A new milestone

I've read about this moment on other blogs, but it came sooner than I expected it would: Cora asked me not to write about something she said - not on Facebook or anywhere on the computer, she specified. She knew she had said something funny - she meant it to be funny - but she said she would be embarrassed if anyone other than me and her dad knew about it.

However, she gave me full permission to share her idea that we make our family Advent wreath out of teeth. Which, she is sure, is what the Tooth Fairy does.

She also is hoping to spread the word about next weekend being Eat New Foods weekend. They don't have to be entirely new; a new preparation will also fit the bill. For example, as I have never served poached eggs, they would count as a new food. They are, in fact, first on her list of foods we should eat. New Foods weekend will be a challenge for us - we are at a disadvantage geographically, for one thing. And while it would make it easier if we included the vast realm of foods we have never served by choice (cheese in a can, shelf-ready bacon, frozen breakfast pastries...), I am not prepared to open that can of worms. (By coincidence, something else we have never eaten.)

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.

Beignets: a (belated) photo essay

New Orleans has taken hold of Cora's imagination in a way that has little to do with the actual city, or even Mardi Gras, and a lot to do with brass music and Disney's The Princess and the Frog. This morning she told me that she thinks we need to make gumbo, and that I have a "Tiana spirit" because I like to make things and cook. And, I was sent to the CD shelves on a mission for New Orleans music (thank you Dirty Dozen Brass Band). 

I think it has been almost two months since the last time she watched the movie, but it has been only two weeks since I made beignets for the first time and we talked about mardi gras in New Orleans and Cafe du Monde, where Chris has been. The only time Cora and I have had beignets before was last January, when we went to California and my parents took us to Crystal Cove and the little restaurant on the beach, where we has what could well have been one of the best breakfasts of my life, thanks to the location, meal, and company. Except that Cora was too anxious to get to playing in the sand to eat anything and refused to even try the beignets!

Well, this time was different. Especially when I told her that, yes, she could eat as many as she wanted, even though they were covered in sugar, because they would be no good the next day. (Note to self: half recipe next time!) I think she ate at least eight of these that morning, and a couple more in the afternoon, when they were starting to fade. I used a recipe I found on epicurious.com for buttermilk beignets - it was incredibly easy, and fun, and delicious!

ACK!, or "what's that over there?!"

 We will be moving in just a few days. Boxes are everywhere, but there are not nearly enough of them. It would seem that the more time you spend in denial, the less gets done. In lieu of an actual post, I present photos of some things I've made recently.

Rapunzel on her way to the school party, also her last day at her beloved school. While I doubt I will win any wig-making awards with this one, she's pretty thrilled with it.

A new dress, as requested it is down to her feet.

Mmmmmm...pumpkin donuts....

Hard to get a good photo when they keep disappearing!

Knitting coffee sleeves is oddly satisfying.

I thought this fabric would make a cute skirt or dress, tried a new pattern out of a new book, hoped it would be liked.

Mission accomplished.

Back to...um...

Well, I didn't go back to school this fall - no more teaching for me until sometime after we move. Yesterday would have been the first day of classes, and it was a day of mopey glumness. But, I am not without something having to do with "back" - as in, back injury, back pain, etc. Nearly two weeks ago I threw out my back (every time I say that I have a mental image of myself standing over the garbage can about to drop in a spine) - "all I did" was lean over in a twisted position and pick up Cora. You know, like I do every day, a couple of times a day. This was the wrong day for it though, and I am still working my way back to normal.

Why have that happen now? Let's see...loss of our oldest cat, Chris headed back to North Dakota, waiting to see what happens with the house sale, lack of access to standard stress-relieving activities...obviously, my back was a ticking bomb.

But, slow recovery notwithstanding, Friday is still a holy day to Cora because it is a STAY AT HOME day, and there is nothing she loves like a stay at home day. She gets to see some TV shows she doesn't usually, like CSI reruns...just kidding. There are some NickJr and PBS shows that she only gets to watch on Fridays. Also, since Chris's return to the long-distance daddy gig, I've tried to make sure we have some art projects and some cooking projects for Fridays.

But first is the freeform morning role playing. This morning I was a mommy, a baby, a hunter, a circus lady, and a police man. Cora was a daughter, a mommy, a hunting dog, a circus dog, and a police dog. But, here is my favorite conversation from when I was the daughter and she was the mommy:

Cora: Well, darling, now it is time for you to go into the world and live on your own!
Me: Really?
Cora: Yes, darling. Please just go.
Me: How old am I?
Cora (rolling her eyes): Thirteen! Of course!
Me: I think I'm too young.
Cora (in the tone of someone trying to be very patient): No, darling, and if you are lonely, you can adopt a baby who looks just like your mommy. Now, please don't argue with me anymore and just go into the world!

Later we made some paper dolls (really basic dolls) and dresses for them. And here's the shocking part - I finally gave in and got down on the floor so I could color next to her, and once I managed to stand back up, my back felt a lot better. Did it just need to be really pushed to do more? Will I pay an awful price tomorrow morning? Was it the magic of art therapy?

Cora has decided that every time Chris comes home we need to make a welcome home cake. Last week it was a real cake. This week it was gingerbread, which she is looking forward to eating tonight, even though the batter "looks like Arvo's throw up and it smells good AND bad." Then we made pizza dough for dinner tonight.

There's nothing like a kitchen helper who wears an apron, "pearls," and a tiara...and secretly eats flour when she thinks you aren't looking. There's nothing like having someone who thinks your art skills are amazing. There's nothing like being reminded that you are, in fact, always teaching.

Joining the heat

We've been having a week of hot and humid weather here in the Twin Cities - one of my least favorite kinds of weather (usually followed by another least favorite: big thunderstorms). We've been eating salads, sandwiches, snacky lunches and dinners, skillet meals, nothing that would use the oven or have to be cooked for very long.

Today I decided that we would just have to suffer the consequences.

Earlier in the week, Chris and Cora had mixed up a batch of dough for rosemary-whole wheat-flaxseed baguettes from the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day book (I borrowed it from the library, copied out some recipes, and am now waiting for a copy to drop from the sky into my lap...or to be able to buy one later this fall). Whole wheat bread has been my nemesis this summer - I have had trouble finding a recipe I like that has both a good taste and a good texture. So, we made two baguettes to go with our pesto spaghetti tonight. I also, at the behest of Cora, made a pan of chocolate chip cookie bars. To round out the meal we had a little melon from our farmers - a variety of cantaloupe - and a simple tomato salad - four kinds of tomatoes, salt & pepper.

I know it is a good dinner when Cora eats it all, eats two cookies, curls up on the couch, and falls asleep at 8pm.  Plus, the bread turned out fantastic! Not only great tasting, but also beautiful. If only our camera were not out of batteries!

Well-stocked, and proud of it

About two months ago a friend paid me a compliment that I keep returning to and treasuring. She was helping me pack up and rearrange things in the pantry, in anticipation of the house going on the market. At one point she told me that she really admired and envied my well-stocked pantry.

I know that many, many cookbooks are happy to tell you what you should have in your pantry, what a "well-stocked pantry" will have. But what I find is that it is more important to know what my family likes, eats, and tends to think would be tasty. Lots of tomato products. Various kinds of beans and rices and pastas. Certain produce should always be on hand, certain condiments. Certain categories of food can be completely dispensed with (any kind of fish, any canned soup product).

My friend's comment was especially nice to hear because I do take a certain secret (up until now) pride in my pantry - in the readiness of it. I like it that I can do a decent amount of baking and cook on the fly, if need be. I like being able to pull a nice lunch together on the spur of the moment, especially in the summer when Chris and I are both pretty much home for lunch together most days. It's nice to grab up a bunch of good-looking peaches at the store and come home and waffle between pie and cobbler for a while, and know that either one could be made from what is on hand. Or bringing home an awful lot of zucchini in a CSA box and knowing I have everything I need for zucchini bread.

Getting those CSA boxes has really given me some great opportunities to exercise my pantry - both the physical pantry and also what I think of as my mental pantry, which is not so much stocked with food as with ideas about food. I have loved our CSA this summer - I learned a lot last summer about how to manage the box, what to expect, and how to work in new veggies for my family. There have been many fewer incidents of throwing things away completely unused. There have been times we haven't used something up entirely, and there have been times we just couldn't bring ourselves to eat more of something (I'm looking at you, kohlrobi), but on the whole, way fewer than last year.

The other night I made a fresh corn polenta recipe from the recent Bon Appetit - the only thing I needed from the store was the mascarpone. We had it with grilled chicken with some leftover jerk marinade that Chris has made a few days before, and with green beans - all the veggies involved were from the CSA. There was leftover polenta, of course, and once refrigerated it firmed up nicely. Earlier in the week I'd made tomatillo salsa from CSA tomatillos, onions, and jalapenos, and we had that with stacked cheese enchiladas, but there was extra salsa, of course.

So, the other day, faced with lunchtime and not wanting a sandwich, I started poking around the mental pantry. Here's what we ended up with: leftover chicken (retail chicken, nothing too virtuous there), and then a pan-fried polenta slice topped with a salad of chopped tomatoes (two kinds from the farmer's market) and black-eyed peas that just happened to be in the pantry and the leftover tomatillo salsa. It was the kind of plate that I find myself looking at with great satisfaction.

It was a combination of the "luck of the box" from the CSA and a prepared pantry. And it fit in with what we are striving towards: only buying what we might call ingredients, basic building blocks, and trying to buy locally and/or responsibly. (In this last respect, that leftover chicken totally didn't fit in.) But if we can keep to these rough guidelines, we can have meals like that: Totally unplanned, totally made up, totally delicious.

Long Live the Kitchen Table

There have been a couple times in the last few weeks when I have been in the kitchen and felt entirely at peace - which is a funny thing to say, because it is usually the times when I have two things going on the stove and something in progress on the counter, and a growing sink of dishes. It's like that old saying about the duck - serenely floating above the water, paddling like mad beneath - except that for once I actually feel like the top part of the duck!

(And here is how life with Cora is currently affecting me: I have an irresistible need to say Guess what? Duck butt!)

I am having a good and successful time using up nearly everything from our Harmony Valley CSA box. (I cannot say enough good things about Harmony Valley.) I found a new cobbler recipe that is quick and easy and comes out the way I want it to. I made a cherry pie with cherries from a friend's trees that I loved, which is amazing, because I have not, historically, had much interest in cherry pies.

Every summer it seems like there are a few dishes that become the Dish of the Summer and that get made about every other week, or more frequently. And I'm not just talking about things like quesadillas or ham and pea pasta! Last summer it was a black-eyed pea-feta-and tomato salad. This summer it has been my version of a Rick Bayless Beans-Greens-and-Chorizo taco filling and a wilted spinach and bacon and egg salad. What I find astonishing here is the presence of greens and spinach - not previously staples of our table - but this summer we are all about the greens. Even Cora, though she is a dedicated raw food purist when it comes to her vegetables. And her fruits - she is not a fan of pie. Or cobbler. Or tarts. Or even blueberry pancakes (!!) - she wants her blueberries on the side, please.

The kitchen often feels like the one area of the house, and my life, that I am in control of, or where I feel fully prepared and competent. Even though our kitchen is off in a corner of the house, it feels like the center. And if I can keep centered there, then I can carry that into the other areas.

I admit it: lately I envision myself as an octopus. Only psychically, of course. Or does that sound worse? But, I do try to pull myself, my tendrils or tentacles, from that center, that calm and knowing center, rather than from the places where it all feels like chaos and limbo and anger and sadness. Those are the places I am not enjoying finding myself lately. Not much gets created in those places that is going to nourish anyone.

Today I ran into the poem "Perhaps the World Ends Here" by Joy Harjo. Her first line is "The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live." And later she writes "It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human."

Oh yes. And this summer, I would say that the instructions served up by our kitchen table are: Be creative. Learn to love what you thought you would not. Make something your own. Know where you are safe, and how to carry that safety with you.

(Another) Love letter to my CSA

I love my CSA; this you already know. I've written before about how we tried a CSA about 12 years ago and the amount of bok choy we received was...daunting. But last summer we tried again, and fell in love. This summer we signed up with the same CSA as last year, Harmony Valley, and I find it even more exciting. Usually around Tuesday night I start checking the web site to see what we might be getting in our box, and I start thinking about the next week's menu. Then, on Thursday, we pick up our box. (This year we also bought a coffee share and a sample cheese share - heaven! And, wow, we drink a lot of coffee.)

Although, like any activity done with a four year-old, it can sometimes be more exasperating that expected, I do like to take Cora with me to pick up the veggies from "our farmers." On the best days, she helps me unpack the veggies from our box into our grocery bags, and we talk about each thing as we move it. I love that she will try almost anything while we are standing there in a stranger's garage. Last week she ate a bite of cabbage leaf, some fennel fronds, some carrot greens, an amaranth leaf, and cheered for the broccoli.

So, here are some of the meals we'll be having (or already had), thanks to our box of veggies; I'll put an asterisk by the things that came in the box.
- salads with beets* and blue cheese* (but Chris had feta, as the blue is too blue for him)
- carrot top* and basil pesto on orechiette
- Welsh rarebit (cheddar*), with simple potato salad and blanched carrots* and broccoli*
- cabbage* and paneer curry with a fennel*-golden raisin rice
- greens (amaranth*), black beans, and chorizo tortilla filling with salad (quesadillas for Cora with jack cheese*)

And of course the garlic and scallions we got will find their way into these and other dishes as the week goes on. I'm getting better at using everything before it goes bad, and at leaving in the "share box" things I know we will not use (sorry, kohlrabi, we gave you a good try, but weren't eager to eat you again right away). One thing I like about doing the menu-planning this way is that I start with certain pieces to the puzzle, and then have to try to find ways to make as many of them as possible fit, with as many pieces from the cupboards as possible. And I think I did pretty good, because after I made the plans, I only had 15 things on the shopping list that were new non-staples to be bought (I'm not counting things like milk and eggs and fruit that we would be buying every week regardless). Of course, this is also thanks to two other things: a well-stocked pantry and knowing our tastes well. I may not always need coconut milk, but if it is on sale, I know it is worth picking up a can.

So I'll end with one more food-news item, unrelated to the CSA (mostly). One of our favorite sides, come spring, is a caprese salad. Just typing that makes me think about basil and tomatoes! But, for Cora, it is all about her favorite cheese, the "squishy cheese" - fresh mozzarella. Luckily, she will also eat basil, but for the last two months she has been resisting the tomatoes. I don't even try to put one on her plate anymore. So tonight, with our pizzas, when I passed the caprese around, I just gave her cheese and basil. I would say this is probably the ninth or tenth time we've had caprese this year. After a few minutes, she ASKED if it would be OKAY if she tried a tomato. Of course, we tried to be very nonchalant about saying yes. She ate four pieces of tomato. Hallelujah! I believe this means that eventually beets will be tried as well.

Holy Moley It's a New Post!

Or that is what I imagine my mother saying. (And my other six readers, bless your hearts.)

I'm not going to to fill in from my missing time incident, but jump right to the important stuff, which is what I made for dinner tonight. The mixed greens stir fry from p264 of Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, with Napa cabbage, spinach, and hon tsai tai, the latter two coming from our beloved CSA (yes, we signed up again!). With brown basmati rice and a few variations (more garlic, more ginger, a little teriyaki sauce, and so on). Yum! Cora tried a bite of the greens, and while she didn't want more, she didn't spit it out. Round these parts, we call that a success. She did eat her bowl of rice, plus some cheese, ham, and crackers.

Today I collected the final papers from my students, and graded them. I was really pleased with the papers this time around, though frankly I had designed the assignment so that it would take a real act of homework disregard to screw it up. And then I was really happy to be COOKING and enjoying it again. I even have plans to make a cake tonight, still. I think it is partly that Chris is home again, that the semester is over, and also that we have made our decisions.

I can't say that our decision completely fulfills all my hopes for the next few years, but this year apart has also helped to clear up my priorities to the point where I am mostly content with the fact that we are moving to Grand Forks.

There. I said it.

Four new reasons why spring has to be on the way

This morning was a good morning. I dropped Cora off at school and we went through our new ritual where she walks me to the lunchroom door, gives me something out of her "pocket", holds the door for me, gets one more kiss, and then runs back to her cereal. Then I went to my favorite neighborhood cafe for a coffee and a muffin (plus a bag of coffee beans and a baguette) and waited for the Co-op to open. There is something about going to the co-op that makes me happy about cooking. I've struggled with that this year, with finding the happy in the cooking, as exhaustion and cooking for a preschooler has taken a toll. But I've got it today, and I am happy about that.

(I have to point out: preschooler. Not toddler. I'm trying to break the habit of calling her a toddler, because she is so not a toddler. A mother of one of the 2nd graders who is at Cora's daycare for before and after schoolcare stopped me in the hall the other day to say she had had quite a conversation with my daughter, and can't believe how many words she knows. I know! It's crazy! I love it! She also winks!)



Today at the co-op they had something guarenteed to stop me in my tracks. Seeds. A big display of seeds.



It is only March. Early March. I exercised restraint and only bought four packets. Brought them home. Took their picture. Decided I wanted to be able to see them all the time until I get their little seed-butts in the ground. (The best joke in our house right now? "Guess what!" "What?" "Chicken butt!" Oh yeah. Incredibly funny EVERY TIME.) SO, of course, I taped them up on the cupboards in the kitchen.



Where I tape all the things I want to see everyday. Don't you?

(One day, probably in an alternate universe,
I will have two English bulldogs
and their names will be Muscles and Roosevelt. )

What groundhog? or, thinking of spring and fresh food

I was surprised what an impression Groundhog Day made on Cora. She came home knowing all about Punxatawny Phil, though she insists he lives in Milwaukee and is named PunxaTONY Phil. She was disappointed about the six more weeks of winter. She was a real snow bunny last year, but this year she is not into it at all. This year it is all about spring, and when is spring coming, and how in the spring it will be warm and Daddy will be home!

We have a book, When Will It Be Spring?, that we have been reading often this month. It's about little Alfie bear and his first hibernation and he keeps waking up his mama to see if it is spring - he mistakes frozen leaves for birds in the trees, a hunter's campfire for the sun, and snowflakes for butterflies. Cora and I take turns being Alfie or Mama and playing the game of the story.

We talk about how in spring we can plant her garden again with radishes and carrots and pink flowers. In spring we will start getting vegetables from the farmers again - we reupped for the CSA, hooray! - and we will get out her tricycle and be able to walk to the park again. We'll plant my flowers again. We'll attack the weedy bits of the garden again. We'll have patio parties again and grill again.

I am particularly excited about the CSA and having more fresh and local produce. I was thinking the other day about the places I go to buy our food, and how somethings can only be had from certain stores and that is what keeps me from cutting out one of them. There's Whole Foods (the cats' crunchies come from here - lowest protein content without filler and without prescription food prices), the conventional grocery story (my usual brands of certain canned and packaged foods come from here, plus it is the most convenient to our usual driving routes), the co-op (local produce, local cheeses, locally roasted coffee, one cat's canned food), the CSA, the grocery delivery service (though I am using them less as I recommit to eating more produce and I like to pick that out myself, and see it before I buy it), and during the warmer months the farmers market (especially for the local organic meat). Now, even I can look at this paragraph and see one good reason why I have no spare time! The easiest to cut out, and the ones I have the most reason to cut out, are also the most convenient: the conventional store and the delivery service.

I'm also thinking about this because I just watched Jaime Oliver's TED prize talk over at TED.com, and it was inspiring and reminded me of all the ideas and plans I had when I read Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and whenever I pick up one of my favorite cookbooks. I really do want to be making more of our food. I really do want that food to have more grains and produce in it. I really do want to pass on to Cora a passion for cooking and for, as my favorite cafe puts it, good real food.

And I want to do it without waiting six more weeks for spring. (Ha! We live in the upper midwest; we probably have eight to ten more weeks until spring!) Which is why I'm off to the co-op today to buy poblanos, white onions, potatoes, chard, leeks, a rutabaga, a scarlet turnip, and some other ingredients for soups, tacos, and risottos.

And for brownie sundaes. It is Valentine's weekend, after all.

(the double rainbow photo is from spring 2009)

Dinner, Beautiful Dinner

I wish I had taken pictures of dinner tonight, but while the beautiful food was part of the beauty of the whole thing, it wasn't the whole of it. There was the weather, the complete lack of mosquitoes and other bugs that make me stay inside in the summer, the perfect temperature, the nice company of Chris and Cora (though she did wiggle away half way through and spend the next 30 minutes carrying sand from the sand mountain to the sandbox...skirtful by skirtful).

So, it is hard to explain all the dimensions, but let me try with the food:
- Lemon-garlic chicken kabobs (on sale! less than a pound for the three of us, so more of a meat side dish, just like I'm trying to do. grilled to perfection by Chris.)
- Pesto pasta (leftover pesto, ends of two boxes of pasta - linguine and fettucine - and Cora LOVES it.)
- Golden beets (roasted while Cora napped two days ago) and blue cheese (organic and local from our CSA - perfect for me, but a little sharp for Chris)
- Salad (end of a head of red leaf plus baby spinach from the CSA plus sliced radishes from Cora's garden - she chose them, pulled them, washed them, put the slices in the salad, and even ate a couple slices)
- Plus Leiney's Sunset Wheat beer for the adults.

So, food that was on sale, leftover, needing to be finished up, local, CSA-grown, homegrown, that everyone liked and everyone contributed to the making of the meal. It might sound a little corny, but I love that!

This goes along with my larger summer food project - all those things above, and also to make a bigger push to eat more veggies and to try some different ones. Not too many new or different things tonight, but all the rest was there. This is in connection with a plan I have for my fall classes. One of the books we will be reading is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I'm going to ask my students to create for themselves some kind of semester-long project or plan (it needn't be food-related, of course), track their project/endeavor, and then their final paper will be a reflection on their experience, much like Kingsolver's book is. And just like AVM has sidebars with more information (scientific info and recipes), I'm going to ask them to have sidebars also.

I haven't done an assignment like this before, so this summer I am being my own guinea pig and doing the assignment myself. Then I'll also have a "short-form" model to show them. They will probably think I am the biggest dork ever...but, let's face it, that's inevitable.

Food. It's all about food.

(I really didn't think I would write this much - I had planned just to capture a few recent thoughts about White House gardens, meal planning, etc. And then...)

Earlier this week I was really excited to read about the organic vegetable garden that is being dug into the White House's South lawn - just down from the swing set, I believe. I found this exciting for a couple of reasons. One is that, like the swing set, it makes the White House seem like much more of a home - a place where a real family lives. Maybe it's the presence of schoolage children in the WH (when is the last time that happened?), maybe it is the politics, maybe it the point we are at in national culture, I don't know; whatever the reason, I like it.

I also like that everything grown there will be actual food - it isn't just a show garden or a school project. It's a working, family-feeding garden. Reading about all the different things that will be grown there - especially the lettuces - really made me think about the state of our own gardenspace and about food. I also like that Mrs. Obama knows not everyone has a green thumb or the space to flex it. “You can begin in your own cupboard,” she said, “by eliminating processed food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables.” (I got my quote from the NYT.)

Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last summer sparked a mini-resurgence in my efforts to make our eating a little more health and earth friendly. And this idea continues to grow. Of course, we are also in the midst of Cora's toddler diet - the one where her likes and dislikes are entirely unpredictable. She used to like dressing on her salad. Then she didn't. Then she didn't like salad. Then she did. Then tonight she asked if she could have some of my "syrup" on her salad, too. And ate it all. Except for the piece she put on the floor for our cat Arvo. Who ate it. And later threw up.

So we have the usual dilemmas: to what extent are we okay with fixing her a separate meal? I try to either make things we all will like, or overlap our meals. So, while I might put spicy jerk sauce on our baked chicken, I leave hers plain or just use lemon juice and oregano on hers. Or, if we have mutter paneer, she has plain paneer and rice, with maybe a side of pb&j. Some of the same, something to round it out. But, of course, sometimes there is no getting around the fact that she won't eat enchiladas, refried beans, and rice. But, she will eat a quesadilla, and we will all have some guacamole. If we really want to eat something totally out of her league, she can usually bet on getting her quesadilla and guacamole, with a side of banana or applesauce. (And, I do plan out all our meals week by week. The shopping is mostly easier, but mostly it is easier on me because I don't have to make as many decisions throughout the week.)

This summer I plan on a few tomato plants, and definitely herbs. We're going to try some radishes and carrots, but I think we will be fighting the squirrels and odd rabbit over them. I would love to grow some lettuces, because I love lettuces. But, I think for it really be a success I would need a cold frame, and that isn't in the cards this year. So, my grow-my-own plans are fairly limited. But, I continue to try to eat more locally - I made a valiant attempt at getting us a CSA share this year. Unfortunately, finances and jobs are too uncertain to commit to one.

But, we do cook our own meals almost every night. I try to make each dinner also serve for lunch the next day, either as leftovers or as starter ingredients for something else. Breakfasts are mostly cereal or oatmeal. My big plan for once the berries start rolling in is to make some granola and have it with berries and yogurt most mornings throughout the summer. (Will I make my own yogurt? Tune in next season to find out!) We do still eat meat, though I keep trying to reduce the frequency. I'm intrigued with Mark Bittman's idea of being vegan until dinner time. I think being lacto-ovo vegetarian until dinner might frequenly work for us, except for those lunchtime leftovers some days.

We try to avoid processed foods, or at least choose "better" processed foods, like Annie's mac and cheese or Amy's frozen dinners, things like that. We had an interesting experience earlier this winter with high fructose corn syrup and Cora's digestive system - no more fruit snacks! Back to the Whole Foods brand cereal bars! Still, sometimes we all have a craving for chicken nuggets. Sometimes that cheesiest mac and cheese that comes in the blue box fulfills a nostalgic yearning. Sometimes I don't have time to make my own cookies.

Because we do like cookies. And cake. And boy am I anxious to make some pies this summer. And I do believe that when these things are homemade, they are less evil. And I am all about less evil in my pantry.

When the 2.5 year old insists...

...that the chicken should be dipped in the peanut butter and the apples in the ketchup, it is best just to nod, be glad she is eating everything on her plate, and try very hard not to imagine the taste.

With dreams come responsibilities...or not.

When I dream, I either have dreams with very clear messages ("I was sitting by the pool with my mom and we had just made cookies, and then margaritas appeared!") or they are so dense with surreal and mysterious symbols that they will never make sense ("I was sitting by the pool with my mom and we had just made cookies, and then margaritas appeared!"). I think this may be genetic after all.

This morning, Cora says to me, in that casual way you would use to start a conversation, "I had a dream last night."

"Really? What was your dream?"

Shrug. "Peas and carrots."

"Peas and carrots?"

"Yeah." And then she gets that little intense change of expression, like you do when you're really going to get into the meaning of something and she says, "But I no like peas! Just carrots."

"You like carrots?" As far as I've been able to tell, Cora likes neither peas not carrots.

But, she was already tired of talking about her dream, so she just gave me a look that said we were done with the topic of peas and carrots.

Summer makes a brief reappearance

I'm really more of a fall person. When I lived in California, I was more of a winter person, but living somewhere that really has *winter* cured me of that. The last two years I've made more of a peace with summer than in previous year, but still...I like a chill in the air. I like piling on the quilts. I like being comfortable wearing jeans and long sleeves.

We had about two weeks of really beautiful fall weather. Now it is warm again, but that kind of awkward warm weather, where the mornings are really still pretty cool, but you know it is going to get up to 80 in the afternoon, so what are you supposed to wear? And what on earth does the baby wear ("No I not baby! I little girl!")? At least there is one easy decision:


Another still life photo; I call it "Paneer: In the beginning" :

Because, really, when you are teaching three classes and going to campus every day and trying to make it to your gym three times a week and going through job searches and worrying about the health of family members and also hoping that maybe you can one day get enough freaking sleep...you want to start a curry and cheese making odyssey, right? Oh, and, by the way, why don't you knit a poncho while you're at it.

But really you're here for the girl, aren't you? The one who actually can't decide if she is a big girl, a little girl, or a baby, and often cycles through all three in a manner of hours. She is gaining language at an amazing pace these days, and I especially love to hear her picking up colloquialisms. The latest is, "I got an idea!" As in this exchange:

Me: No more stories, Cora, time for songs.
Cora: Wait! I got an idea!
Me: What's your idea?
Cora: We read more stories!

Hey - I got an idea - let's make the pots and pans cupboard (you know, the one Grandma Jan told her was her cupboard...thanks, Grandma Jan!) her room so that she will stay so small and so cute and so full of enthusiasm for a very long time.

Fall forecast: Growth spurt

For most of August, Cora has lived on a diet of, say, three blueberries and a bite of oatmeal for breakfast. A cheese stick or two for lunch. And more of the same for dinner. I hold to what her doctor said - that we should look more for meals to be balanced across the span of a month rather than a day - but still, I do think she should be eating MORE.

For a while in August I put her back on whole milk - around the time she would clutch her torso with delight and shout, "My ribs! I feel my ribs!" Thanks, baby.

But, something is up. Hint number one: She fell asleep in the car on the way home from daycare on Tuesday (unheard of!) and has been sleeping more in general. Hint number two would be what she ate today:

7 multigrain & apple pancakes
a fruit-filled cereal bar
graham crackers
half a banana
five dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets
two cookies
half a quesadilla with guacamole
and lots and lots of milk, some oj and some apple juice

But, I think the real indicator of something big afoot is that last night before dinner, I made a little appetizer out of some of our farmers market booty. She ate almost all the "snacks" - Chris and I only got a couple bites. What was this marvelous pre-dinner snack? (I hope you are reading this sitting down. That means you, Momma.)

FRIED OKRA.

I don't know which is less likely: that I would buy it, or that she would love it. Clearly, the thin and crispy layer of cornmeal has fooled her into thinking it could not possibly be a vegetable. Still, clearly green food. And, yes, we're making it again soon.

Delicious, easy, crazy...and a big freaking list

Yesterday, the day before classes started, my last full day home by myself, I decided to do something fun. I had just got from the library a fabulous cookbook, 660 Curries, and when we were in Madison, we were given a beautiful, huge cabbage. What are the chances? I thought. But, I looked, and I found a curry that used cabbage. But the recipe also would require the making of a toasted & ground spice blend and also...cheese.



Did you say cheese? Homemade cheese? Count me in!



So, I made paneer, which was easy and fun and so wild that I was wishing Chris and Cora were there to see what happens when you stir a little vinegar into a giant pot of boiling milk. INSTANT CURDS AND WHEY! And then, the transformation to actual cheese. When I brought Cora home from daycare I had her try the cheese. She loved it. She tried it several times. Then she brought her Elmo in to try the cheese.



The spice blend was also easy (super easy - by chance it was the easiest one with the least ingredients in the whole book). And the curry itself came together in about 20 minutes and was undoubtedly the best way to eat cabbage ever. We also had basmati rice and some beef kabobs from the store (our back-up in case the curry was not amazing and delicious). All in all a tremendously satisfying day. And the rest of the cookbook looks great too - there are lots of things we would like to try to make.



Then I found, on a food & cooking blog, The Omnivore's Hundred. Here is what it is:


1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I can't cross out, so I'll just label those NO)

4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results.


The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:


1. Venison

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile

6. Black pudding NO!

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari

12. Pho

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries

23. Foie gras - at this point, NO

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese - EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper - NO...OUCH!

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters - NO

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar - NO TO THE CIGAR

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu - NO

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads - NO NO NO

63. Kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis - DOUBTFUL

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette - DOUBTFUL

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare (AKA YUMMY BUNNY)

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse (MAYBE - DID WE TRY THE PFERDEWURST IN GERMANY? CAN'T REMEMBER)

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

The last 30ish days

Apparently, I haven't downloaded photos from the camera since July 11th. Hmm. Did I mention that the passage of time, here at the end of summer, seems to have hit warp speed? A brief, illustrated recap of things that have happened since 7/11:

Grandma Jan, here is the end result of that time last January when you told Cora that the cupboard with all the pots and pans was her cupboard.

Early in August Chris and Cora both were sick for a day with fevers (embellished by Cora with vomit, and by Chris with mere groaning and grimacing). Vomit notwithstanding, she remained rather cheerful.

For some reason, August was also Back to the Binky month. Usually one is enough, but if you happen to find two...well, why not?

Wearing a towel on your wet head is the one true sign that you are a big girl now.

We made bread for Cora to take to her daycare class for "Share something special day" - it ended up as a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread. Those toddlers ate the whole damn loaf. Aided, no doubt, by the teachers! Cora loved the rolling pin, mashing her hands in the dough (you can just make out her handprints there), but unfortunately what she loved most was pinching up bits of dough or flour and eating it.

Riding on Daddy's shoulders is a big fun thing to do these days, especially while singing.

And, oh the fun you can have with a pan of water, a sponge, a bowl, an old pastry brush, and some little scoops! Who knew?