Hiring and Human Decency

I just completed a search to fill a soon-to-be-vacant position in my office. Yesterday, I sent out a round of emails to the unsuccessful candidates (both the ones we interviewed and the ones that didn't even get a phone call). I think it's really important to do so; we're a non-profit and you just never know where your next donation is coming from. Every little communication with the outside world is an opportunity to show us in the best light possible. Besides, I think anyone who takes the time to apply for a job deserves the courtesy of a reply.

Shortly after I sent those thanks-but-we-hired-someone-else emails, I got this reply:

Dear Ms. Musing:
Thank you for bringing me up-to-date on your Development Director search, and informing me of your decision; it showed a gracious (and, unfortunately, increasingly rare) respect for the time and effort job seekers invest in their search for meaningful employment. I wish you good luck with your new Development Director, and continued success for [Organization that I work for].
Yours,
Candidate Who I didn't Even Interview

I find it really sad and disheartening that most places just don't bother to respond to their candidate applicants. I know that my little gesture is Sisyphian, but I have to do it anyway.

Just Post(s)

I submitted my Kristof Led Donations post to the roundup of March Just Posts, which has just been posted. Go check out some of the others.

Greedy Greedy

As I was loading Miss M. into the car the other day, with a container of raisins in one hand and a piece of matzo in the other, she said to me “I have two snacks. One for me, and one for me.”

Gramercy Park

For some months when my small child was tiny (like 4-8 months old), she came to work with me every day. I had a babysitter meet me in the office and take her for 4 hours. They'd putter around the Gramercy Park/Madison Park/Union Square area, shopping, eating, playgrounding - or they'd hang around the office, and check out the kids in their ballet classes. One day, the babysitter said she'd been to Gramercy Park - a nearby but private park. I said, "how did you get in"? She said, "oh, I just asked one of the doormen for a key". I was dumbfounded and awestruck. Such gall. She was a great nanny, that Norma.

Dear Easter Bunny

Dear Easter Bunny,
You are qute. Your present is the carrot.
Love
Maggie,
See you next year.

Hey - I could type when I was nine! But my spelling was rather, um, qute?

Poetry Friday: Politically Correct Nursery Rhymes

Will wonders never cease - nursery rhymes are now catch and release?

The other day, Miss M. woke us up to recite a nursery rhyme that she'd learned at school:

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let him go again.
Which litte finger did he bite?
This little finger on the right.

I'd never heard this one before, so I googled it and found a bunch of versions. Interestingly, all the other versions had 8 lines - Miss M. managed to leave two out, but it still scans okay. Furthermore, in her version, it seems to imply that the fish bit the finger in lieu of a hook, like noodling for catfish, instead of the biting of the finger being the reason to release the fish.

The Interview

So I volunteered, to Mayberry Mom, to be “interviewed”. Here goes!

1. Tell us your best "only in New York" story.

Once upon a time, I had a Ford Fiesta. I got it new in 1980, when I was in college, and we had it until 1997 when it really started to give up the ghost. It lived on the streets of NYC for a long time (note the dents), and it was a wonderful car in the city – tiny (and therefore easy to park) and unassuming looking (and therefore not desirable to steal).

One day in the late 80s, W. (then boyfriend, now husband) told me that the muffler was about to fall off. I merrily drove to work in Brooklyn. On the way home, I offered a lift to a friend who lived in the West Village. To get to the West Village from Brooklyn involved a drive up Hudson Street, which was then still cobblestoned. Sure enough, those bumpy cobblestones knocked the loose muffler off, and it dropped in such a way that it was stabbing into the street – no further forward progress was possible. I got out of the car, looked underneath, and stood up scratching my head. What next?

With that, out of a manhole nearby emerged a ConEd worker. “What seems to be the problem?” “Well, my muffler’s fallen off.” “No problem.” With that, he disappeared into his truck, reappeared with stainless steel baling wire, dove under the car, and wired the muffler in place with his heat-proof gloves. It wasn’t fixed-fixed, but it was enough to get me home. I don’t even remember giving him a tip – but I should have.

2. What is your favorite cookbook?

Tough question. I have rather a lot of cookbooks. My current favorite is one I found via 101 Cookbooks - it’s called “Falling Cloudberries”, by Tessa Kiros. It’s gorgeous, and beautifully written, with lots of context for the recipes, and it’s full of things I want to try.

The runner-up would be nearly anything by Julia Child.

3. What toy of your daughter's do you play with while she's asleep, or otherwise secretly covet?

I haven’t found myself actually PLAYING with any of her toys, but I love Grey Elephant. I can’t remember who gave this elephant to her, but he’s been everywhere, including to California where he spent the night in a fig tree. He’s wearing a dress that my mother made when she was a child in the 40s – wait, maybe that means he’s a girl?

4. How did you choose your child's name (if you can answer without revealing more than you'd like)? What, if any, were the ones that got away -- the boy names, or the ones that your partner vetoed?

We never bothered to discuss boy’s names, because we knew she was a girl - I’d had a CVS. We started some lists, which included things simple (Anne), outré (Elektra), family (Elizabeth), and Shakespearean (Rosalind, Isabella, Portia*, Miranda). As it happens, Miranda kept showing up on the list – three times according to the lists I kept. And so she became Miranda. Curiously, neither of us gave any thought to the Miranda Warning, or to Carmen Miranda – it was all about the Bard.

*We couldn’t call her Portia – people would have thought we’d named her after the car.

5. Describe (or photograph) a piece of art or other treasured object in your home and tell us why it's special.

I gave this painting to W. for Christmas one year. He opened it and said “I almost got you that!” – clearly showing, once again, that we’re on the same wavelength. It’s called “Mama’s Cat Can Do No Wrong”, and it’s by a self-taught artist named Sarah Rakes. I got it in a little Madison Avenue gallery that specializes in folk art and outsider art. The gallery was walking distance from our NYC apartment, so we’d wander in from time to time when we were out for a wander in the neighborhood. The painting’s not as cock-eyed as it looks in the photo – but I couldn’t photograph it head-on because of the glare (maybe if I were a cleverer photographer with a better camera). I love that the cat is sort of demonic looking, and I love the painted frame.

Are you up to being interviewed? Let me know and I'll make up some questions! And thanks, Mayberry Mom, for pushing me off on all these tangents!

Writing about Beans

This week's New Yorker has a piece by Adam Gopnik on "Real Food from Fictional Recipes". Lots of the "recipes" found in novels aren't really presented as such, but there's often enough there to figure out how to prepare the dish in question. But he turns the whole thing on its head in a beautiful passage on beans and writing, and the relationship therein.

The beans alone establish Spenser’s credibility as a cook. “I shelled the beans from their long, red-and-cream pods and dropped them in boiling water and turned down the heat and let them simmer,” he tells us. A devotion to shell beans, I have noticed, divides even amateur cooks from non-cooks more absolutely than any other food, and they are, into the bargain, a perfect model of writing. Like sentences, shell beans are a great deal more trouble to produce than anyone who isn’t producing them knows. You have to shell the beans, slipping open the pods with your thumbnail and then tugging the beautiful little prismatic buttons from their moorings—a process that, like writing, always takes much longer than you think it will. And then even the best shell beans, cleaned and simmered, are like sentences in that nobody actually appreciates them as much as they deserve to be appreciated. Shell beans are several steps more delicious, lighter and finer, than dried beans, much less canned beans; but the sad truth is that nobody really cares beans about beans, and not many eaters can tell the fresh kind from the dried, or even the canned.

And you know what? Gopnik's right. Writing is hard, and fresh shell beans are a great pleasure. Come August or September, chase some of those fresh cranberry beans down at your local farmer's market, shell them, boil them in a little water for about 10 minutes, drain, and toss with kosher salt and good olive oil. Sublime.

Recovering

The great not-so-secret pleasure of recovering from abdominal surgery is the freedom to laze about and accomplish little of consequence, all in the guise of illness. I had the day to myself today, without husband or child, and took to my bed with the laptop, some books, some magazines, a stack of gardening catalogs and two telephones. I did actually do a spot of work (internet access to my office lets me pretend to be working and assuages the guilt). And I made some phone calls (follow-up with the surgeon, complaint to the insurance company, job offer to a prospective employee). But mostly, I napped and read and poked around the internet. Don't get me wrong - I'm staggeringly tired and still quite sore - but a reclining position does wonders for both of those afflictions.

Kristof Led Donations

I've just realized that, thus far this year, most of my charitable giving has been either very close to home (my kid's daycare, the non-profit I work for), or prompted by a Times column written by Nick Kristof.

At the end of February, he had a heartrending column about a childbirth injury called obstetric fistula (sorry, Times Select). I promptly sent small gifts to the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia (video link), and to the Edna Hospital in Somalia (video link). I hope that others did too.

Last week, he had a column about microfinance, with a spotlight on a small organization that matchmakes little loans. In just a few minutes, I used my Paypal account to send a $25 loan to a woman in Kenya with a small general store. My $25 was the last of the money she'd requested; I hope that it helps her to accomplish the goals she's set out.

Depending on what Kristof decides to write about next, I could be broke by the end of the year!




Note: The Kiva widget above doesn't show the person that I lent money to - since she's now fully funded, the Kiva widget will rotate amongst others seeking funds.

Sludge, but no Stones

My gall bladder is no longer with us. In its place are four little holes and some significant pain across the middle of my belly. But the very nice nurses provided lots of Dilaudid in the recovery room, and I went home with script for Percocet.

It turned out that, contrary to what the radiologist had said, there were no gallstones, just a bunch of sludge. So, my mother was disappointed because we can't compare stones (she has a baby food jar full of the stones from her gall bladder removal in 1969), and W. is disappointed because he doesn't get cufflinks made from my gallstones. Oh well.

Everyone at the little local hospital was very nice, although the anesthesiologist was humorless. I think he would not have been amused had we been blasting "I Wanna Be Sedated" as we had been when the anesthesiologist came to put in the epidural when I was in labor with Miss M.

One odd little flashback happened in the elevator - among other signage was a listing for the Cornell Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility. I didn't realize that they had an outpost at my little local hospital.

3 + 1: A Hodgepodge

Three = the number of nights Miss M. has slept in undiepants! Three nights ago, she announced "I'm not going to wear diapers anymore, I'm going to sleep in undiepants". And that was that. She's been day trained for months, and pretty much night trained - although she was sleeping in a diaper, it was nearly always dry. But every time I'd suggested ditching the night diaper, she'd resisted. I kept suggesting, gently, and I guess it sank in. I'm so happy to never have to buy diapers again!!!

One = the number of cholecystectomies allowed per my insurance company's authorization for surgery. That's a good thing, since I only have one gall bladder. By this afternoon, I will have no gall bladder.

This Woman Needs An Isis

Today's Times had a heartbreaking little AP story:

A severed leg washed up yesterday on the Long Island Sound estate of James L. Dolan, the billionaire chairman of Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, the police said, speculating that the limb was linked to a torso discovered in a suitcase three weeks ago on a Westchester County beach. The police were also investigating whether a leg and foot discovered by a fisherman on Tuesday night in Cold Spring Harbor were also related to the Westchester County remains. The legs were found a little more than three weeks after a suitcase with a torso inside floated onto the beach in Mamaroneck. The police say the victim was a Hispanic or black woman, 5 foot 6 at most, weighing 180 to 200 pounds, with a tattoo of two red cherries on a green stem above her right breast.

I was partially struck by the pathos, and whimsy, in the detail of the tattoo. But I was also struck by the body parts scattered hither and yon around Long Island Sound. My boss has been cogitating a ballet on the myth of Isis, who had to collect her murdered brother's body parts from whence they had been dispersed. I thought, this poor woman needs an Isis to put her back together again, so that she may rest in peace.

Names

Not only did I not change my name when I got married - after all, it's been mine for a very long time (and we got married when I was 34) and I don't believe all that patriarchal shit and yes you can poke holes in my argument given that it was my father's name - but our one and only pre-nuptial agreement was that if we had children, boys would get his name and girls would get mine. Hence, our only child, a girl, Miss M., has my last name. The clerk at the hospital who was typing up the birth certificate actually called my room to ask me if that was really what I wanted. If everyone did what we did, that patronymic thing would be history.

I just needed to say that.

I rarely run into issues with this, but recently we were at the neighbors' house for dinner, and I was referred to at one point as "Mrs. HisLastName". They are a family that thinks that kids should speak to grownups formally, that is, no first names. I'm generally pretty indifferent to, if not actually against, honorifics like "Mrs.", but I'm not going to step on someone's toes about it. But there I was, having to explain that I didn't use W.'s last name, and it was curiously awkward because we don't know them all that well - they moved in about six months ago, and we've not spent a lot of social time together. I can't quite identify the awkwardness, but it may stem from the fact that they are right-leaning churchgoers. But why on earth would I care about being judged by right-leaning churchgoers?

Lurex and Crystals

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the subway heading down to jury duty, when a man caught my eye. He was an ordinary looking older guy, probably in his 60s, wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and an orange tie, black dress shoes, a trench coat and a fedora. But the part that I couldn't stop glancing at? Around his neck he wore a dark fuchsia chenille scarf with lurex sparkles woven through it. Something a girly girl would wear. And I think he was a lawyer. He got off at the same stop that I did, and preceded me up the street to the courthouse, where he went through security a few steps ahead of me. I almost got off the elevator with him, to see where he was going. But I headed off to my own courtroom instead.

And today, I saw another guy; also older, also soberly dressed. This one was wearing glasses. Ordinary looking glasses. With a string around his neck, one of those glasses keepers. But it was covered in mauve crystal beads. Again, girly girl.

I think maybe they're both cross-dressers in private, but they like a little bling in their daily lives, to remind themselves of their other selves.

Anyone for dessert?

Herewith, a thing of great beauty, the Periodic Table of Dessert.

David Eyre's Pancake, Redux

I feel so prescient. Just over a week ago, I posted about a childhood favorite recipe, David Eyre's Pancake. Today, Amanda Hesser has it in the New York Times Magazine, Recipe Redux, with this comment:

Forty years later, readers are still making that pancake (with less butter but no less bliss). It appears on a dozen blogs, embellished with family stories and photos and new-and-improved versions of the recipe.

You think she's talking about me?

An Eccentric Grocery List

The other day, I looked at the grocery list by the back door and noticed that the only two items on the list were garlic and tonic. I said to W., "we need more groceries ending in IC". He said aspic. We put out the call for more. Here’s what we’ve got so far, thanks to wordy family members:

Garlic
Tonic
Aspic
Picnic ham
Ethnic food
Alcoholic beverages
Turmeric
Boric acid
Acetic acid
Gum arabic
Vlasic pickles
Balsamic vinegar
Arsenic

And one piece of "cooking" equipment: alembic

And someone noted: “If you eat too much garlic, aspic and tonic, you might need a colonic. Or an emetic.”

Got any more?

Bad Poetry Friday

I took a lot of notes while I was on jury duty. Most of those notes were stuff about the trial as it was going on. But in the interstices, like during the frequent sidebars at the bench or the fiddling with the AV equipment, I jotted down observances, homonyms, grocery lists, and the following two lines:

My daughter has a uniform.
She wears it every day.

I thought "it's the start of a poem"! So I gave to W., a once-upon-a-time poet, and said "finish this". Without batting an eyelash, he spouted out:

My daughter has a uniform.
She wears it every day.
This is lousy doggerel,
What else can I say?

I was impressed with the speed of his inanity.

Oh, and the kid? She does have a uniform. She wears the same denim overall dress day in and day out, including to bed. Yeah, she changes her shirt and tights/leggings, or her pajamas. But the dress? The dress is a constant. It's all I can do to get it off to be washed occasionally.

I think therefore I blog? Or is it, I blog therefore I think?

I am pleased and flattered that Eva of Antropologa chose me for the Thinking Blog award.

And the award means that I need to pass the baton to five others, five other bloggers who make me think. I scratched my head about this for a while, and decided that the appropriate choices were bloggers who let me into their worlds so that I can think about living a life not mine. They offer a window through which I can daydream.

I'm never going to be a pastry chef like Eggbeater, even though I love to bake and made my own wedding cake. I certainly won't ever be a NICU doctor like Neonatal Doc, but I like reading about medical issues and I once set foot in a NICU (when my sister's Tiny was born, healthy but early and little). And I'm not going to be a stay-at-home-dad (wrong gender!) to three kids, two of whom are twins (I'm too old!), but Looky, Daddy is and writes about it with humor and insight. While I love books and have a little kid, I'm not a children's librarian, but Mother Reader is and gives me a peek at a whole world of kids literature (and other kid-lit bloggers) and lots of ideas for my Amazon wishlist. To round things out is PinkNest - a young woman who's eating her way through Manhattan with gusto and great photos - and reminds me that it's fun to go out to dinner all the time (but I have that pesky 3 year old and no longer live in Manhattan).

Unmitigated Gall

As of next Friday, I will have unmitigated gall. That is, my gall will no longer be mitigated on its progress from my liver to my intestines, as the mitigating gall bladder will have been removed.

I had a sonogram yesterday. Besides confirming that I have stones and sludge, the radiologist told me that I have a "phyrigian cap" - an anatomical variant of my gall bladder. See that nice Greek bust? He has a Phrygian cap too.

Grandmother

The other day, I told Miss M. that she'd be going over to see her grandmother. She said "I don't have a grandmother, she's my grandma. Grandmothers have long sandy hair." Um, okay. We're not quite sure where that one came from.

Pasta with Salad and Sausage

Thanks to Midlife Mama, I stumbled on a really good, really simple, recipe last week - which we had for dinner last night. It's basically a green salad, generously dressed with olive oil and lemon juice, and tossed with sausage and hot pasta. Yes, the greens wilt some, but not completely, though I suspect the greens would make for nasty leftovers.

The recipe is originally from Epicurious; I tweaked it a little:

Pasta with Salad and Sausage
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
salt
pepper
1 pound sausage*
About 12 cups of loosely packed greens (a salad's worth)**
1 pound pasta***
Parmesan cheese, shaved into strips

1. Whisk oil, lemon juice and garlic in small bowl to blend. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
2. Cook sausages over medium heat until browned and cooked through, turning frequently, about 20 minutes. Using tongs, transfer sausages to paper towels and drain; cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Combine sausage rounds and greens in large bowl.
3. Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain well.
4. Add hot pasta to bowl with sausage rounds and greens; toss until greens begin to wilt. Mix in dressing to coat. Divide pasta among bowls. Top with cheese and serve.

* I used a chicken sausage that was in the freezer, but sweet or hot Italian would work too.
** I used half romaine and half arugula, both of which stood up to the heat of the pasta well - other greens, like spinach or leaf lettuce, would be fine too, but would wilt more.
*** The recipe called for spaghetti, but next time, I'll use a short pasta like rotini or wheels - I hate eating spaghetti!

I set aside a handful of slices of the cooked sausage, and a portion of the cooked plain pasta. Miss M. had the sausage alongside pasta with butter and parmesan for dinner.

I Hate Double Pointed Needles

But I finished another hat. It's a good thing that the yarn is SO fuzzy; I think the top is riddled with errors. The knitting kept falling off the DPNs as I was trying to decrease. I think I picked it all up, but who knows. Fuzz hides all sins. Fuzz also makes ripping out nearly impossible, so I just plowed ahead, sins be damned.

I've got another hat nearly done, but it's time to switch to the DPNs, and so I am procrastinating.

Barbie and Bratz and My Baby Girl

Judith Warner often makes me nuts, but her column today was spot on (sorry, it's Times Select). I worry about the daughter that we are raising in a very upscale materialistic town, and I hope that we'll be able to do right by her and counter some of those outside influences towards "Bling-Bling Barbies and pouty-lipped Bratz". It's already a struggle against the Disney princesses, and I suspect it will only get worse. But I have my fingers crossed. Today she told us "I like dumptrucks".

David Eyre's Pancake

David Eyre's Pancake was a staple weekend breakfast when I was a kid, and it continues to be. It was one of the first things that I taught W. to make. My sister recently confessed that she'd made three of them for dinner one night when her husband wasn't home - one for her and one for each of her two bigger children - so she wouldn't have to share!

It's a great recipe. I usually skip the sugar/lemon finish and just eat it with jam. W. likes to eat his with maple syrup - he seems to think that all "pancakes" need syrup. The recipe also scales up to 3 eggs or down to 1 pretty well – pick an appropriately sized pan, and just keep the proportions to 1 egg + 1/4 c flour + 1/4 cup milk.

Josh Friedland wrote about it in The Food Section awhile ago. He's got some comments from Claiborne about the pancake and the original article, and his own nostalgia about growing up eating it.

In essence, it's yorkshire pudding without the beef drippings (and the roast beef!).

Needless Nursing Nonsense

Thanks to the Gurgling Cod, I learned about a sublimely ridiculous new "necessity" for a nursing mother: Milk Bands. Words fail me. I suppose I was in an exhausted haze during those early days with Miss M., but it wasn't tricky to remember things like when the baby last nursed and which side. But having to deal with another little thing, like flipping over a bracelet and moving pegs around like a game of cribbage? Nope. Maybe it would be a good thing for some Type A Sanctimommy, but not me.

Per Se Another Day

So instead of going to Per Se for dinner tonight, I am going to see a surgeon in a little while to discuss the removal of my gall bladder. Under the circumstances, a rich foie gras and butter laced dinner seemed like a bad idea.

I've known that I have a bad gall bladder since I was pregnant. But it has been largely quiescent since then, until a month or so ago. In the past few weeks, I've had a couple of nasty acute attacks, the most recent of which involved fainting from the pain. So it's time to address the problem.

I had a bad gall bladder attack when I was 21w pregnant - it was the first time my gall bladder had acted up. I landed in the hospital (on the L&D floor) for several days. They sent me down to the hospital radiology department for a sonogram of my gall bladder. The doctor doing it asked if some college students who were interning could watch - I said, sure, if you give me a picture of the baby. So after he was done with the real work of looking at my diseased bits, he did a recreational scan of my baby. It was great. And the students were tickled. Especially because he said they got very few pregnant women in there at all (OB scans were done elsewhere by the maternal/fetal people). And after all that, HE FORGOT THE PICTURES! Argh.

Books Books Books - A Meme

Here's a book meme I came across at Awesome Mom. I enjoyed the chance to think about books this way. Interestingly though, it kind of misses the point in some ways, in that I don't think it really gets at what kind of books I do read and keep and love.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? Depends. Hardcover if I want to keep it. Hardcover for cookbooks. Trade paperback if I'm buying it. But mass market paperback - never! They are too small, and generally things published in that format aren't things I want to read.

Amazon or brick and mortar? Amazon or half.com or addall.com or Paperback Swap or the public library. Though sometimes I buy books at a store - like Books of Wonder, which is a great kids bookstore near my office in the city, or the independent bookstore in my town.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Barnes & Noble is closer to the office, but usually neither - I buy online or go to the library.

Bookmark or dog ear? Bookmark. And I don't write in my books either.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? Alpha by author for fiction. Otherwise, shelved by category. Of course, right now, the lion's share of our books are still in boxes in the cellar, even the dictionary. Luckily the cookbooks are accessible.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Depends. Do I want to keep it? Otherwise, sell or give away or list on Paperback Swap. I find it unseemly to even think about throwing books away.

Keep dust jacket or toss it? Keep.

Read with dust jacket or remove it? Read without, replace when done. And a rant: why do little kid's books have dust jackets? They just get torn or misplaced. I've taken to removing the dust jackets from my daughter's books and stuffing them in a box before they even make it to her room. I just don't see the point of dust jackets on kid's books, especially when the cover is redundantly printed with the same illustration/text as the dust jacket!

Short story or novel? Yes. Or non-fiction.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? Collection. Anthologies seem too ongepotchket for me.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Well, I've never read Lemony Snicket, and I did read the first three Harry Potter books in a weekend, so, Harry it is.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? Tired. Or it's time to get off the train.

Buy or Borrow? Both. Either. Depends. I love the library, and I can reserve books and they call me when they come in. Paperback Swap is almost like the library. But I buy too, especially for things I want for a while or forever. Like cookbooks. And Ferber and Weissbluth. Though I've turned those last two over to my sister, who needs them more than we do right now.

New or used? Either. If I'm buying, probably used because I'm cheap. Or thrifty. Or both.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? All of the above.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? Tidy ending.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? On the train on the way home from work, and before turning out the light at night.

Stand-alone or series? Stand-alone, though I did like reading those first three Harry Potter's all in a row!

Favorite children's book? The Phantom Tollbooth. I can't wait 'til my daughter is ready for it.

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard? Mistress Masham's Repose. Wait, maybe that's my favorite children's book!

Favorite books read last year? I haven't any idea. So far this year? Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Favorite books of all time? Wow. I don't know. Most of my books are still in the aforementioned boxes from when we moved two and a half years ago, so I can't even peruse the bookshelves and find a favorite.

Least favorite book you finished last year? I found Snow to be an awful slog. While it had moments of grace and lucidity and humor, it just didn't hang together for me.

What are you reading right now? See my Library Thing sidebar!

What are you reading next? Two things from the next pile: An Episode of Sparrows and Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford.

Lux Redux

Today's Times has a column* about the Poetry In Motion project, mostly because it's the 100th anniversary of Auden's birth this year, and so he will get a subway poster, soon.

The end of the column touches on Thomas Lux, who'd written the poem I posted last week. As you might expect, he wrote the poem following the birth of his daughter, who's now 19.

Until she noticed the poem while riding the subway and told him about it, he didn’t know he had been chosen.

Don’t take everything about it literally, Mr. Lux said. “Only some of that stuff came true — about cretins and dolts and sweet talkers on their way to jail,” he said.

Just give her time, we said unhelpfully.

“Yeah,” Mr. Lux said with a laugh, “give her time.”

Sweet.








*It's in Times Select, so you may or may not be able to access the whole thing.

The Sunday Adventure

Today's whimsy was a trip to Wingdale for barbecue. Big W's had been on the list of road food places to eat in the general vicinity, and got bumped up because they got another mention in the Times the other day, so today we headed north for some meat. Smoked meat. Lovely falling off the bone smoked meat. And sides of beans (full of porky goodness), rice, macaroni and cheese, and a nice coleslaw palate cleanser. And leftovers. We got a half chicken and a pulled pork sandwich for there, and some ribs and brisket to take home. Yum.

We went north to go south to get home, which took us through Millbrook and past an amazing falling down abandoned school. Truly astonishing building, beautiful in its desuetude. We didn't take any pictures, but I found some online, including the whole series in the link. And the website in that link is fascinating - it's a whole mess of photography of abandoned buildings, mostly institutions, like defunct mental hospitals.

Daylight Three Card Monte

What is this nonsense about moving Daylight Savings Time around? We'll still get the same number of hours of daylight - that's never going to change - but now we'll be getting up in the DARK again. Who needs that? And how does it save energy? People have to turn on lights in the morning instead of the evening - same lights, same energy use. And they'll likely use more gas, as they head out in the evening to do some retail shopping.

For more grousing, see what she said.

And for yet more, see this interview with Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time, which title pretty much sums it up.

Poetry Friday

I saw this on the subway yesterday. It broke my heart a little; someday my daughter will grow up too.

A Little Tooth
by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.

From New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995, published by Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Lux. All rights reserved.

Thursday Thirteen Things

I got tagged for that "six things" meme, but some how it turned into more, so now it's Thirteen things about me, for Thursday Thirteen:

1. I was about 40 when I had my first professional haircut.
2. I have an MA in ethnomusicology.
3. I don’t eat fish, with the exception of mussels.
4. I can’t remember the last time I wore make-up.
5. I nursed my daughter until the night before she turned 3.
6. I can’t go to sleep unless the closet door is shut.
7. I have my grandfather’s bladder stone in a baby food jar in my desk drawer.
8. I cross my sevens.
9. I can’t wear sunglasses on top of my head; my head is the wrong shape.
10. I think mushrooms taste like dirt.
11. I prefer aspirin to acetaminophen, but I think neither really helps a headache.
12. I make my own granola.
13. I drive a stick shift.

Free At Last

Me, that is, as jury duty is over. The defendant? We found him guilty.

The trial was interesting - white collar criminal case in Federal court - a Russian diplomat at the UN accused of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The US Attorneys were terrific, the star witness was excellent on the stand, the defense counsel were obfuscating bumblers, and the sole witness for the defense did far more harm than good. The judge was also wonderful - focused, smart, prepared, and on the ball.

The whole thing lasted 4 and a half days. Opening statements and the prosecution took the first three days, the defense and the closing statements took day four, and the judge's charge to the jury and the subsequent deliberations took the last half day. Actually, the judge's charge took 50 minutes, as she read and read and read her instructions to us, along with the definitions of the crimes and the relevant pieces of the law. And the deliberations? There was no discussion. It was almost shocking. The foreman took us through a series of questions, everyone said yes yes yes, and we were done. There was more discussion AFTER we reached the verdict than before.

So, done.

Notes to Self

This is funny. It's a secret list of hiding places I had in my room. The small piece of paper lived folded up inside a wooden Camembert box that was pinned on the bulletin board through its bottom so that the top was still removable. The lady in red is still kicking around. She's a doll wearing an elaborate flamenco dress, and had been my mother's - so she's probably from the 40s. Today, I don't think I could make such a concise guide to my "stuff".

Accuracy At All Times

"Accuracy at all times" is one of those catch-phrases in our house - you use it when you correct someone else's grammar, or usage, or pronunciation, or such like, to deflect the irritation of the correction.

Miss M. is showing signs of being a stickler. We have a nice little copy of Five Little Monkeys by Eileen Christelow, which we read at bedtime a lot. Monkey #3 takes her tumble, and Miss M. now says "not her head, her CHIN". Yup, the illustration has the monkey landing on her chin. I may have to take a Sharpie to the book. In the meantime, I've just done a crude Photoshop edit.

New Pink Shoes

Spam Headers We Don't Like

Irritatingly, I've been getting more and more spam at home. I'm used to getting 50-100 a day in the office, but it is frustrating at home, and all the more so when the subject line reads "jumble embryo". It offends the sensibility of an infertile woman.

How to Cook Bacon

This looks like a third grade science essay - how matter changes with temperature. But bacon! Toast! Melted butter! Toast for breakfast was an illicit treat, at least on school days. Normally, we had cold cereal for breakfast, with brown sugar. We only got toast if everyone was running late.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

For Dr. Seuss's birthday, Mother Reader offers this up:

If you haven’t heard it yet, you may want to try out Dylan Hears A Who for a bit of the surreal in your life.

It rather made my day.

Wallowing in Self Pity

Strep Throat.

Amoxicillin.

Rest.

The Wheels of Justice Have A Flat Tire

I woke up sick this morning, running a fever and with a wretched sore throat. I called the Courtroom Deputy* at 7:30 and told him that I had a temperature of 101°. He told me to make a cup of tea and he'd call me right back. Twenty minutes later, he called and told me that the trial had been postponed for two days, and that I should report back on Monday. Single-handedly, I have stopped the wheels of justice. Huh.






* the man in charge of the care and feeding of the jury - and yes, feeding includes bagels.

More Hanukah

ONe day last week, I took Miss M. to work with me. She brought her harmonica, and played it in the office. But she calls it her "more hanukah". I love that. We're not even Jewish.

But seriously, why do toddlers get syllables out of order like that? She does it with some other words as well - of course I can't think of any at the moment.

Oh Joy, Oh Jury Duty!

I got called to jury duty...starting today. Federal jury duty. In Manhattan. And, by 3:00, I was on a case. They say that it will only last a week or so.

I've been called before, but only for the state, and never before did I get past the voir dire.

But, I have to say, the feds treat you better, and their courthouse and courtrooms are way swankier than any state courts I ever saw. The building is relatively new, and rather dull architecturally, but has great views! It's a slim tower with not many peers, and the court room, the jury room, even the hallways, look out over Manhattan.

To the north is a City park: Columbus Park. From the air, I could see footsteps in the snow, and someone had drawn Chinese characters in the snow in the park. And elsewhere, the snow had been colored pink - almost like with spraypaint, it was so diffuse. So curious.

The voir dire was entertaining - I wanted to play matchmaker: 3 musicians, a handful of nurses, some computer guys, a couple of school teachers. It's funny how such a weird mixed bag of people ends up with so many strands of communality.

Snowstorm, February 1969

Since they are predicting snow for tonight, it seemed appropriate to post this little thing - an essay I wrote in 1969 when I was in the third grade. My mother had to have her gall bladder out, and we children were sent off to stay at my grandparent's house for a couple of days. We got stuck there when a huge snowstorm hit, and my mother ended up staying in the hospital an extra day because my father couldn't drive over there to pick her up.

On a whim, I googled to see if I could find any references to that big snowstorm. Lo and behold, it turns out to have been the snowstorm that did John Lindsay in:

February 9, 1969 -
The so-called "Lindsay storm" pounded the northeast. Bedford, Massachusetts recorded 25 inches of snow, New York City had 20 inches, and Portland, Maine ended up with 22 inches. The storm got its name from New York Mayor John Lindsay who ran into political misfortune after sections of New York city remained unplowed for a week after the storm.

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.