Two things I caught on video today:
- Julius watching the very musical kids TV show “Hi5” and his reaction to it while playing with one of his burbcloths and …
- A few days ago we started giving him some fingerfood, stuff he can eat with his hands, though peas and banana pieces are very hard to grasp, even for us adults as we found out. He loves it, leaves a mess, plays around with it and tries to stuff too much into his mouth. Well, this way he has to learn what works best for him.
And this is what my evening routine of bringing him to bed looks like.
Fortunately tonight it was fairly easy (thanks to Ritsu’s breastfeeding magic … I wish I had boobs), other evenings it can be up to 30 minutes of walking around in the bedroom while singing to him.
Especially lovely are those times when his eyes are closed and he appears to be sleeping, I lay him down, and he wakes up again … and I can start the game all over …
But looking at him, while his eyelids are getting heavier and heavier (and he seems to be fighting against that sometimes) is very cute.
Found a nice recipe again and knowing that almost all ingredients were availble, I made it tonight. Basically the fish (we used Bedford) is drizzled with a lime / soy sauce mix and then baked for 8 minutes (i added a few minutes under the grill). Then you stir fry beans, baby corn and shitake in a mix of roasted garlic / ginger and add the cooked (and drenched in sesame oil) noodles and finish that up with a blob of thai sweet chili sauce. The full recipe is here.
The result is very nice for both, eyes and taste buds. And if I knew a bit more about food-phtography, the below comparison shot would look even better. (In my version, the noodles are hiding under the fish and veggies)
When it is too sunny outside (as it was for most of the easter weekend, Ritsu strolls Julius around outside on the veranda, which he just loves as much as our other walks along the seaside,
… coming through.
This is a very early picture of the whole teething development. It is very hard to see and even harder to take a picture of. I spend quite some time trying to divert Julius’ attention and make him laugh with one hand, while the other operated the camera.
What you see it really a bit of white not just shining through, but there is actually a whole in the gum (which explains the sleepless nights we had a few days before)
Here are some more pictures from that same session
Today started at 2AM with our security alarm going off. Gladly it was a malfunction, but our sleep was sure interrupted. For lunch I made chicken and pork satey skewers, and late afternoon we tried out Julius’ new car seat (which we finally figured out how to install) and we drove to the town center and started our evening walk from there (along the waterfront of course)
On the way back to the car we walked through the city and grabbed a little snack at KFC, their new ‘superbite’ burger. A mini chicken burger the size of a white castle hamburger for 1 FJD. Quite tasty and just a mouthful.
Back home I started preparing dinner (Seafood Laksa, becoming a favourite in the house of Nacken)
| And of course, as usual, here a nice sunset shot for you guys, this time with some ships in the water, as we were closer to the harbour. Click for screensaver size |
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Another evening stroll and 2 more pictures (of the same sunset at different times) for your viewing pleasure … click for screensaver size version:
In the afternoon we went to Cost-U-Less (the usual Saturday chaos, running into many people) and towards the end, we wanted to see if in the future we can put Julius into this contraption that shopping carts offer to put little kids in. They even come with a seatbelt. Our biggest concern still is that Julius just loves to gnaw on everything, so the plan is for upcoming visits to use wipes to clean the areas he can reach with his mouth first.
He seems to enjoy this new mode of transport though.
This morning I took Julius to get water and some fish. I know for sure that I had written about Cakaudrove (Cakaudrove Fish Co,
11 Bureta St Samabula, Suva, Ph: 3382411) before (the best source for fresh fish in Suva for retail customers) but I can’t find the old post to link to. Probably misspelled the name or something.
Anyways, being easter weekend and all, they only had some tuna ready in fillets … but I wanted more. So I purchased a whole 3.2 kg Bedford and had it dissected by the fish experts and went home with 2 bags, one them fillets, one them leftovers for the cat (i guess)
Julius was very fascinated by watching the fish gutting through the big window in the store
While the fish guy is gutting, Julius is having a drink and that fish lady is adding up how much I have to pay (31 FDJ, enough fish for 7 meals)
As a result I made fish burgers with avocado mash and hallumi cheese for lunch.
I took Julius out for a pretty long evening walk today, mainly along the seashore. Seeing a father walking alone with his baby son still makes people look twice .. the reactions were pretty funny at times … but all very positive, everybody is smiling … only one guy said in passing “you look like a kangaroo” (referring to having Julius in front of my chest in the carrier).
We enjoyed a very beautiful sunset.
I walked all the way into town, had an iced moccha at RoC and passed the Suva Motor Inn on the way back. I stopped by to see if I meet any of the old faces from the time we stayed there 6 weeks, and indeed, Serani was still working the bar, David had just left the bar, and a guy who me and Julius had met now 3 times in the elevator at Suva Central (by accident) was there and finally we introduced each other properly. We walked all the way back even though it had gotten dark, but it was very beautiful.
Long time since we went to the Malthouse Brewery. But today we met with a colleague of Ritsu (a Malagasy lady, working in Samoa) and tried out Malthouse’s new lunch menu. They had so many new items that we skipped our usual Pizza.
Ritsu had a lamb meatball dish in spicey tomato / eggplant risotto (it looked more like a ketchup/rice soup with 4 lonely meatballs and no trace of eggplant) and I had the double lamb burger. ‘Double’ because it has a lamb pattie AND a slice of lamb roast.
When I read it somes with coleslaw and potato salad, i thought these are the side dishes, but no, they are ON the burger (plus a big slice of red beet root). The whole thing was very tasty … but a bit tricky to eat as you can see.
And Julius behaved fairly well, as long as we kept him well entertained which usually means eating with one hand, or carrying him around. He also loves sitting on the table:
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This is his new ‘serious / grumpy’ face I tried to get a picture of last night. He was actually peachy sitting in the shade of the palm tree, but he likes to make faces these days and see how people react.
The whole nation is basking in the glory of the Fiji rugby team’s winning the Rugby 7′s world cup last sunday. Today has even been declared a national holiday (giving folks here a 5 day long easter weekend) and there was all kinds of marching, parading and celebrating going on, I bet Saturday I can submit some nice newspaper articles. Interesting observations so far:
- Last 4 Fijitimes frontpages showed the team in various poses with the world cup.
- Kids in the streets waving flags and getting euphoric when passing cars honk.
- TV news opening now includes highlights of the winning match.
- local TV commercials now include thanks and congratulations to the team.
- Even all other news items seem to circle around rugby: e.g. last night in the TV news was a case of a DVD pirate being raided … was it for some high profile Hollywood blockbusters he copied and sold? (well, he and most other DVD places around here do that anyway) No, there is no local interest here in protecting big Hollywood titles. But this guy had the great idea of recording all the glorious rugby matches from TV and put them all on one DVD for 5FJD. This of course did not sit well with Fiji TV, the copyright holder, and they even send a camera team with the police people doing the raid. Amazing to see the naive girl-clerk showing how they copy DVDs and the manager of the busted joint pleading that he has no idea about copyright and how recording something off TV and selling copies of it could possibly be considered stealing.
- The festivities today started at 8AM with a motorcade going through Suva, then the players would join school children and parade to the national stadium, lots of important people would say thanks and the government gave each player 10.000FJD (from some ‘reserve fund’). The whole thing was broadcast live on TV, followed by reruns of the matches.
- Many people are wearing the team colors: Black and White.
I am very happy for Fiji and the team, I really hope that this feeling of pride ads to the feeling of unity among the Fiji-Islanders (a somewhat new term which seems to be creeping in, replacing the whole ‘indegnious Fijian’ / ‘indo Fijian’ mess). Let’s see how long the partying lasts.
I will ask him at his 18th birthday if he can still do that 
Did I mention that it is still very hot and humid these days? No wonder Julius can get away with just wearing his diapers.
During my cooking session today he was quite grumpy …a good trick is to point the camera in his face. He has a new serious / grumpy face which I have yet to get on camera, but the one below is equally nice.
And what would be a Daily Julius without sharing 16 seconds of His Holy Grumpiness with you.
c’mon, it is only 451 KB in size, and make sure to turn the volume up all the way.
I made this once before, but forgot to write down the recipe. I found it again and made it again tonight. You need 1 kg of diced veal, 1 onion, 250 gr of mushrooms (chanterelle. but those are not available here, so I used plain old champignon, the only mushroom I have ever seen here), 2 Tb of honey, 400 ml of broth, 150 ml of white wine, 50 ml cream, 1 egg yolk, a bit of tarragon.
With some salt and pepper on the meat. brown the veal pieces quickly, set aside. Cut the onions into half-rings and brown in the same pan (some oil added), add the honey and glaze the onions. Add the meat and the mushrooms (sliced) and heat all through nicely. Add the white wine and let simmer a bit, stir well. Now add the tarragon and the broth and let the whole thing simmer for 1.5 hours.
At the 1 hour mark, mix the egg yolk and the cream and add to the gulasch while stirring it … only 30 more minutes to go, good time to put some potatoes on the fire. Towards the end, if thicker sauce is desired, add a mix of white wine and flour (mixed very well so no lumbs are found).
Serve with potatoes and your favourite green veggies.
Based on this recipe (in German, and it does not mention when to add the mushrooms)
Enjoy
Not sure if he has become sensitive to light, it just feels good or if this is a silent protest against my singing abilities … but I found him last night sleeping like this.
Unfortunately he did not sleep too well last night (neither did we) .. and still no idea if he is teething or not.
One of the few peachy moments he displayed today during his dinner. Otherwise he was a bit grumpy and distracted, maybe he is teething? Finally? Well, we said that a couple of times before, so far, no teeth.
The weather was once again hot and several downpours added to the humidity.
For dinner I made a large pot of puttanesca sauce, of which I will freeze 4 batches, and 1 we ate right away with some nice spaghetti.
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