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.

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.

Seth Myers is hot. And funny.

And would make a great parent. Love his suggestion for how to respond to the kids when they ask about Bong-gate.



In other news, thanks to a relatively new reader who so gets my sense of humor it isn't even funny (Mwah!), I plan to order this:

Yes, it is a potty that looks like a slot machine and rewards the potty trainee with a fancy noise each time he adds more "currency." I can feel it. This is going to work for the Tank, who has already been expelled from school. Oh, I didn't mention that? Yup. It's true. TF and I have finally gotten our karmic payback for that one time he criticized some other hapless parents, in the privacy of our own home, and put forth the theory that they should "try our way." I tried to stop him, but the words were out before my hand clapped over his yammering mouth. Ergo, the Tank is our just reward. I was working at home sitting around in my pajamas, sucking down coffee and trying to beat my a-hole sister's damn Scramble score on Facebook on Friday morning when I got the call. I knew it was bad when the drop-in nursery's name appeared on my phone's screen*.

"Hello?" I tried to sound clueless.

They were actually very, very nice. He had been put in time-out three times for sh*t kicking being less than kind to his friends. After a fourth assault, he got to sit in a chair beside the director's desk. You may think this is unpleasant. It is not. She is one of the kindest people I've ever met and he probably likes hanging out there. He's been there before, but this time was different. I didn't ask for details, but let's just assume he was pissing and moaning so much they couldn't take it. Thankfully, they were too kind to say.

I think the Viva Las Vegas potty will appeal to my little thug. I think dry pants will transform him into a kinder, gentler Tank. I think a lot of things that aren't true, but humor me. Just in case, we also took him for his first haircut, a rite of passage we hope will inspire him to use the d*mn potty and stop kicking his friends.

Namasté, y'all!

* See. I'm not all bad. I do have the numbers of the kids' schools saved on my phone. And I could look up their pediatrician's number in the phone book any time I wanted to. Or I could drive there, because I know exactly where it is. Gold star for me!

Three New Things I know.

1. Maybe I'm the last person to know this one. If so, you are all jerks for not sharing. Actually, I know I'm not the last, because my friend and fellow blogger Tracie was tickled pink when I shared my new knowledge. What is it? Well, I finally figured out how to take a decent photo inside, with bad light conditions...with a point and shoot camera. My sister-in-law, who is an actual photographer, like for money and stuff, explained to me that it's all in the light if you don't have a fancy camera with settings that would probably confuse me anyway. So true - anyone can take a great picture outside.

Without further ado, here is my new secret, which is not a secret at all, but was a secret to me. This is my camera, a Leica C-LUX 2 .

The arrow points to what makes the Leica so pricy: that cute little red badge. It cost more than it should because it's stylish. Also, the features, which may be the same as on my old camera, are very easy to use. In fact, I discovered my new trick when I was kind of tipsy and accidentally hit the wrong button with my finger. Yay for me!

First, set the exposure on your camera as low as it will go. On mine, you push the button indicated below by the arrow.

Next, set your flash. I have no idea what this slow sync thing means, but I like the way the pictures turn out when I use it. The arrow points to the button I have to press to set the flash.

Anyone reading this who is a real photographer may be cringing and muttering about stupid twits with over-priced Leicas who don't know what they're talking about. Go ahead. I don't care. You're right on the money. But now I get surprisingly decent photos at parties. Your mileage may vary and don't send me any questions about this technique because I will not know the answer.

The pictures of the camera, incidentally, were taken by a window in the middle of the day with my LG Voyager phone.

2. If you are wearing a cashmere hoodie on the elliptical and have your headphones plugged in to the console on said elliptical and you've been dying to try electric shock therapy but can't afford it, take off the sweater without removing the earphones. I did it and lost my hearing for an afternoon. And it wasn't just that particular elliptical, because I tried it at another gym on a different brand of elliptical and it hurt even worse. I also tried it on the original elliptical with a cotton hoodie and nothing happened.

Cashmere + headphones + elliptical = painful, but nonfatal electric shock

Perhaps someone has a neat little explanation for why this phenomenon occurred. I think it's kind of like the time I was in my friend's garage and had one hand on her dad's car, the other on their outdoor freezer and, briefly, no feet on the ground. Ow! Then there was the time I was mixing batter with Iona, my old-school mixer. Iona was a wedding gift to my parents and I love her.

The cord, which comes out of the wall socket and the mixer itself, came loose from the mixer and fell into the batter. Without unplugging it from the wall, I picked it up and licked it off. Ow! My brain vibrated for days after that one. Luckily, I was too disoriented to call DSS on myself. Did I mention I had a toddler in a backpack? He screamed too, which may or may not indicate the current reached him. You can't prove it and he's fine now, so whatever.

3. How to make those damn good ham biscuits my friend Suzi (owner of both Suzi Cooker Catering and the divine El Burrito) made for the Tank's baptism. I can't tell you, either, because I swore I wouldn't. Imagine little mouth-sized biscuits, fluffy and piping-hot, stuffed with something delicious involving ham. They're in my freezer right this second. Love the biscuits, love her.

Namasté, y'all!