the reluctant housewife

walking away.

2011-06-09T22:09:00.001-07:00

The last week of school. Today was the sprout's last day of preschool. For 18 months he has decided to wave to me through the front window of his school, or not, while I walk away, backwards, from the front door to my car. When he decides to wave, I weep when I can no longer sustain eye contact. I walk slowly backwards to the car, waving and blowing kisses, and when I get there I sometimes run back halfway and do it all over again, because I can see his smiling face, his waving hands, his blown kisses through the glass. But, eventually, it's time for him to start his day and for me to drive away but I'll tell you: he's never the first to brake contact. It's always me. Eventually, he will be the one in this two-some to be the first to walk away but for now, it's me. I have to walk away, and I'll have to do it in kindergarten, too. Today I walked away, broke contact, looked back to see that he had walked away as well. I had to pull my car down the road to turn around and while I was driving by his school, there he was, like he'd never left, waving with all his might through the window and I waved back and kept driving, weeping.

in need.

2011-05-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

I picked the kids up at school today and took them to Whole Foods where I put a 2 dollar-per-child limit on any treat they wanted. Two of them chose bags of gummi candies and one chose a bar of Newman's milk chocolate. I also bought a gallon of local organic milk for $6.99, a pound of organic butter for north of $4, a basket of organic strawberries for $3.99 and a bag of brown rice chips for $2-something. I paid in cash. I went to the bank yesterday where I deposited a check from my husband's secondary income and withdrew $200 and the only thing I'd spent it on thus far was a latte from a coffee shop I like to go to so I had plenty of cash in my wallet. We loaded back into the car and headed for home, turning south on Main St. At the corner of Main there was a woman in her 30's holding a sign that said: "Family In Need". Her face was relaxed as she held her sign. She smiled at the cars in traffic, but only slightly. It was a self possessed smile, a relaxed smile. It wasn't drug-driven, it was simple and pleasant. She was cleanly dressed and her long, long dreadlocks were well tended. I considered the money in my purse, tucked in my wallet and at the moment decided the timing inconvenient for passing something through the window: traffic was moving. In my Volvo SUV, behind my Chanel sunglasses, listening to my children joke and giggle in the back seat, I drove by the woman on the corner, only to realize that I didn't recognize her because she wasn't wearing glasses. This woman has a son a year younger than my oldest child and had offered to babysit on many occasions. The last time I'd seen her she was working at the Whole Foods we'd just left, many years before. I'd forgotten about her. I knew her when I was pregnant with my second child and worked in a cafe where she sometimes came with her husband for lunch. But now I was half a block away from her and I could hardly do anything about it, could I? I haven't stopped thinking about her, her son, her husband, in need, without even her glasses.

et voila!

2011-04-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Well. It's been a while. I'm checking in because I was looking for a recipe I laid out on this format and...well, I made it and I butchered it. It was pretty sad. The flavors were surprisingly comforting, but like a big, heavy blanket that smells slightly of your Grandmother's neighbor who certainly didn't smell as nice as your Grandmother, if you get what I mean. It was fine and it was edible and it was satisfying in a way that you'd rather not discuss with your friends. Like cheap pizza or rough sex. You may discuss personal waxing with your friends, or even your husband's circumcision, but not the way cheap cheese pizza dipped in ranch dressing reaches into your lizard brain and accesses your pleasure points.
I'll hope to come here more often.
-Em

Can you actually die from boredom?

2010-07-07T15:42:00.001-07:00

We've been experimenting in boredom this week. We have a 12-year-old boy cousin on the premises and the 9-year-old girl child is not here which equals negative girl plus one boy which equals three boys, 3, 7 and 12.

Which equals lots and lots of lego guns.

I neglected to schedule anything solid during this week because I figured an experiment in how boy children relate to each other would be edifying, to say the least, and also, seriously, how bored can three boy children get? So bored they think up something else to do? Exactly!

That was my hypothesis. Also, I am lazy.

We are on Day 3 of the experiment and I am happy to report that today is the first day my older boy child has fallen into a pit of despair regarding his boredom and how truly boring it is and how he hates me because I have FAILED to entertain him, drive him somewhere, let him play a video game, etc.

Even in normal life when the girl is home and we have no 12-year-old boy I am always torn about how the summer should be. I love the idea of spending entire days entertaining oneself by playing/beating on one's siblings, reading quietly to oneself, counting petals on flowers outside, tormenting small animals, etc. In reality, however, I am not very good at getting myself going toward a meaningful task and slothfulness turns to depression quickly. I will list the things I have done today to keep myself away from the internets:

1. Watered the garden. This did not take much time because the weather has been very mild and the soil is not drying out fully every day.
2. Refilled two bird feeders. This also did not take much time. Because there were two of them. And it was a fast chore.
3. Cleaned my car, including vacuuming. This took a surprisingly long time. It was filthy.
4. Read a book to the little boy. Tried to sneak a nap in there but he got wise to my attempts.
5. Feed the chickens. I guess I could have included this with the other bird feeders, but I chose to make a separate event out of it.
6. Pruned a bit. Not much.
7. Ate lunch.

What I have there is roughly 45 minutes of hard work. I have stretched it out over 7 hours.

Oh my god I am so bored.

We're totally going swimming tomorrow, I don't care if it's not hot.

baby teeth can bite my ass

2009-12-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

Well, the Universe dealt me a solid today. A year ago, we spent something like 4 large on the big kids teeth because of negligent tooth brushing blah blah cavity blah baby tooth root canal fuck. Today, the kids came home with a One Hundred Per Cent Clean Bill Of Dental Health, so if I wanted to sell them tomorrow to pay for my Christmas bills, I'd have a pretty good chance of fetching a pretty penny for the lot.

Thank god, is all I can say because we have a holy ton of other shit to spend that 4 grand on now.

scraboonit!

2009-12-06T12:49:00.000-08:00

Man! I blew it already! Missed a post last night.

Brief recap:

Last night was awesome. After freaking out all day and having three people tell me that I'm a big fat idiot and not to freak out, I stopped freaking out just in time to really, really enjoy the boy's Winter Garden. It was so beautiful and amazing and perfect. He did get a little squirreley a couple of times, but he was beautiful and amazing and perfect and himself, through and through.

jesus fucking christ and shit

2009-12-04T21:10:00.000-08:00

today was an impossibly long fucker of a day and it isn't even over yet.

FUCK ME.

Soon, so soon. As soon as all the kids are asleep, then I can officially drink too much wine and spend too much time dicking around on the interwebs and then collapse into bed to sleep the blissful sleep of a person who will only have to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

FUCK ME.

porker

2009-12-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday we went to the butcher to pick up our half of a hog. When we arrived we were informed that the hams and bacon and hocks were not, in fact, ready yet, but we did manage to leave with the fresh cuts. The first time we bought meat directly from a farmer was a couple of years ago when we bought half of a hog from a local lady who was advertising on Craigslist. It was, hands down, the tastiest pork I'd ever eaten, not to mention the freshest and localest. Next we moved on to local, direct-from-farmer-purchased duck, chicken, and beef, mostly via the farmer's market in Healdsburg. Then last spring we bought a lamb and then a month or so later a goat.

Basically what I'm saying is that I have parts of a lamb, odds and ends off a goat, a couple chickens, duck fat, 5 lbs of ground chuck and the better half of half of a pig in my freezer right now as well as chicken stock, green beans, various dried fruits from the back yard, some tomatoes we were too lazy to do anything with before they rotted on the counter, tomatillos and, like, 7 loaves of zucchini bread. Plus a loaf of fail pound cake. Plus some crappy bacon we got from somewhere that I won't actually let my family eat. Plus ice.

Basically, what I'm really saying, is that our house is probably a really good place to be:
a) in case of the apocalypse
b) if you really like meat
c) if you really like meat.

Tonight we had the first pork chops off the new pig and they were delicious. So...CLEAN tasting, somehow. They were the most brightly flavoured pork chops we've had since the last time we had home-grown pork chops. I made an apple sauce that was served hot on the side with the last of our mystery variety apples, baked treviso radicchio with olive oil, salt and pepper, roasted potatoes with whole garlic cloves and sage...it was all really, really good and almost entirely local; the olive oil, salt and pepper were the only things I could not tell you the origin of. The potatoes were from Preston's farm, the treviso was from a lady at the market and the sage and apples were from the back yard.

The market is over now until next spring and all we have in the yard right now are bitter greens, choys, walnuts and maybe a lemon in a day or two, but we do have Tierra Farms right down the road and I'm sure we'll be giving them plenty of business in the coming months.

reasons why I am an idiot, number who's keeping track in an unending series

2009-12-02T20:53:00.000-08:00

FUCK. Also: SHITASSBITCHFUCK.

There was a misunderstanding this evening, and I hate misunderstandings, especially when they make me feel stupid and embarrassed. See above.

The big one had a parent evening with Special! Live! Guest Speakers!

I thought it started at 8.

Apparently, it started at 7.

It takes me 20 minutes to drive to her school.

There was a sign on her classroom door that said "Knock And Wait Outside".

I waited for 20 minutes in the COLD ASS OUTSIDE. After knocking. Lightly.

After many increasingly embarrassed texts to my Baby Daddy (dood, so stupid, all waiting outside in the cold...do they hate me...why do they not open door...SO FUCKING COLD OMG I'M COMING HOME...) I went the hell home. Where I am now drinking wine and blogging about what a seriously lame lameass I am.

NO ONE MUST EVER KNOW. I crept away all stealth-like, lest someone hear my boots on the pavement outside and look out the window and say, "Hey, isn't that Emily out there skulking around like a moron? Let's heckle her for being too timid to knock with greater force than a cockroach, for verily, she is as such. Ha, ha, a cockroach I say. DORK!"

Thus ends day two. Shit.

An apple a day

2009-12-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try something, and I don't know if it will work, but I'm going to try it anyway.

I'm going to try to come here and pound something out every day until New Year's. I don't know if I'll have the fortitude or interest or even the time to do it, but here goes. No harm in trying.

Today: It is officially time to start thinking about Christmas. I've had my fingers in my ears and my eyes clamped shut singing "lalalalalalalalalala" since Peanut started talking about making gifts for friends and relatives waaaaay back in mid-November (and where does she get this? This coordination and planning ahead? Not from me, that's for damn sure.) but today I finally faced the sweet, sweet music of December and started looking through DIY and craft websites for ideas for things for family and friends this year. Last year we made bath fizzies and candy and cookies. And they were...good...but not spectacular. This year I've got to get better at packaging because you can make the best cookies in the world but if they're all just stuffed in a box or bag and crumbling on themselves they're just not going to be that enjoyable. So: orders of business:

1. Learn to package beautifully.

The next thing is: what will we do this year? I've been intrigued by the thought of doing old-fashioned silhouette portraits of the kids. I love these silhouettes of the cats; the gold frame and teal background really make it.

The other things:

I love to bake and cook and...stuff. But what do people want? I love our membrillo but do people really want quince paste? I love to make truffles and cookies...but I always feel bad giving my kids' teachers little treat boxes because they must get a ton of it and why should I burden them with more baked goods...? Oh, I don't know. New order of things:

1. Relax. December is only a month long. It will be over in 31 days.
2. Oh, my god that's not very much time. Not NEARLY enough time! I don't even know what I'm doing yet...
3. Figure out what to do. Edibles? Fake porcelain? WHAT?
4. Relax. Remember to have fun with it. And the kids. REMEMBER NOT TO HATE THE KIDS.

And, hey. Maybe this year we'll actually get Christmas cards out. Unlike every single other year. The closest we've ever gotten was that year I went out and bought, like, A TON of Christmas cards and then sent out exactly none. Sort of like the birth announcements for the first born. Don't even ask me about the third's baby book. There are some things we just don't speak of.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-29T20:54:00.000-08:00

So. We had Thanksgiving. Days ago. I can hardly remember it now...what was it? Oh, yes.

It was Delicious. Also: Fabulous and Lovely and Warming and All Of The Things You Would Want From A Thanksgiving.

When I was a child Thanksgiving was hands-down my favourite holiday. There was none of the stress of Christmas, because even as a child Christmas is stressful: am I showing enough gratitude for this gift I'm not sure I want? Does anyone like the silly things I could afford to buy for them at the dollar store? Thanksgiving was only and completely about coming together, crowding around a table or stretching out throughout the living room, and eating the beautiful food everyone had made. I remember sitting in my Granny's kitchen smelling the wonderful smells of Thanksgiving and then later, in the evening, loading up my plate and staking a claim in a spot I'd never otherwise be allowed to eat in: maybe the stairs or the couch or balancing the plate on my knees and eating until I could only roll upstairs to bed and fall into a deep, deep, food coma. My Granny died when I was nine and Thanksgiving wasn't quite the same after, but it was always good. We always did it at our house instead of hers from then on and it always had the same smells: orange and sweet and rich. My dad cooked the turkey on his Weber barbeque and my mom did most of the rest in the oven. Sometimes aunts or uncles brought rolls or pies or green bean casseroles or appetizers and the meal was never, ever fancy but it was always too much and always the best thing I'd eaten since last Thanksgiving.

Now, we sometimes do it at our house, my grown-up mother-house, the house I live in and cook in daily. I love to bicker with my husband about the right way to do the turkey, which sides to do and how to do them. He always wins with the turkey; I always win with everything else. The kids love knowing what to expect from Thanksgiving dinner and I love to make the dishes we make only once a year: cranberry sauce (up to three kinds), sweet potato gratin or casserole or whatever, turkey (because, really, I don't care for turkey: it's only an excuse to make gravy), gravy, usually with giblets when we're at home, pumpkin pie. These aren't things we eat normally and it feels so festive to have them all cooking at once, the house filling with smells we haven't smelled since last year, all coming together.

Last year it was only the five of us here because we were sick and couldn't travel for the holiday. We still made everything we had come to expect, and at a hefty price; it's expensive to do the whole shebang, especially with a heritage bird. This year we were able to join the rest of my family in what has become the new tradition: Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandpa's house in Pebble Beach. After my Granny died, my Grandpa married a lovely woman who graciously opened her beautiful home to his motley crew of children and grandchildren and now great grandchildren for holidays and vacations and various other get-togethers. They have a wonderful home overlooking the Pacific Ocean and it is the greatest treat to visit and have a meal. This year the duties of the meal were divided so judiciously throughout the family, everyone thought they were getting off easy. We were to make mashed potatoes, a salad, cranberry relish. My mom made stuffing, cranberry sauce and pie. My brother's girlfriend made rolls and pie. My aunt made green bean casserole. Her husband, my uncle, barbequed the turkey. My grandmother supplied drinks and appetizers. Nothing was fancy. Everything was delicious.

Now it's been over for several days. We had a lovely weekend in Monterey visiting with family, lamenting the ones who couldn't join us. I don't know who will host next year; probably it will be us with Kelsey's family joining us. It doesn't matter. Nothing will take the place of the first Thanksgivings of my memory at the house my Granny made. Nothing will be like the Thanksgivings at Pebble Beach with ocean views and 50's swank. Nothing will be like the year we made it for ourselves, sick as we might have been. Nothing will be like it is in the future. And yet it will all be defined by the sameness and our love of tradition, whatever shape it takes.

In Which, a search is organdised for to find mummy's mind

2009-11-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

I know you'd be hard pressed to find evidence of it here, but we've been busy around these parts. Busy trying not to die of Swine Flu, that is. Oh my holy hell, the last two weeks were but hard. Bean was thrown under the wheels of the fever bus first and then Peanut, Sprout and the Baby Daddy were quickly next. Miraculously I was spared the same fate because lo, the heavens parted and the gods themselves were witness to all the fucking fevered brow wiping and snot wrangling and temperature taking that I was doing up in here and decided, hey, you know what? We won't give her the dread Hamthrax. Instead, in all of our beneficent glory, we will bestow upon the stalwart female one a cold that will last nigh until the end of days and for that she will thank us because she will not be sick enough to lay down and let the others stew in their own filth but neither will she be well enough to be able to find her own ass with two hands and she will know humility and fatigue and will stand in awe of our generosity.

And then finally everyone got better. Even me. I know, right?

Now, one unfortunate side effect of having three kids and the third being the sickest is that I kind of let behaviour that I would not tolerate under any other circumstances fly. It started with little things like staying up late because he'd napped all day and fixing a gajillion different things for him to eat because he'd gone for days without really eating anything and he's on the skinny side anyway. Basically, what I'm saying, is that we started with a pretty well adjusted three year old and at the end of two weeks we now have a monster. There's no pretty way to say that. He's been hanging out in his pajamas for two weeks becoming more and more demanding but it's not only this, oh no. His penis fixation is reaching epic proportions. Anyway, this all culminated yesterday in Whole Foods where half of well heeled humanity was doing their Thanksgiving shopping when I denied Sprout some basic pleasure like, I don't remember, chocolate maybe or, really, anything, and he pulled his penis out of his pants and yelled "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! PENIS! FUCK!"

And then my head exploded, the end.

the future, it is bright

2009-11-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Mommy, is this how you spell "Forchunstand"?

Yes. That is how you spell Fortune Stand. It's not the correct spelling, but I know that it says Fortune Stand.

Now the spelling mishap has been cleared up and Peanut is giving Funny Forchunds to Sprout: "You will go to two kids and the kids will say 'You'll be so strong you'll pitch horseshoes without taking them off the horse.'"

Now she's concocting a Funny Forchund for me.

I can't wait.

we can't all of us be happy all of the time

2009-10-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight we'll be eating split pea soup. I may need to apologise about this to one or more people this evening when the contents of the dinner pot are made clear but it just IS a split pea soup day. When I opened the cupboards this morning the first thing I looked for were split peas. Finding none, I grabbed the sad little bag of leftover Rio Zape beans from last winter and proceeded to look for the delicious Carne en su jugo recipe on the Rancho Gordo website. I should say that my beans are actually from Tierra Farms who has a farm stand just down the street and who sells delicious produce and beans with which I have made Rancho Gordo's carne en su jugo.

Delicious.

But I didn't have enough time to make the meat and bean soup and anyway, what I really wanted was split pea soup. 30 Whole Foods dollars later (I also had to buy milk and beer, both necessities.) I am standing in a kitchen that smells intoxicatingly of, well, peas. It's an earthy, legumey, slightly muddy and warm smell that would be made better only by the addition of a ham hock, which was left out in this instance due to, well, lack of ham hock. It's a smell I remember from my childhood and adolescence and young adult-hood. We would sometimes make huge pots of split pea soup at work and the smell, while hardly forceful, nonetheless made itself known throughout the restaurant and the day. I love a house that smells like bread baking or chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven, but I feel at home when the kitchen is steamy with split peas.

And then there's the color. I've always been drawn to it, especially flecked with orange carrots and black pepper, but the green itself if beautiful. It's not grey and it's not bright but it's the nubbly green of a knitted blanket that's perhaps a little tattered around the edges and has had all the newness worn off long ago but is the one you always pull out of the closet to wrap around yourself on a cold evening with warm tea and a book.

Tomorrow night I'll make pasta with Santi's sausages and homemade marinara Kelsey lovingly put up during the summer and everyone will be sated and happy, including myself. But some nights you simply have to cook for yourself and on those nights, isn't it nice if it's something as easy as split pea soup.

do not walk freely

2009-09-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

So, and I know you cannot tell this from the picture but this motherfucker is HUGELY HUGEMONGOUS and could probably eat a fucking BUICK if you put him up to it, I am completely terrified of walking in my backyard now. Just knowing that spiders like this lurk in North America sends shivers down my spine. Kelsey found him in the zucchini plants the other day and we've been feeding him soldier flies--and what dumb fuckers they are. Holy shit, the maggots are huge and nasty looking and then they turn into wasp-like flies but they just bumble about a bit and then die--one of which he's wrapping up in this picture, by the way, as a means of scale.

I've named him Bruce.

I now walk down any path in our yard with a stick out in front of me waving madly about from side to side and up and down lest any spiderweb grace my shirtfront and any other Bruces out there incur the wrath that is Emily Being Stuck In A Huge Ginormous Garden Spider Web, complete with screaming and slapping at anything even a little bit sticky or crawly.

Chorizo stew THAT WAS NOT FAIL

2009-09-14T20:57:00.001-07:00

Somehow, possibly because I'm fantastically depressed, I managed to FAIL to take a picture of the meal we ate this evening. My failure may have been due in part to the tongue thrashing I got from my dearest beloved for using all the chorizo he bought at the farmer's market in my chickpea-and-chorizo stew. But you know what? I stand by it. I'll stand by my stew until the end of days because my LANDS was it tasty. Here's how it went:

Sweat 2 onions, coursely chopped, in olive oil
add 4 cloves of garlic, sliced and
2 carrots in a large dice

let cook until the onions are translucent and golden

add 1 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika,
3 cups tomato sauce or puree (I happened to be cooking tomato sauce for canning and used 3 cups of this)
21/2 cups of cooked chickpeas
1 cup water
chorizo

Let cook for...until it smells really good and before the chorizo has completely fallen apart.

IN THE MEANTIME...

torch a couple of sweet peppers...gypsy peppers worked really well for this
peel and slice thinly

at the very end, when everything else is done and you've even
chopped parsley

poach one egg per serving.

Into the bowl:
stew
peppers
egg
parsley
grey salt
pepper

RAVISH

the end. Enjoy! We did, even if the chorizo was meant for another pot...

inspired by these two lovelies.

after school comestibles.

2009-09-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

cold, leftover roasted potato + green sauce = perfect afternoon snack.

side note: must be eaten in a standing position, preferable at the counter.

why I am a failure, Part 1 in a neverending series

2009-05-04T13:39:00.001-07:00

It's raining outside. I sent my children to school without rain gear.
I went grocery shopping but I think I only got enough food for the next day or two.
I've had two cups of coffee already but I think I'm going to need more.
I'm going to be 30 next month.
I haven't made my bed yet.
Even though I went grocery shopping, I'm not sure what we're having for dinner tonight.
I'm reading a book I hate but can't put down because at least the 30-something who wrote it managed to DO something with her life.
I tried on expensive jeans the other day in an effort to feel less empty inside.
I haven't made bread in more than 2 weeks.
My house is always dirty.
I think I might smell bad.
I'm secretly fat.

PHEW, it felt good to get that off my chest. I started this post by making a list of things that I had not yet accomplished even though I will be turning the creaky and constipated age of 30 next month, but the list was so disgustingly long and pathetic I erased the whole thing and decided to focus on a narrower topic: what I have or have not done to make myself feel like a failure TODAY.

BUT! On the plus side! On the Oh, Right, That's What Makes Life Worth Living side! Sprout has been singing "Ring of Fire": "I fell into a burning ring of fire I went down down down but the flames went higher and it burns burns burns the ring of fire the ring of fire." Over and over and over. It's fucking awesome.

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

2009-03-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

Today is the Bean's 6th birthday. He is bigger every year and it is amazing and cause to celebrate the hell out of him, but there it is. He's in the middle, sandwiched between two paragons of where-the-hell-did-my-life-go insanity, more of a road marker of my age than a brick wall. Poor man has a burden and part of it is my inattention--I lost a year and a half of his life which means he really should only be turning 4 today. While the Sprout was sucking my life force the Bean kept growing, changing, evolving, but I wasn't present to witness it so when I look back on pictures of those 18 months, roughly half of the pregnancy and a goodly part of the Sprout's first year, I don't remember being there with him. I remember being there with Sprout, trying like hell to burn memories of him into my brain so I could recall all the sweetness of the last baby later. I remember being there with Peanut because...well, because Peanut has always been good at demanding attention. God help me, I remember the big and the little but the middle somehow leaked away. I've tried so hard to be here for my people, to be present and real and HERE, but sometimes I just wasn't. I could have tried harder. The Bean suffered. We've spent the last several months unraveling the trauma that having a baby caused him to suffer and my heart breaks for him when he gets in trouble at school because his needs aren't being met and he doesn't know how to communicate his disappointment without yelling or hitting. Things are better. Things are good now, I've got my brain back and it's helpful. My Bean is 6 today and he is beautiful and loved.

christ almighty

2009-02-25T17:35:00.001-08:00

Oh, my good lands. I need something to do. Getting weepy over a bread recipe on a Saturday night is absolutely not how I want to spend the remaining months of my twenties. And how it is, exactly, that I'm going to be turning 30 this summer? HOW ON EARTH DID THIS HAPPEN? HOW WAS THIS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN? WHO SIGNED OFF ON THIS? IT'S BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT I TELL YOU!

Ahem. Excuse me. It's just that...seriously, where the fuck did the last ten years go? I imagine this is an interior monologue that every 29-and-a-half-year-old has but that doesn't make it any less devastating for me. I've had this horrible feeling lately that I've accomplished absolutely NOTHING in my life that I can look back on and be proud about.

I do have three kids, though. And, you know, they're pretty cute. They have behaviour problems and one of them still poops in his pants but they all sleep in their own beds 75 percent of the time.

Fuck. I totally thought I'd be a washed up rock star by now with drug problems and crabs, or the youngest, hottest winner of the Nobel prize for literature and/or general bad-assedness. I should have had my own Food Network show where I'd make fun of Emeril Lagasse and Jaime Oliver would come by and he'd totally flirt with me, but then so would Anthony Bourdain but I'd tell him to go fuck himself cause he could, like, be MY DAD and I'm totally not into that. Unless we were talking about, like, David Bowie or something. That might be ok. I was totally obsessed with Labyrinth when I was a kid, and I'm pretty sure it was the tight pants that had me captivated.

Someone did remind me the other day that I could have spent my twenties doing drugs and that what I've done in the past decade will actually have some value going forward and I'm like, yo. You know the name of someone who will buy my babies? Two out of three are blonde. I think they'd fetch a pretty penny based on looks alone.

I know it's going to be ok. I'm probably not going to cure cancer or racism and I'll probably never be this generations Hemmingway nor will I probably ever visit all the places I'd like to. I might end up old and bitter about it, or I could get run over by a car before I even see 30, leaving dreams and disappointments to the rest of you suckers. Who knows. Today, I'm just cranky.

making bread at night

2009-02-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

Since moving to this house, our priorities and lifestyle have changed. We had always talked about having a kitchen garden, but I, at least, had never really gardened and didn't know anything at all about the work involved in cultivating a successful patch of land that brought forth food. We had planted tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in wine barrels, stuck in sunny spots on the driveway or along the side of the house in other living situations and I felt like nothing but a frustrated gardener: "Give me some dirt! All I want is a small patch of earth that I can run my fingers through and coax life from." Well, we got it. We've got almost half an acre under us and although only a small part of that is devoted entirely to food and of that most lies fallow in the winter, the work is ever present. Only in the dead of January is there not a weekend when we ought to be doing something in the garden.

This is what I have learned: gardening for me is full of "oughts". If I'm not presently doing something I ought to be doing I have guilt and when I'm at a task I find more enjoyable than another I wonder if I really ought to be doing that one instead of this one I find myself doing and if I've just completely worked hard all day at the height of summer than I'm sure to have missed something I ought to have done and tomorrow will be too late. Today, thank heavens, it is raining because I ought to be working at what defined my day yesterday: weeding. Between weeding and grocery shopping, little else got done yesterday, which is why, at 10 pm last night, I was waiting for my bread to do its second proofing so I could bake the damn thing already. Finally, it was ready--over ready, in fact. I had gotten lost in Kelsey's Brother Juniper bread book and a fine gin and tonic and slice of Della Fattoria semolina bread. This is what 10 pm looked like at my house last night:

The bread (Oat Bran Bread, from the monk's bread book) was delicious. Absolutely wonderful. I cut the recipe in half because it was my first time with this one and I didn't want two loaves of sub-par bread but next time I'll definitely make the full two.

I was so absorbed in the chapter about Struan that tears came to my eyes (may have had something to do with the G&T. It was...strong) and I decided to cook some brown rice for the bread-and-chocolate recipe which uses Struan as the base (I'll update upon completion of that project) but my loaf rose precariously over the brim of the loaf pan. Kelsey has had this book since the dawn of time but I had never thought to use its recipes because, truthfully, the Brother Juniper bread I used to buy at the store was always a little on the dry side. This loaf, however, completely won me over. It's beautiful. It's delicious. It's light enough for the kids to enjoy it and has enough oat and wheat bran for Kelsey and I to acknowledge its goodness.

Oh, my GOD, I know, my oven is awful and disgusting, but this is the only picture I had the presence of mind to take of this glorious loaf.

aligned

2009-01-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

This morning, at 4:37, Peanut began a puking marathon that would not let up until noon. The retching was fast and furious, as was the pile of laundry accumulating on the floor of the garage in front of the washing machine. I myself have not slept for some days now, due in large part to a stomach flu that took out my two stalwart school-age children last week and a nasty fever that has afflicted the toddler since Sunday. The feverish tot thrashes in bed next to me in his sleep and between the thrashing and my trying, largely unsuccessfully, to keep his hand out of his pants in order to keep pee off of my sheets, I have not slept. Last night was better-- the fever lower, thrashing lessened, no other children under duress-- until 4:37 when the vomiting began. When it was finally time to get up and get the Bean, my only (seemingly) healthy child, to kindergarten I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed (to the sound of retching) and poured a bowl of cold cereal for the lucky one who got to leave this den of sickness and unwashed pukey sheets.

At 8:15 I put my Peanut in front of the television and instructed her to call for me when Important Looking People started talking.

Last week husband and I discussed keeping the kids home to watch the inauguration. Mostly, I brought it up and he proceeded to tell me why my idea was bad and all of his points were valid:
The children don't cover this stuff at school yet
The speeches were likely to be longer than their attention spans
The fact that our president is a black man doesn't really need to mean anything to them, yet. Someday, yes, it will be important, but today they don't need to know what a dark and mean place this country can be. Today, this is a place where a little girl close to my own girl's age gets to wear a pretty dress and stand with her Grandma, her Mama, her sister and her Daddy in front of more than a million people who are standing outside in the freezing cold to wish them all luck and let them know that they love them. It's a day when a beautiful woman wears a sparkly gold coat (seriously, I know it's lemongrass eyelet, but on tv, through glassy eyes, it looked sparkly. Maybe it was just because it was Michelle) and her husband maybe flubs his lines a little bit, but it doesn't really matter because today is a special day. It's a gold coat day. It's a staying home in bed sick day. It's a watching tv day and seeing history day. It's a watching your mom cry while she's listening to our new President, shushing the baby and holding your hair back while you vomit day.

It's a new day. And it'll be a new tomorrow.

Crackin' nuts in Frisco

2008-12-15T22:41:00.000-08:00

I am taking my daughter, older son and both of my parents to the Nutcracker tomorrow. Shhh. They think they're taking me. Ha ha! joke's on them!

Ok, not really. I'll be sandwiched in the backseat of the Toyota between brother and sister while my dad drives us down to the city. I imagine it might still be fun. I hope to take some pictures of the kids in their snazzy city outfits and then I hope to fix my Picasa and then I hope to post some new pictures.

I'm excited (!) (almost squee! excited) about mah boy seein' the Nutcracker for the first time. His sister's been prepping him for nigh on three years now, and now that he's five (house rules) he can experience the fantasticness that is the San Francisco Ballet in person. I think he mostly wants to go because the toy soldier army fires a cannon at the mouse king. I could be wrong.

Really not all that bad. Maybe even good.

2008-12-05T16:39:00.001-08:00

Wow. That was....really lame. I'm sorry. Note to self: no half-drunk blogging after bad news from the dentist.

Instead, we will think of eggnog, mistletoe and holly berries. Christmas trees, Playmobil nativity sets and open fires. We will read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Polar Express and The Gift of the Magi. We will listen to sentimental Christmas songs at night with only the tree lights on and we will warm our toes by the fire and we will remember the first Christmas we spent together as a couple and then as a family. So many Christmases and each one different but defined by the things that are the same. The first Christmas we spent together we were living in a small apartment and we saw no need to buy a tree for ourselves. A few days before Christmas I broke down and fashioned the ugliest tree ever out of an upside down tomato cage and hung it with tinsel and ornaments. We tacked our two stockings to the wall above the heater. I got a bottle of vodka in my stocking. Now, Christmas officially begins when the kids demand the Playmobil nativity set the weekend after Thanksgiving and ends the day after Christmas when I can't take the clutter any more and begin putting all the decorations and ornaments away.

Last year, I decided that I would skip Christmas this year altogether. We just wouldn't do it. None of it. I was so disgusted and stressed out and unhappy in the weeks leading up to Christmas that I just couldn't see the joy in it anymore and figured that we would just avoid it in the future, like the plague or the mall. But here it is again and there's no running away from it. Might as well enjoy it.

I see a lot of spiked eggnog in the coming weeks.

Merry Fucking Christmas to you too, Great Depression of ought-8

2008-12-03T21:08:00.000-08:00

Man, but it's been hard.

When it was just US watching our own budget things seemed dire enough but now with, oh, you know EVERYONE watching their economy as well as the nation's and planet's spiral ever downward things seem even worse. We've been trying to buckle down for the last year or so since our own finances went topsy-turvey and I've got to tell you--there's nothing more depressing than fantasizing about the swanky cocktail party of your dreams, you know, the one where you're wearing that vintage frock you fit into ages ago, updated with some fine Louboutins (what? just me?) passing out nibblets of chorizo-stuffed dates wrapped with prosciutto while your husband--outfitted in natty slacks and cashmere cardigan (omg! with a pipe!) shakes you and your guests a dirty martini (although, really, probably more of a Sidecar. Yum.) while in reality you're trying to decide if your 5 year old really need his cavities filled or if you can replace some of the draughty windows instead or maybe buy some firewood because the heater's broken. Poor kid. His teeth hurt. On the other hand, fillings only benefit him, while warmth benefits us all.

It will be interesting, this next little while. If not the dust bowl, then what? The closing of Detroit? Where will they go? Mexico? Canada? Will they come to California again? Will the mothers of dead babies breastfeed grown men?

How can we have let this happen? And how can I stop the draughts around my doors? How do we keep the cold out?

Merry Christmas, baby. All I need is what I've got, right here with me. I will snuggle my babies for warmth and feed my chickens and grow my garden and take care of what I have because that's all I have. It's enough. It's perfect.

We did it!

2008-11-05T21:30:00.000-08:00

And we did it for guys like this. Pretty soon it will be in their hands and I'm just happy to report that we seized our opportunity to do the right thing. We'll try not to fuck it up for you too badly, my little guys. We certainly made the right choice last night.

And thank fucking god. I didn't really want to move to the Netherlands.

Ahem.

2008-08-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'd really like to lay down some mad lines here about perspective and parenting and first days of kindergarten and shit, but I'm sort of obsessed with Black Hockey Jesus right now and keep checking in on him to see if maybe today qualifies as a two-entry kind of a day and also there's a toddler screaming at my elbow (HELLO! HELLO ELBOW! CAN YOU HEAR ME ELBOW? ELBOW HELLO! ELBOW!) and, yesterday, every time I turned on the radio or opened my eyes I cried mad, mad tears of joy/frustration/hope/anguish that burned my cheeks and stung my eyes like little crazy bees of emotion, and as disappointed as I was last night with Obama's speech I still want to kiss him for making it and say thank you, thank you, thank you for fighting hard and being our Obi Wan Kenobi, my eight-year-old didn't understand much of what you said but she listened with an open heart more golden than sunshine, more full of promise than a full Netflix queue and today I understood that despair will only guarantee us 4 more of this bullshit and that the hippies were right! all we really need is love, true, open, sweaty, blissed out love and hope and if enough of us send out our happy blinking beacons of happy hopefulness we will get what we need because if enough of us get to the forest RIGHT NOW, we will be there. We will be witness to the tree falling and we will hear it fall and we will be able to say: Now. The time is Now.

Not setting the goal too high since 1997

2008-08-25T15:55:00.000-07:00

During my senior year of high school I applied to only one college. Everyone else I knew was applying to many, many colleges and universities and staying up all night and working every weekend on essays that would set them apart from the pack of other high school seniors who were applying with 3.9's and several extracurricular activities to their name. I had no interest in spending my last year of high school actually working at anything, other than being a complete bad ass, and I'm pretty sure I met my goal. The year was 1997, and I was subsisting on little more than black coffee, cigarettes and modern rock. I was dating a guy in his early twenties and I drove an '83 Volvo DL. I was the master of my situation and I was completely uninterested in being disappointed by rejection. Plus, I knew exactly where I wanted to go.

I applied to San Francisco State University and was still actually nervous about not making it in. Seriously, I think they take people on a first come, first served basis and I let out an audible sigh of relief when my Letter Of Acceptance came. My parents and I decided on the dorm for the first year and we took out student loans and drop-kicked that last bit of senior year in the ass and I packed myself up in my little Volvo and headed forward to my future with love in my heart and practically nothing in my head.

I dropped out after the first semester.

It had nothing to do with the school. Or the city, I loved the city and I continue to love the city. What happened was, I met this guy the summer before I moved and we had the most amazing courtship that happened mostly in the city. It was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I dropped out of school, he never returned to his school to finish up, we moved in together and had three babies by the time I was 26.

Yeah, I know. The downside...ok, one of the downsides is that he DOESN'T ACTUALLY LIKE SAN FRANCISCO. I know, I know. It was a horrible realization for me too, but what can I do?

It's been years since we've been to the city together, but last weekend I dragged his complaining ass all the way down there because my dad's family was having a reunion and I told him that he just had to kind of ENJOY IT DAMMIT I WANT TO GO AND YOU HAVE TO TOO. He went. He even helped us find this great dim sum joint in Chinatown:

(That's the Sprout in a hat (worn backwards, of course) we picked up in Chinatown. Bean got Pop-pop firecrackers and Peanut got little slippers that are off-gassing the most vile shit imaginable. They've been kicked outside until they learn to let it go.)

It was not this place, though:

Which was too bad, really, because, and I know you can't actually tell from the picture, but the front of the building was painted GOLD and it was AWESOME.

We had such a good time, and we did nothing but all the shit I've always refused to do, like Chinatown and Fisherman's Wharf, but the kids loved it (also, Cable Cars+toddler="FUN! FUN! FUN! ALL DONE?") and at the end of the day, I think my husband did too. Oh, plus really good food and service at Beretta that, unfortunately, we had to duck out of early because of child related illness--ha, no, my kids didn't make anyone sick, one of my kids GOT sick. Just, you know, for fun.

Hopefully we'll do it again. Some day.

It's just the clown. It's weeping again.

2008-07-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

An exercise in stream-of-consciousness blogging.

**********

We've taken the plunge: we've decided to commit to a weekly CSA box. No doubt, it will be brimming with all the same produce we're drowning under from our own garden, but that's a small price to pay for supporting our favourite local farm, right?

I mean, right?

(I have nightmares of ratty beet greens taking over our fridge and being forced by frugality to make beet green omelets, smoothies and pies until we all die, choking on our beet greens. I've been...meaning to get in touch with a therapist.) (OHMYGOD ANALRAPIST!!!1!11!!)

*********

So, we've been watching "Damages" recently, piggybacked by "Benidorm" (look it up). I have to say, the preposterouness of this show is spellbinding. I couldn't get over Glenn Close's ridiculousness in the first few episodes, but now I rely on it like the TV mainlining freak that I am. Dearest Husband is out of town now for a few nights, and if we hadn't finished it last night, wrapping it up with the final three episodes in a frenzied fury, bedsheets drenched with the sweat of anticipation and disappointment, I'm not sure that I could have sworn fidelity on that one. I mean, I held the show at arms length until I JUST! COULD! NOT! STOP! THINKING! about just WHAT EXACTLY had happened to...

And Holy Shit, that's it! It's done! The demons have been exorcised for I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF GOD REMEMBER ANY OF THE CHARACTERS NAMES! HALLELUJA!

Ahem. This house is clear.

*********

To come: A conversation involving Cydwoq boots and how to pass your own personal Douchebaggery test!

(Hint: Cydwoq boots do not equal douchebag! The equal the opposite! They equal a man of exquisite taste and grooming! THEY EQUAL AWESOMENESS!!!)

they might have to pry my iPod from my cold, dead hands. or maybe they won't. who knows.

2008-06-29T21:18:00.000-07:00

You want to know what makes me feel old? The iPod nano I got for my birthday. That makes me feel old. I tried to do what all the kids are doing these days and "download" some "sweet sounds" so that I could "rock out"....at some point, I'm not quite sure when I can actually use it because of having to constantly be aware of possible bludgeonings and the screams resulting therefrom or the sound of children disappearing stealthily which is really hard to catch even when you're really paying attention...anyway, I thought I broke the computer because in the middle of trying waaaay too hard to get some Kruder and Dorfmeister (look! I'm still cool!) in there the damn thing stopped working. My reaction to the computer when it stops and will no longer respond to my incessant tapping the space bar and/or enter key or random flailing with the mouse is to exhale loudly and walk away, irritated at the idiot box and confident that when my husband gets home he'll listen to my complaints and shake his head and chuckle at me, his little moron.

Stupid iPod.

Of course, my man fixed it all and I am now able to enter the 21st century, ear buds proudly inserted for maximum obliviousness, completely ready to check out at designated times--basically, when the kids are in bed and the only thing he's in the mood for is Rambo: First Blood 2--and enjoy the music that has been pre-selected for me.

Rambunctious Sausage

2008-06-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

Man, it's hard to keep this thing going. We've been busy with chickens who are finally laying, bees who continue to keep us on our toes (is that a queen cup? Are they getting ready to swarm, or are they bearding because it's too damn hot in the hive? Who knows? Not me.), garden watering in blistering hot weather and then not-so-hot but horribly smokey weather. I've been trying to get a handle on household finances (my good LANDS, groceries are expensive), find a job and try to maximize my efficacy and efficiency as a, GULP, housewife all at the same time. Also, trying new recipes because it's fun and tasty.

Oh, and having a birthday. The very last birthday of my twenties, thankyouverymuch.

Yay! We had a birthday yesterday and it was fine. I turned 29 with very little fanfare which is exactly how I like it, and also two birthday cakes because why fuck around with one freakisly delicious cake when you can have two.

What happened was, the kids wanted to go pick out a cake and because Kelsey almost never picks one up for me I said ok, so at around 3 or so we hit the best bakery in the WORLD (ok, maybe I've been to a better bakery in France, but only maybe), conveniently located in Sebastopol and the kids chose a cake that looked fine and delicious. Roughly 5 minutes before we got there, Kelsey did the same thing. At the same bakery. Almost with the same cake.

I know. We have similar tastes in baked goods. It's what makes the marriage work.

After a lovely dinner that Kelsey's mom made for us, we tucked in to the cake Kelsey brought home for us. It was delicious, and just in case it wasn't, we had a back-up. We're very boy scout about cakes.

And then today, just because we've been cooped up in the house because of unhappy smokey sinuses and headaches (seriously, there are, like, a BAZILLION fires happening around here. It's horrible. Oh, Oh, and our well may be going dry! I knew I was forgetting one piece of horrible, horrible reality), Peanut decided she'd like to play a game. All rolled up. In a comforter. As a sausage. A rambunctious sausage. My first born had us all in stitches today pretending to be a sausage that bites back. "Mom! Mom, look! I'm a Rambunctious Sausage! Aaaaarrrrrrrgghhhhh!"

It was so much fun I even forgot about almost being at the bottom of the well.

ack. blech. also: hot

2008-05-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I kind of lost steam on that whole bee business. I had a whole mess of pictures for that post that Picasa failed to import or Blogger failed to accept and so I would have had to go back and do it again and you know what? Life's too short.

Also? Fucking hot. It's 99 and windy right now and it's only going to get worse and I've been watering plants back from the brink all morning and it's too hot to eat and I've got low blood sugar and I've got to get in the car soon and perform carpooling duties and it's So Fucking Hot and

Ahem. Sorry. I must have gotten my Whiny Pants mixed up with my All-In-Perspective Pants.

What I really wanted to talk about was fashion and my never ending fascination with it. You know how you can see something in a magazine or, you know, gossip column, and go, "Oh, no fucking way. There is no WAY that is going to stick. Uh-uh. I hate it, it's awful, it'll go away before it ever pops up near here (read: the sticks). I'll just ride this out and hopefully the next wave will be more acceptable." And then the world decides to beat you into submission and all of a sudden EVERY WHERE YOU LOOK it's happening. The trend that shouldn't be is really on fire and the pain and misery of it keeps you up at night like when you're nine months pregnant and it hurts to stand up and it hurts to lay down and you have indigestion and your ankles are swollen to five times the size of your head and....

Again. My apologies. I'm going to go change my pants. Be right back.

Ahh, much better. So then. Then fashion resistance fatigue sets in and you no longer care. Ennui! It's the new black! You spend weeks laying aside your resentment and come to a place of inner peace. Nothing can faze you now. You and your zafu are one with the universe which also includes the object of your past disgust. And then, one day, you open a catalog and you are shocked to find that what you really really want, of all the things on the shiny pages full of lovely pretty things for you to wear are FUCKING GLADIATOR SANDALS OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

And then you have a beer and go to bed because it's too fucking hot to get all worked up like that.

Bzzzzz!

2008-05-12T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hey! We got bees! Again! Hopefully they'll stick around this time and not, you know, die!

Last year we set up a hive in the back yard but we were hit with varroa mites and the little guys didn't make it. We did, however, manage to harvest 17 pounds of honey mid summer and they went on to produce several more pounds, more than enough to see themselves through the winter but alas! twas not to be. They lost too much mass and the remaining bees froze to death. It was really sad. We buried the queen.

Her name was Beatrice.

We thought we'd try it again. Two fridays ago, the bees came. The gear:

Sprout is none too sure about the shenanigans that appear to be in the offing:

But the ever-ready Bean is on the job!

Pep talk? Threats of bodily harm if he fucks up? We'll never know.

More to come....

the un-panzanella

2008-04-18T20:57:00.001-07:00

I always have this (incredibly faulty) notion that I'll remember how I've cooked something that I really liked. That I'll remember which food blog I got a recipe from and how I changed it and whether or not I'd do it again. I never do, and I think I've lost some good recipes because I lack the discipline to write down what I've done. Kelsey has set up a blog for us to record recipes for food and cocktails we've liked (or have not liked and would please never like to try again, thankyou) but I can never remember my username or password so I try to do it over here a bit too. Well, tonight the kiddies are in bed, Kelsey's watching a horrible-looking movie and I'm sitting down with some new bourbon to write about what we had for dinner tonight.

(cue Law and Order DU-DUN)

I found a delicious looking recipe over at Smitten Kitchen for a spring panzanella but when I stood in front of the raw ingredients, they seemed to want me to do something else to them, not to mention the fact that I would be using fresh bread instead of stale for the croutons and also bread that I had made, with my own two hands, and making croutons out of it seemed, well...wrong. It was still warm, is all I'm saying and also I really really like my leeks on the caramelized side of things.

So. Here it is.

For the body of the salad:
3 leeks
1 large bunch asparagus
1 can white beans
4 slices bacon

For the dressing:
1/4 red onion between diced and minced
spoon tip of dijon
juice from 1/2 lemon
few shakes white wine vinegar
olive oil
s&p

I cut the green ends off of the leeks but ended up peeling them down to the innermost bits and slicing them and cooking them in olive oil until they were dark, almost too dark. The rest I sliced in half and then in half again to rinse out any sand or dirt and then cut them into 1 1/2 inch long pieces. Into the pan with the green ends. When fairly soft, throw in a bit of water and cover to simmer for a bit. Remove lid and season with s&p. Continue to cook to desired coloration and sweetness. Remove from pan. Add 1-2 tablespoons of butter to the pan and add asparagus. Cook until starting to brown and then toss in a little water and cover for just a minute. Remove cover, season and remove from heat before they're too soft. While the asparagus is cooking, cook the lardons of bacon and then add to beans (note: in the future, I will cook my own beans because a little firmness of bean would be nice. The cannellini beans I used this time were too soft by the time they'd heated up with the lardons). Cut asparagus in three.
While the leeks are cooking there's ample time to make the dressing. All is thrown in except the oil which is whisked in.
Croutons would be lovely with stale bread but if the bread is fresh slice and drizzle with olive oil and place in 350 oven until just toasted.

To combine:
Beans and bacon on bottom of bowl; leeks; asparagus; dressing; bread on the side.

And voila! C'est simple et tres delicieux.

Spring springing and such like

2008-04-09T16:07:00.000-07:00

I know I said something about chicks. Chicks are cute. At least they were last week when they were still new:

Now they're going through their awkward phase. They're all gangly and their pin feathers are coming in and if they could talk their voices would be cracking, except they're girls so maybe they would be wearing jeans that were too low and/or tight and listening to, I don't know, what do tweener girls listen to? Hannah Montana? I have no idea and I hope to never, ever know ever again. I myself went through a Poison phase and my husband will never let me forget it.

We will do these chicks the favour of not taking pictures of them at this point (Also: laziness), something I wish my parents had done for me.

And on to: spring nosegays! Or something. This little trifle of loveliness is sitting in my living room right now en route to its final destination. Probably a stinky bathroom. Poor flowers.

recent loveliness

2008-03-29T21:53:00.000-07:00

I have made several tasty things to eat over the course of the last few weeks. A few of them are:

Creamy macaroni and cheese
No-Knead bread with lemon and rosemary
Wontons
Dipping sauce for wontons, if they are panfried and served more as potstickers

Our Easter meal was comprised of:

Marmalade glazed ham
Buttermilk biscuits
Scalloped potatoes
Roasted asparagus
Ricotta cake
Shaved fennel salad with arugula and a meyer lemon vinaigrette
two beautiful salads my mom made

Looking back....we relied too heavily on Martha, perhaps, but I'm saving these recipes because everything was beautiful and delicious and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Also, there was some Scharffenberger champagne involved. That helped.

Right, I also made the lemon-rosemary bread for Easter. We've been eating that bread almost constantly since we tried the recipe a couple weeks ago. I was going to whip up another batch of it today, but the day got away from me...tomorrow I'll try again.

AAAK! also: @#$%%&$#@ and such like

2008-03-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

Hey! Guess what! We're still sick! Ha ha ha! So much fun! Next weekend I'm going to learn how to juggle chainsaws and hypodermic needles! I'm really looking forward to that!

....sssnnnooooooorre...

Hey! Guess what else! We got to take Dearest Husband to the ER on Thursday night! Weeeeeeeee! Kelsey thought he'd been exposed to a neuro-toxin while cleaning his fish tank which was experiencing a massive die-off because....this is boring. Suffice it to say that while Kelsey was in the ER, the kids were alternately nodding off or listening to Jim Broadbent reading Winnie the Pooh while I was puking out the car door in the parking lot ( I know! Classy!) and shaking with the chills. When we got home Peanut puked, I collapsed in bed and Kelsey took some codeine cough syrup. He's got pneumonia. Apparently the doctor cheerfully told him that if he had truly been exposed to the toxin he thought he had been, he'd be dead.

So...that's good news.

Kelsey has basically holed up in our bedroom with these items:

1 bottle liquid happiness
1 bottle antibiotics
1 Wii
several pillows
snacks
possibly a shot gun to keep the rest of us the hell out of there, "so help me God, I will get better dammit! Stop making me sick you bastards! (cough, cough...grrrrr.....)"

If he does actually get better, it will be entirely because of the delicious wontons I made last night. So tasty. Recipe will follow.

Why do we continue having crappy birthdays? and new chickens.

2008-03-14T16:52:00.001-07:00

Bean had a birthday. We were sick, to greater or lesser degrees. He had a nice day, Dad brought him a bike, there was much merriment. He decided he wanted a bento box for dinner, so we went out to sushi because truly, it does not take much arm twisting. "Bento box, you say? I'm on it!" Husband and I enjoyed the most delicious raw fish while the little people enjoyed their beef teriyaki and california rolls and such. The Sprout loves oshinko maki. Who knew?

During dinner the Bean was tired. We couldn't even stay for our mochi ice cream, and if you can't stay for your mochi ice cream, you know something's amiss. We brought it home, stuck a candle in it, sang a song, ate our ice cream, collapsed in bed.

It was....perhaps not the most memorable birthday ever, but they hardly ever are. I made a lovely chocolate cake for his preschool class, and per his request, Dad made cinnamon rolls for his breakfast. Oh my holy GOD they were delicious. Husband used a recipe from the Fanny Farmer Baking Book and made them with a potato dough. They were beyond rocking, but unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures.

Later in the week, we had a semi-scalping involving the Sprout, his hairline and an angry CPU with the sharpest damned air vents known to man. Yesterday we brought home two chickens to our brand-new chicken coop that Husband built over the last couple weekends. One is an Australorp and the other a silver-laced Wyandotte. Their names are Penny and Princess and next week we'll bring home some chicks that will move in with them when they're big enough. Pictures to come. The kids are in love and want to check on them constantly. The chickens themselves seem to be adapting fairly well, but the dog is being a pain. I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different from a creature bred to be a farm dog.

Sprout is healing, the chickens are neeping, spring is springing all around us. It's torture to be inside, except for being sick and all, Easter is creeping up faster than I thought it possibly could...it's overwhelming and perfect.

saved by the...well, not the bell exactly

2008-02-12T16:19:00.001-08:00

Unless it is the kind of bell one would ring a death knell with. Bean and I (and Sprout, but he still doesn't count in cases like these) decided that we'd like to go visit our dinner. On a farm. Where it was still living.

It...seemed like a good idea. I don't know.

Kelsey and I have been talking for a good long while now about buying half of a cow from a local rancher, which is a great idea, environmentally speaking, and it would also allow us to look like the complete assholes we are. "I bought MY beef from a LOCAL rancher. Oh yes, it's grass fed. Oh yes, I'm supporting the local infrastructure. Oh yes, I practice what I preach. Please allow me to spend the next few minutes telling you why I'm better than you and also why Michael Pollan is my savior."

Well, we haven't done that yet. But what we have done is bought half of a hog from a lady nearby. It's "going to market" tomorrow where it will be butchered and packaged and when I go to pick up my hams and bacon and chops and roasts, it's going to look just like it does at Whole Foods, only I will have actually paid more for it. And I'm just not feeling fulfilled by that, precisely. I know the point is really to buy locally produced food from a conscientious farmer, thereby dropping a pebble into the bucket of waste and sloth and obesity and hatred and dishonesty and if enough pebbles are dropped maybe there's a chance we'll fill the bucket up with righteous pebbles and displace the scum. But it still seemed too removed, because to me, the other point was to establish a firmer relationship with my food, and if that was going to come in the form of rubbing my bacon's snout between the eyes, than by gum, that's what I was going to do.

So that's what Bean and I tried to do. We found the address where our pig was supposed to be living out its last hours, but after getting out of the car and walking around a bit, we could see neither hoof nor snout of any porcine wonders. My girlfriend who decided to accompany us said in my ear, "Maybe it's better that way. I mean, I don't know if I would want to meet MY dinner."

And maybe it is better that way. I wasn't totally sure I wanted to either. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Plus, Bean was totally into it.

Old news, resurfacing

2008-02-05T18:07:00.000-08:00

Yes. So. Time has passed. We made bagels again and they were more or less the same. Yummy, satisfying, but imperfect. Much like myself. The new news: I have new glasses! Also contacts! My eyeballs feel like they're being lovingly caressed by sandpaper! Yay!

But: There is other news. I bought some Maraschino! It is lovely, in its way. It is lovely in:

(Someday I will branch out and not rely quite so heavily on Jay, but he has not led us astray yet.)

((I love Jay's blog the same way I love Luisa's: they tell me what THEY think of the recipes they're trying, and they both have great taste, by which I mean, they both like the same things I like. If we lived anywhere near each other, we'd have the best sleepover ever, what with all the cocktails and yummy nibblets.))

This is incomplete, I know, but I wanted to get these cocktails recorded. I've been sick for so long I've almost forgotten what the contents of the liquor cabinet hold in store for us, and during my illness I tried many of Luisa's lovely recipes but had to rely on my family's feedback because I CANNOT FUCKING TASTE ANYTHING, LIKE ANYTHING AT ALL IT IS AWFUL AND MY HUSBAND IS SO SICK OF ME ASKING HIM TO TASTE THINGS BECAUSE HOLY SHIT, WHAT IF I'M OVER SALTING (breathing, breathing.....) Basically, I'm going to have to try them out all over again so that I can actually taste them.

Bagels!

2008-01-23T21:45:00.000-08:00

We made them! And they were...Not Bad!

Here's what they looked like before the sun came up:

Here's what they looked like while they were boiling, also before the sun came up:

Here's a picture of the tree outside my kitchen window with no sun peeking out behind it because guess what? The fucking sun STILL wasn't up!

And here's what they looked like right before we ate them:

Like I said: Not Bad. Not delicious either, but it was a noble effort. Eventually the sun did come up and I was able to coax everyone out of bed with the lure of delicious bagels but I have to admit that the best part of this whole project might have been the hour or so that I got to myself, drinking coffee and boiling bagels, before anyone else was awake.

Bless.

Recap madness!

2008-01-21T20:49:00.000-08:00

So, about that whole Christmas thing....

We finally took the tree out of the house today--poor bastard was starting to lose its needles so we took pity on it--and I took a moment to look back at the month of hell most people call "December" and--and this is not news, mind you, I've been highly aware of this for, oh, the last 7 years or so--realized that all the pain and anger? All my fault.

I love being a parent! It's so much fun! How come nobody ever tells you that the sound of your own voice repeating the same simple phrases over and over and over and over again will make you nauseous and the thought of having to sit calmly and discipline a four year old in the middle of the parking lot at the grocery store will send you out in hives?

HOW COME?

It's not like I didn't already know that all the bad things my kids do are a direct result of my parenting, or lack thereof, it's just that it sucks so bad to feel like a failure all the time that it's tempting to just blame them for their actions and the way they make me feel.

Phew! That feels good. Who needs a shrink when you can just send your angst out into the ether of teh internets?

On a lighter note: Bagels! We made some! If they don't look like ass tomorrow when we cook them I might take pictures! Or might not! You'll have to wait and see! And when I say "you", I mean "my mom".

(Hi mom!)

The kids had a good time shaping them...the bagels themselves? not so much. Hopefully the bread will forgive us our transgressions and cook up all lovely and gorgeous in the morning. I used the recipe from The Fresh Loaf's site, but I didn't use the final 1/4 cup of flour before kneading the dough. The mixer was having a hell of a time as it was and Kelsey decided that it looked ok. If they don't turn out, it's his fault.

Purple!

2008-01-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

So, about that run to Bevmo yesterday morning...I picked up some things we were out of (Junipero gin, Lillet Blanc) and some things we were almost out of (St. Germain) in addition to something new.

Creme de violette, baby!

That's right, we had purple drinks last night because if there's anything sexier than Bevmo in the morning it's drinking liquid Chowards at night. Yum.

I jest.

Actually, the creme de violette was really pretty cool. Yes, it's purple and yes, straight up it does sort of taste like your Grandmother's underwear drawer, but once mixed in something like, say, the Attention, you have strange feelings of wanting to tip a little sip on the curb in her memory. Which you would never actually do because it's such a lovely cocktail.

The recipe Kelsey used for the Attention cocktail was somewhere between the one from cocktaildb and the one in an old copy of Imbibe magazine we have laying around the house. We were going to have Aviations, but I am lame and didn't manage to pick up the maraschino. Because I am lame. More on that later, I'm sure.

I'm developing a new kind of dog. I'll call it a Booze hound

2008-01-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

You know, it's really, really hard to not feel like an alcoholic when you're buying over a hundred dollars of liquor at Bevmo at ten o'clock in the morning, but when you get home and find that there's really no room in your liquor cabinet for your admittedly mostly top shelf although ultimately tragically alcoholic hooch, all attempts at staving off that feeling flee in embarrassment.

Having said that, I'm sure looking forward to tying one on tonight!

stabby rip stab stab

2008-01-14T11:16:00.000-08:00

There have been so many things I've wanted to say lately and I haven't had the time to write any of them down. These fleeting thoughts land on the tips of my hair and before they've had an opportunity to tip-toe up my hair and into my scalp (from where, they would then travel into my brain--isn't this how everyone's ideas work?) they're gone. They're like fucking Kobayashi. I have Kobayashi thoughts.

And dude, I have short hair.

So instead of any well thought out posts on anything meaningful or relevant an update will have to suffice. An update that will also hopefully serve as a reminder to the myself 11 months from now when Christmas is around the corner that I have sworn not to participate in Christmas this year.

That's right! Christmas is canceled!

Why didn't I think of this before? Why has it taken me so many years to figure out that if we leave the area (perhaps country) for Christmas we're totally off the hook? I mean, right? Will we have to send notes to family informing them that their kids will receive nothing from us this year because we've spent all of our Christmas money on a beach front hotel room and also to please not send us anything because my holy GOD the shit we've got already could keep an entire nation of third world kids in toys for eternity. As it is we just send the crap down to our local hospice shop or Salvation Army and pretend that we've done something good. And yes, all of our toys from China went into the trash instead of the donations pile because if we need anything, it's more lead in our landfills.

I don't know what happened this year. Christmas has been stressful in the past but it's usually because of Something Else, like cooking for Kelsey's family for the first time or having to coordinate too many outings to different family members houses or morning sickness. This year our responsibilities were light. Sure, we cooked dinner on Christmas Eve--and it was fucking delicious--but it was simple and low-key. On Christmas we were at my folks house where our responsibilities begin and end with deciding how much to drink and also if The Court Jester is really appropriate for the billionth time (answer after 3 glasses of wine: yes.). It was the kids. The kids ruined Christmas for me, and I'm pretty sure just saying that makes me the worst parent this side of Britney. They regressed so radically for the three weeks leading up to Christmas that I found myself thinking, "if I shave my head and flash my snatch in public and then hide a gun in my bathroom, will they hospitalize me? Just for, like, a couple days? Just long enough to get through Christmas?"

But does that mean that I'd have to talk to Dr. Phil? Cause that would be a deal breaker.

at what point do you just crawl under a rock and say, "fine. I'm fucking done."

2007-11-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

Man, I have so not been into this lately. November has been the month of madness. We are having financial issues, health issues, potluck issues, self esteem issues, bedwetting issues...you name it, we've had some kind of issue with it recently. It hasn't been conducive to the time suck that is blogging.

Apart from being the receiving end of some love from my children, the best thing that's happened to me lately was falling asleep on my acupuncturists table and waking up when I turned my head slightly and, oh, hello, there's a fucking needle in my ear.

So yes. Much complaining and whining and self pity.

But wait! There's more!

One of my biggest slacker friends, one of those guys in high school that you were always pretty sure was destined for almost-greatness because, dude, he's totally cool and talented but oh, my LANDS such a slacker has just released an album.

Fucking asshole.

I jest. I'm sure it's awesome. I'm going to go to my local record store tomorrow and buy a copy and I'm going to love it and then I'm going to call him and bitch at him for not calling me back after the last time I called him like 4 months ago, but the ball was totally in his court and it was so not my turn, it's his fault.

I need a project.

One that doesn't involve diapers or laundry or block crayons.

This Week in Drinks

2007-11-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

This will be a super-shortened-condensed version of TWID because:

I can't find the list I had been keeping track with, and
...yeah, the list. Can't find. Whoops!

We'll call it the Highlights and leave it at that.

Sunday night:

We tried two drinks. At least. One of them was a Corpse Reviver #2 ver.2 thanks very much to Cocktail Nerd. It was fantastic and we enjoyed it again later in the week when we were tired of experimenting.

A note on experimenting with cocktails:

This experimentation is done while imbibing liguor, which, truly, is a great thing. However, I cannot remember most of the drinks we had this week and I'm going to guess that alcohol had something to do with it.

Thursday night:

Kelsey made two drinks last night. The drink he made for himself was a Marguerite #2. It was fine. Not too exciting. But, it was pink.

Of course, the drink he made for me was pink, too. And I liked it much more.

Because of my affection for the Sidecar, Kelsey made me a Boxcar. Because, you know, CARS and stuff. It was nice, but nothing I'd break down any doors to get to again. I really only took pictures because it was pink and it seemed like we needed to document our path down that slippery slope. It can't be long now before we're painting eachother's toenails while sipping Smirnoff Ices, looking forward to the facials we'll be playing with later.

Kelsey's off to make himself a Silver City because I've wussed out and poured myself a glass of wine. I'll let you know next week how it turned out.

DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN!!!!!

And that's it for me tonight. This mistress of suspense is clocking off.

bakerysunday

2007-10-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made a buttermilk-cardamom pie and peanut butter bread. It just felt like that kind of a Sunday.

I used a recipe I'd clipped from the San Francisco Chronicle ages and ages ago. The only modification I made was to omit the granulated sugar and to bump up the peanut butter by a tablespoon or two. The link is here.

The Cardamom Buttermilk pie is from the most recent issue of Saveur and we'll be enjoying it this evening after dinner. I really, really wanted it for breakfast this morning, but what with all these kids around I was forced to show some restraint. Restraint sucks.

This Week in Drinks

2007-10-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've gone over our budget recently.

I mean that in two ways, unfortunately.

Somehow, we've been spending like sailors on shore leave with shiny, shiny doubloons literally falling out of their trousers only to find that our doubloons have been replaced by their aluminum doppelgangers and we're holding the latest booty going, "wha..?" because all of a sudden the credit card statements have come and, oh, my lands, I spent so fantastically much more money on things that seemed really, really important at the time [hello, cheese counter at Whole Foods, placed achingly near to the wine and exotic salts (yes, I've shot my wad on exotic salts, you read that correctly)] than I thought I had...was doing...had done....

But hey! Our liquor cabinet is well stocked and I'm pretty sure they're not going to repo my Kelt Tour du Monde.

So! I have re-jiggered our budgets and allowed for one bottle of wine a week (dude, I totally wrote that as "a night."), which we should be enjoying tonight if everything works out well, and it also leaves the rest of the week wide open to cocktail experimentation. Because, as I said: no repo o' the booze. It's not going to happen. They've all been opened. Even the green chartreuse and benedictine. HANDS OFF.

All this to say that on fridays, or at least this friday because you never know what will happen in the future (I don't think they can repo the computer. Husband uses it for work. Makes it Important. Like the booze.) I will recap what we've had to drink over the course of the week.

Yes, you do care. Now shut up and start taking notes:

Monday night. Or perhaps it was Sunday. I really don't remember. We had a stressful weekend:

A Bastardized Betsy Ross. Kelsey bought some port last weekend and tried some different combinations but finally came to this conclusion:

1 1/2 oz port (We have Pedroncelli on hand)
1 oz brandy (Kelt Tour du Monde)
1 oz triple sec (will use cointreau next time)
Some quantity of lemon juice, he said he didn't remember.
Some number of dashes of angostura bitters

Shaken with ice and strained it was lovely. I was a little taken aback by the whole chilled-port scene--I enjoy drinking port on these chilly nights because it's cozy and warming. Having it with citrus, chilled...well, it took me a couple tries before I embraced it wholeheartedly. It's pretty damn delicious.

Tuesday night. Or maybe it was Wednesday. I'm pretty sure it was Tuesday:

We had a delicious Hoop-la! in bed shortly before passing out. Our kids have nasty coughs that keep us up at night, and when I say "us" what I mean is "me" and it was all I could do to power through this delicious drink before my head hit the pillow. I was not involved in the mixing of this drink, but I'm pretty sure Kelsey uses Jay's recipe with few to no deviations with the exception of a shot of bitters. I have a man who loves his bitters.

Probably Wednesday night. Maybe Thursday. Who cares:

Pisco Sours!

Kelsey uses Gary Regan's recipe from The Joy of Mixology which was my favourite book while the big kids were out of town.

2 oz Pisco
1 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
1 raw egg white
Angostura bitters--just a dash on the finished drink

Shake all but the bitters--and really, really shake. Getting those egg whites to do their thing takes some commitment. Kelsey serves it in champagne flutes and liberally dashes bitters on top. It's divine.

And so we conclude our first Week in Drinks. Please join us next week when we'll teach you how to make hooch on a shoestring.

autumnal

2007-10-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

This morning, Peanut took one of our pumpkins to school to carve for their autumn festival. I just couldn't not take a pictures of the clothes she put herself in. I wish I had that girl's wardrobe. And also that I was 7. I think that helps.

Also! I made green tomato preserves yesterday, a la The Silver Spoon because I just didn't think that my heart wanted me to fry these babies up as much as my stomach did.

The Recipe:

2 lbs. green tomatoes, chopped
1 c. sugar (this will be for next time. This time I used 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 and it was waaaaay too much.)
Juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon.

Let macerate for a couple of hours and then cook until the juice becomes syrupy.

Can.

I....may not do this one again. The idea of a green tomato conserve was enticing, but I think I may be more of a savory green tomato kind of girl.

What I did on my fall vacation

2007-10-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

My parents took the kids out of town for a couple of days.

It was lovely.

But, instead of getting up to some crazy shenanigans, we were crafty.

Very, very crafty.

Also, there may have been some shenanigans involved, but they were not of the crazy variety.

Husband made:

Beef Jerky
Habanero sauce
Jalapeno sauce
Apple-Plum leather
Apple-Rhubarb leather

I made:

A Pisco Sour

That's right.

Oh! Also, I wrapped all the fruit leather nicely in parchment and butchers twine.

(yay!)

This weekend marked the official beginning of the Fizzy Egg White Drink Craze. We started with an Edith Day and finished with Pisco Sours.

...mmmmm...salmonella....

Weekend Leather 2: The Plumenning

2007-10-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

That's Plum-enning. Like, this time! with plums!

Also, there is beef jerky. We are making beef jerky. Lo, we are awesome.

Actually, my husband has been doing this all day and I've been hovering at the periphery making busy noises. Right now, I'm typing and enjoying a Pimm's Cup.

...mmmmm.....

weekend leather

2007-10-01T20:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, not THAT kind of leather.

Husband made apple fruit leather on friday night. It is pretty freaking awesome. I encourage an educational field trip.

how to feed 30 gaping seven year old's maws oh my GOD the horror

2007-09-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Muffins, only slightly modified from this recipe:

6 c. all purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
4 c. roasted, riced butternut squash
1 1/4 c. butter, melted
6 eggs
4 tsp. pumpkin spice*
1 c. sugar
1 c. turbinado
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. molassas
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

4 tbs. sugar
4 tsp. cinnamon
combine and set aside

*2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Combine all wet ingredients plus sugar and spice mix.
Combine flour, soda, powder and salt.
Mix to wet until just combined.
Spoon into prepared muffin tin (s, for the love of god, tinS!)
Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

And voila! Enough pumpkin muffins to make you fucking sick to death of pumpkin muffins and your daughter's birthday.

For more reasonable results, cut by 3/4.

in my mind, Baron von Trapp is singing "Gooooood-byyyyyyyyye" in a melancholy way

2007-09-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

The end of summer is officially ushered in at our house by our two late-September birthdays and the winding down of the summer garden. We have long since given up on our cucumbers and corn, we're sick of green beans and our okra never really took off. The peppers are still puttering along nicely and so is the late zucchini. The fall/winter garden is impressive. Right now, though, we are in the throes of saying goodbye to the tomatoes.

This evening, on Peanut's seventh birthday, we had an official Goodbye to Summer repast: grilled radicchio with saba, oil and salt and pepper; grilled steak with green sauce*; the very damn best caprese of all time ever with our last batch of red-and-green stripeys, sel gris, black pepper, red onion, mozzarella, red wine vinegar and olive oil; and grilled sourdough. If it hadn't been such a happy occasion I might have wept.

And so. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye. Here's to many, many more happy years and many more lovely harvests.

* If we lived in London, we'd probably have a running tab here. We don't, so we have to be content to cook out of his book, and the thing that has made us happiest to cook is the green sauce. Oh, my lands. I shall wish many happy returns of the green sauce to you all.

bad mommy

2007-09-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

Kelsey made some delicious apple chutney yesterday, and while I am well aware that it should sit a while in order to reach its full potential I feel that I need to admit to just having eaten a delicious cheese-and-apple chutney sandwich for lunch.

drinking is also important

2007-09-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

We have been enjoying cocktails recently at the home base of the reluctant housewife. I had a sidecar for the first time a couple of months ago and had my mind completely blown. Since then we have spent several hundreds of dollars augmenting our stash of liquors, bitters, mixers and gear and several rather enjoyable nights experimenting. While I am still partial to the sidecar (and perhaps even more to the Chelsea sidecar), I believe this is my true favourite at the moment.

So yummy...

Especially with Anchor Steam's gin. I'm in love.

Pear Chutney

2007-09-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

After having lost a friend-tested recipe for pear chutney, I managed to find one online that looked pretty similar for our first foray into the dark and delicious realm of chutneys.

So voila! A delicious, if not terribly dark, pear chutney made with our last boscs.

I halved this recipe because dude. I once made the most heinous pear-butter with many pounds of pears and spent all afternoon cooking and canning and the end result was so completely nasty I wanted to cry. In fact, I think I did cry. It was my first canning experience and it took me another year to try again and then I made gross pickled green beans, but thankfully the Bean likes them so they haven't been thrown out yet. Unlike the pear butter. I stared at the jars for a year and a half before I tossed it all. So. Pissed.

This chutney is not perfect, but it's pretty good. I'm going to work the recipe a bit next time, but between now and next summer I'll have to do a studied tasting of chutneys to find out exactly what this one is missing.

8 c. peeled, chopped pears
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. raisins (this amount was increased somewhat)
1/2 c. chopped yellow onion (so was this)
4 tbs. brown mustard seeds (only because I couldn't find yellow, but the brown worked well)
1 tbs powdered ginger
several slivers of fresh ginger because, ew, powdered ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 habanero, minced
2 1/2 c. cider vinegar

It all goes into a heavy bottomed pot and cooks until thickened. It took this amount about an hour. The filled jars processed for 10 minutes. Now we will be enjoying chutney-and-cheddar sandwiches through the winter.

It's the monitors, sir. They appear to be jammed.

2007-09-11T11:06:00.000-07:00

So here they are! Pictures of jam! Yay!

Item the First:
A Mostly Eaten Jar Of Jam

Item the Second:
Many More Jars Of Jam To Be Eaten

I know what I'll be doing this winter.
Yum.

Success!

2007-09-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

The peach jam is fantastic. I took pictures of all the little jars smiling happily up at me but my husband is on the real computer and I am on the puny laptop and I don't know how to move pictures from the camera on to the laptop. Again with the expensive camera which knows more tricks than I do.

We're heading out of town tomorrow to visit with family which isn't as fun as it sounds, even if it sounds like howler monkeys dragging nails down a blackboard. There is much strife and conflict and yelling and blaming and dryness, itching and irritation and we haven't even left yet. Or packed! Or taken out the compost! Or figured out what we're doing with the dog! Which is why we're renting a minivan to take us to see my family. In my head this will solve all of our problems and any naysayers can fuck themselves. (Also, I am drinking. Right now. And I plan to not stop until some time on Sunday.) In our car, which is otherwise lovely, the children are scrunched in the backseat and this was not truly a problem until Sprout decided he was old enough to be the instigator. Precocious bastard.

And guess what? I am a big lame ass and didn't finish this post in time and so now the weekend is over, we had a good time, I greatly exaggerated the anticipated angst, and the minivan rocked my world. I'm dreaming about it now, the vast expanse of seats and personal space separating children from each other and from my flailing fists. Now if I could only work out a way to get Clive Owen in my dream van...

Oh my holy god PEACHES

2007-09-04T20:53:00.001-07:00

This is what was staring at me all morning:

And this is what half of that looks like in my biggest pot:

So. If you wanted to know what 13 pounds of crazy looks like, that's pretty much it. It's jamming right now and hopefully the news tomorrow will be good. I used the recipe for Peach Preserves from The Silver Spoon but, um, tripled. Approximately. Here's what it looked like. Approximately.

13 (ish) pounds of peaches, peeled, pitted and mangled

10 (ish) cups of sugar

...and that's it. Peaches went into the pot with no added water because they were so juicy. I was tempted to leave them in complete halves but the recipe called for slicing them thinly and I met that somewhere in the middle. It's...chunky. My house smells absolutely fantastic, sticky and lovely. The sugar was added after they had begun to bubble a little. Now we're just waiting for a passable spoon test while the water in the canner comes to a boil. The recipe calls for letting them cook for about 2 and a half hours, but we're going on three and a half. Something about tripling the recipe, perhaps?

We have fingers crossed that this doesn't turn out like our earlier experiment in stone fruit jam this year. We tried jamming our nectarines and we got a syrupy sauce. It's freaking delicious but nothing you'd spread on your toast. On ice cream it's divine.

Ghost Bees

2007-09-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Yeah, there's nothing in focus in this picture and yet it's the best one I took.

I won't tell you how much money we spent on a camera I can't use.

But! The bees. I know it may be hard to imagine thanks in large part to my amazing photographic skills, but we had what appeared to be little ghost bees buzzing around our garden on Saturday after they had been dusted with powdered sugar to help with the mite problem we appear to be having. Peanut donned her full beekeeping suit along with her father, but Bean went commando. He's a brave soldier, my Bean. Going naked where no sane Bean has gone before.

The old N-P

2007-08-29T10:08:00.000-07:00

A necessary preliminary:

I have three children and they will be referred to as such:

Peanut--female, almost seven

Bean--male, 4-and-a-half

Sprout--male, almost one.

Ta da! Introductions have been made in a most half-assed manner. I am Emily, and I hope to one day entertain you. But not today. Thank you.

A small piece of bark in my eye

2007-08-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

We have fully invested ourselves in Rudolf Steiner's crazy ass shenanigans.

There's a sentence I never thought I'd write. Or, more precisely, there's a sentence that if you'd told me I'd be writing 7 years ago, I'd have fucking punched you in the face.

When our first was a baby my husband informed me that she would be attending a Waldorf school when she reached, you know, that age. It was said in such a way that implied that I had no say in the matter. It was preordained. It was...as it was written. His mom was a Waldorf teacher, he had gone to Waldorf school, look at how perfect he was, Peanut was totally going to be doing that shit too, shut up woman and keep making babies.

He paid dearly for his casual remark.

There were fights and much fuming and moping about. How dare anyone presume to tell me what my child Will Be Doing 6 years from now. And Waldorf! Fucking nuts! Totally crazy! I am totally not going to subject my perfect child to all that touchy-feely hippie bullshit! Kudos for you, mister Waldorf alumni. Congratu-fucking-lations. There will be no pagan maypole, no faceless cotton dolls, no pile of branches for her only toys. There will be no ban of synthetic fibers, no sing-song instructions, no fucking kumbaya. HANDS OFF MY GODDAMNED BABY.

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Peanut had her first day of first grade on Tuesday after two years of Waldorf Kindergarten and two of Waldorf Preschool. I know, I know. I'd punch myself in the face if I could. Sometimes, what with all the tie-dye in the morning, I wish I would. Once I was able to ease up I saw that this might be a good thing for her and for us. It's not for everybody. Good news is that I haven't had to sing Kumbaya yet. I'm sure it's coming.

We've been listening to a lot of Winnie-the-Pooh around the house lately. Bean got a CD set of Jim Broadbent reading The House At Pooh Corner in July and it's pretty much been on constantly since then. Peanut likes to try to do the different voices that he gives the characters as well as his English accent, and she's pretty damn good. One of the favourite stories is about Tigger getting stuck up in the tree with Roo and after Roo has jumped down into Christopher Robin's tunic Tigger stalls by saying that he can't at the moment because there's a small piece of bark in his eye. I watched Peanut shake hands for the first time with her new teacher, a gesture that she will repeat every day with a woman who will be with her for the next eight years and when Peanut looked at me from her classroom she had a funny look on her face, like, Jesus, mom, what's the matter with you? I wanted to tell her about the bark. It was giving me troubles.

Introductions

2007-08-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

This is Take 2: Let's Try That Again, Shall We? I have been blogging about my family as Momily-San for a year, and I thought it was time for something different (see: I am boring and bored and also boring. Need something else to think about besides the Little Ones.)

So! This time! Still the topic might be child related. Might be food related. Might be living-in-Sonoma-County related. Might be house cleaning related. My new job as I see it: To always keep the three people who might ever read this on their toes.

Enjoy!