Doh!

My mother emailed me this morning after reading about Southern Dish. I'm tickled (or terrified) that she reads my blog, but I guess she knew she was going to be in it, so that might have been a factor. Actually, she likes my blog, although she has suggested I clean up my language and my history. Hell, you can't please every damn person that reads your damn blog, can you*? Anyhow, this is what she had to say:

You forgot the paprika, and I do always add onion, Miss Super Fancy Pants. And I definitely don't have a breathy voice -- a growl, maybe. Hope your trip was not too long. Love, Mother

Oops! I did forget the paprika. So sprinkle some on top of Southern Dish before cooking. And my trip wasn't any longer than it had to be, but it was too long. Thank you for asking. For those of you who don't know, I'm working on my application for Mother of the Year, so I'll have another trophy to display next to the one for Meanest Mommy Ever. My oldest son's class left for their yearly trip yesterday morning, to an island two hours away. He had a recording session for his choir last night that he didn't want to miss, so I offered to drive him to the island after choir, at 8 pm. Two and half hours there and two and a half back. When I dropped him off, I didn't even get out of the car to go to the bathroom. I figured I'd be able to stay awake on the drive if I was also struggling to control my bladder. I'm no love-sick astronaut. It worked and I got home just before one in the morning. I'm exhausted and I can't stop eating these chocolate covered almonds from Trader Joe's, but other than that I'm okay. Thank you for asking. And I'll take my new trophy any time now. I hope it's big and flashy**.

Oh, and, Mom? I said "breezy" not "breathy." And you did attempt a breezy tone. So there. And I'm sure you do always add onion. And is there a trophy for Miss Super Fancy Pants? I bet there is and I bet it is very sparkly! I think I need a bigger trophy case.

She sent me another email, just two minutes later.

And I use the low fat small curd cottage cheese, and I don't think I even put it into my mini-food processor last time. Only when I have chunky cottage cheese do I do that. I did mean cheddar (there are other kinds$) -- EXTRA sharp.

I probably blocked out the "low fat," because I like fat. For the record, Mom likes low fat stuff and her Southern Dish is excellent, so it must work. I'm glad to hear the food processor is unnecessary, because I love skipping steps! I think that dollar sign is a typo, but it might be a comment on the fact that Mom thinks I spend too much on food. But I love food! I agree with her suggestion of Extra Sharp cheese; that would definitely add something to Southern Dish.

Namasté, y'all!

* Although I refuse to clean up my language here - this blog is for grownups, dammit! - she might have a point. Baby J has started saying something that sounds suspiciously like "sh*t" every time he drops something. He must have picked it up from those harlots at the church nursery. Crap!

** That's what she said.

Do not read this while eating. Seriously. Maybe don't read it at all, you delicate flower!

I can't remember the exact moment I knew I needed to be more careful about reading food labels. It may very well have been the time I saw this on the label of some potato chips with fake fat:

"Warning: May cause anal leakage"

That's pretty serious. Cramping or bloating, I wouldn't enjoy, but they wouldn't destroy my social life. Anal leakage? Leakage? As in uncontrolled? That reminds me of the time I was pregnant with my first child and unfamiliar with the immediacy of pregnancy-induced vomiting. I worked in a hospital where, one morning after quickly downing a banana to treat pregnancy-induced constant starvation, I got onto an elevator. At the next floor, a hospital worker got on with a rolling rack of about thirty trays of hospital food. Hot, smelly hospital food. I thought to myself, with no particular urgency,

"Hmm...I might just have to vomit. Maybe pretty soon."

Before I had time to blink, I could feel the banana trying to escape the churning depths. The food trays just barely made it off the elevator before I spewed banana all over the elevator panel. In my defense, I had turned toward it and was about to start desperately mashing the "Door Closed" button so I could get to my floor faster. I haven't thrown up anywhere other than into a toilet since I was a child (sorry about that one time in the back of the cab when I was two, Mom!) I stumbled out of the elevator, thinking it was over, but the Hardee's biscuit that had been cushioning the banana wanted out too. I reeled down the hallway towards the bathroom, holding my hand over my mouth, as vomit seeped out around it. How gross is the word "seeped"? My stomach turned just writing it.

Anyhow, that was bad enough. But out the other end? With no warning? Just not worth it. In fact, the details don't really matter, because I don't want to eat any food that has the a-word anywhere on the package, in any context. And package is a key word, because the more I stay away from food in packages, the better I feel.

If I do eat a food that comes in a package (and we all do, sooner or later, unless we're super mommies, which you may have noticed, I am NOT), I at least make sure I recognize all the listed ingredients. Things found in nature are good. Things created in labs are not. They may cause anal leakage.

I think we've lost all common sense in terms of food. It's just not that complicated to eat healthy. When I was little, my parents didn't read about nutrition and obsessively count fat, protein and carbohydrate grams. They just fed us, you know, food. Maybe it had a little too much salt, maybe it was a bit overcooked (sorry, Mom, you know I love you!), but it sure didn't have plastic in it and it didn't cause anal leakage.

Speaking of recipes from my childhood, my easily-confused-by-those-wacky-Americans French mother-in-law recently referred to something as "Southern Dish." We thought she was talking about grits, until we saw it. The mysterious Southern Dish is just Squash Casserole. I hated Squash Casserole when I was a child and continued to hate it as a grownup, in spite of my mother's insistence, every damn time she served it, that she "made it different this time! You'll like it! I promise!" I did not like it, ever. Until recently. My mother finally discovered the secret, totally by accident.

Southern Dish

In a pot, boil as much sliced yellow squash as you want. 8-10 squash should be enough to fill a casserole dish. Add a chicken bouillon cube to the water and a tablespoon of chopped onion. Yes, I know those cubes come in a package. Just make sure you get the kind that doesn't have any weird stuff in it. I use a powder, made by Frontier. It has the advantage of being vegetarian, to suit my freaky vegetarian kids. I'm not sure if the chopped onion is strictly necessary. Mom only mentioned it after I told her this recipe was going on the blog. From her suddenly breezy tone of voice, I suspected she was just trying to sound fancy.

Drain the squash and dump it into a casserole dish. In a mini food processor or blender, process (or blend!) a cup of cottage cheese until it's completely smooth. This is the secret! Mom had to use it one time when she was out of sour cream, which is a typical ingredient of Southern Dish. For the first time ever, we all ate and liked the hated Squash Casserole, so it's been cottage cheese ever since. Beat an egg into the cottage cheese and add a little salt and pepper. Mix that into the squash (and onions, Miss Fancy Pants!) Mom sometimes adds grated carrot or bell pepper, for color. There are, in fact, health benefits of adding vegetables as color to your meals, so hooray for that.

To the top of your squash, egg, and cottage cheese mix, add the following:

1/2 cup bread crumbs (or cracker crumbs if you're out of bread).

1/2 cup grated cheese. Mom said to use "sharp." One may assume she means cheddar.

Dot the top with butter.

Cook it at 350° for about thirty minutes. Mom added, in her breezy voice again, that that's an estimate and "I'm pretty loose about these things!" I say cook it until it's a little brown on top, probably about thirty minutes. Southern Dish, incidentally, can be made with other vegetables, like green beans, overcooked asparagus, zucchini or (blech) canned peas.

Namasté, y'all!

P.S. Please read this amendment to Southern Dish.

These are much better than that poem that creep wrote for me when I was 16.

Mom is a Flower

Mom is flexible
as
petals

Warm
as
Anthers

Sometimes
Angry
as
Pollen

But I
still love
her
like
a
flower

by my oldest son O, age 9

I Bet You Love

I bet you love Rosemary
More than me!
Psyche!
You love me
More than anything.

I bet you love olives
More than me!
Psyche!
You love me
More than anything you've seen.

by The X-Man, age 7

Happy Mother's Day!

Dooce is a real celebrity.

And I know this is true, because I just watched the segment of The Today Show with her and found myself thinking,

"Hmmm...she's wearing a loose dress. Maybe she's pregnant!"

Which is not to say she looks pregnant, but this does further my theory that, once you've had one kid, if you leave the house in anything that isn't skin tight, someone will ask if you're pregnant. Fun times. Heather Armstrong, a.k.a. Dooce*, looked hot, as usual. And I loved her dress. She kills the stereotype of the blogger as a pasty hermit in sweatpants. And I'm as hot as she is. You'll have to trust me on that one, because I don't think the Today Show will be calling me any time soon.

Dooce and I, by the way, are practically best friends, because she and her husband once stayed at the house of some friends of ours for the wedding of some friends of theirs who I don't know but my husband knows one of. I realize that was a run-on sentence that might not have made sense, but I had to try to impress y'all with my celebrity connection. In case it wasn't obvious from the grammatically traumatic run-on sentence, I've never met Heather or her husband. But, if she is pregnant, I'm happy for her,even if I won't get invited to the shower. Am I the only one that has to stop herself from feeling happy for celebrities when they get good news? Like when Celine Dion finally got pregnant. Or J. Lo. It's so unsophisticated. Although there are many unsophisticated things about me, that might be the most embarrassing one.

Namasté, y'all!

* A.k.a. "Mother of Us All." I put that in a footnote because I don't think you should have more than one "a.k.a." in a paragraph. Plus, I think Dooce might hate being called "Mother of Us All." I think it was Nora Ephron who said Betty Friedan hated being called "Mother of Us All." What mother wouldn't? Whoever originally said that was not a mother. Can you imagine how much cleaning and bottom wiping and humiliation would be involved in being "Mother of Us All"? I shudder.

Sunday Man Pasta.

Every Sunday, my husband does a very nice thing*. While I go to Yoga, he hangs with the kids, cleans the kitchen and makes dinner. Yes, I am the luckiest woman alive. I think he'd admit, though, that there's an element of self-preservation in his actions. He knows I'll be a lot more fun to be around if I don't have to destroy the magic of Yoga by coming home to a messy kitchen and hungry kids. And he likes pasta, which I rarely cook, because I don't like it so much.

Not that I'm complaining, but he always cooks the same meal. I'm really not complaining, because the kids love it and I don't have to make it or clean it up. He found the recipe on the back of a box of spinach pasta. It was called "Lumberjack Pasta" and was more complicated than his version. I'm pretty sure an actual lumberjack wouldn't bother "straining the nuts." I have no idea what that's all about, but my husband seemed particularly proud of the fact that he skips that step, which was in the original instructions. What is a lumberjack anyway?

Sunday Man Pasta

Melt some butter in a pan and crush a couple cloves of garlic into it.

Put 1 1/2 cups walnuts on a pan and toast them. My husband didn't say 1 1/2 cups, he said, "about 3/4 of that nut chopper thing." He's referring to one of these:

In fact, he was referring to that very one, which is ours. And it's terrible, so please email me and tell me about your favorite nut chopper. Or just send me one to try.

Anyhow, he uses that one, so I filled it 3/4 full with water, which I then dumped into a measuring cup so I could give you, dear reader, a precise measurement for the nuts**. Sunday Man Pasta is usually made with walnuts, although any nuts you happen to have around will work. Pecans, almonds and cashews come to mind. My husband claims he sometimes likes to add pine nuts, but I think he was just saying that to sound fancy.

Once you've toasted your nuts, chop them in the chopper, preferably a better chopper than ours, which chops unevenly. Chop, chop, chop. Sorry, just wanted to make sure I had enough "chops" in this paragraph.

Remember your melted butter and garlic? Stir the nuts in with that. According to my husband,

"The nuts'll eat up that butter pretty quickly."

Okay. Cook a package of spinach noodles, whatever shape you prefer. Drain the noodles, return them to the pot and stir in the nut mixture. Add shredded Parmesan to taste. My husband, who is half French after all, recommends adding a spoonful of plain yogurt to make it "more saucy."

Attempts to add vegetables or (what was he thinking?) tuna were unsuccessful. Do not mess with Sunday Man Pasta. It is what it is, yo.

Namasté, y'all!

P.S. I don't think I've ever said "nuts" and "chop" so many times in one post.

* He does nice things on other days of the week, too, but I'm just telling about the Sunday thing today. Stay tuned if you want to hear more.

** That's what...never mind.

City kids.

"I know how to start a fire without using matches or a lighter," crowed the X-Man.

And I, his proud mother, thought that after one night of forced camping with his reluctant, Westin-loving father (and a whole group of similarly citified fathers and children) he would be excited to tell me about rubbing two sticks together and all that.

"Yeah, you just get a starter log and poke it with a stick."

"Wait," I had to ask, "Don't you have to use matches or a lighter to get the starter log started?"

"Nope. You just poke it with a stick!"

Some of us just aren't meant for camping. That's my boy!

Namasté, y'all!

The worst mother.

I knew something was up. When I went to the drop-in nursery to pick up Baby J, they were all smiling at me in that way that says,

"You are the worst mother, but we'll try to be sympathetic, because sure, it's hard. But, seriously? You are the worst one. And it's annoying."

I guess I am the worst one, because I was in possession of three pair of the "pants of shame." You know those pants, the ones they give kids to wear when they soil their own and didn't bring a spare pair from home. The pants aren't so shameful for the kids. In fact, at least one of my children used to pretend to wet his pants in kindergarten, because they had a pair he really liked to borrow. He would sneak and pour water on his pants and go to the teacher claiming to have wet himself. Brilliant, eh? Baby J's problem is not a lack of control; he's still in diapers. His problem is that his mother is too lazy to find a brand of disposable diapers that fits him.

In my defense, I use and have used cloth diapers for all of my children. The nursery requires disposable and I was overwhelmed by the choices. I called an expert, my friend who has four daughters, the oldest in kindergarten. That woman knows diapers. She wasn't home, but her equally knowledgeable husband told me what to get. I'm a lazy woman with no interest in the finer points of disposable diapers a creature of habit, so I keep getting the same ones. And they leak. So Baby J needs new pants, which I forget to pack in his bag, so they have to lend him a pair, which I forget to return, so they are now out of pants and mad at me.

Before I left, several people from the nursery made suggestions. I tried (and succeeded, more or less) to ignore the patronizing tone, especially because it was justified.

"When you get home today, put them in your car right away. Then they'll be there next time you come!"

This was offered with the kind of smile you give to someone who is mentally challenged, to show how proud you will be if they remember!

"You don't even have to wash them!"

Okay, that was crossing a line. Do I really seem like the kind of mother who doesn't do laundry for weeks at a time? As it would happen, I am that kind of mother, but only because laundry is one of the things my husband does willingly and well. I would do it if he didn't. I swear! For the record, the pants were clean and in the pile of clothes on top of the washing machine where we keep Baby J's clothes. I can't believe they hadn't noticed he'd been wearing two of the pants fairly regularly. Or maybe they had noticed and thought we were trying to steal them, which I guess we kind of were.

Apparently, Baby J had exhausted the entire stock of "pants of shame" and they needed them back. This is understandable, so I returned them the very next time. Well, not the very next time, but pretty close. First, the pants had to make the journey from the laundry room to the top of the piano, where they stayed for a few days. Then my husband, who hadn't a clue where the pants came from, put them back in the laundry room and I had to start the process all over. Within a week, they made it to the car and back to the nursery, clean. Pretty impressive, huh?

The day I brought Baby J and the pants to the nursery, I was so proud and the ladies were proud of me. I could tell from their big smiles and applause. Blushing at the praise, I left to enjoy my morning. When I came to pick him up, however, I got the sympathy smiles again, this time with a bit more of an edge. My offense? The baby needs a haircut. And the nursery is no military school. I think they're just grossed out that his hair gets caught in the congealing river coming from his nose. It grosses me out, too, but I'm hoping for a short allergy season and I can't bear to cut those sweet baby curls just yet.

I made an effort, though, to solve the problem. The next time I took him, I washed his hair first and used (sort of all natural, semi-organic Aveda) mousse to hold his hair off of his face. I explained what I had done and, while they weren't as enthusiastic as they had been about the pants, the ladies seemed satisfied. I remain, though, the mother that makes all the other ones feel better about themselves. Someone has to do it. You're welcome!

Namsté, y'all!