Getting Porked

On a day when I've been feeling relieved to be finally solidly, unambivalently, and enthusiastically behind a presidential candidate, this made me laugh:

Yum, Yum

When Eli outgrew his crib, we moved him into a big-boy bed in a now shared room with Ben and I--for the first time in my life--got an office. One small room with a desk and, well, yes, a pull-out couch because it's our guest room, too. But mostly it is my office, with a tall bookshelf stacked with my old grad student books (the ones I wasn't so sick of that I sold back), and my favorite novels, and tons of anthologies, and one little picture book about food that never made it down to the kitchen, where it belongs. It's a collection of Andy Warhol's comments about food, illustrated with his drawings, and now everyday after his nap, Eli comes bombing down the hall with his blanket and his bear and his bunny and his two doggies and his ball (because ever since our trip east last month he is a dog, he says, who needs to sleep with a ball), and he pulls the book off the shelf and says, "Mama, let's read Yum Yum!" So we do.

Some of the lines are profound:
"Progress is very important and exciting in everything except food."

And some of them are not so profound:
"Tab is Tab, and no matter how rich you are, you can't get a better one."

Some are sweet truisms:
"It's nice to have a little breakfast made for you."

And some make excellent points:
"When you want an orange, you don't want someone asking you, 'An orange what?'"

This is my favorite line:
"I love the way the smell of each fruit gets into the rough wood of the crates and into the tissue-paper wrappings."

And this is Eli's:
My only regret was that I didn't have an ice cream scoop in my pocket.

I don't remember how the book came to us, but I'm glad we have it. As Eli says, "I'm great fond of this book!"

Brainwashed

I'm not at all a proselytizer, generally, but apparently my efforts to eat a bit more seasonally have not gone unnoticed.

Exhibit A: A blueberry-pear tart a friend bought at a local shop and brought to share for lunch.
Ben's reaction: "Blueberry tart?! What?! Blueberries aren't in season!"

Exhibit B: Dinner at a friend's house (the same friend, in fact), with pesto pizza.
Ben's reaction: "Pesto?! Impossible! Basil doesn't grow in the cold winter!"

Meanwhile, the cafe that Ben and Eli have set up outside our kitchen now sports a spiffy "USDA Organic" sign, which Ben found on the computer and printed out himself, and the boys now grow imaginary crops for the cafe in our living room. As of last night, their garden included carrots, potatoes, an olive tree, a caper bush, and a maple tree, for syrup. They also harvest their own cocoa beans. Of course.

Ten or Fewer

Last month's Gourmet magazine reports that "one in five Americans live on a diet of ten foods or fewer. Among the most common choices? French fries, fried chicken, chocolate chip cookies, and Kraft macaroni and cheese."

Hmm. I was a little surprised at first -- ten foods or fewer! -- but when it comes down to it, I don't really have that many more in my weekly repertoire: pasta, almonds, broccoli, yogurt, milk, homemade granola, spinach/kale/chard (I'll count that as one), fresh fruit, bread, chocolate. I definitely eat other things in a week -- burritos, stir fried vegetables with tofu, cheese, tomatoes, white beans -- but if I had to narrow it down to ten foods to subsist on, well, I think that's my ten.

What's your ten?

I Am Irritated

A new restaurant has opened in our neighborhood, and I want to like it, I really do. The menu is vegetarian, the food organically grown, sustainably harvested, locally sourced (wherever possible, of course). The restaurant uses environmentally friendly products. It's a kid friendly-space with toys and large tables. They are trying to do the right thing, and it's clearly hit a chord around here (of course it has) because the place is usually busy.

But.

I cannot read the menu without wincing. Every item on the menu is an emotion, every dish a proclamation:

"I Am Sacred." "I Am Joyful." "I Am Triumphant." "I Am Festive." "I Am Bright-Eyed." "I Am Sensational." "I Am Prosperous." "I Am Elated." "I Am Plenty." "I Am Charasmatic." "I Am Precious." "I Am Succulent."

I Have To Stop!!!

I try to get past the names of the dishes and focus on the descriptions: the tabouli with hummus and spicy olive tapenade on pita sounds fine ("I Am Flourishing"), but it's right there next to the "live sun burger" ("I Am Cheerful") with macadamia cheddar cheese and I want my (veggie) burger cooked, thank you, and made with dairy cheese please, and then I see the basil hemp seed pesto ("I Am Sensational") and although I know hemp is good for you, I'm not putting it in my pesto. The thought makes me cranky.

I will just never be the flax seed-eating, hemp-wearing person my zip code might suggest; in fact, I guess you can take the girl out of New York but you can't take the New York out of the girl.

Small Town Livin'

No, we haven't moved out of San Francisco, we just know where to get a dose of small town (and summer weather!) when we (read I) need it: over the bridge and in Marin, where today we joined friends for their hometown pancake breakfast/Memorial Day Parade.

And when a couple enterprising kids rolled by us with their lemonade stand on a cart, you know we made a purchase!

Summer in the City

We never know when we're going to enjoy a hit of real, fogless summer, but we're in the midst of it now: all the doors and windows open, me in a sundress, the boys in shorts, and grilled pizza for dinner. Yum!

Ten for Ten

4 May 1997: chocolate chip banana bread for a hike on Mt. Tamalpais, Tony's and my first (blind) date

October 1998: Caesar salad pizza, eaten to the accompaniment of Don Ho recordings and tree toad croakings, while on vacation in Maui

September 1999: margarita pizza and champagne at the Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg to celebrate our engagement

July 2000: butternut squash ravioli in brown butter, spinach salad with fresh raspberries, and an amaretto-infused wedding cake

September 2001: mushroom ravioli, spinach and pear salad with candied walnuts and blue cheese, and chocolate bread pudding, a comfort-foods dinner for friends after the 9/11 attacks

April 2002: asparagus and mushroom fajitas at Chevy’s with 5-week old Ben, our first restaurant meal as a family of three

April 2003: poached salmon with dill sauce, steamed green beans with lemon zest and slivered almonds, and lemon tart – an Easter picnic I made at home and carried to the hospital where Tony’s mom was undergoing cancer treatment

September 2004: tiny servings of extra-sharp cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes and ice water (while Tony and Ben eat proper meals) during the first trimester of a queasy pregnancy

May 2005: pancakes at the Volunteer Fireman’s Breakfast in downtown Mill Valley, our first big family outing, a week after Eli’s birth

January 2006: tofu with fried basil and onions, veggie spring rolls, pad thai and mussamun curry, take-out, to celebrate our first night home after a year-long renovation

4 May 2007: a poached egg with crème fraiche and snipped chive, served in its shell, balanced on a bed of crystal-clear salt, the 2nd in our 7-course “garden tasting menu” at Fifth Floor Restaurant, a perfect, decadent meal to celebrate ten years.

Chard by the Yard

I don't know what makes me happier: the fact that my little vegetable garden now produces a nearly year-round supply of chard, or the fact that my boys say "Yay, chard!" and gobble it up for dinner.

It's all very good.

MotherTalk: the food!

I will post recipes as I've got time, but here for now is a list of what I served; I should have taken a picture, since it all looked so pretty spread out on the table, but here instead is a picture of the cleared-off table the next morning...

brownies
apricot crumble bars
pistachio-cranberry cookies
spiced nuts
cheese gougeres
white bean-pesto spread
hummus
cheese, crackers, baguette
satsumas

Valentine's Day Ding-a-lings

No, this is not a list of annoying people who insulted me today, as happened one Valentine's Day... Just a picture of the little cakes I wound up making for my boys.

I'd been stymied by the whole insert-cream-into-cake portion of the recipe; my vanilla cream was way too runny to do anything but pour out of a pastry bag (which I don't have any way) or my ghetto pastry bag, a ziploc with the corner cut off. But then I had an inspiration while I was out running today, and came home to wash out Eli's little medicine plunger. It worked like a charm! Plus, it was just kind of fun to squirt vanilla filling into chocolate cake with a plastic syringe.

Oh, and with the cream inside and the ganache on top, they're really not too dry at all. Pretty tasty, in fact.

Four Valentine's Days

Kindergarten: I came home for lunch and my mom mysteriously sent me up to my bedroom to await my meal. Moments later she arrived with cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on white bread (white bread! unheard of!), cut into hearts.

2002: I'm a month from my due date with Ben (but as it turned out, only 2 weeks from Ben), standing in the grocery store's freezer aisle, trying to choose a vanilla ice cream for the brownie ice cream sandwiches I'm making for Tony. A woman walking by looks me up and down and says snarkily, "It's a little late to be counting calories, isn't it?" Cow.

2006: My Valentine's Day dessert does double duty for the Birthday Cake Blog Project I organized to celebrate my sister's 45th. It tastes as good as it looks. (But sorry, Libby, I'm not nearly so organized this year!)

2007: This recipe looked so promising, but to be honest, the cake's a bit too dry, the filling a bit too runny (and why, when a recipe isn't so great, does it make so much? why??). Still, I will coat them all with ganache, they'll taste fine, and there's plenty to share with the preschool staff. Meanwhile, the banner I made (with the hearts Ben cut out to make his valentines) looks just fine. Apparently this year, it's more of an arts & crafts holiday for me.