14 Questions
19 Feb
Maya was not pleased yesterday when I told her that we couldn’t go to the park after school. She quickly perked up, however, when I told her that my sweet friend Bonny was coming over for tea instead. Since Maya had never met Bonny before I quickly braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions. And Maya didn’t disappoint.
In the 15 minutes it took us to get home from her school I answered the following:
Who is Bonny?
My friend from work.
Have I met her before?
No Maya, you haven’t.
What does she look like?
She has long black hair.
Is it curly like Isabella’s or straight like yours?
It is very straight. (Of course my hair is anything but straight but I chose not to open up a whole new line of questioning by explaining that to her. As an aside, thank you Chi Flat Iron for changing my life forever.)
How else does Bonny look?
She is Chinese.
Does she speak Chinese?
Yes she does.
If she speaks Chinese, how are we going to understand her?
Well Maya she speaks English too.
Does she live far away?
Yes she does. About an hour away.
China is only an hour away?
No Maya, Bonny lives in California where we live.
Well why doesn’t she live in China if she is Chinese?
Some Chinese people move to other countries and Bonny is one of them.
Does Bonny live with Ni-Hao Kai-Lan? (Kai-Lan is a Nickelodeon character who speaks Chinese.)
No Maya, Kai-Lan is pretend. She doesn’t live with Bonny.
What kind of car does Bonny drive?
I’m not sure. (Is it obvious my kid live in Los Angeles or what?)
How can you not know if she is your friend?
All I remember is that her car is black.
A black what though?
At this point I thanked the lord that we reached home and the questions stopped. Instead Maya and I directed our energies to make a snack for our impending tea time.
We had every intention of making an Oatmeal Ball recipe by Martha Stewart but unfortunately I couldn’t find the piece of paper I wrote the recipe on the last time I made them. Even better? Martha’s site was down! Her site is finally back up today but is as slow as molasses. I’m sorry, but if Martha of all people can’t manage her website how is there hope for the rest of us?
Anyway, since the Oatmeal Balls were such a hit the last time we made them, I decided to go against my better judgment and make them from memory.
When will I learn that I should trust my first instinct? I had no idea what I was doing. Thus, I made something that looked similar to Martha’s Oatmeal Balls, but they certainly aren’t worthy of the same title. Hence, may I present:
Average Oatmeal Balls
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup of brown rice cereal
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of almond butter
2 tablespoons of honey
1/3 cup of dried cranberries
1. Toast the oats in a dry pan for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Sprinkle with the cinnamon. Remove the oats from the pan.
2. In the same (now empty) pan add the olive oil, vanilla, almond butter, and honey. Stir well.
3. Add the oats back, the rice cereal, and the cranberries. Stir until well combined.
Here is where things went wrong – last time I made these I was able to form them into little balls and refrigerate. But this time the mixture turned out too dry and crumbly to form into balls. So we improvised by putting the mixture in cupcake liners and put them in the fridge to harden up a bit. Texture aside, these actually tasted okay, but I was disappointed in the final product. The funny thing is my picky husband, the same one who proclaims meals that I slave over for hours as “decent,” ate two of these yesterday. Apparently he likes them. I say apparently because he wasn’t exactly tripping over himself handing over compliments, but Ali eating seconds of anything speaks volumes.
As a side note, thank you all for your nice comments yesterday. I know that for every negative comment/e-mail I receive, countless positive ones make up for it. You have no idea how much I appreciate your nice comments and your appreciation for my non-stop sarcasm.
