Archive for April, 2006
I’ve always been a pretty careful reader of food labels, but the Michael Pollan talk I went to the other night has renewed my interest in trying to make the food purchases I make good choices for the environment, too. Organic trumps factory-farmed, in most circumstances, and local (because it requires less fossil fuel to get it from the farm to my kitchen) usually trumps organic. OK.
So there I was at Trader Joe’s, trying to buy milk. Do I buy the organic milk in paper cartons that I can compost, or the locally produced organic milk in plastic jugs that I can recycle? I went with local, even though I don’t much like the plastic jugs.
Then on to peanut butter. Here the choice is between organic in plastic containers or salt-free, non-organic in glass. I’m sure we could all eat less salt, so I went with salt-free.
Flour? Trader Joe’s carries King Arthur brand flours, which are neither organic nor local (the company is based in Vermont). But, it’s a worker-owned company with an excellent product, so into the cart it goes.
Finally, I need eggs. I can get organic, cage-free, brown, vegetarian diet, and omega-3 fortified — but not all in the same carton. Does my vegetarian family need to eat vegetarian eggs? What are the chickens eating that’s not vegetarian? I don’t like to imagine. And if I spring for omega-3 fortified, do we really get much health benefit? I’m dubious, grab a carton, and flee.
I’m not really complaining. I’m lucky to live in a city where I have so many choices for food and even where to buy it. I could skip the drive to Trader Joe’s entirely and walk to the local, family-owned grocery store. Or ride public transit to the farmer’s market. Still, the decision-making gets exhausting sometimes!
April 30th, 2006
Tony’s birthday is coming up, so I won’t be changing Ben’s (mistaken) impression of my kitchen duties any time soon. There is a cake to be baked, after all. But before I do that, I thought I’d try something new: chocolate croissants.
Now, I’ve done my fair share of baking; I’m familiar with recipe elements like “the sponge,” “the filling,” of course, or “the crust.” But this one is new to me: “the butter.” The butter. And indeed it is, nearly a pound of it, mixed with half a cup of flour, and kneaded into an already buttery dough. Mmmmm.
April 29th, 2006
I went to hear Michael Pollan speak about his new book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He was talking about how our decisions about food are influenced by culture, and then interrupted himself: “Of course, culture is just a fancy way of saying your mom.”
April 28th, 2006
Tony and I have been struggling this year to figure out how to do the work we each want to do, give the kids the attention they need, and not step on each other’s toes. Some days go better than others.
Ben, however, is very clear about our roles, at least in the kitchen. “Dada cooks dinner,” he announced recently, “But Mama only bakes.”
April 28th, 2006
When I moved to San Francisco 15 years ago, I was one of those annoying transplants who complains about the city’s lack of seasons. I sought out fellow east coast expats and in October we’d sigh over the lack of fall color, too caught up in our homesickness to enjoy the bay area’s golden season of warm fogless days and breeze-free nights.
It took a couple years to let go my stubbornness and not only see but appreciate the bay area’s subtle seasons: warm sunny days in early fall, rainstorms in late fall and winter, warmer and clearer weather in the early spring, giving way to the foggy days and nights of summer. I know never to pack away my wool sweaters, because I will need them in July, but I can also keep out my sandals for February’s warm spell. I can live with that.
I always thought that the dramatic weather — blazing days, hot nights, raucous thunderstorms — of an east coast summer was what I missed most living in San Francisco, but this week I’ve been reminded of spring.
First, we spent five days in Connecticut, where the trees were still bare enough that you could see the contours of the land and the stone walls receding in to the woods. But the willows, apples and maples were all beginning to warm, dotted with a pale fuzz of yellow, pink or green buds. The dirt roads near my parents’ house were lined with drifts of bright yellow forsythia, and the hills brightened by nodding clumps of daffodils. The landscape was waking up.
Then we came to Chicago, and spring looks good in the city, too. Every park is bursting with bright tulips. Dogwood, cherry and crabapple trees are all in bloom, the flowers floating in the air like pale pink and white snowflakes. I taught Ben to recognize azaleas, and to spot the tiny violets sprouting up between blades of grass. The air smells so sweet, I want to breathe it in deep enough to carry home with me.
And maybe we’ll have to add a spring trip east to our annual itinerary.
April 23rd, 2006
I know, I know, Easter was two days ago, but I’m still thinking about it. When I was a kid, Easter dinner was typically roast lamb and, more memorably for me, some decadent chocolate dessert. We always gave up chocolate for Lent, and midway through the season my mom, sister and I would start talking about what dessert could possibly make up for our 40-day deprivation. We made pot de creme, mousse, devil’s float, souffle, tart, torte, and any number of other chocolate treats. I wish now that we’d made a list of them all.
I don’t give up chocolate anymore, and I don’t eat meat, so Easter dinner has changed. I haven’t come up with a consistent menu, though over the years I’ve enjoyed some memorable meals. One year in college, I spent Easter with a friend whose Italian-American mom made the most decadent fettuccine alfredo I’ve ever tasted. I think I was a little appalled, at the time, about pasta for such an important meal, but I was smart enough not to say so. I kept quiet and slurped it up.
Several years ago, I wanted to make a great Easter dinner for Tony’s mom, Nancy, who was renowned for her cooking. She was hospitalized at the time, so I had to make something that would travel well and taste good at room temperature — basically, a really fancy picnic. I poached salmon, roasted asparagus, and served lemon squares with fresh raspberries and cream. Nancy was delighted, and I was inordinately proud.
Last year, Libby and I spent Easter together for the first time in years. She was in the habit of making trifle for dessert, which sounded great to me, but we were stumped for an entree; it had to satisfy several vegetarians and be easy to make in advance. We wound up making a couple strata, only realizing midway through the cooking that we were presenting such a high-carb, all-custard meal. Oh, well. No one complained.
This year, Tony and I brought the boys to my parents’ home for Easter, and one of my brothers came up, too. My mom and I, as is our habit, started emailing about the Easter feast a couple of weeks in advance, but hadn’t settled on anything before our arrival. She’d bought a big bag of sweet potatoes, but although we could think of at least one nice thing to do with them, it didn’t seem very Easter-y. There was this strata recipe that looked good, but we were planning an evening meal, and it seemed too brunch-y (we did, in fact, make it for brunch, with smoked gouda in place of the prosciutto; yum). Finally, we settled on this risotto, sort of; I added white wine, celery, and thyme, omitted the prosciutto and the goat cheese (just because we forgot to buy any), and used my dad’s homegrown peas.
But the best and most memorable part of the meal for me was definitely the lemon meringue cake from Feast. Nigella rocks again! I must admit that whenever she writes, as she does about the cake batter in this recipe, “don’t worry,†I do, because the last time I trusted that direction from her, I wound up with plastic wrap baked into my chocolate cake. But all the elements turned out fine. I’d cut down the sugar a bit next time, maybe even make my own lemon curd, but otherwise this was pure lemony heaven. I didn’t get to the camera in time, so I’ll make it again soon and post some pictures.
April 18th, 2006
Ben and his older cousin have a lot in common, despite being separated by 5 years and 3000 miles. They both dislike potatoes (to the continual surprise of their carb-loving parents). They both like belly button access while sleeping (once we figured this out about Ben and dispensed with one-piece pj’s, we all got a lot more sleep). They both turned down Where the Wild Things Are in favor of reading In the Night Kitchen. And now, in a similarity that delights me, Ben has discovered, as his cousin did at this same age, the joys of accessorizing.
Now Ben has never been about taking anything off. I’ll never forget the 80-degree day at Lake Anza, a couple years ago, when all his friends were cavorting naked at the edge of the water and he insisted on staying in shoes and windbreaker. He was never the kind of toddler who took off his own diaper, or needed much naked time. But he was never about dress-up, either. His friend M would come over and try on Ben’s pants, underwear, sweatshirt — sometimes all at once– and Ben would just watch in wonder.
But at some point in the last year he started wearing Tony’s hats, and maybe that’s where it all started. We’d drop him off at preschool wearing Tony’s floppy old purple hat and find him three hours later, his jacket zipped to his neck and the hat still firmly on his head. Other parents have to go in to school to round up their kid’s shed clothes; never us. One day I got to school early to find Ben had added binoculars and a pair of gloves to his outfit. His teacher, who doesn’t normally hit us with much child development lingo, commented, “Ben’s got all his externals working today.”
Then one morning, hanging out in the bathroom with me while I showered, he rummaged around in the drawers and found himself a shiny metal hairclip. In it went, along with an elastic on the other side to make a tiny spout of a ponytail. He’d ask for the hairdo every day, but was always careful to take it out in the car on the way to school.
Until one day, he didn’t. Dress-up hair went to school, to our great delight and the admiration of Ben’s teachers (I love that we get props for not interfering with Ben’s hairstyle). Over the past couple weeks he’s abandoned the ponytail (he couldn’t do it himself) but the barrette goes in every morning before breakfast. He calls it, with great seriousness, his “golden hair clip.” Most days now he also wears one of my old bangle bracelets, a shell necklace I got in Hawaii, and my favorite, a big plastic “sapphire and diamond” ring he got at the dentist. He calls it, at Tony’s urging, his bling, and it’s too big so it falls off all the time (even, yesterday, into a public restroom waste basket, but I, supportive mother that I am, upended the thing, fished the ring out, and put all the trash back).
This morning it all went on before he’d even come downstairs, and I tell you, the jewelry all looks great over his Santa pj’s. We’re flying out of town tomorrow, and I expect he’ll wear it all on the plane. Maybe one of the flight attendants will give him a pin to add to his look. I can only hope.
Edited to add: I forgot! He also uses my lip stuff daily, and likes to powder his nose. So perhaps he and his cousin were separated at birth. Somehow.
April 12th, 2006
I had NPR on this morning just long enough to move the car out of the way of the street sweepers, and I learned it’s National Cinnamon Crescent Day. Further research reveals that Friday (the 7th) was No Housework Day and the 18th is National Animal Crackers Day. Who knew?!
Ben’s on spring break this week, so of course we’ll do some baking to celebrate these important holidays.
April 10th, 2006
Nighttime has been all about insomnia and nightmares for me recently, so when I was trying to decide which cake to make next from Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame, the espresso cake called out to me. This would give me a better reason for insomnia, and, full of cake, I’d be happier about it, too.
And so I was. I ate two pieces (in order to be a good reporter, don’t you know), and didn’t sleep much. This is an excellent cake; full of flavor, nicely dry on the outside, but moist inside from its post-bake soaking with a healthy pour of kahlua. The recipe’s easy, as long as you have a stand mixer to beat the eggs for you (they have to go a very long time) and doesn’t seem to have any typos or forgotten ingrediants. I fretted for a second, having whipped the eggs into a gorgeous yellow mousse, after I dumped the flour in, all in a pile, and realized sprinkling the flour over the eggs would have made it easier to incorporate. Then again with the chocolate, which turned out not to be entirely melted when I poured it in. But I decided, rather uncharacteristically, to let the batter sort itself out in the oven, and it did.
My caffe latte cream was another story entirely. When Nigella directs, at the beginning of the recipe, to get all the ingrediants to room temperature, I didn’t really think she was referring to the cream you whip for the topping (besides, I made the cake late one night, the cream the next evening right before serving). I melted the white chocolate, let it cool, poured the cold cream on top, and of course the chocolate seized up. I whipped the cream longer than it should have gone, trying to get the chocolate incorporated. It tasted good, but it all got a little… chunky. No one complained, however.
Thumbs up.
April 6th, 2006
I’ve been a mom for just over 4 years now and today, thanks to an amazing group of friends and the babysitting co-op we started a few years ago, was the first time I ever paid for child care (unless you count preschool, which I don’t). I dropped Eli off, having already left Ben at school, and sat in the car for a minute wondering what to do with my time. Grab the computer and head to a cafe? Go shopping? Get a pedicure? The sun was shining, the world was my oyster… What to do, what to do?
Reader, I napped.
April 6th, 2006
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