New Evening Ritual

Lately, in the evenings after dinner, something nice has been happening. Usually it starts with Cora playing her ukulele and making up a song (yesterday it was a song about going forward in time to Halloween and meeting your destiny in your costume), then she hands the uke off to Chris and dances as he plays. There is plenty of direction as to how fast, how slow, and whether or not it should sound like ballet music, and the dances are full of awesomeness.

Cora is also contemplating her future band. She says she still needs to think about her cool face and her cool moves. Tonight she mentioned the name of her band: Header Livered.

I like it.

Sunday Sauce: a photo essay

Beneath my husband's German-Norwegian-Swedish exterior lurks a more Mediterranean heart. This past Christmas he received the Frankie's Sputino cookbook (really, much more than a cookbook), and we finally were able to clear away a weekend day to make the (cue the trumpets) Sunday Sauce with meatballs and braciola.

First there is the simmering of 13 cloves of garlic in a cup of olive oil. I know!

Four big cans of whole tomatoes get mushed up by hand - this is just one can.

The sauce begins...it cooks, all told, for almost five hours.

The braciola - pork shoulder steaks butterflied and stuffed
with provolone, parmesan, garlic, and parsley, then tied up.
Chris was impressed with my butcher-grade tying skills.

Into the pot for three hours.

Pure yummy.

Meatballs! - Though these are actually the meatballs
from the excellent blog Dinner: A Love Story.



After baking about 30 minutes they go into the sauce for about 30 more.



There was also bread.

Dinner itself.

After the sauce night we had the braciola shredded in sauce on farfalle the next night, and then the night after that I made a lasagna with the leftover meats and sauce that was really fabulous. And we ate it for lunch all week long. Making the sauce is a big time commitment, over the course of the week, it felt like we had in fact saved time.

Now she is 5!

Who knew that this:

would become this:

so very quickly?

Nevermind - I wouldn't have believed it if you had told me.