Excellent advice about lice.

Although Quinoa Week 2009 should be over, it isn't. Maybe I'll rename it: The Daily Digress, The Quinoa Period. It ain't over until the skinny lady gets her dessert and she wants dessert made with quinoa, which she attempted to make the other night after rolling in from Goatfeathers, announcing that she was "halfway to drunk" and that she "might as well bring it," as she grabbed a half-empty bottle of prosecco from the fridge.

The dessert was okay, but the texture wasn't quite what she imagined, so you will just have to wait. You'll have to wait a while, too, because I'm in Charleston for Fashion Week - covering it for my other blog - where I had an amazing dinner alone at the bar at La Fourchette last night. Well, not quite alone as the waitstaff and Chef Perig* kept me company. Goshdarnit, do I ever love that place.

Anyhow, so I don't want to talk about the quinoa right this second. I want to tell you something I remembered the other day while discussing lice with my friends. As mothers of young children, we find lice to be a very real threat. My children have yet to contract the vile little creatures, thanks to their buzz cuts or dumb luck. Who knows? I, on the other hand, remember having lice once as a child and the endless hours my mother had to spend removing all traces of them from my head with a fine-toothed comb. Many years ago, I was a guardian ad litem (now referred to as Court-Appointed Special Advocate.) My purpose was to represent a child's interests when they were involved in a court case. Predictably, a lot of parents took every chance they got to tattle on the other parent and make them out to be the devil. In some cases, the other parent was the devil. In one case, the father wanted his ex's rights terminated because she jerked her daughter's arm when the daughter tried to escape lice-hunting activities.

Have you ever tried to de-louse a seven-year-old? After a long day at work? With your mother, the child's adoring grandmother, watching your every move? And, oh yeah, let's say the kid is a little bit hyper on a good day. I can't imagine how un-fun this would be for the would-be de-louser. I would rather stick a fork in my eye than be that woman. Arm-jerking after an hour of trying and failing to complete the process is probably the least of what I would do. Actually, I would scream at my husband, make him do it and leave for Charlotte or Charleston for a few days. But this woman didn't exactly have those options, so arm-jerking it was. Didn't even cause an injury. Pshaw. So, when I had lice, the de-lousing fell to my mother.

Dear Mother,

I know your temper, because I have it. And, should one of my darling yet often filthy offspring ever contract lice, I plan to do exactly what you did to get them to sit still. Do you even remember this? It was brilliant, inspired even. You showed me a picture of a louse in the encyclopedia, blown up about a million times. It looked like a monster. You gave some estimate of how many monsters such as this one were living on my head, even though just one or two would have sufficed. After that, if you had told me the only way to drive them out was by lighting my head on fire, I would have done it. I still shudder. You are a genius and I need to remember to always seek your counsel when I have a parenting dilemma. Just don't give me advice, unless I ask. That never turns out pretty, now does it? Actually, you're pretty good about that. Most of the time.

Love,
Me

P.S. What are you doing for Easter dinner? Are we invited? We'll actually be in town this year. I will order and bring a spiral ham from Simply Savory if you'll let me. Call me!

Namasté, y'all!

* I did take food pictures, of course. They'll be on my other blog. The beet salad was afrigginmazing.

I love my life and I love me some quinoa.

Remember how you boiled a bunch of quinoa at the beginning of the week and kept it in a closed container in the fridge so you could use it as needed without having to boil it every time? Well, first of all, I think it would be nice if we could boil the hugest pot of it ever, divide it into freezer bags and take it out of the freezer as needed. Is this a good or bad idea? Discuss.

For the last two days, I've enjoyed Breakfast Quinoa, which is certainly not an original idea on my part, but I will tell you how to make it easy.

Easy Breakfast Quinoa

Put a pot on the stove.

Put a scoop of cooked quinoa in the pot.

Add a splash of your milk of choice. I used Rice Dream Supreme Vanilla Hazelnut, which is now being sold at a closeout price at one of my local Fancy Marts. Which scares me.

Cook those together for a bit, maybe until the milk almost boils, but doesn't.

Put it in a bowl and add your favorite dried fruit and a sprinkle of your favorite nuts*. I'm a fan of toasted almonds and this cranberry pomegranate mixture from Trader Joe's. Dried, tart cherries and pecans would be lovely, too.

This is so delicious, I can't even tell you. Like steel-cut oatmeal, but better. And, as you may have heard me mention, quinoa is the bomb because it contains all nine essential amino acids needed to qualify as a complete protein. The whole theory of complete protein is up for debate, but is that really my problem? Or yours? Nope. So, eat up. Quinoa is also very easy to digest, the perfect morning treat.

And here is yet another quinoa recipe (just try and stop me.) I served this on Friday night with steak, collards and rice. My sister finished what was left in the salad bowl in the kitchen after dinner, which made me feel a little sad because I had plans for that salad. Plans to eat it for lunch. But oh well, because I still have cooked quinoa, so I can make it again. Whenever I want.

Toasted Quinoa Salad

In a pan with olive oil, sautée a scoop of cooked quinoa, a handful of frozen corn and a handful of pine nuts. Almonds would be nice, too. Or pecans. Any nuts, really**. Let them get a little bit brown.

While they cool, dump a whole bag or clamshell box or mess of salad greens in a pretty salad bowl. Add the quinoa, corn and nuts and much less vinaigrette than you think you need. Your favorite oil and vinegar-type dressing will be just ducky. I am currently having a hot and steamy affair with the vinaigrette from local restaurant Moe's Italin Grapevine. Rumor has it the Social Pig might start carrying it. That would be great. Toss everything together and serve. Yum.

And what about the rest of this post's title? "I love my life," in case you weren't paying attention. Why, you might ask, would I need more than the joy of quinoa? Well, I don't, but I'll take it. Simon and Schuster sent me an advance copy of a novel coming out this summer for review. It is the sort of novel I happen to love, about glamorous ladies with interesting and cute problems that (I hope) are eventually solved. I think "Chick Lit" sounds a bit dismissive, but I love it so who cares what we call it? Anyhow, I have read so many of these novels, I often can't find a new one in the library or book shop. Or I buy one and half-way through, realize I've already read it. I can't wait to dig into this one. And, although this may seem like nothing to some of you, I'm tickled pink that someone wants my opinion. I'm tickled pink that I've turned sharing my opinion about stuff I like into a job. I really, really am. And, gosh darnit, I feel fancy.

Namasté, y'all!

* That's what she said. No, really, she did. I heard it.

** Why are you even looking at this? You know what's coming...that's what she said.

What does he mean?

My dear husband TF "almost wants" to do a lot of stuff, as in,

"I almost want another helping of that pork roast."

or

"I almost want to keep fresh basil above the sink all the time. It smells so good."

or, the most annoying one my personal favorite,

"I almost want to break Lent and have just one beer."

I fail to understand how you can almost want to do something. I mean, either you want to do it, you don't or you are confused. His "almost" means something else entirely. Usually, he does in fact want the full-fat pork/beer/third Krispy Kreme/tickets to his umpteenth Morrissey show very much, but he wants my permission. I have three children, not four, so I refuse to entertain this sort of behavior. He can either do it or not. Not my decision. In the second example listed above, he wants me to do it. In that particular case, he hopes I will voluntarily obtain fresh basil every week, keep it in a cup of water and make sure it stays fresh for his smelling pleasure. I don't want to do that - not almost - just don't. So, like the grown-up that I am, I...um...don't do it. His mother would probably oblige, as this seems like the sort of thing French people do, and this is just fine by me. But I won't do it. I also won't passive-aggressively not do it when it might be convenient, because I am either passive or aggressive, rarely both at once.

Speaking of being passive, I'm not much for dragging myself to the gym, but I have to go, because I am old, have three children and eat like a trucker. And I like booze. I teach Pilates so I can get a free gym membership and also so I will be forced to go there. Unsurprisingly, I like to chat while I teach. I talk about any number of things - trying really effing hard not to cuss - including food. People in gyms love to talk about food. After all, our love for food is often what brings us to the gym in the first place. I try to keep it healthy, so of course I had to talk quinoa. One of my totally awesome clients passed on this recipe, from something called the Sonoma Diet, and as she expected, I love it. So did my kids. And, given that I almost want to wholeheartedly endorse, nay* insist on cooking quinoa a second time before serving, I had to alter the recipe just a little. This is my so-close-to-the-original-it's-not-even-really-different version.

So-Close-to-the-Original-It's-Not-Even-Really-Different Sonoma Diet Southwestern Grain Medley (Catchy, huh?)

Put some olive oil in a big pan and heat it.

Add a heaping half-cup of frozen (or fresh, you go-getter) corn and a heaping cup of cooked quinoa to the pan. Sautée them for a little bit, until they're brown. Sautée them long enough to add the following to a large bowl:

1/2 cup cooked brown or wild rice. I use the frozen kind in the little pouches from Trader Joe's. How freaking lazy is that? Bite me.

1/2 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained.

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper.

1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper.

1/2 cup chopped and seeded cucumber.

a thinly sliced green onion.

a whole lime's worth of lime juice.

a big splash of olive oil. I recommend using lemon-infused olive oil if you have it. Good stuff.

a little bit of finely chopped fresh jalapeño pepper.

a bunch fresh cilantro. I love cilantro, unlike TF, who almost hates it, but has managed to narrowly avoid hating it. Even though he almost does. So I don't add too much, but I put it on the table so the rest of us can go nuts.

Now that the quinoa and corn are lightly toasted, add them to the bowl with the other stuff and mix it all together. Season with salt and pepper. Or not.

Now eat it. So good, so healthy. Do you still like me? I still haven't had any caffeine. I think it's been a month. Wheeee!

Namasté, y'all!

* Nay. Another word I hate. I once heard it used in casual conversation, by someone not even almost British who tried to play it off as totally normal. I could barely contain my laughter, nay, my hysterical guffawing. I almost wanted to let loose. But I did not.

Quinoa Week 2009!

So. I love quinoa. I really do. It's a nutty grain, chock-full of complete protein. That's a lie. It's not a grain. It's seeds. But still, it's delicious and I love it. To participate in quinoa week, you will need to boil a large pot of quinoa and refrigerate it, cooked, in a sealed bowl. If you are going to eat quinoa every single day for a week with me, you'll want to pre-boil it, because I cook it again once it's boiled, because who likes boiled food? So go ahead and get that out of the way. Incidentally, you'll need to combine one part quinoa with two parts water and boil the whole mess, covered, for ten to fifteen minutes. Since you'll be re-cooking it, there's no need to boil the crap out of it.

Today's quinoa delicacy is a stuffed red pepper, several actually. Why be selfish? Start with your peppers. Find a casserole dish that holds them exactly, because non-GMO peppers are not always flat on the bottom and you want them to stand up in the dish. You do use organic, non-GMO peppers, don't you? If you need to add more peppers than you have diners, never fear, the dish reheats well.



I forgot to tell you this, but you should have pre-heated your oven to 450° F, so do that now unless you are the kind of person who reads ahead. I'm not, which leads to recipe disasters, but I like surprises. Drizzle the peppers with olive oil and roast them for about ten minutes.

While they cook, put a scoop of cooked quinoa for each pepper into a frying pan of heated olive oil - I highly recommend lemon-infused olive oil, available at your local Fancy Mart. Throw in a handful of pine nuts, a really big handful.



Toast the nuts and quinoa in the frying pan for a few minutes, probably until your peppers are ready to come out of the oven. While your peppers cool a little bit, mince a handful of herbs. I used basil, mint and chives, but go nuts and use whatever you like. If you don't have one of these, get one.



Don't bother with an expensive one unless you're giving it as a wedding gift. Even then, only get the expensive one if you actually know the couple. Just make sure it has two handles like mine, so you can easily rock it back and forth as you chop all sorts of stuff, like garlic, ginger, herbs and Sour Patch Kids. These are the chopped herbs. I took the chopped herb picture with my old camera. I hate my old camera. Is that mean? Whatever. It's not a person, it's a camera*.



In a bowl, mix the toasted quinoa and pine nuts, chopped herbs and a handful or two of some sort of crumbly goat cheese. I used Split Creek Farm goat Feta and Oh. My. Gosh. Was it ever good! You might think this is gross, but I used my finger to wipe the remaining goat cheese from the inside of the container and ate it. My beloved Rosewood Market** carries Split Creek Farm goat cheese. Enjoy! Drizzle more olive oil and maybe some salt into the bowl as well.



And now, we are ready to stuff the peppers. So, um, stuff them. Pack the stuffing in with a spoon so you can get a lot in there.



Put their little hats back on and roast them until they're a little black on top, ten to fifteen more minutes. You can do everything early in the day - or even the day before - and leave the final roasting for when you're ready. If you want to pull one out and save it to roast for lunch the next day, go for it. Here we have the stuffed, not yet re-roasted peppers.



Bring a bottle of balsamic vinegar to the table and harass everyone until they pour some over their pepper. I didn't take a picture of the final product because I was hungry and couldn't wait to eat. Yum, yum, yum. At least in my world.

Namasté, y'all!

* Why is there only one picture in here with my old camera? I could skip this explanation, but I don't want anyone to lie awake at night. I broke my new camera by dropping it on the bathroom counter. That's not as creepy as it sounds. I was taking a picture of a beauty product for my other blog, not nude photos of myself. Why would I want a record of that? Anyhow, I made this dish the other night, before the rock stars at Southern Photo fixed my camera in record time. I didn't like the way it came out, because I didn't par-roast the peppers before stuffing. I also didn't like the pictures, taken with my old camera, which I now know for sure is a piece of sh*t. So I made it again, but I forgot to take another picture of the herbs and I thought you should see them. I'm embarrassed that I didn't even ask the Southern Photo guy's name, so excited was I about having my camera back. Thank you, Southern Photo Guy. Did you ever know that you're my heeeeeeeero? You are the wiiiiind beneath my wings! I love you, man.

** Hey! Guess what! Rosewood started carrying my favorite fish taco seasoning by Simply Organic. I bought a bunch, but I left some for you, so you can make fish tacos. Ooh! Know what I just thought of? You could add quinoa to the fish as it's cooking and it would add a nice texture. Must try later this week.

Oh, the Tank.

Just in case you were curious, the Tank still claims the potty is "not for him." I commiserated with another mom over tea* today about that. She has a toddler close to the same age who isn't much interested either. As a mother of three, I wanted to reassure her, so I told her all children potty train when the weather gets warm**. Hope she didn't hear the shaky kernel of doubt in my voice. Oh, well, it was a lovely, toddler-free chat anyway. About once every week or two, the Tank likes to announce a need to use the potty, remove his diaper and use it. Just like that. I suspect this is to show us he could use the potty, but enjoys watching us getting our hopes up before he dashes them. What a charmer.

His new catch-phrase, which is probably from some movie or another is, "This is serious, Mom." Or Dad, or whoever will listen. After this dramatic announcement, he's unable to articulate exactly what is so serious. I'm sure he'll let us know when he's ready.

He also has a new game. I went to get him in the gym nursery the other day and the young lady watching the kids looked at me apologetically,

"I swear he keeps asking me to do this."

And she was telling the truth, because he was laughing and, as I well know, the Tank does not do much he doesn't want to do. She sat behind him, holding on to his hands as he pleaded, with increasing drama,

"Lemme GO! Pleeeeeaaase! Lemme GOOOOOO!"

Then he would let go of her hands, pretending to escape and tumble onto a pillow in front of him. Presumably, he put the pillow there to break his fall. We play this game at home now, too. Fun times. Kids are strange, aren't they? Oh, well. As the Tank likes to tell us on a regular basis, "The Tank is a two-year-old kid." Which explains it all.

Namasté, y'all!

* Yup. Still rocking the herbal tea.

** I tried to say this with great authority. I also told the other mother, a fellow writer, that blogs are good for practice writing. They keep you in the habit of writing, especially if you set a goal. I am long past the age when I believe in lofty goals, so mine is this: I won't skip more than two days of blogging. As I type, I'm standing at the kitchen counter, cooking miso soup for dinner while helping the X-Man with his homework, listening to "Thunderbirds" (old-school version) while the Tank demands various things and yelling at O. to get ready for soccer while I wonder if I'll have the energy to go to the gym after dinner, because I never did make it there today. My point is, this may not be my best work, but it's something. Practice, just practice. Now the Tank is explaining to me, in great deal, how he brushes his teeth. "THE TEETH IN MY MOOOOUUUUUTH!"

Detox Day 1.

Don't expect a post about this every day. First of all, that would be boring. Second, I might be too weak to post. Third, I might give up.

I woke up this morning and drank my lemon water. That was pretty good. I like lemon water. I looked forward to my 10:30 am smoothie. I hated it. Why was it so vile? Blueberries, protein powder and almond milk sounded pretty good. It tasted dusty. I had to hold my nose to drink it, as it didn't taste at all like those fancy smoothies in restaurants. Maybe because it didn't have any tequila. Who knows? Perhaps the vile, vile slop was meant to put me off food forever. Drinking it reminded me of being pregnant, when you know you have to eat - because it's good for you and you're hungry as hell - but nothing tastes good. Blech. I actually didn't finish it. Lunch looks promising - some of that delicious ginger dressing over avocado and mixed greens. Later, I get to eat a handful of pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I wonder which of my friends has the biggest hands, because I plan to invite them over for a snack.

Right now I'm sipping herbal tea with lemon, which is actually decent. I can't believe I don't have a raging headache from going without coffee. Maybe I still have enough left over in my system from yesterday. How long until it wears off? I feel scared.

Speaking of stuff I put into my system yesterday, I ate movie popcorn, a last hurrah before detoxifying. There's nothing really wrong with that, except it gives me a rash. And I eat it anyway, because it's movie popcorn. What is my problem?

If detox chat is less than entertaining, perhaps you'd like to listen to me on the radio, as a guest of Marti Bluestein who hosts Chick Chat, a segment on Frank Knapp's program, "U Need 2 Know." Click here for witty repartee. Marti and I suggested to Frank that the world might be a better place if we were allotted a full hour and could invite friends. Although he wasn't unpleasant (is he ever?), he didn't seem to be rushing to give us the hour. What the heck?

Namasté, y'all!

Have had far too much coffee to start that detox today.

And the coffee will remain in my system for a while, so I think I should wait a few more days. Also, I'm having dinner at Dianne's tonight with some friends and I don't think I can detox just yet. I am, however, trying to be a touch healthier. I pulled out my old copy of Vegan Vittles, which is a surprisingly good cookbook, considering there is no meat or cheese or even butter in any of the recipes. So, they have this recipe for dip, Glorious Green Olive Dip, to be exact. Although you may find this shocking (I know this avid meat and cheese eater did), the dip is pretty glorious, on everything from chips to celery.

I did not exactly have those ingredients, so I improvised and I really, really like my new dip. Yo.

My New Spicy I-Can't-Believe-It's-Vegan Dip

In a food processor, combine the following:

• 1 box soft silken tofu. You can find this in the Asian section of most grocery stores. You don't even have to go to the Fancy Mart, but you can if you like, because the service is better. But I digress. Do not look for silken tofu in the refrigerated section, because it is not there.
• 1 garlic clove.
• 1 Chipotle pepper in adobo sauce and a spoonful of the sauce, more if you like it hot. These peppers can be found in a can in the Mexican section of the grocery store.
• a few heaping spoonfuls of Nutritional Yeast. It sounds gross. It looks gross. It does not taste gross. I promise! Sprinkle it on popcorn with a little salt. And it is very, very healthy. And not gross. My favorite Fancy Mart, Rosewood Market, carries it in bulk.
  
• 5 or 6 green olives and a splash of olive juice from the jar.
• a handful of fresh basil.
• a dash or two of salt.
  
• some lime juice. I would recommend a lot of lime juice. I like lime juice. I used about a third of that plastic squeezy lime.

Purée everything until it looks creamy. Now add a splash or three of olive oil and blend for a few more seconds. I liked the dip with celery, but it was even better with red pepper. Tortilla chips would not be a bad vehicle for this dip. It also made an excellent sandwich spread. And was healthy. Woohoooo!

I will be detoxified in no time. Or not.

Namasté, y'all!

Risotto = Advanced San Francisco Treat.

First things first. Dear Ron Aiken, I like to steal your idea of using Something=Something for a title. S'funny.

Now, let's chat about risotto. It has a fancy-sounding name. It's often referred to as a rustic dish by fancy food people (Rustic = You must be very fancy to achieve this dish, originally prepared by peasants far more sophisticated than you.) With all this fanciness going around, we must assume the dish is fancy. Thing is, it's delicious, even better than the the San Francisco Treat you adored as a child. And thanks to its fanciness, you can serve it at a dinner party, a fancy dinner party. And I know, because I am Miss Super Fancy Pants.

Do not fear risotto, intimidating as it may be. I learned to make it from The New Basics Cookbook*. Anyhow, The New Basics taught me two essential rules:

1. You need about four times as much liquid as dry rice.

2. All in all, the rice should cook a total of 25 to 30 minutes.

If you follow those, you're golden, just like your risotto. Use a recipe the first time or two, then improvise away, like I did yesterday. I was forced to make Sunday lunch for my family, because my parents went to early church**. As I was home in my pajamas, a trip to the grocery store wasn't appropriate, so I opened the fridge. I found Arborio rice***, a single serving container of cream cheese from Panera, a leek, some turkey stock I had frozen, the last of some marinara sauce from Moe's Italian Grapevine, pine nuts, white wine and the end of a container of shredded Parmesan.

Leek Risotto

Heat about two tablespoons olive oil in a big pot. Add one leek, sliced into half-inch pieces. Sauté the leek until it's soft, about three minutes.

Add about a cup Arborio rice to the pot and set your kitchen timer for 25 minutes. Stir the rice until it's coated with oil.

When the timer is at 22 minutes, add about a half-cup stock, which should be simmering on another burner. Keep stirring. Remember Risotto Rule #1: You need about four times as much liquid as dry rice. In this case, I had a little less than four cups simmering, so I added a half-cup white wine.

When the stock is absorbed (i.e. When you scrape the spoon across the bottom of the pot, you should be able to see the bottom for a few seconds before the risotto settles), add another half-cup. By the way, use a wooden spoon, which is gentler on your rice than metal, and a pot without non-stick coating. Non-stick coating does yucky stuff to rice and food in general. You don't need a non-stick pot, you need to use more oil and keep a better eye on your heat.

Keep adding stock, a half-cup at a time until almost all of it has been added. When almost all the liquid has been absorbed, add about a half-cup marinara sauce, a single serving container of cream cheese from Panera or wherever and maybe a little pepper. Keep adding the rest of the stock until it's all gone.

Have you been keeping an eye on the kitchen timer? You did set it for 25 minutes when I told you to, right? Well it should be almost at zero now. You may, if necessary, add five minutes more.

At the last minute, stir in a handful of pine nuts and about a half-cup shredded Parmesan. You may, of course, add salt and pepper if you like. Now eat it. Don't wait, because risotto should be served hot, hot, hot!

Namasté, y'all!

* Which you should get. I used mine so much, it fell apart. My friend Gabrielle kindly offered me an extra one she had. I'm breaking it in, because all my favorite pages in the old one had food on them. I can't find anything in the new one without using the index.

** We go to the 9 am service. Not true. I force TF to go with our kids while I stay home and laze around in my pajamas sucking down coffee and reading the paper, because Sunday is the only damn day I can do that and I went to church as a child and TF didn't, so now we're even. And I don't feel guilty. Dammit. work. My parents usually go to that service and take us out to eat afterward. Because they went earlier, we would have had to pay for lunch ourselves. Have you heard? Apparently, the economy is less than stellar at the moment.

*** This site provides an excellent, brief and very funny explanation of Arborio rice.

Happy Birthday to me!

The Tank is turning into a pretty nice guy, both charming and considerate. This morning, he marched through my darkened room where I was sleeping peacefully allowed to remain in bed because it's my birthday, even if it wasn't quiet enough to sleep really.

"Come give Mommy a birthday hug!"

I anticipated him wriggling up the side of the bed, jumping on me and showering my face with kisses, his arms wrapped around my neck.

"No, Moooooom, I have poop! Dad, you wanna' change my poop?"

How very thoughtful. Not only did he not wish to interject the offensive poop into my birthday snooze, he also had the decency to ask someone else to change it. On your birthday, you shouldn't have to deal with anyone's poop but your own*. If only he would start using the d*mn potty. Eventually, he climbed onto my bed - poop-free - and sang "Happy Birthday" to himself.

Once he uses the d*mn potty, my life will be pretty close to perfect, because I'll be able to organize the laundry room. No point in doing it before the Age of Waste-Related Reason, because his diapers and diaper-related items take up so much room in there. I can't wait. I've been on an organizing jag recently, all inspired by a makeover I performed on the top of my dresser. Which lead to sorting and tidying the drawers below. Which lead to an overhaul of the small older-than-dirt-Ikea-dresser-that-won't-die** in my closet containing my pajamas and underthings. Which inspired me to sort and organize my pocketbooks and shoes. Which ultimately effected the organizing of my hanging clothes. And the drawers in my bathroom. And my jewelry boxes. I now have a designated place for those extra buttons that come with clothes. I feel happy. So, so happy. I would take a picture, but have the decency to feel embarrassed about the number of pocketbooks and shoes I have.

The Tank has left for the gym with TF, the big kids are sleeping and I'm gearing up to go to the All-Local Farmers' Market at Rosewood. The fourth Saturday market is my favorite, because it's close to my house.

This has nothing to do with anything I just said, but I need to share. Have you seen these signs?



I saw one, at Burger King in Lexington. I thought it was a prank. I thought it was so funny, I pulled a u-ey and took a picture. Several days later, I saw the same exhortation on another Burger King sign. I happened to be on the phone with my friend Angela at the time***. She happened to be on her computer and Googled, only to learn "ANGRY WHOPPER FEEL THE HEAT" is a new marketing campaign. Somebody needs to get fired. Don't know about you, but I picture a greasy hamburger, teeth bared, chasing me down the street and growling, "FEEL THE HEAT! FEEEEEEEL IT!" And the hamburger is bigger than I am. And angry. The Whopper has good cause to be angry at me, too, given how many of them I consumed in my youth without appreciating the amazing curative properties. One reason I gained so much weight in my first pregnancy (eighty pounds, yo) is morning sickness felt like a hangover, which I knew from experience could only be cured by a Whopper Combo with cheese, no onions and a Diet Coke. Of course, I didn't want my baby to have three heads, so I substituted full-calorie Sprite for the Diet Coke. Or maybe the Whopper is just angry because I dumped it as I approached my thirties and was no longer able to maintain a lady-like weight and eat Whoppers five six times a week let's be honest here every day. Whatever the reason, Burger King, I do fear the angry Whopper and I do feel the heat. I fear the angry Whopper will catch up with me and exact revenge by making me gain those eighty pounds back, along with the eighty pounds I gained while pregnant with the X-Man and the mere thirty I piled on for the Tank. No, Whopper, no! Let me be!

Anyhow, today is my birthday. I'm going to the Farmers' Market, coming home and setting my hair, maybe going to the gym to ward off the return of the Angry Whopper and cooking a big dinner. And don't be mad at my husband. I like cooking and have asked him to remove everyone, especially the Tank, from our home and let me cook in peace. What a gift!

Namasté, y'all!

P.S. For the curious: The reason my closet and dresser were such a mess is because I was pregnant with the Tank. When you get pregnant, you wear a bunch of different sizes over a period of two years and your closet organization gets all shot to hell. "Two years?" you novices might be asking. "Really?" Well, yes. There was the brief, three-month pregnancy before the Tank that ended in mis-carriage. Early pregnancy necessitates "fat clothes." During the two months in between that and getting pregnant with the Tank, I needed depressing clothes. There were more clothes to hide my pregnancy with the Tank, because after a miscarriage you might be a bit gun-shy and don't want to announce your new pregnancy right away. Then came the maternity clothes, followed by the post-partum clothes (non-maternity clothing in a larger size so you don't feel like a fat hag.) A couple months after he was born, I started on the back-to-my-normal-weight-except-for-in-the-boob-department clothes, followed by the slightly-smaller-boobs clothes. Now I'm pretty much the size I was before each pregnancy. Now that the Tank is over two, I got my closet mojo back, y'all! I plan to be this size until I die. What a roller coaster.

* Frankly, any time TF is home, diaper changing duties belong to him. I am not a nice wife.

** Did you got to college with me? You might remember the dresser. It will not die. Even the cardboard drawer bottoms remain intact, although they do pop away from the plastic drawer backs and have to be slammed back together. And, yes, I should buy a new dresser, but I have fantasies about a California Closets makeover that would include built-in drawers, so I don't want to spend the money. Maybe I'll have the closet and the laundry room done at the same time. Did you just get chills? I did.

*** Yeah. I talk on my phone while driving. I drive better on the phone. It keeps me awake.

Appetizers are my favorite food.

Cooking is like sex and exercise. If you get out of the habit, you lose interest. Once you start again, you realize what you were missing. Well, it's not quite like sex. Or even exercise. But, um, whatever. This metaphor is boring.

When I've lost the habit of cooking, I start with appetizers. Appetizers fascinate children and entice them to eat vegetables they would otherwise shun. I shun sweet potatoes, or I did before I knew they could be served without marshmallows. Although I have nothing against them, marshmallows on sweet potatoes make me gag. I'd like to propose we put the "potato" back in sweet potatoes. The "sweet," although it comes first, is secondary. It's comparative, not definitive. Sweet(er) potato chips and fries thrill me to no end. But, 'tis the season to eat hors d'œuvres...fa la la la laaaaaaa...la la la la!

Potato (Sweet-type) Appetizers
(Or...Hors d'œuvres de Patates Douces)

Peel and chop two large-ish sweet potatoes. Boil them in a pot until soft.

Drain the potatoes and add half a stick of butter, a dash of cinnamon, a splash of milk, salt and pepper to taste and a dollop of crushed ginger, like this, from Trader Joe's.



This recipe is interrupted for a brief whine: Why can't we have a Trader Joe's? Why? Please join me in my campaign to bring TJ's to Columbia. /whine

Mash everything together until you get this*:



A pbrrrt would perform this task nicely. I abused mine mercilessly until it finally broke, so I used a bamboo spoon. Allow the mush to cool and shove it into a plastic zip-loc bag or one of those fancy pastry squirters. Set out a bunch of these

or these on a tray. Or if you want to do a taste test, use both.

Now you are here:



Cut off one of the bottom corners of the zip-loc and start filling the shells. Sploosh...sploosh...sploosh...away you go! And now, shall we discuss garnish options? I *heart* garnishes! I tried two yesterday, pecans and chives, which seem to be the only thing I can grow consistently. Probably because they qualify as weeds in certain cultures. But I digress. And not for the first time.

Et voilà! Je vous présente...Hors d'œuvres de Patates Douces**!



Perhaps you would prefer to offer them to your guests on a cool tray from Target (damn them and their inexpensive, well-designed home accessories!) with a bottle of wine ($13.99 at Simply Savory, even less with the 15% case discount) and some mildly humorous cocktail napkins (Cloud Nine).



In a taste test performed by one ten year old boy and his friend, the small shells won out in a surprise upset over the fillo pastry. Only one judge participated, as the friend merely eye-balled the appetizers and politely declined. The friend, previously responsible for turning us on to the delicacy known as M & M's Dumped in a Bowl of Popcorn, remains a favorite. The ten year old expressed a mild preference for the chives, but he doesn't like pecans. I like them all. I found the fillo somewhat overwhelming, but tasty nonetheless. I like funny cocktail napkins. Is that gay?



Namasté, y'all!

P.S. If you don't use all the mush de patate douce, freeze it for another party.

* Please enjoy this brief apology to anyone who thought yesterday's picture of broken eggs was actually a picture of diarrhea all over my kitchen floor. I'm sorry if you had nightmares. I know looking at a pot of orange mush can't be easy for you during this difficult time. Be strong!

** I am so totally into the French version, in which "douce" follows "patates", as it should. Vive la France!

When will I learn?

I was enjoying a few moments of peace this morning, in between changing The Tank's diapers. Happy Diarrhea Day to Me! Just for today, I'm thankful he's not potty-trained. So, he was watching a movie in the kitchen - or so I thought - and I heard him moving around. No big deal, because the movie was Billy Jonas and the Tank likes to sing along and dance. I heard him say something, but I was doing really well playing Scramble on Facebook, so I ignored it. I heard it several times, each time more enthusiastic than the last. In between the outbursts, I heard a small sound, like crktt.

"HE DOES IT!"...crktt..."HE DOES IT!"...crktt..."HE DOES IT!"...crktt...

After failing again to beat my sister's high score at Scramble, I investigated. May I present, The Tank's first art installation:

He was so happy about it. I couldn't do anything but hug him. Score another one for Wellbutrin! Eggs are very hard to clean up with paper towels. Now you know.

Last week, life was perfect. My whole day revolved around beverages and hanging out. These are some beverages I enjoyed. First, imagine the taste of rich, warm espresso, sipped by the pool from one of these fancy Italian-y looking cups.

Also poolside, Coca Light quenched my afternoon thirst. I really, really miss reading under these straw umbrella thingies over the lounge chairs. American Wife, by the way, was a great vacation read. I'm finished, if anyone wants to borrow it*. Why does Coca Light taste so much better than Diet Coke? Anyone? Maybe it's atmosphere.

This last drink was my favorite, Malibu and club soda. Light on the alcohol, so you can have two! This vacation treat is ideal for sipping while playing "European or American?"

Speaking of "European or American?", my theory about Crocs and Speedos as unquestionable confirmations of nationality was incorrect. This guy proved it wrong, as he sports both Crocs and a Speedo.

But, I think we all know he's European, so my new theory is this:

Speedo=European
Crocs=American, if and only if accompanied by Speedo

Speaking of pants vs. no pants, both my husband and his brother managed to get locked out of their rooms without pants. I don't really understand how that happens. I never go outside without something covering my bottom. That is one of the rules I live by. Both of them attempted to re-enter via their respective balconies. Our room was on the first floor. My brother-in-law's was on the second floor. Please try not to picture him scaling a yellow stucco building at Club Med Punta Cana with no pants. Ha, ha! Try to get that image out of your head now! I'm thankful I didn't see it.

Namasté, y'all!


* I will not be including it at my next Anti-Book Club if you were counting on it.

Yay! Food and wine!

We went out to eat last night with three other couples. It was supposed to be an intimate dinner for us and one other couple, but I invited my sister-in-law and she brought her husband. Then she invited our friends S and M. I know what you're thinking: Oh no! No one will ever get a drink! No worries, because they were warned, not only by us, but by the original couple, one of whom (the smarter one) reads my blog and knew all about S and M's problems. Also, I threatened them with using their actual names, including their home address and making them sound much, much worse.

We went to Motor Supply, which I always love. I've realized, though, that I don't like that big table they reserve for large parties. It's got a great view of the door, so you can see who's coming and going, but you can't see most of the rest of the restaurant, including the bar, which is where all the interesting stuff happens. I'm immensely entertained by the Human Parade and I hate to miss it. Oh, well. We moved to the bar after dinner for a - one thousand percent unnecessary but yummy nonetheless - final drink. Wait. It was actually the penultimate drink, because everyone came to our house afterwards for the final drink.

S and M were very well-behaved - and very gracious, considering how rude I was for writing about them before. I may have exaggerated, just a little, for effect. The other day, it dawned on me why it is that frowning over food and wine bothers me so much. You know - when the person tastes something and frowns, brow furrowed, deep in thought, trying to decide if it's worthy of further tasting. By the way, because I owe them this much, S and M do not frown over food and wine. I wasn't talking about them, I just switched subjects suddenly. It happens. Pardon the sappiness ahead - I'll try to avoid this becoming "A Very Special Daily Digress..." We have so much. The fact that we can go out to dinner on a Saturday night with minimal planning and be faced with a choice of a hundred different wines and twenty amazing meals is...unreal. When you think about the rest of the world, and what some people go through just to secure the minimum amount of food and water they need to survive, it's hard to frown about food. Even harder to frown about wine.

Another reason to smile is that frowning over food that someone else cooked for you, served to you and cleaned up for you is just plain bad manners. Would you do that at someone's house? I sincerely hope not. If going out to eat is so hard for you, maybe you should stay home. It's not a mitzvah for anyone to cook for you or serve you. It doesn't bring them closer to G-d. If you were homeless and eating in a soup kitchen, it would be a different story, but that's hardly the case, now is it? So be nice.

Maybe I'm being hypocritical. Maybe I should shut up and quit going out to eat. Well...I'm a selfish little piece of fluff and I'm not going to do that. Besides, isn't supporting local business a worthy pursuit? By cooking at home, I'd be instrumental in starving local waiters and business owners. Can't have that, now can we? So I do what I have to do. But I won't frown about wine or food. In fact, to prove my point, I have adopted an overly enthusiastic face, just for tasting. The face is so extreme it can be seen across any restaurant. My friends love me. I am so much fun!

I had the Salmon, by the way, and it was incredible. How do restaurants do that thing where they make the fish crispy on the outside and tender (not over-cooked) on the inside? I suspect it involves sugar and an open flame, but if anyone has any tips, please share. And we shared a bottle (or two) of Sancerre. And a cheese plate. And a yummy piece of cake that involved chocolate and peanut butter. But I smiled the whole time.

Namasté, y'all!

Decision, decisions...Slow Food will make them for you!

I usually make pretty fast decisions, especially if I'm hungry or desperate for my first drink of the day. Some people are more discriminating. Friday night, we had dinner at Tombo's with our friends S and M* who are about a thousand percent more knowledgeable than we are about wine (and probably a lot of other stuff, too.) M and my dear husband had just finished tearing it up on the tennis court, so they were celebrating a first round win in some tournament or another. Frankly, I don't pay attention to any of A's tournaments because I'm the meanest wife ever, only concerned about who will entertain the kids during the d*mn tournament not all that interested. My point is, we were starting dinner late - 8:30 is extremely late for parents of young children, who usually eat at 5 pm, around the time they have their first drink. And I haven't waited that late for my first drink of the day all summer**.

So we sat down. S and M couldn't decide what they wanted. Fine. I could wait for food, because I had just come from Yoga. What is it about Yoga that makes you not need food immediately afterwards? Must be something about the breathing. Anyhow, I tried to order a drink. In fact, I did order a drink, after some discussion about the fact that I am a white wine drinker while S and M prefer red. I actually ordered two drinks, a split of Sancerre. When my wine arrived, M sent it back. Yes, you read that correctly. He sent my drink back, because he and his sadistic wife had decided they did want white wine after all. He didn't need to send it back, because I could have polished off the split and still managed to consume my share of another bottle. It might not have been pretty, but I could have done it. That split would have been dry before they managed to pick a bottle, promise. But I digress.

The waitress suggested a very reasonably priced bottle of white, some Italian business. I was shaking so hard from the DT's at that point that I don't remember exactly. M (incorrectly represented in the "S and M" initial thing, because he is the sadist, for sure) wasn't sure how he felt about that wine. I was this close to saying, "Suck it up, Princess," and it's a testament to my fine upbringing that I did not. Thank you, Mom and Dad. The waitress, who looked like an even prettier Tina Fey and had the patience of a saint, offered him a taste. She brought it back and handed it to me first. Desperately, I gulped and declared it to be "GREAT!" A man of sophisticated tastes, M was not so crass. Or was he? He took the glass, in which I had left the tiniest of sips. He looked at it. He held it up to the light. He looked, he smelled, he swirled. I sobbed with my head on the table, thinking I would never, ever get a whole drink. He did that thing where you stick your whole face in the glass and inhale. I don't get it. I taste with my mouth. I felt this was far too much drama over a $30 bottle of wine which, as most of you know, would cost about $12 at the grocery store.

But I digress. Again, which is easy to do when you are desperate for just one flipping drink. I wept with relief when M gave what I think was a slightly pretentious nod. I was this close to slapping the glass from his hand and screaming, "JUST BRING US A BOTTLE OF JACK DANIELS! IT GOES WITH EVERYTHING!" The waitress left to get a full bottle from the bar. I think she felt my pain, because she was moving pretty fast. I'm going to spare you a description of how long it took those two to order actual food. Let it suffice to say the phrase "Hmmm...nothing's jumping out at me..." was bandied about. Really? I know something that's about to jump out at you, smack you in the head and order you a bucket of chicken, like it or not. I do think it's only fair to mention that S ordered a melty Brie appetizer, sensing either my imminent starvation or total drunkenness from drinking on an empty stomach. She knows me pretty well and I'm less than charming when drunk or starving, or both.

I love S and M (the couple, not the sexual practice, you pervert!), but I need a new strategy to eat with them. My friend T suggested that I should have excused myself and hit the bar for a shot of Tequila. he is a resourceful man and that was an excellent suggestion, especially if I could have grabbed a handful of peanuts to cushion it. But here's another option: Fixed Price Dinners.

Speaking of prix fixe, Slow Foods and Terra are hosting a dinner on August 21st to raise money to send Kristen and Ben Dubard, owners of local Five Leaves Farm, to Terra Madre, a world food event in Turin, Italy. The dinner is going to be amazing, full of local goodness - and wine is included. Hear that? Included - so no decisions will be required. Yes! You can order tickets here. We already have ours and I sincerely hope S and M will join us.

Namasté, y'all!

* Wow. These are the things that you realize when you write a blog and use people's initials. "S and M"? Ha! hey don't really seem like the type, but you never know...

** Mom, just so you know, there were actually a few days this summer when I didn't drink at all. For the record.

Drinkin' and Bloggin' Part...Do What?

My husband and I went out to eat Friday night with some semi-new friends. They're semi-new because we've known them for a while, but we haven't actually hung out with them on purpose. We once crashed a party at their place at the beach and decided we liked them, because they didn't throw us out. Cool. Anyhow...

We met at their place for a drink and began the process of choosing a restaurant. We didn't want to drive too far so, bossy decisive as I am, I named three places I love, all within a few minutes of their house. They had their daughter, who is an excellent baby sitter, choose one. They just moved here from Portland, so she picked at random. We went to the restaurant, which shall remain nameless, because I love them and I'm about to be kind of mean. Ish.

We sat down. We had a polite conversation about wine. You know how it is with new couple friends. You have to be delicate. You don't want to make some crass announcement that you are cheap as hell, so you say something like, "I refuse to order wine that costs more than $42. Damn!" Oops. I guess that wasn't delicate. And I did say that. I never claimed to be fancy, ok? So, I had already been kind of obnoxious and I really, really planned to behave like a delicate flower for the rest of the evening. I did! But...

It was really hot in the restaurant. I wasn't the only person in our party who mentioned it (Do I sound defensive?) I'm sort of assertive, by the way. The waitress came back with our wine. As she reached for the wine key, I exhaled, "Wait!" As I mopped the sweat from my brow, I asked her if a seat somewhere else would be cooler.

"No," she responded, with bravado, "There are a lot of people in here and the air conditioning is working hard."

I don't fault her for that answer. I don't think she was trying to cover up the fact that the air conditioning was broken. I think she had been fed that line by the owner of the restaurant, like a Jedi Mind Trick. And I don't think the owner is a big fat liar, either. I think she's in that classic state of denial - the one where you talk yourself into believing the air conditioning isn't broken, that it's just really hot outside. Never mind that every other building you enter in South Carolina in the middle of the summer is freezing cold. Nope. Your air is working just fine. Because your air is working just fine, you most definitely will not have to spend thousands of dollars to fix it. Nope, not you. My advice is to go ahead and call the repair people. You'll get past your denial in a day or so, which is how long it'll take to get an appointment. If you wait until you're emotionally and financially ready to acknowledge the big, sweaty elephant in the room, you'll have to go a lot longer without air conditioning. Trust me. Been there, more than once.

The hapless waitress stood by, poised to open our bottle, which was already sweating even more than I was. Nervously, I asked our companions if they could eat in that heat. I really, really hoped they didn't think I was being obnoxious. They are either very good actors or they were as hot as I was.

We left and went to Tombo's, where we enjoyed a lovely meal in an icy cold room with an icy cold bottle of Sancerre, just like I like it. Just in case you're curious, I had the arugula salad and added tuna steak. It was flippin' fantastic. I just hope our new friends don't think I'm a high maintenance b*tch...

Namasté, y'all!

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.

Slow Food!

Have you heard of Slow Food? I first heard of it years ago when I was rambling on about my philosophy on food and someone, in a polite attempt to shut me up, said,

"That sounds exactly like Slow Food. Why don't you check out their website?"

Which I did and I've been a fan ever since. Although I'm sure they could give you a far more sophisticated explanation, I would describe their philosophy like this:

"Let's be good to the environment and thoughtful about our food choices, so we can keep all these plants and animals alive...SO WE CAN EAT THEM."

Precisely. The other day, I had lunch at the Happy Bookseller with Cerelle Centeno, a stylish, charming woman who's also the founder of a Slow Food Convivium right here in Columbia. You can email her or you can go see her, live, at the All-Local Farmers' Market today at Gervais and Vine, where she'll have a table set up with more information about Slow Food. And here's a picture of the lovely Cerelle. If you look to her left, you can see part of her Nana Purse, by local Sally Peek. It was super cute!


Namasté, y'all!

Oh my.

We went to the All-Local Farmers' Market yesterday*, the first one at Rosewood Market, and it was great, as usual. We got some beef tenderloin to make after the kids go to sleep**. We also picked up some arugula, a ton of fresh eggs, some cranberry walnut challah bread from Heather and some Forsythia from Floral and Hardy Farms. Donna's flowers last forever and I swear they're more colorful than your average flower. But it might just be that I'm all cracked out on local breakfast and coffee when I buy them.

The X-Man had a big day at the market, too. We gave him a dollar for hot chocolate and he came back, cool as a cucumber, hot chocolate in one hand, dollar in the other. Turns out he managed to charm the lady bartender, who's in the third grade at his school. Just last month, he was complaining.

"Unnhh! Why do all the girls at school think I'm so cute?"

I guess he's learned to live with it. His brother, far less willing to sell out, had to cough up the dollar.

Namasté, y'all!

* And I don't know why you missed it. Really, it's getting ridiculous. Best breakfast, best groceries, best flowers, best company. All local. Be at Gervais and Vine in two weeks for the next one or you're an idiot.

** That is not a euphemism for anything. My kids are vegetarians and we're not. Get your mind out of the gutter.

The guy who made my salad is an artist.

Behold! The Chicken Salad Plate!

How to be The Best Cooker Ever

When my brother was in high school, he informed my parents that, once he was in college, he would live in an apartment and eat nothing but pizza, wings and Chinese food. Thankfully, he came to his senses and eats a more varied and healthier diet. The joys of pizza, wings and Chinese food, however, should not be denied. Before my older children became vegetarians, I was named Best Cooker Ever for serving such dishes as Greek chicken wings, fried rice and Eggplant Mush Pizza. Although they would deny it now, they once wept with joy over a beef tenderloin I made.

Once again, I've been designated Best Cooker Ever. And it was easy. A few days ago, I made crêpes, filled with creamed spinach. And peanut butter and jelly crêpes, by request, for dessert. They're so simple to make that I didn't bat an eye when the kids asked me to try peanut butter and jelly. I'm slack; all I do is add a lot of extra liquid to regular pancake mix, pour it in a buttered crêpe pan, wait until it starts to bubble, dump stuff in it and fold it over like a dang quesa-dillah. Voilà! Crêpes! The next day, I made Pad Thai, which is always a hit. I bought the shrimp for the Pad Thai at Palmetto Seafood Co.

Tonight, I scored again. The boys and I went back to Palmetto this afternoon. I need to gush for a minute. I love that place. They can always tell me what it is I want. I explained how I wanted to make the fish tonight and they suggested flounder, which was, as the British say so well, spot on. They also sold me the exact amount I needed, based on me telling them who all was coming to dinner. I bought two flounder, which they cleaned and filleted for me while the boys and I sipped ice cold sodas (Diet Coke for me, regular for them, because I like to be the Nicest Mommy in the World once in a while) and waited on our to-go order of fried frog legs. Apparently, their pescetarianism has expanded to include amphibianerianism. They also enjoyed watching the live crawdads crawl all over each other. Lucius Moultrie, the proprietor, is well known as the fish fry master of House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn's annual shindig. That's only once a year, far too long to wait, so I recommend stopping by once in a while for a to-go meal. There are too many choices to list here, but I assure you that they're all good. And fried. The smell of that place, fresh fish combined with fried, fills me with joy. I let the boys eat the frog legs in the car, because they need to be eaten hot. The X-Man paused.

"Wait, let me see if I can still sing. Mwaaaaaahhh-la-la-laaaaaa!," he warbled, doing his impression of an opera singer. "Good. I don't have a frog in my throat."

Ha! Is that kid sharp or what? But I digress. Here's what I did with the fish:

Pan-fried Fish, Best Cooker Ever Style

Soak your fish fillets in a bath of milk and beaten eggs for at least 30 minutes. The milk will mellow the taste of the fish.

In a food processor, mix a handful of nuts (I used pecans), an entire bunch of fresh parsley and a little salt and pepper. It should look like a very dry pesto. Dump that onto a large plate.

Heat some butter and oil (choose one that has a pretty high smoke point, like grapeseed oil) in a large pan.

Take a piece of fish, dredge it in the parsley and nut mixture and lay it in the pan. Put as many pieces in the pan as you can without overlapping. You can press more pesto on top of the fish if you like. Cook it for a few minutes, until the edges are white, and flip it, cooking for a few more minutes just until the fish turns opaque all the way through. Slap it on a plate and eat it.

I served it with roasted fingerling potatoes and a mâche salad. We had crêpes for dessert, inspired by the begging of small children and some Brazilian honey we sampled and bought today. It was begging to be drizzled on a crêpe, this "Creamy, Raw Honey, Infused with Chocolate." Yup. I also added chopped pecans. Of all the crêpes we've eaten this week, these were the best.

Namasté, y'all!

Ostension

It's that time of year, y'all. The time of year when people send me and every other woman with an email account dire warnings about gang initiations involving attacks on women, usually in mall parking lots, where we apparently spend a lot of time. I love Snopes.com, because it helps me know when I really do need to be cautious and when I can just ignore that flyer on my windshield.

Anyhow, my husband and I were rambling drunkenly after writing Christmas cards discussing that old urban legend about the people who get robbed on vacation and, upon developing the film in their cameras, realize that the people who robbed them stuck their toothbrushes up their...never mind, you know the story, right? Anyhow, I mentioned the story as we were brushing our teeth. I was telling A. that the story was racist (duh). And I pointed out that, even if I was racist, I wouldn't want to use a toothbrush that had been up anyone's you-know-what, even my husband's and I love him very, very much*. Is the color of the bum in question important at all? I mean, how racist do you have to be to care? A bum is a bum is a bum, and I don't want my toothbrush anywhere near one.

None of that is the point. The point is that my husband said,

"Well, that story's probably true by now."

Which cracked me up. He's right, every urban legend is only a suggestion away from becoming the truth.

That being said, I am sick to death of the dire warnings about random crimes against women**. Why are they always directed at women? My husband goes to his office at night and I make him park in the front and ask him to be very alert when he leaves. I also like for him to call when he's leaving so I know when to expect him home. A man alone and a woman alone are more or less equally vulnerable to someone who's determined to rob them. And I'm sick of the not-so-subtle racism in the emails.

When it comes to crime, protecting yourself shouldn't have anything to do with race or gender. We should always be careful. We should always be alert. And we should always think about what we can do to make crime less likely. I know it often seems like there's nothing that can be done, but every bit counts. Give to Harvest Hope. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Question all kinds of racism, including the kind that's so ingrained you don't see it anymore, and make sure that your children understand it.

Here are some local places that could use your time, money and support***:

Sistercare

St. Laurence Place

Harvest Hope

Oliver Gospel Mission

Children's Garden

Palmetto AIDS Life Support

Epworth Children's Home

Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands

The Nurturing Center

CASA

The Family Shelter

MIRCI

Namasté, y'all.

* Sorry if that sounded silly, but I had to add the second "very", in case he hasn't bought my Christmas present yet.

** The exception being the ones that are true and relevant, like the email being sent around right now about a woman who, with her three young children, was held at gunpoint in the Earthfare parking lot here in town the other night. The nice people at the store have verified that it did happen and that the family in question is doing alright, although I'm sure they're still shaken. The crime happened in the late afternoon, when the store and parking lot are usually pretty crowded. To be honest, I was glad to get the warning, because even though I'm a pretty cautious person, I wouldn't be on high alert in that situation. I can't imagine. That poor family! I'm glad to hear that no one was hurt. The person stole her purse and three bags of groceries. Somehow, the fact that groceries were stolen makes me even sadder. I mean, you have to be pretty desperate to hold a mother and her three children at gunpoint for food. So sad for everyone involved. If you're a praying person, please keep them in your prayers.

*** Please feel free to add more, local or not, in the comments section. I'm just picking a few and there are many.