a peek inside the fishbowl

The girls and I went to an afternoon Christmas party on the last day before holidays. There were a ton of kids running around, decorating cookies, wreaking havoc, and generally falling all over everything. The joy of the looming holidays on their faces was wonderful.

Besides the aforementioned cookies there was also food. I hung out with friends in the crowded kitchen, wine in hand, and we all gorged on cheese and crackers and a killer warm brie (!). Much to my amusement, I watched as Sarah and Emma both discovered a slow-cooker full of tangy, saucy meatballs. They both approached the thing like a pair of wild cats; eyeballing it, hungry and unsure, wondering if something unpleasant was going to jump out at them. Happily they tried the meatballs and loved them. As any mom, I was VERY happy and excited that they discovered something new and actually liked it.

It wasn’t until after we created our List of Favourite Foods that I remembered to email Pam, the Meatball Maker, to ask her for the recipe. (It was very important I get my hands on a recipe that BOTH children loved so much.)

Her recipe was simple, more than that, so simple it sounded, well, a bit odd. But I followed her instructions and they turned out great.  We ate them with a big salad and slices of fresh bread. I served the meatballs in small bowls and gave the girls a toothpick with which to eat them. (What is it with kids and toothpicks? Somehow it adds 100% to the Perceived Enjoyment Ratio.)

Without further ado, here is the recipe.

Pam’s Meatball Recipe

You will need:

• one box of frozen PC meatballs
• one jar of blackcurrent jam (she said you could also use grape jelly but that blackcurrent, is, you know, FANCIER!) ;)
• one jar of chili sauce

1. 1) Bake meatballs according to directions on the package.
2. 2) Combine jar of chili sauce and jam in a large pot. Simmer. (I personally found the sauce a little too tangy so I added a tablespoon of sugar. Maybe I’ll make it with less chili sauce next time.)
3. 3) Once meatballs are cooked, add to sauce. You can also dump the whole thing into a slow cooker if you’re going to be serving it as an appetizer at a party or just to a crowd of crazed children and their exhausted parents. :)
4. 4) Eat.

It’s so easy it’s embarrassing. But the kids loved it, and sometimes that’s all that matters to me. :)

Edited to add: I think I’ve finally nailed the perfect ratio of jam:sauce. I now make the recipe this way:

• One onion, diced
• One can of whole cranberries
• Approx. one cup of chili sauce (no name brand is fine)

I sauté the onion until softened before I add the other ingredients. Otherwise the rest of this “recipe” is the same. It gets eaten up EVERY TIME.

We just bought a family membership to the National Gallery here in Ottawa. I’ve written about our experiences at the Gallery here before. To summarize: it’s all good.

There is an excellent, you-don’t-want-to-miss exhibition at the Gallery on right now. It is immensely creative and will challenge your traditional ideas of art**. The artist is David Hoffos (official website here).

The girls were stunned (ok, we all were). Imagine walking into a dark room. It’s quiet. Your eyes take a moment to adjust. You follow along a wide corridor, peeking into small windows to see various scenes made up of reflected video loops and miniature replicas of homes/furniture/landscapes. Mind you, we needed to drag around a stepstool for Sarah (which was helpfully provided), but it was, in a word, brilliant.

** Sidebar: I’m sure the deeper artistic meaning behind this installation was explained in an paragraph or two. Can I tell you a secret? I rarely read artist statements. I skip over them because, honestly, it all just sounds like it’s made up. What’s important to me is this: is it different? Is it interesting? Is it memorable? Yes, yes, and yes.

Anyway, yes, the membership. I love having a membership. It gives me the freedom to waltz in and out of the Gallery at will. I never feel cranky or pressured to Make The Most of Our Visit Because We Shelled Out The Big Bucks. Memberships come in handy when you are towing small people around. As we all know, small people’s moods (ahem, as well as our own) can turn on a dime.

• Meltdown? Leave.
• Hungry? Leave.
• [insert whatever emergency you want here] Leave.

I like having the freedom to focus on one section of the Gallery really well and skipping everything else.  It’s just much more manageable that way.

The family membership at the Gallery is $95/year. It has some cool benefits (at least to me):

• We don’t pay admission to the permanent collection and to special exhibitions
• Entrance for members is totally “fast track.” (We don’t pay, but do need to check in.) This has come in amazingly handy on the last day of a visiting exhibition. The last time this happened was during the Ron Mueck exhibit. (Remember the giant baby head?) The line up was out the door, past Maman and down the street.
• 15% discount at the gift shop (the Gallery has an amazing gift shop)
• $2 off parking
• exclusive invitations to Members’ Evenings (although I have yet to go to one)

We haven’t bought memberships to any other places here in town. We just don’t go often enough to justify it, but this all got me thinking about the other kid-friendly galleries and museums in Ottawa and how they compared.

Did you realize that a $72 household/family membership gives you unlimited admission to the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the Canada Aviation Museum and the Canada Agriculture Museum at the Central Experimental Farm? (!) More info on that can be found here.

The other biggies in town:

• Canadian Museum of Civilization/Canadian War Museum: (HELLO, is this website hard to use or what? A “duo” family membership for one year is $99 and includes admission to Civilization (as well as the Children’s Museum), to the War Museum, and reduced admission to IMAX showings.)
• Canadian Museum of Nature: Membership is only $65 (!)

By way of FYI, museum memberships make great gifts. My mother bought our first membership to the National Gallery. (Thanks mom!) It is truly the gift that keeps giving.

I know there are families out there who would LIKE to buy a museum pass but just can’t afford it. Here in Ottawa, free museum passes are available from the public library but it is a bit of a good news/bad news kind of situation. Good news is that all you need is a library card. Bad news: the wait list is really long. So if you want to take advantage of this wonderful program at some point in the future, put your name down now.

What about you? Have you invested in a museum membership? Why or why not? Which museums are your favourite destinations?

This is the stealth poetry project. It was first discussed here.

How it works: I dig up a kid-friendly poem, print it out, and fasten it to the back of our front door (although a fridge would come in handy for this purpose as well)! The goal here is to make poetry “top of mind” without it turning it into a boring school lesson. Here’s what we are looking at this week:

The Story of Fidgety Philip
by Heinrich Hoffman

“Let me see if Philip can
Be a little gentleman;
Let me see if he is able
To sit still for once at table.”
Thus spoke in earnest tone
The father to his son;
And the mother looked very grave
To see Philip so misbehave.
But Philip he did not mind
His father who was so kind.
He wriggled
And giggled,
And then, I declare,
Swung backward and forward
And tilted his chair
Just like any rocking horse;-
“Philip! I am getting cross!”

See the naughty, restless child,
Growing still more rude and wild,
Till his chair falls over quite.
Philip screams with all his might,
Catches at the cloth, but then
That makes matters worse again.
Down upon the ground they fall,
Glasses, bread, knives forks and all.
How Mamma did fret and frown,
When she saw them tumbling down!
And Papa made such a face!
Philip is in sad disgrace.

Where is Philip? Where is he?
Fairly cover’d up you see!
Cloth and all are lying on him;
He has pull’d down all upon him!
What a terrible to-do!
Dishes, glasses, snapt in two!
Here a knife, and there a fork!
Philip, this is naughty work.
Table all so bare, and ah!
Poor Papa and poor Mamma
Look quite cross, and wonder how
They shall make their dinner now.