Lamb and Pie

We had friends over for dinner last night. The main course was a one-pot wonder dish: leg of lamb roasted OVER a gratin of potato, onion and tomato - the lamb juices drip down onto the gratin. [The recipe is from Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking.] The trick is to figure out how to suspend the lamb over the gratin...luckily we have a roasting pan with a rack that can be tricked into hanging off the edges in just the right way. The little knob in the photo is the very end of the leg; it was too long to fit on the rack AND the butcher had cut it part through there, so off it came to be roasted alongside - waste not, want not! The lamb was local, from Hemlock Hill Farm.

For dessert, I made an apple/cherry pie, using apples and sour cherries that were in the freezer. The crust was made with butter and lard (about 1/4 lard), and with a half and half mix of white flour and King Arthur white wheat flour. I like using that white wheat flour...I'm happy to be adding some whole grain into things, and if the ratio of white to white wheat stays better than 3:1, the white wheat is fairly imperceptible. Using it 1:1 in the pie crust meant a sturdy, nutty, crunchy crust - delicious! Miss M. was caught picking pieces of crust off the leftover pie this morning.

It was a lovely meal.

[Edited to add: link to the lamb recipe]

The Times takes up Ballet?

What is it with Times columnists taking up ballet? Today's paper has Harry Hurt sticking his toe in the studio, and Judith Warner started dancing a few months ago.

Hurt's piece made me nuts - I wanted to get out the red pencil. Let's start with the crazy irresponsibility of beginning ballet classes by attending New York City Ballet's company class - even if just pretense for the sake of an article. That is a sure way to get hurt. The way to start is to gently ease into basic ballet classes meant for adult beginners, at a place like Steps or Peridance or the 92nd Street Y. Then, the pieces was full of inaccuracies, like these:

• Ballet slippers have elastics, not "ankle straps". They get sewn on across the instep.
• The morning class is not a "workout" class - it's just class, or company class.
• It's not a "ballet belt", it's a dance belt.

I don't read Warner's column very often, but that ballet piece struck a chord with me. Some number of years ago, I started ballet classes, and continued once or twice or three times a week for several years. It was wonderful - it was a time to think about nothing but where my feet were, what they were doing, how my arms and hands were behaving. The physical exercise was great, but the mind-clearing nature of the ballet class was the revelation - it's better than therapy for calming the brain and sweeping away the day's debris.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Miss M. has been sick all week. Monday was a holiday, I stayed home with her on Tuesday, she went to Grandma's on Wednesday, and today I took her to the office. I thought she was better, but she spiked a fever again at about 11:30 - so home again we went.

Anyway, on the train in, she said to me "Mama, you're so kind to me". And later, leaving the train platform and emerging into the splendid main area of Grand Central Terminal, she said "it's so beautiful". Indeed it is and indeed I am.

The Good Grey Lady on Britney Spears

The Times had a paragraph about Britney entering rehab yesterday, as soberly written as the Times gets (that is, very).

Over the weekend she shaved her head and picked up a couple of tattoos, the latest public displays in a tumultuous year that has included mishandling her babies, parting from her club-hopping husband and appearing in public without underpants.

"Appearing in public without underpants." I snickered aloud on the train.

Winter Tomatoes

Smitten Kitchen recently posted a recipe for Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce that sounds fabulous. In the post, she made a comment about cherry tomatoes:

The best part, if you ask me, is that you can even make it with those cherry or large grape tomatoes that stay eerily fantastic — I try not to question it — through the winter.

I understand that completely - I'll buy those eerily fantastic grape tomatoes in the winter time to toss happily into a salad (well, until my conscience gets to me and I decide that buying Florida tomatoes in January is a waste of fossil fuel).

So, last weekend, we found some of the now-allowed-to-leave-Florida UglyRipe tomatoes in our local A&P - so we bought one, out of curiousity. It looked good. It had a nice texture. It had zero taste. No flavor. Oh, and it was $4.99/pound, so one tomato set me back $2.84. I think perhaps the USDA ruling was unnecessary. Oh well. Back to the eerie grape tomatoes.

The Big Dig

Oh joy. Here's what's happening at my house today. I'm at work so I don't get to see it. And Miss M. is at Grandma's, so she doesn't get to see it either. Tant pis.

________________________________________

From: W
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 10:07 AM
To: Magpie
Subject: The Big Dig

Oh, there's a big hole in the street.

Not certain yet if it's our line, but certainly looks like it. Water running copiously from the roadside wall of the pit that exposed our curb valve. The curb valve is not the leaking culprit - somewhere between it and the water main. Line into the house from curb valve looks ok, and is the same material as protrudes from the foundation wall in the basement. This is good because indicates no splices or shenanigans performed upon it. They will snake this line to check it. Line from the curb valve to the house is greater than 48" below grade. Modern code for this climate is 42". This is good.

Five men, excavator, jack hammer, compressor, blacktop machine, road flagman, five trucks. Big crew, hence the price seems relatively fair to me. And barring disasters, they will get it done today.

Yikes!

Birth Story

Okay, okay, the kid is now three years old, but I never did write this down, so here goes. Besides, I have a couple of other posts brewing, for which this will be background.


At the 20 week ultrasound, we learned that I had a complete placenta previa. But, by the follow-up ultrasound at 28 weeks, the placenta had moved out of the way. It was still low lying, but out of the way.

About two and a half weeks before my due date, I woke up at about 4am to go to the bathroom and discovered a gush of blood. I thought my water had broken. I called the doctor, and they sent me to Labor & Delivery. L&D checked me out, said it was probably the edge of the placenta lifting up as the cervix worked towards readiness, and sent me home a couple of hours later after confirming that the bleeding had stopped.

Two days later it happened again. This time, I was seen in L&D by one of the four OBs in my practice. He said I had to stay – one bleed was okay, but two wasn’t. After discussion, we decided that an induction was appropriate. So I spent all day Sunday hanging out in L&D waiting until a midnight dose of misoprostol – hospital policy says that inductions start at midnight - I guess to try and make the deliveries happen during office hours? The misoprostol got labor started by about 5am and things were cooking by the time OB#2 arrived – I was 4cm dilated around 8am. She thought, we thought, everyone thought she was going to deliver this baby. But no. Labor stalled. They added pitocin. I had an epidural. They broke my water. Nothing. OB#3 arrived around 3pm, and I’d only gotten to 5cm by 4pm, with increasing amounts of pitocin. No dice. OB#3 convinced us that a c-section was appropriate so off we went to the operating room around 5pm.

The section was not nice. To start with, there was a tiny spot along the incision where the nerves weren’t blocked. OUCH. From there on, it’s kind of a blur. I remember W. looking over the drape and taking a picture of the baby coming out (8 pounds 4 ounces at 5:36pm). I remember him coming back after she was cleaned up and sitting by my head with baby M. in his arms, and I remember stroking her cheek. I remember saying to the anesthesiologist “I don’t feel good,” and “I think I’m going to pass out.” I remember seeing someone hang a bag of blood for a transfusion. And then I remember waking up in recovery and seeing OB#4.

It turned out that after the baby and the placenta were out, the uterus failed to contract properly and I lost about two liters of blood. They gave me two units of blood. OB#3, who’d started the section, thought she might have to do an emergency hysterectomy, and so called in OB#4 for back-up. As it happened, they got the bleeding stopped and didn’t do a hysterectomy, but I was in the OR for about two hours, and in recovery for about 16 hours. The baby was in the nursery that whole time. I didn’t get to hold my baby until about 22 hours after she was born, when I was finally settled in my room.

Sticky Cookies, or the Joy of Motherhood

Yesterday, Miss M. and Granny and I went to my niece's fifth birthday party. The party favors were little bags of homemade heart-shaped cookies, iced and sprinkled in pink and white and red.

We drove home from Granny's house today, and broke out the cookies along the way. I handed one back to Miss M. with white piping along the edge. A little while later, she asked for another and I gave her one with red icing. She then announced "I don't like this". I reached back, without looking, expecting cookie #2. But no. I got the now damp cookie #1, with all of its decoration scraped and licked off. I ate it. After all, what else is Mom for? Oh, let me count the ways...

Harbinger

On Wednesday, Valentine's Day, it snowed here for the first time all winter. "Snow" isn't quite the right word; little pieces of ice fell out of the sky all day long. It didn't stick to the trees, it bounced right off the roof, and it landed on the ground in a 3-5" layer of crust. When shoveled, it came up in pieces - we talked about using it to build an igloo - but instead of building an igloo, we went to the supermarket. There, they were selling daffodils for $4 for a bunch of 20. I almost never buy flowers - it seems too ephemeral a luxury for me, even though they last longer than a nice bottle of wine or a good piece of cheese. But at $4 for 20, even I couldn't resist. Someday it will be spring, and the daffodils will bloom in the garden. Until then, these will have to do.

French Laundry

Okay, it's a terrible photo, but that's my French Laundry clothespin, the oh-so-charming clothespin that's clipped to the napkins when you arrive at your table. Mine's now resident on my cellar clothesline.

We'd spent the day touring Sonoma and Napa, with Alisha, a friend of my brother & sister-in-law, in tow. She'd been invited along for an outing, with no idea that the end of the day would be spent eating for hours at the French Laundry. The dinner was to be a surprise for her - a thank you for her having made the wedding cake. After awhile, we ran out of things to do, and it started getting dark, and so they told her what we were going to be doing. She shrieked. My brother decreed that "we need a dive bar" - since we had time to kill, and had to change for dinner. Not expecting to find any such thing, we drove around and found Pancho's - a smoke-filled dive bar in Yountville, complete with two pool tables. We went in and got drinks, then one by one changed in the spacious spotless loo. After we were all changed, a guy who'd been playing pool came over and said "so, you're having dinner at the Laundry?" We said "yup" and he said he'd been twice.

We proceeded to the French Laundry. Our waiter, Milton, came over and somehow it came up that we'd been at Pancho's - his face lit up and he said "that's where we go after service!"

The meal was spectacular and fun, not stuffy or pretentious. Just superb food and gracious service. Milton was a great waiter - full of knowledge about the food, the wine, the kitchen - and completely amenable to a couple of small changes to the menu. We all ordered the "meat" tasting menu (as opposed to the vegetable one) - but I asked for the lobster to be replaced with anything, and Alisha really wanted the mushroom dish on the vegetable menu, so Milton engineered some swaps. The table next to us had their champagne decanted...something I have never before seen. We asked Milton about it - he said they'd asked for it and that occasionally a very aggressively bubbly champagne warranted it. Go figure. Milton offered us a tour of the kitchen which we jumped on - they were pretty much done with the dinner service, with only cheese and dessert courses left for a few tables, but it was great to see anyway, and looked just like I'd imagined from reading about it in Ruhlman's book. Sometime in the middle of dinner, Milton told us about a table of four from New Jersey who arrived and said they didn't want anything on the menu - apparantly they didn't know what they were getting into - but the restaurant solved the problem by bringing food in from their sister bistro Bouchon - how to explain the desire of the restaurant to please its customers in any way and dis New Jersey at the same time, huh?

I would do it again sometime, but first, I'm having dinner at Per Se - next month. Why? Because when I told W. that I was flying across the country for dinner at the French Laundry and leaving him home with Miss M., he told me that the condition was that I take him to Per Se. So, with the help of his other sister, we wangled a reservation there. What the hell. You only live once!

Coincidently, Fesser had a post yesterday about Italian Laundry - a thing of great beauty.

Debauchery sans Toddler

I went away for a long weekend last weekend - to San Francisco to visit my brother and his new wife, and to eat and drink and sleep with abandon. It was heaven.

Friday, my brother picked me up at the airport and we had lunch at the Liberty Cafe. I had the beet/goat cheese strudel, followed by their banana cream pie. And a glass of wine. After tooling around, stopping in bookstores and eccentric other spots, we picked up his wife and had a lovely Gruner Veltliner at the Hotel Biron. Dinner was at Blue Plate, where I had pan roasted chicken livers followed by gnocchi.

For breakfast on Saturday, we scampered to Tartine for scones and croissants and bread pudding and yogurt and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and lots of coffe. My other sister-in-law (that is, W's sister) picked me up for a few hours - we drove around in the rain, checked out a plant sale at the botanical garden, and ate an udon lunch. She returned me to my brother's care, and after a tour of the not quite finished Federal Building, we did the tourist thing and had drinks at the top of the Marriott for the view. We had a feast at a friend's house that night - fried chicken AND mashed potatoes AND collards AND brussels sprouts AND salad AND biscuits AND cornsticks.

Sunday we had breakfast at Atlas and then got in the car, picked up a friend of theirs and set off over the Golden Gate bridge. Our first stop was a wine tasting at Bella, in the Dry Creek Valley. Their wine was nice, their caves were great, their picinic tables were splendid. A bottle of their zinfandel washed our cheese and crackers and apples down perfectly. We then headed towards Napa, for a little shopping in St. Helena and more wine at Alpha Omega. Their 2005 Sauvignon Blanc was lovely, but the 2006 - feh: cat piss.

Sunday dinner was the raison d’être for the entire trip: dinner at the French Laundry. And yes, it was fabulous. And yes, it was worth flying across the country for.

Happy Valentine's Day!

1971. 2007. It's still Valentine's Day.

Another comment about wine

Last week's New Yorker had a fascinating article by Larissa MacFarquhar about a married couple who are philosophy professors exploring the relationship between conscious experience and the flesh of the brain, that is, the mind-body problem.

One afternoon recently, Paul says, he was home making dinner when Pat burst in the door, having come straight from a frustrating faculty meeting. "She said, 'Paul, don't speak to me, my serotonin levels have hit bottom, my brain is awash in glucocorticoids, my blood vessels are full of adrenaline, and if it weren't for my endogenous opiates I'd have driven the car into a tree on the way home. My dopamine levels need lifting. Pour me a Chardonnay, and I'll be down in a minute.'"

Now I know why I need that glass of wine at the end of the day. Although, I prefer anything but Chardonnay.

Polenta and Fried Eggs

Mmm. In a fit of something or another last night, I made dinner straight out of yesterday's New York Times - polenta with fried egg on top and sauted greens alongside. And it was delicious. And the red wine alongside - splendid!

To gild the lily, the leftover polenta, warmed up in the microwave, made a lovely breakfast.

Cocktail Playdates

I'm not social enough to be much of a playdate mom, and I figure that Miss M. gets plenty of socializing being at daycare five full days a week. But, I do think that playdates with wine are a great idea - and birthday parties - and all of those slightly awkward get-togethers of parents and kids where the kids know one another well and the parents more en passant. It breaks the ice. And wine is good. I've been reading With Bold Knife and Fork by M.F.K. Fisher; here is what she has to say about wine:

As for wines, they are for me. I like honest wines as such, all of them and always. Of course some are better than others, and I like the best ones the most. But I could and would forgo any other liquid forever, as long as I might drink one humble wine with my daily bread. I like wine before, during, after, and in between meals, if things point that way. I like to know, and to use, local wines, which is probably why I have managed to live near the grapevines since I was four. If I were told today that even one more sip of wine would kill me, I might believe it, but I know that I would also investigate the prognosis, weigh its validity, and then decide for myself. If I agreed to abstain for survival's dubious benefits, I could at least taste vicariously by continuing to serve wine to my friends and, like old George Saintsbury in his Cellar Book, grow mellow on memory.

Dead Nut Expert

Sunday brought another wonderful obit from Douglas Martin of the New York Times - that of Elizabeth Tashjian.

Her father was a prosperous rug trader, and her mother came from an aristocratic family with a castle.

Ms. Tashjian had a museum of nuts, in Connecticut. The 48 word first paragraph contains the word "nut" five times.

According to the obit, she had a late life career as a guest on TV and radio. For those appearances "she often took along her huge, disturbingly suggestive Coco de mer nut" which weighs 35 pounds and "resembles buttocks".

I could keep quoting, but maybe you should just go read it and raise a cocktail peanut to Ms. Tashjian.

Macaroni and Cheese, continued

Parent Hacks got going on the Annie's vs. Kraft debate too.

There were some good points, and some good alternate recipes.

One was a recipe posted by Kai Jones, a commenter:

Better and you don't have to drain the noodles is the Consumer Reports recipe.

Measure 2 cups water and 1 cup noodles into a pan, add a dash of salt. Bring to a boil on high and then continue on high for 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Turn down to medium low and simmer for 7 minutes or until most of the water has boiled away. Add 2 tablespoons butter, 1 cup cheddar cheese, paprika if you want it orange, salt and pepper to taste. You can also add a tablespoon of cream or milk if the sauce isn't saucy enough.

Another was a comment from Alison:

My kids have been raised in France; they like plain pasta with a little butter or olive oil on it...

I'm American (ergo, so are my kids), but mac-n-cheese is unknown in France. Turns out they don't really like cheese on their pasta anyway. And they didn't like boxed mac-n-cheese during a visit to the States.

This might be a novel idea...but, boil some pasta, add a little butter or olive oil and/or salt, pepper (and grated cheese if you want), and see how your kids like it.

Seems logical to me...why do our kids need the extra "cheese," especially when they are little? And then if you make real macaroni and cheese, it's that much more special.

Lots of times, Miss M. asks for "plain pasta" - which in our book is pasta tossed with butter and grated parmesan. Yum. And simple.

Macaroni and Cheese

Over on Megnut last week, there was a post that got me going. She was talking about an article on Salon that compares Annie's Macaroni and Cheese to Kraft's. The Salon piece kind of dissed both Kraft and Annie's (though the author confessed to keeping Annie's in the pantry), while Megnut felt that the Salon author was being overly harsh on harried parents trying to do the best for their kids, and thereby came squarely down on Annie's as better than Kraft's. Sure it is - no unpronounceable ingredients for one thing. But that completely misses the point - that Annie's stuff TASTES TERRIBLE. I bought some one day, thinking it wasn't such a horrible thing to feed my toddler, but it's gross. Besides, a proper macaroni and cheese needs to be baked. Don't want to mess with a white sauce? Try this recipe from the New York Times that uses raw pasta and a lot of milk - sure, it takes longer, but it tastes way better than anything from a box. Don't have enough time for that? If you have time to boil water for pasta, you have time to defrost some homemade red sauce and a couple of homemade meatballs. Eat real food, people. Like Michael Pollan said the other day - eat food your great grandmother would recognize.

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup cottage cheese (not lowfat)
2 cups milk (not skim)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch cayenne
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 pound elbow pasta, uncooked

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees and position an oven rack in upper third of oven. Use 1 tablespoon butter to butter a 9-inch round or square baking pan.
2. In a blender, purée cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg and salt and pepper together. Reserve 1/4 cup grated cheese for topping. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes.
3. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more, until browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.
   

Anna Wintour = Professional Wrestler?

I was reading the Times from cover to cover yesterday, because I didn't have a spare book. I found myself pondering this description of Anna Wintour in a piece in the style section:

And to millions of people to whom her power is less real (who know her only in connection with “The Devil Wears Prada”) she is also a symbol: the small cross-armed woman in the front row, inscrutable behind her dark glasses and self-protecting English bob, her effect equal parts terrifying and calm, like the center of the storm she has dominated for 19 years.

What struck me was "cross-armed". Does that mean she sits with her arms crossed? Is she armed with a cross? Idly I googled "cross arm" and found that a "cross arm choke" is a move in professional wrestling. Aha! That's it!

Another Unnecessary Consumer Product

Not only did we not have a Diaper Genie (or one of its kin), but the only thing we ever used for the disposal of dirty diapers were the nice plastic bags that your groceries come home from the supermarket in. After all, they're free, and recycling them for diaper duty (ha ha, a pun!) gets a second use out of them. So what on earth does anyone need a product like this for?

Mir on Wantnot would label this "Retail Gone Wrong".

Cheese Sandwiches again!

Cool - my cheese sandwich hack is up at Parent Hacks!

I don't know why that tickles me so much.

By the way, the original post was called Cheese Swanwiches because that's how Miss M. pronounces "sandwich". Swanwich. The "swan" part rhymes with "tan", or "sand".

Hippie Daycare vs. Structured Preschool with Worksheets

Last week, City Mama had a post about her four year old daughter transitioning to a new preschool, and coming home on the first day to announce that she hated the school. Because they didn’t get to play. But really because they had to do a worksheet. City Mama went on to talk about the prior “hippie” preschools that her kid had been to, with no worksheets. The comments on the post had a lot of interesting stuff about hippie preschools and worksheets and structure and play and what’s appropriate for a little one.

It got me thinking about my child’s daycare. It certainly swings towards the hippie end of things. It’s a formal daycare center, for kids from 18 months to 5 years old. It kind of transitions into preschool – the kids can stay there until they go to kindergarten. They get a lot of learning done there – but it’s all in the interstices, nothing overt. They read books, sing songs, dance, play dress-up, play with plastic bugs, feed the fish, play outside, help with snack and lunch, paint, play with clay, learn to share, to interact, to empathize and sympathize, etc. It’s a wonderful, warm and caring environment, and I feel very lucky that we found it.

One of the people who commented on City Mama’s post, Twizzle at Baboon of Magnesia, included a link to a great article called The Worksheet Dilemma: Benefits of Play-Based Curricula. The subhead kind of says it all. The gist of the article is that kids, up to about age 6 (i.e. kindergarten), need to work with concrete things rather than abstract symbols – they’re just not ready to sit down with a worksheet. Kids need to play.

Free Association/Unconscious Mutterings

Irish Goddess encouraged me to play LunaNina's Free Association game, so here goes:

1. Limit :: LESS


2. Voice :: OF AMERICA


3. Change :: FOR A $20


4. Expression :: OF GLEE


5. Tailor :: MADE


6. Lemonade :: HOT (Craving hot lemonade right now)


7. Thought :: POLICE


8. Phoebe :: WHAT MY FATHER IN LAW CALLS MY MOTHER IN LAW SOMETIMES (it's not her name)


9. Impression :: IST = MONET


10. Sister :: SARAH

Lousy Poetry and Bad Math

My kid brought a book home from school the other day: Naugty Little Monkeys by Jim Aylesworth. It makes me crazy. It's an alphabet book, where each letter equals a monkey. The first stanza refers to "all naughty twenty-six". BUT THERE ARE ONLY 25 MONKEYS. Because letter Z isn't a monkey, but is the ZOO where the 25 bad little monkeys go at the end of the book. Besides, the poetry is terrible and most of the stanzas don't scan right.

The Omnivore's Manifesto

Michael Pollan has another great piece in today's New York Times Magazine, essentially a diatribe against processed food. At the end, he has a 9 point list of how to eat - "simple principles of healthy eating". His 9 points are elaborated upon, but here are the main points:

1. Eat food.
2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims.
3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.
4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.
5. Pay more, eat less.
6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
7. Eat more like the French.
8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden…So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.
9. Eat like an omnivore.

I laughed when I got to item #8 - yesterday, I made 4 quarts of chili, 2 1/2 quarts of barley soup, a batch of granola, a loaf of whole wheat bread with cinnamon/sugar/butter swirled up inside, and a batch of the no-knead bread (which is still rising). I think I did my share of spatula-lifting yesterday.

I am a slovenly housekeeper

I knew it was time to clean house because I caught my 3 year old testing the laws of physics by dropping dust bunnies over the balcony and down the stairs.

The Omnivore’s Mandate

I’ve just finished reading Michael Pollan’s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. [Check that link - you can download a pdf of the introduction and first chapter there.] The book is a fascinating tour through eating in America, and what one’s choices in food mean in a larger context than a personal one.

Here are the kind of things that took my breath away, in a bad way:
p. 98 – in a chapter on how corn is in just about every processed food there is:

“Natural raspberry flavor” doesn’t mean the flavor came from a raspberry; it may well have been derived from corn, just not from something synthetic.

p. 117 – in a chapter about eating a fast food meal at McDonald’s, and running a duplicate of said meal through a mess spectrometer to calculate how much of the carbon in the meal came from corn:

In order of diminishing corniness, this is how the laboratory measured our meal: soda (100% corn), milk shake (78%), salad dressing (65%), chicken nuggets (56%), cheeseburger (52%), and French fries (23%).

p. 183 – in a chapter about Big Organic:

The food industry burns nearly a fifth of all the petroleum consumed in the United States (about as much as automobiles do).

And elsewhere there is a description of battery egg layers that is shocking.

On the happier side though, Pollan's description on p. 219 of the complex organism that is Polyface Farm almost makes me want to move to Charlottesville, VA:

Salatin reached down deep where his pigs were happily rooting and brought a handful of fresh compost right up to my nose. What had been cow manure and woodchips just a few weeks before now smelled as sweet and warm as the forest floor in summertime, a miracle of transubstantiation. As soon as the pigs complete their alchemy, Joel will spread the compost on his pastures. There it will feed the grasses, so the grasses might again feed the cows, the cows the chickens, and so on until the snow falls, in one long, beautiful, and utterly convincing proof that in a world where grass can eat sunlight and food animals can eat grass, there is indeed a free lunch.

In a lot of ways, Pollan’s book overlaps with Marion Nestle’s What To Eat (which I read last spring) and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation (which I read when it came out). But I think the third was the charm.

The short story – I will change the way we eat. I’ve signed up for a CSA program for next summer at Roxbury Farm. We’ll get a box of organic vegetables every week. We're making a much more concerted effort to get locally raised meat. I'm lucky in that my office is very close to the Union Square Greenmarket, so I have access to local produce (including eggs and meat). I tend not to buy a lot of processed foods anyway, but we'll do better on that front. It's my new year's resolution, even though the year is nearly 1/12th over.

Why Do I Blog?

Mir, on Want Not yesterday, had a link to a questionnaire/survey called Why Do You Blog?.

It's a good question. Out of nowhere one day last summer, I started this here blog. And now it feels like it's in some kind of perpetual motion...one thing leads to another and all of a sudden there's a whole pile of draft posts. And lists of other ideas for posts. And posts drifting around in my head. The stuff just wants to come out. And the stuff is all over the place - hence "magpie" "musing".

I am really doing this for me, but it pleases me when it pleases others too.

Breast Milk to Africa

Thanks to Megnut, I read today about an organization helping African babies by shipping expressed breast milk to them. I never had enough breast milk for my own baby, and had to supplement, but the idea of pumping and donating is a selfless one with tremendous payback. Good karma.

Hot Little Biscuits

I love biscuits, and I find that they amplify and complete a simple meal, like the "porky pea soup" I pulled out of the freezer last night. [Yes, that's how W. labeled it when he put it away, and it was indeed porky.] But most biscuit recipes make far too many for our little family of two adults and one unpredictable child, and since they're best right out of the oven, I don't like to have leftovers. So, I've finally perfected a recipe to make biscuits for two (or three). It uses only one cup of flour, and makes about six biscuits. I've given a couple of options - one for the leavening, one for the liquid. I've had a can of Bakewell Cream in the cupboard for awhile, along with a can of buttermilk powder in the fridge. If you have either, use - otherwise, don't. The somewhat unorthodox baking method works beautifully and comes from the back of the Bakewell Cream can.

Hot Little Biscuits, for two or three people

1 cup flour
1 t. Bakewell Cream*
1/2 t. baking soda
OR 1 1/2 t. baking powder in place of the Bakewell Cream and baking soda
1/4 t. salt
2 T. butter
3/8 cup milk
OR 3/8 cup water + 1 1/2 T. buttermilk powder in place of the milk

1. Preheat oven to 475° F.
2. Mix all dry ingredients together (this includes the buttermilk powder if you're using it).
3. Cut butter into smallish pieces, about 1/2" chunks, and add to the dry ingredients. Using your fingers, toss the butter to coat with flour, and quickly squish the butter pieces to flatten. Work quickly so the butter doesn't melt from the heat of your fingers, and keep squishing until all the butter is in nice little pieces.
4. Quickly add the liquid (water or milk). Stir with a butter knife until it comes together. Using the knife, carve out five or six lumps of dough and place on a non-stick pan. Pat them if they're too unruly looking. They should be about 3/4" thick.
5. Bake for five minutes at 475° F. When the timer goes off, turn off the oven and leave the biscuits in the oven for another 10 minutes, until golden brown.

*Bakewell Cream is a substitute for cream of tartar - when combined with baking soda, it becomes like baking powder. Here's a good explanation. The Bakewell Cream makes really fluffy biscuits - they rise better than those made with regular double-acting baking powder.

Annals of Knitting

What possessed me to try and make a hat out of "fur" yarn? Argh. I cast on and started knitting, decided that the cast on was too tight and spent about 20 minutes unraveling it. The fur ties itself in knots. Argh. Once I got going, it was okay - but if there are any errors, I'm not fixing them!

Ideas for Choreography

When I was a small person, my mother used to take me to the ballet. Not only did she take me to performances, she took me out of school to attend open rehearsals and the like.

In 1973, I wrote a letter to George Balanchine, suggesting an idea for a ballet:



Little did I know that Jerome Robbins had already made that ballet - in 1953. He called it Fanfare.

I never got a response to my letter.

Knitting Projects #3 and 4

I made two more hats! The one on the left used a mess of little scraps of yarn, and was knit flat and sewn up. I'm sending it to the local NICU. The one on the right was my first attempt at using a circular needle (and switching to double-points for the decrease at the top). I think it's charming and I'm going to give it to a friend who's about to have a baby.



I bought more yarn today.

Truely Whimsical, and now you may bow

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Entirely Miss Reverend Lady Magpie the Prickly of Mabe Burnthouse Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Word of the Day: Beeves

I've been reading Michael Pollan's book, An Omnivore's Dilemma, and scratching my head at his use of "beeve". I could figure out what he means from the context, but it's peculiar enough (to me anyway) that I finally looked it up.

In addition to being the meat from a cow/steer/bull, a beef IS a cow/steer/bull. The plural of a beef is beeves. Granted, it's archaic. But odd, no? Especially because Pollan uses the singular back-formation "beeve" to refer to a single cow/steer/bull.

And just in case you were wondering, the meat of a pig is called pork, but "the pork" is not an archaic equivalent to "the pig". The pork is something that gets doled out in Washington and Albany.

Apple Clafouti

Apple Clafouti is the other Julia Child recipe from last month's Christmas Meme. This is also from Mastering the Art of French cooking, but it's the one from Volume 2. She has clafoutis in both volumes.

It seems that the original French name was "clafoutis" - singular, but with an "s" at the end. John Thorne, in Outlaw Cook, has a nice chapter on clafouti - specifically, on making/eating them for breakfast. Here is his description:

Clafoutis (more and more spelled "clafouti" these days - perhaps because the "s" makes the word look plural to American eyes) is usually considered a dessert. From the Limousin region of France, it is traditionally made by filling the bottom of a buttered baking dish with stemmed but unpitted black cherries, covering these with a batter, and baking this in an oven. The result is a custardy, slightly puffed, lightly browned confection, dotted with pieces of the soft, fresh fruit. It is eaten warm or cool, dusted with powdered sugar."

This is a wonderful, simple dessert. It's rich but not cloying, and leftovers are perfect for breakfast - all that egg, you know.

Here's Julia's recipe:

Apple Clafouti

1/2 cup currants
1/4 cup dark rum
1 stick of butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
6-7 apples, peeled and sliced
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
enough light cream added to the remaining rum to make ½ cup
1/4 t. cinnamon

1. Mix currants and rum and let stand.
2. Spread half the butter and half the sugar in a jelly roll pan. Add the sliced apples. Cover with the rest of the butter and sugar. Bake 25 minutes at 375°. Scrape into a glass baking dish (i.e. 10” Pyrex pie plate). [This part can be done ahead of time.]
3. Drain the currants (reserving the rum) and pour half the rum over the apples.
4. Beat eggs and sugar until thick and yellow. Add flour, rum/cream and cinnamon. Add currants. Pour over apples and bake at 375° for 25 minutes.

Frisky Chimps

Sometimes the best reads in the Times are the little AP stories that run under the heading “National Briefing”. By best, I mean the kind that cry out to be read aloud or otherwise shared. Here’s one from today:

Who’s Your Daddy?
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 18, 2007

A female chimpanzee at a sanctuary has given birth, despite the fact that the facility’s entire male chimp population has had vasectomies. Now managers at the sanctuary, Chimp Haven, are planning a paternity test for the seven males who lived in a group with the female, Teresa, a chimpanzee in her late 40s who had a baby girl last week. Once they identify the father, it is back to the operating room for him...

This begged a few questions for me. Did anyone know she was pregnant? Do chimps have the same propensity towards genetic abnormalities in the babies born to older moms that humans do? Did she have any prenatal testing (amnio, CVS) given that she's of advanced maternal age? Or is that not advanced maternal age for a chimp? And if they did do genetic testing, and did find an abnormality (is there a chimp equivalent of a trisomy?), would they have done anything about it? The mind reels.

Spam Poetry

This was in the dummy type in a spam email this morning. I think it's like Seussian poetry. [I put the line breaks and initial caps in; the question mark was there.]

Sithstar
Warsstar
Warsthe
Star wars?

The Disappearance of Diapers

Ah joy. Miss M. is mostly potty trained. I've retired the jar of treats (said jar which may be one of the queerest things I've ever done). We bought the last enormous box of diapers on the 29th of October, and there are still plenty left for overnights. She transitioned into undiepants all the time on the 30th of October. She hasn't had an accident at school in quite awhile, and only one at home in recent memory. (Have I cursed our run of luck by even saying that?)

We started potty training in earnest about 2 months before she turned 3. Right around then, she moved up a level at her daycare, from the toddler room to the 3s. Different set of teachers, some new kids, a new rhythm to the day. At the end of the first month, one of the toddler room teachers spent a week with the 3s, filling in for an absence. I think that that week with a known face from the past during the day really helped to get the whole concept across.

Next step is overnight - she's close to being ready, but I'm not quite ready to let the diapers go at night - especially because she doesn't yet know how to open her bedroom door. And if she does learn how to open the bedroom door, I might have to try cooking spray.

Snips From My Diary

Months ago, I cleaned out a dresser at my mother's house, and found a trove of diaries and journals and notes from junior high school. Notes meaning: little tiny scraps of paper in handmade envelopes, all from one friend of mine, named Ann. We passed these back and forth with great regularity, discussing friends, boys, teachers. Last night, I sat in front of the fireplace, reading them whilst drinking wine, and burning as I went. I saved some of the best of them, and there's one journal that I didn't get to.

Here are some choice bits from a diary, from the spring of 1974, when I was 13:

Today I learned how to convert from F° to C°.

I didn’t write the past two days because I was busy but Friday I did relatively nothing and Saturday I went to Gigi’s*. We went to the park to have Gigi’s picture taken. Some dumb lady thought I was her kid. She’s 63 and I’m 13. God, some weird lady.

Saturday night, Mom and Pop had a party. Boring.

Nothing, literally, happened on Tuesday!

The oh-so-scintillating inner life of a 13 year old.



* Gigi was my grandmother. She lived nearby, close enough that we could bicycle over to her house for root beer floats and the cookies that were always in the pantry.

Potatoes

I bring my daughter to work periodically. I brought her in in December, so she could be at our office Christmas party. We went in a little late, so she didn't have to be there ALL day. I brought DVDs and other entertainment, we went out to lunch together (ah, macaroni and cheese), she did errands for me (took checks down the hall to be countersigned, and even brought them back), we Xeroxed her hand - you know, all those kid-in-the-office things.

She's been coming to the office since she was tiny. I started back to work (that is, back to work IN THE OFFICE*) one day a week when she was two months old, and brought her in on those days. Then it was three days a week, and she came two of them. Then, at about four months, I was back in the office full time, and she came every day, and we had a babysitter who worked half time out of the office. Every morning, I'd strap her into the Bjorn, and take her to work on the subway. I'd arrive at the office at 10, hand Miss M. over to Norma, and Norma returned with her at 2. Sometimes they went out, sometimes they stayed in the building. From 2 to 6, Miss M. was with me, or sleeping, or being passed around the staff. I had a pack 'n play and a stroller and a bouncy seat and an exersaucer and other assorted baby needs parked in an unused area of the office.

When she was 8 1/2 months old, we moved to the suburbs and I couldn't keep bringing her to work. Besides, she'd started crawling and it became untenable.

The point is that everyone in the office knows her pretty well. The day after the Christmas party, my boss was talking about her - her personality, charm, smarts - in short, about how great a kid she is. She is a great kid, and I'm often amazed at how outgoing she is. I don't think of myself as outgoing at all, though I'm certainly better than I used to be. So I rolled my eyes like "where'd she come from?" And he says "Plant a potato, get a potato". At first I thought: he's calling me a potato? But then I realized that it was an odd little compliment to me - my smart and charming daughter is that way because I am. Or because he thinks I am. Or whatever. It was actually a really sweet thing. "Plant a potato, get a potato."

Where did the phrase come from?


* There was not one day of my maternity "leave" that didn't include a call from my boss or someone else in the office, and every week, they messengered a package of mail and checks and other things to look at and/or do. I'm not complaining - I was on full salary the whole time, and it kept me in the loop so coming back wasn't too hard.

P.S. That picture? Miss M. asleep on the floor in the corridor outside of my cubicle, about 7 months old. She'd crashed there, and people had to step over her.

Need a new ringtone?

If your ringtone is annoying everyone around you, maybe you need this one by John Cage.

[Thanks to Mother Reader for the link, and a good laugh at lunchtime.]

Word of the Day: Pulchritude

Doesn't it sound ugly? I've always thought pulchritude just seems like it must mean something icky, ugly, not nice.

But no:

It's a noun, meaning physical beauty (especially of a woman), per WordNet. And the adjective form is pulchritudinous.

Video Thursday Thirteen

For today's installment of Thursday Thirteen, here are the top rotation DVDs in my 3 year old's collection (in alphabetical order):

1. Babe
2. Dumbo
3. Fantasia
4. Lady & the Tramp
5. Looney Tunes - 28 of them on 2 discs
6. Mary Poppins
7. Milo and Otis
8. My Neighbor Totoro
9. Olive, the Other Reindeer
10. The Nutcracker (New York City Ballet)
11. Wallace & Gromit - 3 Amazing Adventures
12. Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
13. The Wizard of Oz

#9 and #10 are put away until next Christmas. Much as I love the Nutcracker, it was viewed, oh, 20 times between about December 18 and January 4. And Olive had never gotten put away LAST Christmas, so we were having Christmas in July.

GEORGE!

Dear Dooce,

I think you have ruined Curious George for me. Everytime I read it to Miss M., and get to a spot where GEORGE is in capital letters because he’s a bad little monkey, I think of you and your George. Argh.

Over and out,

Magpie

A Paean to Ramen

Today's Times had both an editorial and an obituary of Momofuku Ando, the guy that invented ramen noodles. Although I've eaten them on occasion, they were never a staple for me (but I'm almost tempted to go get some for lunch). The editorial was wonderful. Here's a lovely snip, lovely even as it focuses on the noodle's flaws:

There are some imperfections. The fragile cellophane around the ramen brick tends to open in a rush, spilling broken noodle bits around. The silver seasoning packet does not always tear open evenly, and bits of sodium essence can be trapped in the foil hollows, leaving you always to wonder whether the broth, rich and salty as it is, is as rich and salty as it could have been. The aggressively kinked noodles form an aesthetically pleasing nest in cup or bowl, but when slurped, their sharp bends spray droplets of broth that settle uncomfortably about the lips and leave dots on your computer screen.

More Complaining

I'm on a roll:

27 December 2006

Gordon Segal
CEO
Crate and Barrel
Corporate Headquarters
1250 Techny Road
Northbrook, IL 60062

Dear Mr. Segal.

Earlier this month, I placed an internet order for some flatware as a gift for my recently married brother. I ordered 12 place settings on behalf of my mother, and the completer set for myself to give, and had everything shipped to my mother’s house.

We were appalled to find out how much you charged for shipping – frankly, it’s price gouging.

The package, according to the UPS tag, weighed 14 pounds. Using the calculator on the UPS website, that package should cost $9.96 sent ground from 60540 to 11050. Yet, you charged us $59.84 – a sixfold markup! Gouging. Sorry, no other word for it.

I think you should be ashamed of yourself.

My mother was sputtering – as she put it, she could have taken a cab and back to the Manhasset store for quite a lot less than that (she is unable to drive as a result of a medical condition). I thought I was doing us both a favor by having the flatware delivered to her house – but in fact, I caused her and myself a great deal of unnecessary unhappiness at the state of the universe as a result of having placed the order on-line.

I would appreciate a refund of $50 – the approximate difference between the actual shipping cost and the price that you charged me. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Magpie

Enclosure: packing slip

On Thursday, 4 January, I came home to find a voice message from Crate & Barrel customer service explaining their shipping rates, and crediting my account for the $50 I requested. The woman said that shipping of orders over $200 was charged at 10% of the order, but that customer service would take circumstances into account. In other words, complaining may well get you a reduction on the shipping. She didn't apologize, but I did get my money back.

I know how to complain

Letter sent:

17 November 2006

H&M Hennes & Mauritz LP
47 West 34th Street, 3rd Floor
New York, N.Y. 10001

To Whom It May Concern:

My small daughter received the enclosed scepter (and a tiara) last weekend for her birthday. Within hours of receipt, one of the rhinestones had fallen off and the head had broken off the stem. It was not being bashed around at all. She is enormously disappointed – could you send us a new one?

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Magpie

Result - new scepter AND tiara by mail.

Word of the Day: Panache

Okay, you probably know panache as "flair" or "je ne sais quoi" - you know, he had that certain something.

But here are the definitions from Wordnet:

1. (n) dash, elan, flair, panache, style (distinctive and stylish elegance) "he wooed her with the confident dash of a cavalry officer"
2. (n) panache (a feathered plume on a helmet)

In other words, did you know a panache was the thing on the top of your hat when you were in the marching band in high school?

Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Last month, in the Christmas Meme, I referenced two favorite recipes from Julia Child.

Here's the Garlic Mashed Potatoes, a/k/a Puree de Pommes de Terre a L’Ail:

2 heads (30 cloves) of garlic
1 stick of butter (4T + 4T)
2 T flour
1 cup boiling milk
salt
pepper
2-1/2 lbs baking potatoes, peeled and quartered
3-4 T whipping cream [you can get away with whole milk]
4 T minced parsley

1. Separate the garlic cloves. Drop garlic into boiling water and boil for 2 minutes. Drain and peel. [Mostly, this step is to make the garlic easier to peel. But it also gets the cooking going a bit for the next step.]
2. In a small heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid: cook garlic slowly in 4 T. butter - covered - for about 20 minutes until soft but not browned.
3. Add flour and stir over low heat for 2 minute. Off heat, stir in milk, and salt, and pepper to taste. Return to heat and simmer for 1 minute, stirring. [Julia then has you put this white sauce through a sieve or puree it in the blender – I never bother.] Set aside.
4. Boil the potatoes in salted water until soft. Drain and mash them. Return to pan and stir over low heat for a few minutes to evaporate some of the excess moisture. As soon as the potato puree begins to form a film on the bottom of the pan remove from heat and beat in the other 4 T. butter one tablespoon at a time. Add salt and pepper to taste. Beat in the garlic sauce and enough cream to reach the desired consistency. Beat in the minced parsley and serve.

It's from Mastering The Art of French Cooking (volume 1) by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child. It's a staple at our family holiday meals - goes with beef, lamb, turkey, goose. It's even good cold, if there's any left.

The Apple Clafouti will follow another day.

The letter M

The graphic design firm that does the work for my office sends out eccentric holiday "cards" each year. This year's was a little bound book, "The Alphabet: A Critical Assessment". Its contents were originally on a blog called Speak Up - here is an excerpt for your reading pleasure:

Speaking of my name, check these out. now those are 2 sweet letterforms. Is it any wonder that a line of “m”s denotes “yummy”? Mmmmm. The cap is unique and strong; balanced, and open in a way that doesn’t interfere with other letterforms. The lower case echoes the sturdiness of the cap, with all feet firmly on the ground, but with those 2 nice curves. I’m so glad my name begins with M!

Thank you Marian Bantjes! I like M too!

Stuffed Animals to Iraq

Awhile ago I read, on Parent Hacks, of a suggestion as to where to send outgrown toys and such. Asha revisited this today, and included a link to an Army Corps of Engineers story about the distribution of the toys.

Over the weekend, I drifted through the house collecting spare stuffed animals (how they accumulate!) and boxed them up. They went in the mail today. It seems so little, but I hope that some children in Iraq will be pleased with their gift.

If you too want the mailing address, here it is:

Edmay Mayers
USACE - GRS
APO AE 09331

Panhandling

What is going to happen to the bums and panhandlers (and buskers for that matter) when cash disappears? I walked by a guy soliciting pennies for the homeless today, with not a cent in my pocket. Granted, I was on the way to the bank to deposit a check and withdraw some cash from the ATM, but still - not a cent. And we move more and more towards a plastic cashless society. So what becomes of the panhandlers?

Knitting Project #2

Following the completion of the hat, I figured that I'd better use up the lovely screaming Orlon yarn, so I embarked on an afghan "square" (it's really a 7" x 9" rectangle) for Warm Up America. By making those wacky polka-dots, I got to practice changing and carrying yarn colors. And I cast on, and off, all by myself. It too is going in the mail tomorrow. I think I need a real project now, with real yarn, and a real goal.

Knitting Project #1

I got a hankering to knit something recently. A long time ago, I'd made a sweater, which came out completely strangely. Misshapen and unwearable. So I'd put it aside and didn't think of knitting until a couple of months ago. After kicking it around in my head, I poked around on the web and got inspired to participate in Save The Children's Caps to the Capital. I dug up some old yarn at my mother's house, found my old knitting needles, asked someone in my building to teach me how to cast on again (I remembered knit and purl, but not casting on or off), and made this here hat for a little baby. It borders on hideous, and is far from perfect, but I'm enormously pleased with myself. It's going in the mail tomorrow.

Eight Bookplates

I got a nice set of bookplates for Christmas, from my sister, and I've just stuck them into eight favorite cookbooks (and no, my name isn't Sarah Koffman):

1. Baking with Julia (Dorie Greenspan)
2. English Bread and Yeast Cookery (Elizabeth David)
3. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volumes 1 and 2 – bow down to Julia
4. The Book of Tarts (Maury Rubin) – because I am the Queen of Tarts
5. The Cake Bible (Rose Levy Beranbaum) – from which I made my wedding cake, and my sister’s, come to think of it
6. The James Beard Cookbook – from which I learned to make the perfect strawberry shortcake, using a rich biscuit dough
7. The Joy of Cooking, 1953 – I also have the 1975 edition

Third Thursday Thirteen

Herewith, for Thursday Thirteen - thirteen books received for Christmas - by the three of us, not just me. There are others - these are just the thirteen presently near to hand.

1. A Stew or a Story (M.F.K. Fisher) - collected short pieces
   
2. Book of Longing (Leonard Cohen) - poetry
   
3. Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford
4. Dirty Sugar Cookies (Ayun Halliday)
5. English as She is Spoke (José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino) - hysterical!
   
6. Little Tree (e.e. cummings/Chris Raschko)
7. Olivia’s Opposites (Ian Falconer)
8. Pete's a Pizza (William Steig) - which I have already read to Miss M. three times today
   
9. The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan) – 2 copies, oops, my sister's getting one back for her birthday
   
10. The Reluctant Dragon (Kenneth Grahame)
    
11. The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats)
12. There’s a Monster in My Backpack (Lisa Moser) – thanks to Mother Reader who reviewed this a month or so ago - it sounded charming, and it is.
    
13. Wondrous Strange: the life and art of Glenn Gould (Kevin Bazzana)
    

Other books include The Twelve Dogs of Christmas, a cookbook by Donna Hay, Turn Turn Turn (an illustrated copy of the psalm with a CD of Pete Seeger singing the song) and a book of homophones written and printed by my sister-in-law.

Is there a theme here? Kids books, food books, word books, art and music books.

Holiday Chaos, or, Bad Things Happen in Threes

When I was about 8, I split my chin open on the side of a swimming pool. Two days later, my then 3 year old sister split her chin open jumping backwards into the same swimming pool. Different crews in the ER - she had black stitches, I had blue. A few days later, our father did a cannonball into, yes, the same pool and sprained his ankle. Bad things happen in threes.

Two weeks ago, W. had a root canal, which subsequently got infected. Last week, Miss M. came down with pinkeye, thereby missing my brother's wedding celebration (her pediatrician said she needed to be quarantined for 24 hours "unless you don't like them"). The next day, the plumbing at my mother's house clogged, requiring a call to Roto-Rooter and heroic measures by W., who babysat the plumber while three stories worth of sewage poured into the basement and all of the rest of us went to see the Nutcracker.

Nothing bad has happened since - fingers crossed - so bad things really do happen in threes? Let's hope so.

Totemic Thursday Thirteen

Another Thursday Thirteen - this time = Totemic Food Pairings!

1. Byrrh and Soda - Byrrh is a kind of aperitif, pronounce to rhyme with beer. My mother used to drink it occasionally, with club soda. Hence, Byrrh and Soda - sounds like you're mixing Budweiser and Coca-cola, no?

2. Fish Eyes and Glue - what you call tapioca when it's made with big pearl tapioca, the kind that's about 1/4" in diameter.

3. Waffles and Baked Beans - a family joke. It was, alledgedly, a favorite supper of my paternal grandfather's. I have actually never eaten waffles and baked beans together, though we've had many family discussions about the idea of putting a single bean in each crevice of the waffles.

4. Tomato Soup and Cottage Cheese - a strange and wonderful combination. The tomato soup must be Campbell's; the cottage cheese is your choice. I happen to prefer a "pot-style" cottage cheese, it's drier and works better with the soup. You put a big blob of cottage cheese in the bowl, grind some pepper on top, and add the piping hot soup. Yum.

5. Yogurt and pretzels - a nice lunch on the run. The pretzels should be small and broken up a bit; the yogurt should be Dannon with the fruit on the bottom. Once upon a time, this was wonderful with the now departed Dannon Dutch Apple yogurt flavor. The combination of soft and hard, sweet and salty, is hard to beat.

6. Peanut butter and sardines - perhaps another family joke? My maternal grandfather claimed to like a nice sandwich of peanut butter and sardines - he said that the peanut butter held the sardines on the sandwich.

7. Cottage Cheese and Pickle Relish - another quick lunch. I eat this occasionally - again, the sweet and savory combination is great. I like to pretend that the pickles are vegetables and therefore good for me.

8. Popcorn and Sherry - my paternal grandfather served this as hors d'oeuvres for holiday gatherings. The popcorn must be freshly popped in a pan, with salt and butter. The sherry must be Amontillado. He always presented the popcorn in a tall, straight-sided wooden bowl. My mother surmises that a vague rancidity in the bowl added to the distinct flavor of the popcorn. In any case, they do go strangely well together - the nuttiness of the sherry, the salt and grease of the popcorn.

9. Nassau County Snacks - okay, this one is terribly idiosyncratic. I grew up in Nassau County; the county colors are blue and orange. So, Nassau County snacks are Cheez Doodles (orange!) served in a blue enamelware bowl. Blue and orange.

10. Endive and Watercress - served as a salad for holiday meals. It's a great peppery, clean salad and it makes a nice foil for a standing rib roast or other big rich piece of meat.

11. Gin and Tonic - they just go together. It was the only mixed drink at our wedding. We had wine, champagne, beer and gin & tonic. What more do you need?

12. Orange Juice and Cranberry Juice. Yes, it can be a mixed drink if you add vodka, but just orange and cranberry together is a great combination. Somehow, the two together transform into a third flavor.

13. Ginger Ale and Saltines - what you have when you're sick. I don't even like ginger ale, but it does wonders for an upset stomach.

Christmas Trees

While we got our tree and got it up in a timely fashion, it took a number of days to actually get it decorated. But now that it is, it makes me happy. I love coming into the house and smelling the tree, and trotting over to turn it on is almost the first thing I do.

Carrying the boxes of ornaments up from the cellar and lovingly unpacking them and fondling them as they go on the tree is so memory filled, in a wholly affectionate way. First the lights go on. Then the tree topper - an old glass finial type topper. Then the little old ornaments at the top of the tree. As I make my way down, the ornaments get bigger and less fragile (and newer). Concessions in the past to cats and in the present to the toddler mean that there are ornaments on the tree that I'd just as soon not have, but practicality dictates some unbreakable ornaments for Miss M. to poke.

Getting the tree itself has often been some kind of an adventure too. There was the tree that was part of the party decorations for the early December opening night party of The Forest by Robert Wilson and David Byrne at BAM a long time ago. After the party, I single-handedly crammed a tree (free!) in the back of the Ford Fiesta at an ungodly hour of the night, drove it home from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side, and lugged it into my apartment. My then boyfriend (now husband) got up in the morning and was stunned to discover a tree that hadn't been there the night before. Another time, we bought at tree at the Union Square market and brought it home on the subway.

Wrapping Paper

Every week, Miss M. comes home from school with two or three of those big sheets of newsprint covered with tempura, you know, art. I can't keep them all, but I feel guilty tossing them. So, the vaguely color appropriate became Christmas wrapping. It's also been used as birthday wrapping for her school chums. And, I believe I wrapped all of her own birthday presents in her own wrapping paper...

Mozart

My new favorite website is the complete Mozart archive. It is completely searchable, and returns pdfs of everything he wrote. Everything. I keep printing things out, like I'm going to sing the Queen of the Night aria next week. If I did, I might sound a little like Florence Foster Jenkins.

Silent Night

At last check, I have 36 versions of Silent Night in iTunes.

A particularly wonderful one is Silent Night played on the musical saw, on the Asylum Street Spankers Christmas record.

[Can you tell how old I am? Records are still records, even though they're CDs.]

Thirsty Thursday Thirteen

I grew up in a sailing community. On Thursday evenings in the summer, there was a little racing series called Thirsty Thursdays. Cocktails under sail. It wasn't about the racing per se, as much as the being out on the water for a sunset sail and a picnic on a weeknight. With that in mind, here's my thirsty Thursday Thirteen - beverages for a work day seguing into a holiday meal:

1. Black Coffee – made from freshly ground Peet’s house blend
2. Hot Apple Cider from the Union Square Greenmarket
3. Lemon Zinger tea
4. Seltzer (plain or lemon-lime)
5. Chicken Noodle Soup (well, it’s mostly liquid)
6. V-8
7. Coffee with milk, and a chocolate chip cookie on the side
8. Gus Pomegranate Soda
9. Gin & Tonic, heavy on the lime
10. Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose
11. White wine, especially a nice crisp Sauvignon Blanc
12. Apple Ice wine
13. Calvados

Bangoo?

During her bath last night, Miss M. announced to me: "Bangoo's a kind of watermelon when you wash your hair." What on earth could she mean?

Motherhood

I have a subscription to Brain Child - it was originally a gift from my sister, the first Christmas after Miss M. was born, and I've continued to renew it because it's good provocative germane writing.

The Winter 2007 arrived in the mailbox last week and was promptly devoured. Well, no I didn't eat it. But I did read it cover to cover.

I frequently feel like some kind of mother imposter - just flying by the seat of my pants, trying to keep Miss M. on an even keel. And that pretending-to-be-someone's-mother feeling is often exacerbated in the presence of other mothers (unless they're clearly slacker moms, too!). So while reading an essay* in Brain Child about a woman and her adopted Chinese daughter, I was struck by this passage excerpt:

I had to develop an expression which showed slight embarrassment and wry amusement along with great fondness...

She goes on about her kid's exploits in the grocery store (watching the lobsters! singing "Old MacDonald" in the meat department!), but that description floored me - I know it so well - slight embarrassment, wry amusement, great fondness - oh yes, daily.

* The essay is My Girl: Made in China, raised in Illinois, by Gale Renee Walden.

Disney Cheese

Last week's New Yorker had a piece by Anthony Lane about Walt Disney - a book review, mostly, but broader and more rambling than just a book review. Disney, blah blah blah, more Disney, more blah blah blah. Then this:

To understand Disney's advance, you need to go to Paris. In particular, you need to go to Paris before January 15th, to the Grand Palais, which is home to an exhibit of Disney's art. This in itself is astounding. To the French mind, Disney represents the arrowhead of American cultural assault, and if America were to return the favor it would need to mount a major retrospective of soft, unpasteurized French cheese at the Metropolitan Museum.

This stopped me in my tracks (on the tracks; I was on the train). What would a cheese retrospective look like? Would tasting be involved? Soft cheeses are usually young - can you have a retrospective of young cheese? Would there be cave replicas? Affineurs on display? A didactic interactive display of pasteurization and why it knocks the character out of cheese? Don't get me wrong - I love cheese. I just thought the idea of a cheese retrospective was something else.

Christmas Music

I have a sickness. I have 2.7 days worth of Christmas music in iTunes. More than 30 versions of Jingle Bells. 36 of Silent Night. 20 of O Holy Night. It goes on. The next door neighbor suggested that perhaps my husband needed a support group.

But there are others out there! Sweetney posted a whole holiday mix tape - she's my kind of girl.

Word of the Day: Absquatulate

Absquatulate is one of my favorite words. Every time I use it in conversation, I get a "huh?". It means, no joke, get up and squat elsewhere.

The only definition I found on the web was at Wordnet:

(v) abscond, bolt, absquatulate, decamp, run off, go off, make off (run away; usually includes taking something or somebody along) "The thief made off with our silver"; "the accountant absconded with the cash from the safe"

"Get up and squat elsewhere" is better, no?

Christmas Meme

I found this at Irish Goddess, and borrowed it for here.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
To drink while decorating? Sherry, preferably a nice amontillado.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa wraps, I wrap, Daddy wraps - we all wrap.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
Only white.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Nah. Where do you get it anyway?

5. When do you put up your decorations?
Well, the wreath is up and the tree is going up tomorrow.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Julia Child's Garlic Mashed Potatoes from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Maybe I'll post the recipe later.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Making endless numbers of cookies and decorating them with multiple colors of piped royal icing.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What do you mean?

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Never. And every year we pester my mother to let us do so.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
With white lights, and old glass bead chains, and glass ornaments - lots old, some new. I will reluctantly put some non-breakable ornaments on the tree as a concession to the 3 year old.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it Especially when there's a snow day.

12. Can you ice skate?
I haven't skated in years. I used to be able to do a waltz jump.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
My favorite gift ever was when my husband woke me up at about 2:00 in the morning on Valentine's Day to give me an iPod. I still love my Pod. I can fill it up with days worth of Christmas music.

14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Putting iTunes on random with the Christmas music.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
Julia Child's Apple Clafouti. Simple, delicious, and not too rich. And good for breakfast the next day if there are leftovers.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
The huge party at my mother's house every year on Christmas Eve. Of course, it's not happening this year - but we'll figure something out.

17. What tops your tree?
An antique blown glass tree-topper.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving. I like making lists, buying things, wrapping them, and watching people open stuff they didn't know they needed.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
It is not possible to answer this question. I do like Pavarotti singing O Holy Night with an Italian accent, though. And it's fun to belt out Jerusalem around the piano.

20. Candy Canes!
That's not a question.

Snowflakes

Cost of an IUI ~$3000.
Cost of a simple IVF ~$10,000.
Julie's Snowflakes = Priceless

Phenomenal Woman

Thanks to Mitali at The Fire Escape I got to re-read a favorite poem this morning. Maya Angelou was the speaker at my college graduation, nearly 25 years ago. She was (and is) wonderful - a force of nature and a great inspiration. And her phrase "Phenomenal Woman" - or more commonly amongst my fellow alumnae, "Phenomenal Women", so as to encompass the all of us - has become a catch-phrase, a slogan for the class.

PHENOMENAL WOMAN
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to suit a model's fashion size
But when I start to tell them
They think I'm telling lies.
I say
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please
And to a man
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees
Then they swarm around me
A hive of honey bees.
I say
It's the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth
The swing of my waist
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say
It's in the arch of my back
The sun of my smile
The ride of my breasts
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say
It's in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
The palm of my hand
The need for my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Searchers

Oh the Google searchers. Someone landed at my site having typed "Sharks Patrol By Cake" into the Google search engine. I love that.

Grammar

I wasn't very interested in the article, but I read every word of the sign in the accompanying photo. It's nice to see that Tyson's internal signage is so well grammar-checked.

[If the photo is too small to read the sign, it says "Don't Walk To Fast For Floor Conditions".]

Striped Socks and Starbucks

Or, alliteration is fun. Okay, I digress.

The other day, I asked Miss M. what she'd like to get Daddy for Christmas. She said "striped socks". Where that came from, I don't know. We're not a household of patterned socks; mine are usually black or white though I do have a few patterned ones, W's are usually black or another dark solid color, Miss M's are bold and pastel solid colors. So this afternoon, we walked into town to find some striped socks. Sure enough, at the somewhat twee clothing store in town, we found some. She picked the color, I paid, we left.

For further amusement, we went to Starbuck's for hot chocolate. Generally, I think Starbuck's is the evil empire. My pet peeve is that if you ask for a cup of coffee with milk - i.e. not a fancy latte or some such, just a plain old coffee with milk - You Have To Put The Milk In Yourself. I'm sorry, but that's not service. If you go in there with a little kid and a handful of shopping bags and an umbrella and and and...you can't do it. They should put the milk in your damned coffee.

Anyway, back to this afternoon: I asked the cashier for a small hot chocolate with a spare cup - figuring that I could split it and add a little milk to one to cool it down for Miss M. The cashier said, "we can put it in two cups for you". Okay. So we go to the end of the counter to wait for the cups, and the coffee maker lady (I can't bring myself to say "barista") hands over two full cups. Full. She didn't make one hot chocolate and pour half into a second cup - she gave us two. For the price of one. I was strangely moved by this - who'd have thought that Starbuck's was capable of such generosity?

Holiday Gift Guides

Wow, a lot of people are way more organized than me. I root around the net while wasting time at work, but I can't get it together to actually make lists with links of ideas of gifts to buy. But other people do and have! Cool Mom Picks has a bunch of interesting stuff, usefully organized by recipient. Miss Doxie has a hysterical list of things to buy and where to get them. Mighty Girl always has lots of great picks - I drool over her picks on a regular basis. And besides, it's December 1st and time to get cracking on your shopping if you haven't finished it already.