10 Things

While we were in Chicago, I kept making Alexis figure out which direction we should walk in. I knew the answer, of course, I just think it's important to be able to get your bearings in a new city. At one point, Alexis got SUPER annoyed by the game, which led to me explaining that I would be failing her if I didn't make sure she had certain life skills. That led to listing some of those life skills and blah, blah, blah. Here's part of that list if only so I can later remind Alexis that I told her it was all important. It's not my fault if she doesn't listen to me.

And, thus, here's 10 Things You Have To Do Before You Move Out of Your Parent's House:

1. Do laundry well enough to be confident you can get most any stain out. Seriously. Life is annoyingly hard if you don't know how to get clothes clean.

2. Somewhat related, walk around public with an obvious stain on your clothes. For real. You have to see for yourself that nobody cares about that thing that's consuming all of your head space. It's a valuable lesson for lots of things.

2. Clean a bathroom. The key is to know how so that you know it's worth paying someone else to do it when and if you get the chance.

3. Figure out how to navigate your way around a city. Any city. At any time.

4. Look up from your phone. There is a trick to number 3 and that is to look up. GPS will sometimes fail you (especially in urban areas), but figuring out which way it is to water or a particular tall building or whatever is MAGICAL. Besides, you miss all the fun stuff if you walk around staring at your phone.

5. Be able to put air in a car tire. By yourself.

6. Know how to change a flat tire or who to call for help. I know some people think you need to be able to DO it, but I think delegating some tasks is completely appropriate.

7. Know a trick for clearing your head. Everybody has days when life is too much and you have to be able to regain your focus. For me, it's playing dumb games on my phone. It's like a reset to do something mindless for a bit. Everybody needs a thing like that.

8. Stay up way too late for no good reason.

9. Be able to read a bus/train/subway schedule well enough to catch a flight, for example. The point is to be able to use public transportation to get somewhere by a defined deadline. Learn how while you still live with your parents so you have someone who can bail you out if needed.

10. Have a strategy for exiting a bad conversation. Everybody runs into them from time-to-time; you gotta know what you're going to do to get away gracefully.

Not a Thai Food Recipe, Alas

This year of too much travel has taught me one very important thing - I'm really dumb about foods around the world. I didn't expect the Middle East to rock for food, but it did. I expected Colombia to have good coffee, but it didn't. And I expected Thailand to be my happy food place, but it was not.

I have never struggled to find vegetarian food like I did there. Which, HUH? I have been to Germany this year, you guys. While I knew that Thai isn't generally vegetarian-ready, in the States it's easy to say "skip the fish sauce" and we're good. They just put fish sauce in everything. EVERYTHING. Somewhere, there's a vegetarian who is reading this and wondering if they've been screwing up - Yes, you have. All Thai has fish something in it, even when the menu marks it as "vegetarian." You have to tell the kitchen to skip it.

But that doesn't even work in Thailand, at least as far as I could find.

So I ate a lot of dessert. And fruit. And bread. And dreamed fondly of all the vegetarian noodles and such I would have when I returned. (For what it's worth, I'm a vegetarian because I genuinely don't like the taste of meat. Any meat. Fish was one of the first things I swore off because EWWWWW. Definitely not for me. Thus, I *know* when it has snuck into something. And when there's a lot of it? ::Barf::)

Then I returned and my children had opinions and stuff. They overruled my Pad Thai dreams because they wanted Hibachi Style Noodles and WHATEVER. I'll make Pad Thai at some point this week. In the meantime, here's a repost of one of our favorite recipes because it is so good.

Unrelated fun fact - there wasn't a single post on the internet for a recipe like this when I first posted it in 2014. Now there are hundreds. Welcome to the land of really good noodles, everyone. Oh, and I saw noodles like these called "spaghetti" all over the place in Bangkok, so I wasn't crazy when I went there.

Japanese Hibachi Style Noodles (On the Cheap)

1/2 box spaghetti, cooked according to package directions
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame seeds (check the spice aisle -- they're buried with the small bottles of spices)
Soy sauce to taste

1. Cook the spaghetti. I know I told you to do that in the ingredients list, but I'm just making sure we're clear. Cook it, drain it, blah, blah, blah.

2. Toss the butter in the largest skillet you own. Heat it over medium high heat until it starts to melt then throw in the spaghetti. Toss in the sesame oil, garlic, and rice vinegar while you're at it.

3. Flip and stir those noodles every few seconds to prevent burning. Cook them for about 5 minutes, then add the soy sauce and sesame seeds. By the way, I end up using about 1/4 cup of soy sauce, but you may want to use more.

4. That's it. Seriously. Kind of crazy how easy they are, right?

(FYI--the vegetables and tofu are also fried in a pan with the same ingredients. Just leave the sesame seeds out that time.)

Mila's "Cheese" Face Is ... WELL, THEN