Posts relating to our son, “B”. The emoji representation is inspired by Dan Hassan, it feels like a nice way to refer to a child when you’re trying to protect their identity online somewhat.
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We visited Dia Beacon for the first time, with B. Great place. This is Dan Flavin’s untitled (to the real Dan Hill) 1b from 1978. B’s favorite was Louise Bourgeois’s spider, I think, or maybe Arena by Rita McBride. It was fun stumbling across Occasional Papers’ Explorer in the book shop.
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B’s first snowman, about two feet tall. We couldn’t find much else for the eyes and mouth, and I can’t stop laughing at it.
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🎶 On the sec-ond day of Christ-mas 🎶
🎶 My true love* gave to me: 🎶
🎶 A dou-ble_ eye in-fec-tion_ 🎶
* My son. I was going to also write, “At least he’s not sick!” But that is false as of the wee hours of this morning, poor little dude.
Merry Christmas! 🎄⛄️❄️🎁❤️
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A few recent happenings.
I started working with the excellent Eames Institute last week as Engineering Lead. 🎉 It’s been good fun so far, and seems like a great team. A heck of a lot of things I care about are rolled up in that one role.
B is a gorgeous ball of wants and needs and joy and sorrow. He watched The Snowman last night with Sam for the first time while I was cooking dinner, I’m not sure he was emotionally prepared for the ending. 😢 And I wasn’t emotionally prepared for his reaction.
Recently, I got B a top for the first time in preparation for a long Thanksgiving flight. It didn’t capture his attention as much as I was hoping, hey ho, but on the flip side, I absolutely love it. I’d forgotten how fun tops are, and it reminded me of the most recent exhibition by the Eames Institute on their toy collection, particularly their tops. I can completely understand why someone would collect them, and could imagine slipping in to that…
Then I started looking in to their history, I had no idea how many different types of top there are! There’s even one that flips over while in motion to spin on its stem. Looking in to tippe tops took me to the absolutely glorious Grand Illusions channel on YouTube run by ex-BBC presenters Hendrik Ball and George Auckland and collector + presenter Tim Rowett. Besides their video about the tippe top, they have well over 500 videos on many other toys from Tim’s 20,000+ toy collection. This one particularly tickled me. I used to have that dolphin pen! And my god, do I want one of these.
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I just remembered… Another one of my favorites from the Kronos Quartet anniversary concert was Laurie Anderson’s piece “Nothing Left but Their Names”. I knew I would like it, but I didn’t expect to also learn another verse of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
I wish I’d written it down because the way she introduced it made me laugh, something about it being rather apocalyptic for a lullaby. But I thought I’d be able to look it up afterward, so I didn’t. It doesn’t seem to be part of her original lyrics, so take my word for it.
I do remember that she sang “where” instead of “what”, which I liked.
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder where you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder where you are!When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder where you are!
Turns out there are five verses in total. B will be happy to hear that, it’s all he asks for at night.
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Makes about 8-10 servings, depends on how you’re serving it. Takes about 10-15 minutes prep to chop and mince, then about 1½ hours of relatively hands-off cooking.
Heat a large pot over medium-high heat. Add about 2 TBSP of oil of your choosing, and then two sliced onions. Cook the onions until translucent, then add about 1 finely chopped chipotle in adobo (or more if you like it spicier), 3 cloves minced garlic, ¾ tsp salt, 2 tsp ground coriander, and 3 tsp ground cumin. Cook for a few minutes longer until fragrant.
Next, add everything else:
Turn the heat up to medium-high, and give it all a good stir. Once it is bubbling profusely, turn it down to a simmer and cook it for at least an hour until the thighs are super tender. Stir it occasionally, maybe ever 15 minutes or so and more frequently as you get further in to the cooking time to prevent sticking.
About 40 minutes in, remove and throw out the bay leaves, carrots, and celery.
When the thighs seem to be falling apart, gently remove them with tongs and set them on a plate. Let the sauce continue simmering while you shred all of the meat with two forks, then set the meat plate aside. You want to reduce the sauce until is pretty thick, so make sure you stir it pretty frequently.
Once the sauce is the desired consistency, use an immersion blender to liquify the sauce in the pot and then add the meat back to the sauce as well as the juice of 1 lime. Give it a stir, then taste it. Add more adobo sauce if you want it spicier, salt if needed (it will probably be needed), or more lime juice if you want it a little more tangy. Then let it simmer further, stirring frequently, until it has reached the desired consistency.
Serve it however you like. Tacos are great, just put the big pot of tinga on the table with some little warmed tortillas, sliced radishes, cotija cheese and/or sour cream, hot sauce of your choosing, and cilantro.
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We took a little day trip up to Storm King with some friends this past weekend on the most terrifyingly summery day of Autumn.
B seemed to love it. Of what we saw, I think that Calder’s The Arch and Noguchi’s Momo Taro were his favorites. I think he was just bowled over by the scale of The Arch, every time he saw it on the horizon he shouted “SCULP-TURR!!”. And he got a real kick out of sitting in and rambling over Momo Taro.
I was 90% sure that he and his little friend were allowed to crawl all over Noguchi’s piece based on Storm King’s guide and map. But I didn’t really know the extent of it until I looked up the piece on Storm King’s site just now.
The full realization of Momo Taro depends on the interaction of visitors, who are invited to not just touch, but to enter, to sit, and to unite their bodies with the work — to participate in its existence. Noguchi’s flat bench provides a welcome site for rest and contemplation. The “center” of the piece — the hollowed-out granite “peach pit” — serves as a peaceful retreat. Even on the hottest summer days this interior remains cool. Noguchi expressed his wish that visitors, especially children, would not only climb into the cavity but also sing inside it and enjoy its special aural resonance.
🥲 Wish granted! B’s buddy declared the “white one” to be her favorite sculpture when they left the park.
And B was such a trooper, he walked all over the Meadows and Museum Hill before we took a loop around the park in the tram. Then we headed back to the cafe for some lunch and picked up the stroller to walk all the way over to see Andy Goldsworthy’s Storm King Wall.
I was looking at the map on our way home and couldn’t believe how much we missed considering we spent about six hours there. We basically didn’t do the North Woods, Maple Rooms, or South Ponds at all. But it was never about completionism, it’s a good excuse to plan a trip back soon. Would love to go in the summer to check out Moodna Creek as well, though I don’t think it’s safe for swimming.
Not gonna show any photos of sculptures because too many of them have B in them, and there are better photos of them online anyways. But the landscape was gorgeous, so here’s some overexposed sky and grass.
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Turns out B is a biiiiiiig fan of Jonathan Richman. Wheels on the Bus, Afternoon, Ice Cream Man, Tandem Jump. Gonna try some more this weekend.
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All of the birthdays in our little family fall within a 15 day period in the middle of the summer. There was a lot of cake around for nearly a month. And then we went to the UK to visit family who kindly wanted to celebrate all of our birthdays, so we did it all over again.
Now, B asks for cake after nearly every meal, sometimes for breakfast. Obviously we’ve been trying to phase it out, explaining that there’s none left. But there have been enough times when he’s asked for it at random moments and it has been around. So there’s no way he’s going to chance not asking for it.
This was the conversation the other day at his Nana’s table during lunch.
“KEHK??”
“No buddy, there’s no cake.”
“… Happy bur-day?”
“No buddy, there’s no cake. It’s no one’s birthday.”
“…… Happy bur-day Nana?”
“… 🤦🏻♂️”
It had been my birthday, Sam’s birthday, and his birthday already. But we hadn’t celebrated Nana’s yet, so it was a logical ask to be fair.
I asked him what his favorite song was yesterday, and he started singing Happy Birthday. (This was 100% a ploy for cake, his actual favorite song is “Hey Jude” because he likes to yell the NAH NAH NAH part.)
He’s still getting over jet lag since we arrived back from the UK last weekend, lots of 5:30am-ish wake-ups. This morning, he wandered sleepily out of his bedroom to go use the potty and the first thing he said was, “Bur-day?”
I’m pretty sure he thinks he can manifest cake.
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This is my Grandma Piper’s classic white frosting recipe that she always used on the family recipe for white layer cake. Her notes: “This frosting is super. It never hardens on the cake. BUT, it is only enough for sides and top. So must use a filling.” I just doubled it for B’s birthday cake and there was plenty left over.
I’d never heard of a frosting with a flour and milk base before so looked it up online. Apparently this is “ermine” frosting. I was sort of skeptical, but it is really, really nice. It’s not quite as sweet as a standard buttercream, and Grandma Piper is right. It stays so fluffy, it’s kind of crazy. It was super easy to spread even after it had been in the fridge (after it had come to room temp, of course).
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Double the quantities if using it for the top, sides, and inside of this white layer cake recipe.