even spitting. 

But at least it was cute. Like the rosemary incident. One dinner a couple months ago Noodle was tucking into a fresh bowl of pasta with tomato sauce, which she loves, when she froze. Mid-bite. 

Dammit, I thought. I knew it. 

"This is a stick," the Noodle said to me with distate, holding up a single, tiny rosemary leaf. 

"It's rosemary," I said. "It's an herb." 

Noodles with sticks. This photo is a poor recreation of the offending dish.

She peered into her bowl. "No, this is a stick." She went in like a monkey looking for fleas. "Look! Other stick."

She held each leaf up demonstratively before smearing it onto the table. "Stick," she said. "Stick. Stick." You stupid, stick-hiding fiend, she thought to herself. It was a long dinner. 

But in the weeks since she turned two, there is a third, sadder category of food: Stuff she'll eat but without pleasure. 

Rice crackers, for example. Our go-to playground snack. One recent day she looked up at me, rice dust on her lips, and noted: "This...this is not really delicious, Mommy." And then with a hint of sorrow she polished off the rest. 

Or last week. She was eating my soup and seemed to be enjoying it, so I went fishing for compliments. "Mmm, is it yummy?" I asked. "No," she said with a shrug, "It's not really yummy." And kept eating. 

In fact, the only things that she finds delicious are, I'm afraid, things that everyone finds delicious, like ice cream and candy and cheese. (And plain black bread, for some reason, but I'm sure that'll end soon too.) 

And I guess this makes me sad because it means the way is prepared for her to experience disappointment. The let down. The long slow process of becoming jaded. Heck, one day soon she's going to realize that sorting rocks and riding the bus to the supermarket actually constitute a fairly shitty Saturday, and then what will I do?  

On the other hand, it's an achievement that she can distinguish between things that are delicious and things that we eat because they keep us regular. It means she has a sense of personal taste. Maybe she'll be less likely to buy in to stupid fads. 

Which brings me to the actual reason I started this blog post. Ready? 

MACAROONS ARE NOT DELICIOUS.* 

I mean, HELLLOOOOOOO. They are not delicious, and they do not even keep us regular. 

Destined to break your heart. Actually I never made this recipe, so I shouldn't judge, but I will.
No macaroons are actually delicious.

Ya. Macaroons. That is what this post is really about. Macaroons are the insipid, overplayed arm candy of the confection world. And if one more shitty schlock shop starts selling these by the checkout counter, I might scream. Is there no escape? Every airport. Every bourgie supermarket. Every bakery. 

Sure, they're pretty to look at. Their smooth, bland form allows for fun with color and indeed many are beautiful. It's obvious why the people have been Instagramming them ever since Instagram was invented. But #yum? Please. 

Et tu, McDonalds? REALLY? 

Macaroons are disappointment itself. To bite into a macaroon is to feel your hopes dashed and, worse, to feel like a sucker for having hoped your stupid hopes in the first place. How could you have believed that something so beautiful would actually taste good? 

A bit Orwellian, really.

Remember that scene in American Beauty (reach way back, guys) where Kevin Spacey's character finally gets the girl of his burning imagination and then it turns out she's just a clueless child onto whom the man has been projecting his remarkably lame fantasies? They didn't even need to make that whole movie. Alan Ball could have just passed around a box of macaroons and waited until everyone took a bite and been like, "That? That feeling you just had? That's what our movie is about". 

Macaroons are not disgusting (actually, I had a foie gras-stuffed one this summer that was SUPER disgusting, but that was an exception). They are just...nothing. They are okay. But you should only eat food that is just okay if it contains vitamins or supports your ability to poop. 

You should definitely not be paying (way) upwards of fifteen euros for six cookies that are just sort of okay. Bizarre liver-based varieties notwithstanding, your average macaroon is made out of egg whites and food coloring. Sure, the gorgeous cardboard boxes are fit to be used as the display sarcophagi of tiny dead pharaohs, but still. Have we lost our damn minds? The Emperor is naked, y'all, and has been for years. 

Laduree has boxes fit to bury tiny Care Bear kings. Still not that delicious though.

Enough already. Let's go back to eating rice crackers and cupcakes. I mean real cupcakes. The kind that don't have a three-inch butter-boner on their heads...and on that note, I'm going to stop because I feel another food rant coming on. 

Oh man. This blog post is such a macaroon. 

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*Betcha didn't see that one coming, eh? Keeping it fresh. 

Chitter Chatter

Hey hey hey! Remember how I was going to post all my vacation photos? HA! Joke is on you; I'm super pregnant and my back hurts and I can do anything I want. 

Instead of sharing those photos, let me tell you about my chatterbox daughter. The Noodle is now two years and one month old and she just will not stop talking. She mixes up her languages and her word order can be a little Yoda-esque, and she has cartoon lisp that only me and her dad fully understand, but still. She can talk.

It runs in the family. As those who know me know, I suffer from a terrible case of think-while-I-talk. The blah blah blahs. It's like a neurological deficiency. But obviously it's not MY fault; I inherited it from my father. Although unlike my verbacious dad (and his siblings), I talk without having anything interesting to say. 

We are also a terribly loud bunch. I'm not sure about my granddad, because he died long before I was born, but someone wrote a book about HIS dad and literally the third sentence is: "The father had a loud bass voice, and the little boy (my great grandfather) inherited those stentorian tones." 

Two pages later there's a story from when my great grandfather was three years old, and someone thought he was a girl because of his long curly hair. "The child proclaimed his gender in a voice half croak and half bellow: 'I am not a girl; I am a boy.' The visitor laughed and responded, 'If I had heard you speak first, I would have known you were a boy.' In an aside, he commented, 'There is a coming orator.'' 

So you see. Exuberant speech is in the blood. 

Back here in the Gumpen Village, our little piece o' pasta's latest milestone is that in addition to being super bossy, she now wants to negotiate everything. "Just one episode, mommy." "Please mommy. I want pizza mommy." "No vegetebegedebebbas...Let's buy stwawbewwies! Stwawbewwies ONLY." 

And of course the classic, "It's not bedtime." We made a video to record her speech development for posterity plus also my mother, and, lucky you, you get to see the edited version. Champagne, confetti, party blowers*. 

Behold, an incredibly long (it used to be longer?) video of Noodle procrastinating with her enablers, who clearly think she is adorabubble and are probably ruining her but don't quite mind yet. 

*Party blowers? Really? That's their actual name?... Huh...*Snort*harhar.

10 More Weeks. Also we went to Cornwall.

Uuuuurgh. The temperature is scorching, this city sucks at AC, and I am eight months pregnant. I keep wanting to update this blog, just like I really want to do all kinds of things that would require the most minimal initiative. Like taking off my crusty toenail polish, or getting up at night to pee. It's not that I can't. It's just that I CAN'T. 

I'm like a slug in the desert: won't be long now. 

That said, I must, I HAVE to, I cannot NOT post pictures of our family vacation to England. So here they are. Photos. With captions. 

We were staying in a lovely cottage in Lostwithiel, which is near Fowey, which is a Picturesque Ancient Village on the southern Cornish coast. It was charming. The stone walls were charming, the exposed rafters were charming, the sheep were charming, the herbs and flowers were charming, the clotted cream, scones and tea that awaited Alex, Noodle, my parents and me on arrival were charming. You get the picture. I don't know why you are still reading; this blog post sucks. I'm sorry. Don't leave. I love you.

I might be pregnant. 

Anyway, we kicked off our week in Cornwall by visiting  one of the most charming places I've ever been: the Lost Gardens of Heligan. It is basically paradise. Especially for kids. 

There are green giants

There are logs and things to climb over

If the airline loses your stroller, you can always ride on daddy's head

There's a little jungle that has all the beautiful sights with none of the leeches, mosquitos, thumb-sized ants, flesh-melting wasps or face-sized spiders, which I personally always found to be the most distressing part of the real life rainforest.

A jungle where you have to wear a sweater. Heaven.

Complete with rope bridge. If you bring a toddler, you can carry her across while she screams about wanting to go by herself. Extra points if you don't accidentally drop her into the pond below!

There were dewy meadow flowers

Perfect for sitting in.

CHEEEEEEESE.

Hydrangeas are a Cornish theme, apparently. They are everywhere. 

Grandma was around, so Nava had braids all the time.

Her first ever emu. She thought they were hilarious.
Which is understandable, since they look like evil,
noodle-necked, five-foot dumplings on stilts.

Epic meltdown because we wouldn't let
her cross the electrified fence to pet the pigs. 

Granddad spent much of our vacation teaching Nava to recognize different types of poop. The turd you cannot really see on this picture was, I believe, bunny. We also saw horse, cow, pig, sheep and goat shit. "Sheep shit, mommy," said my then-one year-old. "Hahahaha!" The animals were invisible to her. All she cared about was their feces.

Sheep shit. Also, sheep.

At the end of a long, stroller-less day it was blankie + pacifier on top of daddy's head.

My parents and some hell cabbage*

I think my mom said these were ancient giant rhododendrons*

Typical Cornish coastline, plus cow and sheep poop.

Restormel Castle. Here is what I remember about the history of Restormel Castle: It was built in the early Middle Ages. It used to have four wooden towers. It is good for castles to be round. 
There was a moat..Yeah, I'm out.
Man, this vacation was super educational.

Granddad, Nana and Noodle on the grounds of Restormel Castle.

Noodle and me.

Can you spot my father?

Bubble.

This is the Eden Project, which we visited on a rainy day because it has giant indoor biomes.

The Mediterranean Biome.

Indoor vineyard plus dancing sculptures.

Now that I have a kid, I have an excuse to participate in all of those free, character-building activities that libraries, zoos and other public places put on for the entertainment and edification of children. Here in the biome we visited a storyteller. Here is my father, sitting in the storyteller's big wooden throne. 

There was also a Rainforest Biome, and in this biome there were these little guys.

And a giant banana flower.

And so on.

The best part was this tiny air-conditioned box along the middle of the trail, whose sole function was to keep sweaty British people from keeling over dead in the middle of their approx. 30-minute biome experience. It was packed to the gills. 

Outside it was raining. Except apparently they don't do raindrops in Cornwall. Instead it is this sort of ultra violent mist that I found pretty refreshing but which, if I had to live in it, would drive me to distraction and maybe the colonisation of Asia.

Aaaand that's for now. Here are ships.

And that is but a fraction of a fraction of our holiday photo collection! Don't worry, I'll be back to bore you with more tomorrow. <3 <3 <3

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*I'm not very good at plant names. 

Yesterday's News

SO. Now that this one project at work is over, I have a little head space for the summer and shall commence a self-flagellation of posts in which I update my audience* on all the things that have happened over the last month or so. 

For example, this one fine day last month (okay, maybe six weeks ago) when seven different babies whose mommies are all friends got together and wreaked havoc on Jenny's apartment. 

Seven babies aged 1 month to 2.5 years, including 1 pair of twins. MAYHEM.

The sensation of things coming to pass is particularly strong when you first see your friends' children playing with your children, I think. It's so strange that they are all finally real. 

Because when you're a little kid you do imagine your children, but with the extravagance and lavish uncertainty that you consider every aspect of your adult life ("I shall live in a wooden house in a tree on an island with my seven children and a baby tiger, and we wil have a special cozy helicopter for flying in and I'm going to save all the drowning baby whales"). 

The imagination of kids got realer for me when I was a teenager, but not necessarily more mature ("It's too bad you and me are both girls so we can't make a biological baby, because it would be totally hot." "If you and Rex had a baby it could have black hair and green eyes. That would be SO amazing.") 

The biggest kids randomly hogging the stroller, while one of its usual occupants looks on and jiggles.

Then you spend your twenties (okay, I spent my twenties) avoiding actual reproduction while nonetheless developing a keen sense of maternal anxiety ("I really want kids one day. But I'm not ready for kids. I'll just ruin them. I don't even know who I am! I need to travel. I need to focus on my career. My "career". Oh god oh god. And I really like sleeping all morning. And I have no money. And I'm not ready for the commitment. But I really want kids.") 

Then suddenly you have a baby. And half your circle of friends is getting knocked up like lab rats. And there are babies friggin' everywhere. 

Thus, as after every irreversible thing, you can hear the slamming shut of doorways or even peepholes into alternate lives. You love a new person that you can never unlove. He or she will never not be your kid. 

And all the theoretical children you and your friends could have had (and all the theoretical people you could have had them with) vaporize entirely and are replaced by something much, much better: the kids you DO have. 

It is noisy. There's less sleeping and also fewer adult beverages than you might have previously desired at a party. And the festivities break up before 7 p.m., because bed time. But actually, eating berries and cake while a seething pile of infants and toddlers howl all around you is more beautiful -- and fun -- than you'd think. 

If there is ever a situation where several thousand tons of berries have to be gobbled up in order to save Planet Earth, all we have to do is unleash the toddlers. 

So thanks for the baby party, Jenny! And to all the babies -- including those not pictured here -- y'all just keep on drooling 'til next time. 

_______________________


*Hi, Mom and Dad.

Weird News

The Internet is filled with stories about creepy things that little children have said or done. A lot of those stories have to do with kids pointing at dark corners and talking about people they see standing there. Or are about kids "remembering" a previous life. 

This photo has no relation to this post. #TBWhateverday

Today, this happened to us. 

Let me explain about the things that the Noodle thinks are endlessly awesome this week: 
1.) Anything she can "count" (Ooone! Twooo! Fouur!)
2.) Trams ("Choo-choo train")
3.) Busses ("BAAAHS")
4.) Airplanes ("Airpwane!")

Noodle does not care about cars, I guess because there are so many of them. They're background noise, like walls and sidewalks and grass. 

Except this evening. Noodle, Alex and I were walking home from the nearby dim sum place and decided to stop off at the gas station because we needed cat food. Noodle was in her stroller. As we were leaving the gas station she started whooping and hooting about the cars. 

"Anschauen!" she said, pointing wildly. "Anschauen!" (That means to look at something). 

We ignored her and kept walking, but she squirmed out of her stroller. She handed her father her blanket and her pacifier, which is unheard of. She grabbed my hand. "Car. Auto. Anschauen," she said, and led me back into the station. 

I thought we were heading for the modest gold Mercedes that was getting gas. Nope. The Volkswagen? No. The girl was focused. We walked past all the pumps and into the back, where a row of cars were being serviced. 

And walked directly up to the nicest car in the place, which was a family-friendly black Porsche. One like this: 

Noodle marched past the lady in a smock who had been waxing the car, and who had turned around because she thought we needed help. My one year old put her hands on her hips and spent a few moments staring at the car from the front, and then walked around to the side. She was nodding. 

The front doors were open. Noodle had a look at the seats. Finally she pointed. "This is nice," she said. "'Snice, Mommy." 

Her hands went back on her hips. And then she just stood there, nodding, with a little face that said she knows good work when she sees it. And then she cried when I made her leave. 

It was the most absurd thing I've ever seen. Where does she get this stuff from? 

The only explanation, of course, is that she is the reincarnation of a chubby banker who is having a half-hearted mid-life crisis but whose spouse won't let her (see what I did there? 10 points!) get the really cool car. 

I see luxury vehicles.