When you are away

Back a million years ago, or maybe only 15 or so, Auntie Chris was deployed on ships.  Sometimes large; more often small.   She was one of three females on a fast frigate deployed in, what, 1998 or 1999 I guess.  On an aircraft carrier, the one that was deployed forever and helped with the Indonesian tsunami relief effort.  Some other ship after that.  She'd give me a folder with all the information about her auto-pay bills, instructions for the DVD recorder she'd installed at my house to record the West Wing or whatever (Can you imagine! It used to be the only way!), where the keys to everything were, what to do if her helicopter crashed into the ocean, and then away she'd go for six months, nine months, until she came back.

While she was gone I'd send her things.  Once a week.  Not every-single-no-matter-what-once-a-week but, pretty much 80-90%, once a week.  Sometimes it would be cookies.  Sometimes candy.  Often I'd try to send something silly.  Once I sent one of those robotic plush pet dogs that you could "train" to bark and jump.  She told me this lived in the helicopter group office, or whatever that space is called where they kept their stuff and talked about what needed fixing and all the rest.  Once I sent a whole bunch of soap and asked her to please have the ship spell out my name in bubbles in the ocean and take a picture from the air.  Twice, at least, I sent kites.  I can remember in a visceral way shopping for this goofy stuff, packing these little boxes, filling out the carbon-forms you get at the post office to send something to an APO box.

Chris said sometimes the mail would be squirrely and a bunch of boxes would arrive all at once. Three, five, six weeks of stuff.  She said it was like some strange holiday.

More often than anything, I sent these brownies.  They mix up by hand in one bowl, no fuss no bother.  They cook up right and pack like a dream. 

Auntie Chris texted me today. (So sorry DVD player, your days are gone.)  She said she was thinking of someone deployed and could I please send the brownie recipe.   Sure thing.

Chocolate Chip Brownies for Mailing to People Who Are Far Away
3/4 c butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
4 large eggs
1 3/4 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla (sometimes I just add 2 tsp)
3/4 c flour
1/2 tsp salt, or a little more
1 c chocolate chips (or finely chopped chocolate is good too, also M&Ms)

Melt together the butter and chocolate and set aside to cool.
Bet the eggs and sugar together with a whisk until they are pale yellow, thick, and light.  This takes 3-5 minutes depending on your energy level.  This is the leavening, don't phone it in.
Add the chocolate and butter mixture and fold in.  Be careful it's cool enough so you don't cook the eggs.  Add the vanilla.
Fold in the flour and the salt.  Add the chocolate chips or whatever (or you can just sprinkle them on top when it's in the pan).
Bake in a 350 degree F oven in a 9 x 13 x 2 inch (or slightly smaller) buttered pan for about 25 minutes.  Don't over bake.

PS -- I looked all over for a photo of Auntie Chris and one of her helicopters.  I think I must have some somewhere, but they seem to have vanished into my fancy picture organizing and storing technology, in which I can locate no photo taken before 2006.  Sigh.

PS again -- updated to add pictures, from a ship's tour in Australia.  Thanks Chris.


 

Fall birthday #1

We are hurtling towards the fall birthdays around here.  All four grandparents have birthdays within the next six weeks, about.  Starting with GG, celebrated today. 

We had a rainbow birthday (Liam's suggestion) and I wish I had thought to take some pictures because I think it looked nice.  We had pretty much the entire rainbow represented on the table with green bean and fig salad, nectarine salad (scroll down for the salad), tomatoes salad, purple potatoes, corn and zucchini succotash, and steaks.   My mother made fully half the food, which is a big help, of course.

The birthday cake was homemade rainbow chip, and I think I liked it best of anyone.  I loved making this cake; I love making almost any birthday cake, but this one really said birthday to me.  The frosting is over the top sweet, but the cake has a great texture and flavor.  From here, again. Plus, when the play date activity is making rainbow chips from melted white chocolate and food coloring you get a lot of fun mom points, which is good.   As soon as everyone left we took half the leftover cake to the neighbors.

Liam is all about choosing what he wants to give for birthdays and he had a very specific idea for GG.  Last year he gave her a small wood cat which sits on top of a picture frame in her kitchen.  This year he wanted to give a little bird for the cat to look at. 

65 pounds of tomatoes

They are out of the boxes and into the jars and I am too tired to take any pictures of them, trust me.  This is the most tomatoes I've put by in at least 10 years.  And the skins and juice and random bits are in the crock pot cooking down to become. . .wait for it. . .ketchup.  Liam has zero interest in tomatoes or tomato sauce, but he is crazy about the idea of making our own ketchup.  

Canning peaches

Once a month work takes me over the mountains to Wenatchee for a meeting.  It's a 3 or 4 hour drive, but through mostly beautiful country and when you finally drop down in the valley you are surrounded, just surrounded on all sides, with fruit trees.  Apples and pears and cherries, of course, for which the area is famous.  But also peaches, nectarines, and apricots this time of year. 

I still sometimes think about Liam's first peach; what a miracle it was to him.

Every year I buy more peaches than we can eat and every year we put up peaches.   Despite all this practice I'm not that great at it. They tend to float and they can get a little mushy at the top.  Maybe next year I'll try hot packing them.  But, no matter what they look like they always are a welcome bit of summer sun in January and February when it seems like, in the words of Jim Weiss, "the sun has forgotten the way to our neighborhood."

  

This year Liam helped.  He peeled most all the peaches and helped to pack them into the jars.  He washed the lids and the rings.  And he helped put the finished jars away.  A little bit of summer, on the shelf.

Weekday dinner and table

I'd like to say that the kitchen is always neat, but the reality is it's a hard-working room and too often shows it.   This is typical.  The floor needs sweeping.  The table crowded with Liam's craft supplies and assorted projects in progress.  Various bits of paper and odds and ends.  Today it includes a snow globe Liam just. had. to. have. from a garage sale this weekend and which hasn't found it's proper place in the house yet.  (Why do they all play it's a small world?)  Crumbs, always.  A potted plant. 

And, most nights about 5:30: dinner.

Tonight, green vegetable stir fry.

We eat some version of this dinner at least once a week, and more often twice.  It is the easiest thing ever and I can reliably have it on the table 20 minutes from walking in the door from work.  Faster if I've remembered to prep the vegetables in advance, or chop the ginger and garlic on Sunday night and put them in a jar in the refrigerator with some oil to cover.  (Which happens about 1 week out of every three if I'm lucky.)

Take any relatively crunchy green vegetable, we most often use green beans or broccoli or both.  Asparagus is good too.  Trim and clean.  Chop up a good amount of ginger at at least two large cloves of garlic.  Heat a pan with a little oil (we generally use coconut), saute the green vegetable for 5 minutes or so with a splash of tamari.  You can add onion, carrot, pepper or any other crunchy vegetable at this time.  Liam likes it when I add carrots.  Sometimes I add mushrooms about three minutes in.  Liam likes that less.  Once the vegetables have brightened up and started to cook add the ginger and garlic and heat for a minute or so (Don't burn them!) and then quick, quick add about a quarter cup of water, turn down the heat, and put a lid on the whole thing to steam for about another 5-8 minutes.  If you're going to add tofu, or spinach or something like that, add it right after the water, before the steaming.  Then, take off the lid, turn up the heat, add another splash of tamari and some fresh basil if it's summer and you happen to have it around, taste to make sure it tastes good and is cooked, and you're done.  Pass hot sauce, sesame seeds, and sesame oil if you like at the table.

I most often make this with vegetables only (no tofu) and serve it with rice.  I have this idea that we mostly get all the protein we need and then some, and mostly do not get all the vegetables we need.  Very occasionally, if I'm worried he hasn't had enough nutrition in the past few days, I'll cook a piece of salmon to go next to this for Liam, or a scrambled egg.

Fast. Healthy. Loved by five-year-olds.  What could be better?

Mommy, what are we going to do with all these leaves?

Well, small one, we're not going to do anything with the leaves, but the stems, we're going to cook with sugar and lime juice and then we're going to add rosewater. 

That's right, we made rhubarb and rosewater syrup recently.  It tastes great and is really beautiful; sorry I didn't think to take a picture during daylight.  I mix it with sparkling water.  Except now it has turned cold and rainy again so I'm thinking of mixing it with hot chamomile tea.  Seriously. 

This rhubarb plant is an amazing thing.  Someone gifted it to me about 3 years ago, all of two and a half small leaves and completely wilted.  It was an 80 degree day in August.  Not transplanting weather.  But, into the ground it went with a bag of compost and a bucket of water and now, well, it has taken over the front corner of the yard.  It is sending up flower stalks for the second year in a row and they are at least six feet high.  Another thing that should be photographed in daylight.

Liam has a cold.  A cough that I hoped was on the way out this morning seems to be, instead, settling in.   Poor small thing, he was asleep by 7:00 tonight.  He desperately wants one of his school friends to come over and play tomorrow afternoon and "stay for dinner, please, mommy, please, please call her mommy and ask" and it would be fine with me except I'm not sure he is going to be up to it.  I'm trying to steer this energy towards Pizza Friday in hopes he'll be rested and better by then.

We suffered the death of one wooly-bear caterpillar this weekend and are now trying hard to take better care of the second one.  Pets that live in jars are so not my thing.

Homemade cheese!

After at least fifteen years of thinking I was going to try cheese making at almost any moment, we finally did it: on Sunday Liam and I made homemade paneer cheese and today we cooked it up into saag paneer and it was delicious.

I have no fewer than four books on home cheese/yogurt/butter making, but it was this book, Homemade Pantry by Alana Chernila, that finally got me over whatever was holding me back.  This really is a great book.  As nice to just read as it is to cook from; I've been toting it back and forth form the living room to the kitchen since it arrived.

Cheese making in what must be its most basic form pretty much couldn't have been easier.  I iced the pot and then heated half a gallon of whole milk to a slow boil.  I let it go for one minute, and then added acid (lemon juice for me) one tablespoon at a time until we got curds and whey.  It took about 3 and a half tablespoons.  I separated the curds from the whey and drained the cheese.  Pressed it flat, salted it (just a little), and done.   I followed these instructions for paneer cheese.  Mine was definitely a first attempt.  It came out a little dense, which I think was too much acid and probably too much draining.  But it was still very good.

Liam helped with every step. He squeezed the lemon for the lemon juice.  He helped add the juice, and he helped stir it in to see the curds and whey.

We drained the whey and tasted the cheese (Good!).  We let the cheese drip for a while and then pressed it flat.  While we waited the approximately 100 years it took for the milk to reach a slow boil, Liam smashed the spice mix together for saag paneer.  (Which tonight he refused to eat.  Scrambled eggs and broccoli for Liam; but the vegan made a special exception so I didn't have to eat all of the paneer myself!)

The method for making paneer is nearly the same as for  homemade ricotta, which will definitely be my next try unless I skip straight to mozzarella.   What do you know. . .homemade cheese!

Interrupting KCWC for -- April Farm Share

We picked up our April farm share today.  I am just so very happy with this whole farm share thing.  Today's box contained: big bunches of chard and kale, salad mix, shiitaki mushrooms (so tiny, so sweet), parsley, a rutabaga (I think), another celeriac (it can join the first one, still in the fridge, I'm not sure what to do with celeriac).  Beets, leeks, cauliflower, two kinds of potatoes, yellow onions, red cipolinni onions, a bag of locally made granola, and some local goat cheese.   And rhubarb -- I forgot that until I uploaded the picture.

So far I've roasted the beets and the red cipolinni, and cooked the beet greens and stems with a little garlic. (Lunch! Tomorrow!) 

The farm is Boistfort Valley and even if you live as far away as Seattle or Portland they have a delivery/pick up site near you.

In Kids Clothes Week Challenge news -- I tore apart the tee shirt and sewed on the new sleeves.  So. Done. With. That. Tee Shirt.  But it did turn out cute.  Photos tomorrow if Liam cooperates.

Day 12, or is it 13, without sugar

After stunning myself with the amount and variety of natural and processed sugar in my pantry, and after a few particularly stressful weeks at work where I ate, among other things, the better part of a full batch of whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, I came across this while listing to 60 minutes (recorded).

Well -- that is a wake up call.

I know that sugar is toxic to my body.  I know how much better I feel when I don't eat it.  I know these things and still I get trapped into stupid thinking along the lines of "that cookie after lunch will help pick me up for the afternoon," or, into some out of control binge eating related to stress (consume all the Halloween candy in less than 2 days anyone?).  So, I stopped.  I am an abstainer, not a moderator; so stopping pretty much cold turkey is what works for me.* 

Stopping sugar is like (I imagine) any detox; you do not feel better right away.  Right away you feel worse. But after a little while (for me about 12 days) you feel amazingly better.  I sleep better.  My energy and concentration are better.  I know when the "no sugar thing" has really taken hold because I actually want to exercise.

In the first week especially it helped me to think of sugar as an addictive substance, as in: "Well, if I thought I had an alcohol problem and I was feeling stressed at work I would not go out and get a drink, would I?"  Or,  "If they happened to sell small bottles of vodka at Target (which I'm guessing they will soon here since Washington State just deregulated liquor sales) I wouldn't pick one up to drink on the way home, would I?"  No, of course not.  Sugar is the same, I really think.  I know small amounts are fine, and humans are meant to eat fruit and all that, but I believe that, for my body, sugar is just not right.

So that's my story. Of course I'll eat some sugar again someday -- but I plan for it to be much, much less.  For now, I have a few rules (no sugar at work ever, a small dessert on the weekend is okay) and I've scheduled a set of check-ins with myself, as in, on April 28 I'll reassess and see how I feel.  Maybe I'll have waffles with syrup.  But probably not.  After that I'll pick some date in May to bring my attention to how I'm feeling about sugar.  At the end of June I imagine I will definitely eat a piece of Liam's birthday cake. That feels like enough of a plan for now.

*Luckily for me, this is pretty straightforward.  I don't drink soda, never have.  I don't sweeten my coffee or tea, never have.  I don't eat ketchup or mayonnaise or things like that, never liked them.  I don't drink milk.  For me, giving up sugar basically means no cookies/sweet rolls/muffins from the bakery, and no candy.  That's really all there is to it.

First Farm Share -- March

 

Now that Spring is upon us, we finally signed up for a Winter farm share.  Typically it took me a while to get going but now, now, I am so excited and happy about this!  The Winter share comes once a month in a big box and this is our first one -- well, part of our first one.  Yes that is right, our first farm share included: a full quart jar of local honey, dried cranberry beans, two kinds of potatoes (but only one is pictured here), beets (already cooked and eaten), Brussels sprouts, red onions, red kale, tiny kale leaves and flowers (also eaten already -- so good), about 6 apples and 6 pears, this celeriac thing or whatever it is, leeks, and the sweetest bunch of thyme I have ever seen.   We'll get two more before it is on to spring and summer shares.  It is amazing!

In an attempt to have my act together I immediately roasted the beets and boiled one of the types of potatoes.   We have eaten those.  The beans are cooked and ready for lunches this week.  The pears are g-o-n-e, I forgot how much Liam likes fresh pears.  The Brussels sprouts are on deck for tomorrow along with the red potatoes, I think. 

The farm is in the Boistfort Valley, on the Chehalis River.  We are blessed and lucky around here to have lots of lovely organic farms -- but I never really considered any other but this one.  The vegan went to school with Mike (I suppose I did too, since the vegan and I went to school together, but I don't remember) and Heidi was in my prenatal yoga class when I was pregnant with Liam.   We've been getting our vegetables from them at the farmers market here in town for years, and now, finally we're in the CSA and couldn't be happier. 

They deliver all the way to Seattle and even to Portland.  I can't wait to cook celeriac!

Pantry Inventory - The Sugar Edition

I'm participating in an on-line workshop about setting up a whole foods kitchen and cooking with whole foods.  This is the end of the second week, and this week and next are devoted to pantry and kitchen set up.  So today I inventoried and tidied the pantry a little.  It was actually in okay shape; the surprising thing was that for a person who thinks of herself as already cooking with (mostly) whole foods I seem to have no fewer than five kinds of refined sugar (white bakers, dark brown, confectioneries, raw, and a bottle of light corn syrup) and at least three "natural" sugars (honey, sucant, maple syrup).  Plus a very sticky jar of Lyle's Golden Syrup (how I love that stuff), which I tossed because I think it had been open for at least five years and it was sort of nasty looking.  And that doesn't count the variety of sanding, dusting, and sprinkling sugars for cake and cookie decorating.  Or the candy sprinkles (for same).

Why do I have all this sugar on hand!?  It's crazy.  What's crazier is that I really can't see eliminating any of them.  I bake a number of birthday cakes each year, they generally take white sugar.  I make frosting and it takes confectioneries sugar.  I make chocolate ganache filling for thumb print cookies at Christmas and just a teaspoon of light corn syrup makes all the difference in how it sets up and works.  Still.  That is A LOT of sugar.  Something to think about.

Speaking of sugar, sugar and more sugar: tomorrow I hope to post an update on tapping maple trees.  We are convinced that we can make our own west coast maple syrup from the big leaf maples. We're going to tap some practice trees out at the vegan's house in the woods tomorrow, and if those work we'll tap the tree at Liam's little school.  Fingers crossed.

Pizza Friday: Chicken Edition

The chickens came home last night and were installed in their coop.  They are doing well this morning and have been named "Sunny" and "Starry."  More and photos later. 

The pizza Friday when we got the chickens may be Liam's favorite of all time yet.  I have never seen a small person jump up and down so much and for so long.

Climbing

 

Hmmm.   I put this picture set together back in December, but it got lost.  Yesterday's post reminded me.

At glass beach to get to the beach you can jump/scramble down from a fairly low spot or clamber down these rocks.  We got on to the beach from the low spot, but Liam wanted to take the rock route out.  He was very serious about doing it all by himself.  Here is Auntie Chris spotting him and Liam directing here (loudly) "I can do it."  He knows where her foot is and he is not taking any of it.

 

 

So, up, up he went; it's maybe 30 feet?  I don't know, I'm pretty bad at these estimates.  Like a lot of little kids I see climbing on stuff, Liam tends to want to hold on with his hands over keeping his weight on his feet.  We work on it: "Stand up!" I say, "Stand on your feet."  This is the only rock climbing advice I've ever been given in my (very) short climbing career.  Good advice under almost any circumstance though, I guess.

Not steep, but there is a little, tiny bit of exposure once you come out near the top; and he did great with it all and was so, so proud when he popped over the rim.   

 

Pizza Friday -- 1/6/2012 Edition

This week for pizza Friday Liam wanted to have a party.  The key elements of this were decorations and cake.  So, Thursday night we made a chocolate cake and wrapped it up tight.  While I was at work on Friday morning he and the babysitter blew up about 25 balloons and hung them all over the house with streamers.  Friday afternoon when I got home, after we made the pizza dough, we made some chocolate frosting.  The vegan (bless him) brought ice cream, which, of course, he doesn't even eat, and we ginned up an ice cream cake.  We also ate, again, this kale salad because I simply cannot get enough of it this time a year.  (We make it without the cheese.)

Mostly though we enjoyed the balloons.  And the four-year old.  And the pizza.

Ready for peas

The pea brush is up; it needs a little filling in here or there, but it's basically ready.  And the ground is roughed up and compost added.  December was so dry that I was even able to work the soil enough to get a little weeding done.  Liam loves to help with the pea brush, but will weed for only about 10 minutes.  He pulled some carrots and then played a complicated pretend game involving trucks.  If there is a better way to spend new years day, I don't know it. 

We won't plant until February or early March.  This year, I think we'll grow Avalanche, again; we have a small growing space, so productivity is important.  It was slow to start last year but once it came on, it went great.  I'm toying with the idea of growing it on the new-this-year wire front fence too.  Is it possible to have too many peas? I don't think so.

Happy new year everyone!

Birthday Girls

We are so blessed and lucky to have these two women in our lives.  Happy Birthday Grandma.  Happy Birthday GG.  Thanks for everything you do for us; I hope you both have great years ahead.

Here they are both looking at Liam doing (yet another) inappropriate thing at the table.

 

A note on the cakes: cake #1 is from here.  These recipies are always so perfect; every instruction is easy to understand, all questions answered, and they always work out just right.  Cake #2 is from here.  Also very easy to follow and who can resist something called Southern Strawberry Cake.  The frosting roses were made by a local bakery and frozen on waxed paper for me to take home.  At less than $5 for all these roses I think it may be the last good deal left on the planet.

Buckwheat noodles and broccoli

It's shaping up to be a real and truly animal-free food weekend.  Friday night I made red lentil dal and brown rice (from here, a lovely place) which I served with broccoli and some more orange squash.  Saturday dinner was buckwheat noodles with broccoli from Bittman, Food Matters.  These noodles were so, so easy and so good, and were just inhaled by the small one.  (They are teriyaki noodles and asparagus in the cook book.)  I adapted the recipe a little, which is to say, I left out the ingredients I didn't have around.

8-10 ounces buckwheat soba noodles
4 cups cut up broccoli
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 tablespoon each garlic and ginger, minced
2 tablespoons or less oil (I used canola, I think)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey mixed with 2 tablespoons water (this is a mirin substitute)

1. Mix the soy sauce and honey/water 
2. Bring some water to boil for the noodles.
3.  In a large pan suitable for stir-frying cook the broccoli with the oil, ginger, garlic and green onions.  I added the oil and when it was hot added the broccoli and green onions, cooked until it was starting to turn bright, then added the ginger and garlic, cooked a minute or so more, then added some water and covered to steam until the broccoli was all bright green but still crunchy.  Take off the cover, turn off the heat.
4.  Cook the noodles; mine took 3 minutes after the water returned to a boil.  Don't overcook them.
5.  Turn the heat to medium-ish under the broccoli.  Add the cooked noodles, about 1/2 cup of cooking water, and the soy sauce mixture.  Stir around and cook until everything is mixed well and heated through and the sauce has reduced slightly; this worked out to be about another 5-6 minutes.  That's it, you're done.

Next time I would add lots more vegetables, at least red pepper and onion, and maybe carrots too.  Bittman calls for adding some shelled edamame at the end with the noodles and I'm sure that would be good.  I didn't have any edamame in the freezer this week for some reason. 

Liam ate salmon and veg. last night (he's not a big lentil fan) and a little more salmon with his broccoli and noodles tonight.  Loved it all, especially the noodles.

It's raining, raining, raining this weekend and predicted to continue. The front fence collapsed because the new retaining wall in the front has been so delayed by weather.  So, now I guess we'll be getting a new fence too.  Great.

Happy Birthday to Auntie Chris today.  What is to say about Auntie Chris? She is simply the best sister, auntie, naval officer, a person could ever encounter.  We are so blessed and lucky to have her in our lives. 

My first week as a vegan

In my grocery store, the organic spinach apparently comes with lady bugs included.

On Monday I started a 30-day vegan "cleansing" project.  This basically involves not eating animal foods (meat, fish, eggs, dairy) and eating whole plant-based foods instead, as much as possible.  For me, these structured events are a good way to re-baseline my food habits and cravings.  I've done them before, but this year's guided on-line version organized by this person here, is truly compassionate and impressive and I'm really enjoying the materials and community.  It makes me more conscious of my commitments to myself.

At the same time, I'm pretty casual about it.  In my first week "animal free," I've eaten 2 small pieces of chicken (while traveling for work and eating late in a hotel), 2 eggs, some small chocolates that I get in the grocery store checkout line and just don't feel the need to give up, and a little bit of chicken pot pie when GoGo and GG invited us to stay for dinner and that was what was on the table.  Oh, and 2 small buckwheat pancakes when GoGo and GG invited us to the Fat Tuesday pancake supper at their church.  (Buckwheat pancakes w/out butter are not as good as buckwheat pancakes with butter, I'll tell you that.)  Also, I'm still working the loaf sprouted wheat bread that was in the kitchen when this started for my morning peanut butter toast, and while I haven't looked it doubtless has some small amount of dairy in it.

On the other hand, I've eaten: massive amounts of broccoli, a butternut squash, cooked white beans with garlic, brown rice, an apple and/or a banana every day, tofu and vegetables from the veg lunch spot, an entire huge container of raw spinach, lentils, almonds, popcorn (with soy sauce, my favorite), and at least 300 ounces of water.  And I haven't eaten any: cookies, lattes, cheese, croissants (we have the best french bakery here, really you should visit), pasta, chocolate (other than those grocery store checkout line candies), or alcohol, I've cut coffee by more than half, to only one cup a day, and upped the water intake.  And I feel lots better.  And my skin is clear, and I wake up with more energy.  And I've lost a pound or two (probably not for reals, but at least on the scale).  So, I'll stick with it for another 3 weeks and at the end, I'll work eggs and fish and meat back in as I come across them.  I don't feel any particular urge to be a vegan full time, but these little vacations from animal foods are really illustrative and helpful, at least for me.  Try it for a day.  Or maybe just a few meals a week.

Another illustration: Liam asked me the other day, "well, how do they get the hamburger from the cows."  In a total and complete cop out I said, "we'll talk about that some other time."  And, because it was late and he was tired, and there was cold milk, fig newton, and story time in the offing, he---for once---let it go and hasn't brought it up again.  One more reason to eat quinoea and kale.

Go to chocolate cupcakes

If someone had told me 5 years ago that I would become a person who makes chocolate cupcakes at least once a month I would have called them a liar -- totally failing to predict any of it, the rise of cupcakes as a food trend, Will, Liam, the whole thing.  And, so, here I am, a chocolate cupcake maker.

There's a story, no doubt apocryphal, about our Governor from back when she was still the Attorney General, or maybe before that.  How she would call people up at 10:00 at night to discuss this or that about whatever issue, or make sure they were going to actually wear a tie to the meetings the next day (I've heard it both ways), and all the while she was making cupcakes for something or other for her daughter.  This is not an invitation to associate, I'm not nearly as smart, and certainly not as driven or ambitious as our Governor.  I guess though the Governor and I do have that in common: we both work, we both raise a family, we both make cupcakes.  It's some kind of solidarity.

At any rate, this batch of cupcakes was made on Saturday, no late night required.  I made them while Liam was at Sand in the City with my parents; Liam and I frosted them together in the afternoon.  They were in honor of a visit from Will's sister and her family.  Liam's cousin is about 2 and I have yet to meet anyone in the 1 to 4 year old set who doesn't think a cupcake is about the world's most perfect food.

We use, exclusively, the Martha Stewart "one bowl chocolate cupcakes" and they are just great.  Not too sweet or chocolate-y, they come out right every time, you can half the recipe no problem, and they really do take only one bowl.  We make them mini-sized (half a recipe makes about 30 mini cupcakes, which is plenty) and frost them with butter cream frosting, generally in all different colors.  I credit the fact that Liam can pretty reliably predict that yellow and red make orange entirely to cupcake frosting.  Although, when I made them for Liam's school-birthday-party in June I frosted them all with white and colored sprinkles to prevent a riot over who got the last one frosted in blue or orange or whatever.

More later this week including an update, with photos, on the great house painting extravaganza of 2010.

Get the preschooler to the table on time

Updated: I checked back to this time last year; Will has been feeling pretty sick this week and I was trying to remember when he started getting sick last year.  (A: exactly this time, pretty much to the day.)  I was reminded how much Liam has changed in a year.  Last year he was still using half sign language and some half-words for talking.  Now, it's more words than you can shake a stick at and just this past weekend I asked him if he remembered how he used to say "more"  and "please" when he was a baby and he had no idea what I was talking about; I had to show him the signs.  Every time I get the notion to stop this writing I'm reminded how nice it is to be able to look back.

I've decided Liam is a preschooler now.  I think; now that he's three.  At any rate.  One of my (many) struggles as a (working-full-time-outside-the-home) parent is getting dinner to the table on time and then getting Liam to the table to eat it without an epic struggle.  Remembering that 5:15 pm is not the time of day when I am at my highest and most mindful best, it often goes something like this:

Me:  Liam, dinner is almost ready, 5 minutes, please wrap up what you're doing.
Liam: (Ignores) or "I'm playing! I'm playing! I'm playing!"
Me: Okay, finish up your playing and get ready to take a break for dinner.
Me: Liam, 2 minutes until dinner, get ready please.
Liam: No, no, no, no, no; I don't want to eat.  I'm playing.
Me: Well, we're going to eat dinner, so wrap it up please.
Me: Liam, dinner time, it's on the table, come on.
Liam: (Crying fit.)

Last week the child developmental specialist I see to help us know how best to talk with Liam about Will's sickness and hospitalizations suggested something I should have thought of on my own, that we give Liam a dinnertime ritual to help him transition from play to the table.  (Her first idea has always been: almost no kids this age eat dinner at the table; don't fight it, this is a battle for when he is five.  But, since dinner at the table is one of the only parenting outcomes Will has requested, I told her we had to try.)

So, Friday, we started "candle time."  Now our conversations go more like this:

Me: Liam, almost dinner time, 5 minutes, please finish up what your doing so you can get the candles out.
Liam: Is it ready? Is it on the table? Is it time?  Daddy, Daddy, will you help me get the candles?

Seriously.  I don't know if it will stick, but so far it's about that good a transformation.  We still have trouble keeping him at the table, but now at least we can get him there.  We use these candles given to us by Will's sister.  Liam loves them more than words can express. The giraffe has already been glued twice. 

Tonight's dinner was a weeknight favorite featuring leftover chicken: quesadillas.  They are the easiest thing to make.  Get some flour tortillas (we use whole wheat), thinly slice some cheese (we use cheddar or monterey jack or whatever is around), slice some green onion and some tomato if you have it.  Shred up the leftover chicken.  Make a tortilla sandwich with the chicken, cheese, etc.  Pan fry/grill (use very little oil and only a medium hot pan) until golden and melt-y.  Serve with sour cream for the non-calorie-counting set and a side of whatever vegetables you have around (tonight green beans and carrot sticks; often it's black beans and sauteed squash).  Totally toddler approved.  Will likes them too.