Preparing for Winter

Now that it's September and there's a coolness to the air, W. has been in full on preparation for winter. By the end of the day, he'll have been through a bushel of tomatoes (half beefsteak, half plum), and made slow roasted tomatoes, tomato puree, and a vat of pomorola sauce. It's all going in the freezer, and will be gone by the time summer is here again. This red onion was so strange and beautiful inside that I almost wanted to use it as a rubber stamp.

The roasted tomatoes get a sprinkle of dried herbs, salt, and pepper and a tiny drizzle of olive oil, and go in the oven for a couple of hours at about 225°. They dry out a little and collapse a bit. We'll then freeze them on the sheet pans, and transfer them to bags when they're fully hard.

The sauce is just tomato, red onion, garlic, basil, carrot, celery and a glug of olive oil. Nothing is sauteed; it's just all cooked down at once, and then run through the food mill. It's fine over pasta as is, or can be the base for something more complicated. I don't know how big that stock pot is, but yes, that is a lot of sauce. It wasn't cooked in that pot...it was done in three smaller batches and then combined to cool before being divided up into freezer containers.

The ABCs of Suburban Real Estate

Asphalt bespoils countryside.
Deer eat forsythia.
Grass, hedges, insects join knotweed.
Lo, McMansion needs one patio.
Quality Realtor says to utilize visual wiles.
Xeriscape yard.
Zoysia!

It's really terrible, especially in light of the wonderous ones produced by Slouching Mom and Niobe.

But it amused me no end.

I am easily amused?

Making Books

My sister-in-law sent along this link to a new blog at the San Francisco Center for the Book. It's just begun, but it's got some great ideas for making books with kids. So, it's my public service announcement for the day, and for the beginning of the new school year. Enjoy!

YouTube in the Office

Miss M.'s daycare is closed today, so the staff can make the changeover and be ready for the kids to move into their new classrooms on Tuesday. So she's in the office with me. (I felt guilty about taking the day off, because the auditors are here, and besides, she loves the adventure of taking the train to NYC.) And because she's a creature of habit (oh right, she's 3 and 3/4), she asked to watch ballerinas on my computer, because we'd done so the last time she was here. So, since I had Nureyev on the brain, as a result of all the press about the documentary that aired on PBS this week, I did a search on YouTube for stuff with Nureyev in it. And what to my wondering eyes did I find but Rudy dancing with Miss Piggy.

Miss M's critical verdict? Pigs don’t dance with people.

CSA Week 13 - Vegetables with a Smile

The other day, while meandering about blogland, I found a smiley face made out of vegetables at Thyme For Cooking, with the instruction to pass it along. So when I got my vegetables home yesterday, I made a face while I catalogued the haul.

• String Beans
• Corn (4 ears)
• Mustard Greens
• Potatoes (3 big red ones)
• Small Tomatoes (1 pint)
• Medium Tomatoes (1 quart)
• Red Italia Peppers (5)
• Cucumber (1)
• Garlic (1 head)
• Red Onion (1)
• Salad Mix
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Parsley
• Arugula

This is the first week without swiss chard in a long time. It's also the first time we've gotten either potatoes or mustard greens. And, unlike some other people, we're not overwhelmed with tomatoes. In fact, we're still buying extras on the weekend, because August is really all about tomatoes. I'd kind of like to be overwhelmed. We could fill the freezer with tomato sauce and roasted tomatoes, and eat well all winter.


P.S. Want to see some more vegetable smiley faces? Here's a whole slide show!

Daycare

This morning, I dropped Miss M. off at daycare and found her teacher in the kitchen removing all of the Mr. Potato Head pieces from the commercial dishwasher. It was a beautiful moment.

I don't know, maybe it's the lefty-commie-pinko in me, but I think daycare is a great thing. When Miss M. was first born, we were still living in Manhattan. I looked for a daycare in Manhattan, only to find that 1) there weren't any and 2) they had interminable waiting lists. I called an agency who sent me a list of all the daycare centers in Manhattan - it was one page long. One. I toured a really nice center near my office, great vibe, good recommendations. They had an 18 month long waiting list. And they started at 3 months. Let's see, that means you need to get on the list six months BEFORE conception.

There's an article about this NYC daycare problem in the September issue of Time Out New York Kids. In part, there are so few daycare centers because of the space issue - space is limited and real estate is expensive. Still, it's shocking to realize that in a city with more than 200,000 preschool-aged children, there are center based daycare slots for only 56% of the kids. And keep in mind that these are citywide numbers - I'm sure that if it were broken down by borough, there would be slots for way fewer than 56% of the kids in Manhattan.

So, because daycare was impossible back then, we ended up with a wonderful babysitter. Oh, okay, nanny - though I rather dislike that word. And then we moved out of the city and got another babysitter, until Miss M. was old enough for daycare. And it's a wonderful place.

I've written about her daycare center before, but I've been thinking about it again - partly because of Julie's Hump Day Hmm, and partly because it's transition time. Just like in big school, the kids move from one room to another in September. So Miss M. is about to move up to the oldest group - the group of kids who'll go to kindergarten in September of 2008. And, just like last year, she's nervous. "I don't want to be a C. I want to stay a B and teach the rules to all the new Bs." And she's having some transitional stress - more tantrums, more sleeping problems, more coming home and saying "S. isn't my friend anymore" (baloney) and "all the kids always blame me" (nonsense). But she's going to be fine. The new classroom is across the hall from the old one; and both of those groups share a bathroom and a playground. And the other day, the new teacher whispered to me "I've got her - look at the dress". And there she was, twirling around in all her glory, wearing a ratty, flouncy black nylon full slip from about 1965 - in pig heaven in her little black dress.

From now on, all I have to do to get her out of the house in the morning is remind her about the black dress.

I know that we've been incredibly lucky. It's a free-standing (i.e. not chain) non-profit daycare, Montessori-based, with smart and caring staff members, and (mostly) enlightened parents. They have a full time cook - which is, to me, a two-pronged benefit: I don't have to pack lunch and snack every day, and the teachers don't have to figure out which lunch belongs to whom. And the food is good - grilled steak in the summer, homemade chicken soup in the winter, baked ziti, roast pork - in other words, real food.

I only wish that all kids in the United States with working parents had such a great option for early childhood care. It's a crying shame.

Competence and Integrity

Every year, the non-profit I work for has an audit - it's going on right now. In preparation, we send them reams and reams of paperwork, and answer many questions about our accounting practices. And every year, they send us a questionnaire, which is really supposed to be filled out by the auditor, not the client, and which includes the following question:

Does previous experience with the client indicate competence and integrity on the part of client personnel?

Why yes, of course the client is competent and oozing with integrity! I wouldn’t have it any other way!

Cry It Out

Obviously, I'm sleep deprived and my brain has turned to mush. The clue in this morning's crossword puzzle read:

10 C.I.O.'s partner

I thought Ferber? Weissbluth? It took a shockingly long time to figure out that the answer was AFL.

Saint Bernard

Last night, I went in to collect Miss M. from the bathtub and found her on her hands and knees, collecting the baby elephants by mouth and depositing them on their floating mama's belly. "What are you doing?", I asked. "I'm a saver dog!"

If that means I've given birth to a Saint Bernard, will she fetch me brandy in my dotage?

I love the Internets

W. and I were having a discussion about calculators this morning. It had spun off from a conversation as to the appropriateness of a school system dictating the precise numbers and types of supplies a child needs to arrive with for the first day of school. I don't remember any requirements at all in elementary school back in my day, and by the time you were older, it was just common sense - a three ring binder was going to be helpful, and maybe some folders, and yeah, a pen or two. But 50 sharpened pencils and 4 pads of Post-Its and five plastic file folders and a ream of paper and a bottle of Fantastik and a box of Kleenex? There's something just wrong about that. What are my taxes buying, anyway? Mandatory school supplies becomes like some kind of regressive tax.

Anyway. I then offered that requiring a fancy graphing calculator would be appropriate for certain math or science classes, and somehow we got onto the subject of calculators, and the Bowmar Brain (an early calculator, which did almost nothing and cost like $100 in 1971), and the Sharp that lives in my desk drawer. I said I'd had that calculator in high school - W. insisted that it couldn't be that old. So, to get to the point, i.e. why I love the internet, I googled my calculator and found that it's from 1977. And yes, that means I had it in high school. And it still works fine.

I do so love that there are fanatics out there creating on-line museums to vintage electronics. It makes it so much easier to win arguments.

The Little Ford

Now that I’m a grownup, I drive a sober Swedish car – a Saab 900 from 1996, with a stick shift and a hatchback and a large pile of cracker crumbs in the backseat. It’s nimble, it gets good gas mileage, it has a six CD changer. What more could a girl want?

More. I want charm. I want magic. I want my heart to sing when I sidle up to my car in the parking lot.

And once upon a time, and really for a rather long time, 17 years to be precise, I had such a car. A little Ford Fiesta. It lived on the streets of NYC and looked like hell as a result. But it went like stink all day long, got amazing gas mileage, and was surprisingly capacious for a small car.

And it had charm. It didn’t have air-conditioning, but it did have those little tilting vent windows. It had a dent on the nose where I ran (gently) into the back of an (empty) school bus in stop-and-go traffic on the Long Island Expressway when I leaned over to get my Tab. Its gas gauge was idiosyncratically pessimistic – it had about a ¼ tank left when the gauge read empty – and all too easily one could be lulled into a false sense of security and then, oops, run out of gas on the FDR Drive. To lock the door, you had to open the handle while pushing down the lock button – so I developed a second nature method of opening the (driver’s side) door with my right hand while pushing the button down with my left elbow.

And the car was magic. I’ve written about it once before, about the time the muffler fell off. Another time, W. and I were driving leisurely through rural Pennsylvania, near the Water Gap, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, before cell phones were ubiquitous. He was driving, and noticed something awry, and determined that the car was burning up a wheel bearing (he knows these things). He pulled off the road near someone’s barn and we scratched our heads as to what to do next. With that, the barn doors opened and a guy came out. “Can I help you?” “Well, we’ve blown a wheel bearing.” “Come with me, and bring the jack.” With that, the guy takes off across the road and into a field behind another barn. There in the field: another white Ford Fiesta, junked, abandoned, rusting. They jacked up the parts car, pulled off the wheel bearing, and trotted back to where my little Ford was waiting. Transplant in place, $20 to our savior, we went on our way, marveling at our luck, and at the magic of the little car.

And possibly the best thing about the little car? When it was finally time to part with it, its floorboards were rotting out and driving through a puddle on the Cross Island Expressway caused the car to sputter to a halt, meaning that we made that Thanksgiving traffic jam, I’m sorry to say. But, through the miracles of the internet, we found some crazy people in New Hampshire who were racing Ford Fiestas, and they came to NY and paid me $400 for the little car, $400 so it could go off to another life as a racing car. What a way to go, eh? So much better than the ignominious junkyard that most cars go to when they die. A race car. My little Ford.

Someday, sooner than later, the Saab is going to go. Its clutch is weak, the display for the climate control (but not the control itself) is shot, and it really needs new tires. And I’m at a loss as to what could possibly replace it, especially since the poor Saab has never quite wormed its way into my heart the way the little Ford did.

You may well ask why I’m writing a paean to a Ford Fiesta – a car that’s not been available in the US since, oh, 1980. Well, MotherGooseMouse had a post today about her dear, departed Pacifica – and it turned out that her post was in response to a blog blast by the Parent Bloggers Network announcing Car Blabber at Ask Patty – and one thing led to another. Somehow, I don’t think this is what they’re looking for, but it’s what came to mind. I did rather like that Ford.

CSA Week 12 - Tomato Season

Now we're talking - we're getting heirloom tomatoes from the farm. We're still a little overboard on peppers, though I invented a stuffed pepper variant tonight. I was trying for something like tamales in peppers (instead of corn husks), but it was a little too soupy inside. I made a small amount of polenta, mixed it with leftover corn, a tiny bit of leftover sausage, chopped tomato, minced basil, a little grated cheddar and sautéed onion and garlic - and that got stuffed into the peppers. To speed things up, I actually cooked the peppers in the "waver" for about five minutes, before the stuffing and baking. Delicious, but not quite what I envisioned.

• 4 ears corn
• green beans
• 1 pint Ping Pong tomatoes (red)
• 1 quart small brown tomatoes (there was a name, I can't remember what though)
• 2 Black Brandywine Tomatoes
• 6 sweet red Italia peppers
• 2 poblano peppers
• lettuce
• swiss chard
• 1 cucumber
• 1 onion
• 1 head garlic
• basil

Tonight, I think we'll have corn on the cob and a tomato tart. I made a peach & blueberry pie over the weekend, and there was enough leftover pie crust for a tart shell, which is sitting in the freezer waiting for something wonderful to happen.

The Good Grey Lady Has Gone Colorful!

Imagine my surprise, while reading the newspaper of record this morning, to discover, in the front page article about the phone call made to Eliot Spitzer's father, that the New York Times had printed the word shit. I believe that the world has just shifted on its axis.

What's in a Name?

I've always had a nickname. Really, I was born with one - I was named something formal with the intent, acted upon, of calling me something else. But then, as names beget nicknames, my nickhame has begotten what are really secondary nicknames. My boss calls me Magnesium. Lots of people have called me Magnolia. But for as long as I can remember, one of my nicknames has been Magpie.

magpie (noun)*
Etymology: Mag (diminutive for Margaret) + Pie

1. any of a number of birds (genus pica) of the crow family, related to the jays and characterized by black-and-white coloring, a long, tapering tail, and a habit of noisy chattering
2. a person who chatters
3. a person who collects odds and ends

I'm not a bird. I'm not much of a chatterer. But I am very much a collector of odd bits and pieces. Did I become that way because of my nickname?




*Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition ,1970

Monday Miscellany

Here's the subject of a spam I received this morning:

Barbra Streisand goes bra-less

Now, why would anyone care to see such a thing? On the other hand, are they making some subtle play on the unorthodox spelling of her name?

* * * * *

Is this an empty threat?

Me: Go put your pajamas on.
Miss M: No!
Me: Then I won't read you any books.
Child dashes off and puts on her pajamas.

* * * * *

We've been having some work done at the house, but only on the weekends, because that's when the worker guys are available. Yesterday, Miss M. went outside to show them her umbrella (it wasn't raining, she just loves the PINK umbrella). She marched right up to the three Peruvians and said "espera". They were hysterical. Apparently, she's learned a handful of useful phrases from Dora/Diego, and from one of her daycare teachers. But I'm not sure how she figured out that the worker guys speak Spanish. It's not like she's been mixing concrete with them.

Around and Around

What a week it's been.

On Sunday, Teryn dubbed me a Rockin' Blogger. It made my day when I found out about it on Monday - especially because I was home sick with some nasty cold/flu thing, and feeling enormously sorry for myself. Thank you, Teryn. My general sense of self doesn't really think I'm all that rockin', but hey, I'll take it! Maybe I'm cooler than I think I am. After all, I drive a stick shift, make my own granola, listen to Pink Martini and paint my toenails gunmetal gray. Interestingly, this Rockin' Blogger thing seems to have begun as a Rockin' Girl Blogger thing, until Oh, The Joys got a hold of it. So thank you, Oh, The Joys, for getting that girl stuff out. It's much cooler this way.

Then, yesterday, Slouching Mom gave me a Community Involvement Award for Schmoozing. That one got me all choked up. She is an angel of the blog world, dropping in and leaving astute, germane comments all about - you could indeed say she's faithful like she said of herself. Furthermore, she made the most lovely connection between The Velveteen Rabbit and the blogosphere - the comments make it Real, 'cause otherwise it's just writing in a vacuum. Thanks, SM. You're a mensch. And I'd say I want to be like you when I grow up, except that I've slouched past 40 by a few (six!) years.

And now for the awards:

To BOSSY, a Rockin' Blogger - because she is just beyond cool and too funny, and because she drives her teenage son around before dawn without coffee.

To Aurelia, a Schmooze - because she gives comfort and guidance to many many people struggling with infertility, and because she's going to schmooze her way into Canadian politics because she knows more than the legislators that she's up against.

And because it's Friday afternoon and it looks like rain, here's a sparkling, heartfelt, eternal thank you!

CSA Week 11 - A Surfeit of Peppers

After last week's CSA pick-up, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed - could we eat all the vegetables in a week? But we plunged forward and used almost everything up in: ratatouille, a huge frittata, stuffed peppers with the green peppers from weeks 9 & 10, swiss chard in everything, salads, a big bowl of gazpacho and I can't remember what else. By Wednesday morning, all we had left was a bit of basil (which I gave to the cook at Miss M's daycare), a bit of cilantro (which I gave to Miss M's grandmother, thinking I'd get more this week), and enough lettuce for a small salad.

I confess to being a little stymied this week - we now own 11 peppers of three different varieties. Corn, string beans, tomatoes, salad, even the swiss chard - easy. All those peppers? I dunno. Stuffed peppers again, I guess.

• Sweet Corn (4 ears)
• Green Beans
• Onions (2)
• Garlic (1 head)
• Banana Bill Peppers (6 - hot)
• Italia Peppers (3 - long red sweet)
• Bell Peppers (2 - green)
• Juliet Tomatoes (pint)
• Beefsteak Tomatoes (quart)
• Swiss Chard
• Salad Mix
• Basil
• Cilantro (well, we should have had cilantro, but W. "forgot" to get it)

Here's a sketch as to stuffed peppers - it's a stretch to call it a recipe:

Take four peppers and cut the tops off so that they can be reused as hats for the peppers. Clean out the white ribs and the seeds. Meanwhile, chop and saute a small onion. Toss some chopped swiss chard in with the onion until it wilts (that is, if you have swiss chard around needing to be put in something). Oh, and toss some minced garlic in there too. Whack up a small tomato. Mix half a pound of ground lamb (or beef) with the tomato, the onion/chard/garlic, and 1/3 cup uncooked white rice. Add salt and pepper. Add some minced fresh herbs if you've got them. Stuff this mixture into the peppers and put their hats back on. Use the smallest baking dish you can fit them in. You'll need some liquid, about a cup: a mix of tomato juice, wine, lemon juice and olive oil would be nice. Not too much oil or acidity. Pour your liquid over everything and cover the baking dish with foil (or its lid, if it has one). Bake at 400° F for about a half hour, then uncover and bake for another half hour. Serve warm, not hot.

O Julia, Julia, cook and nifty wench...

Today would have been Julia Child's 95th birthday.

Champaign Taste is having a bloggy anniversary party for Julia and I just had to join in. Julia's - yes, I never met her, but she's Julia to me - Julia's been a part of my life since I won two prizes in a junior high school French class cooking competition - using her recipes for onion soup and an apple clafouti.

I've posted a couple of her recipes over the past year, for said apple clafouti, and for garlic mashed potatoes. And my very first post was her crack about butter.

Her cookbooks take place of honor on my cookery bookshelf:

• Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volumes 1 and 2
• From Julia Child's Kitchen
• The Way To Cook
• Baking with Julia

I grew up with a cartoon framed in my mother's kitchen - a woman swilling straight out of the sherry bottle while her husband asks "Been watching the French Chef again?".

And my standard pie crust, the one I make with my eyes shut? Straight from Julia:

2 cups flour
1 t. salt
1 T. sugar (if it's for something sweet, leave it out otherwise)
1 stick unsalted butter
3 T. shortening or lard
2-3 T. ice water

Combine in the usual manner.

For her birthday in 1961, her husband Paul wrote a sonnet for her - here 'tis, if you've never had the pleasure.

O Julia, Julia, cook and nifty wench,
Whos unsurpassed quenelles and hot souffles,
Whose English, Norse and German, and whose French,
Are all beyond my piteous powers to praise --
Whose sweetly-rounded bottom and whose legs,
Whose gracious face, whose nature temperate,
Are only equalled by her scrambled eggs:
Accept from me, your ever-loving mate,
this acclamation shaped in fourteen lines
Whose inner truth belies its outer sight;
For never were there foods, nor were there wines,
Whose flavor equals yours for sheer delight.
O luscious dish! O gustatory pleasure!
You satisfy my taste-buds beyond measure.

Julia, thank you and Happy Birthday.

Sleep Woes

Oh, I can sleep just fine.

But the child. She only wants to sleep with us - really, only with me. And it's not that we mind her being in the bed with us - it seems natural, somehow. And I know we're not alone - I was happy to read Jennifer Niesslein's piece in the summer issue of Brain Child, to learn that her almost seven year old still sleeps with them. He says "I am never ever going to sleep in my own room. It's boring there." Oh yes, sounds like my almost four year old: "There are no real people there. I am lonely for you."

I know that she will eventually move out of my room and back into her own sweet bed.

No, the problem is that she just won't go to sleep. We read books, we sing songs, I rub her back. She wiggles, demands covers, rearranges her stuffed animals, talks to them, tries to talk to me, flips around so her head is at the foot of the bed, kicks out from under the covers, builds a fort with the pillows. In short, anything but sleeping. If I try and put her to bed in her room, she does the same thing, but eventually gives up and comes looking for her grownups. This bedtime nonsense can go on for hours before she finally conks out.

I've re-read Ferber and Weissbluth - there's nothing of use. "Cry It Out" doesn't work if the kid can climb out of bed, turn on the light and open the door.

I don't know what to do.

4 Simple Recipes

S. at Rhymes with Javelin tagged me for a recipe meme. Food. Cooking. Recipes. I'm in! So, here are four incredibly simple things to have in your arsenal - they don't make a meal taken as a foursome, but any one of them will enhance a meal.

1) Creamed Leeks
This makes a great simple side dish for an autumnal meal.

Cut the green tops off, cut the leeks down the middle and wash well, put them cut side down in a baking dish, and pour heavy cream over so that it's about half way up the leeks. Bake until the the leeks are done and a little browned.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

2) Real "Jell-O"
This is just as easy as the kind from a box, and you feel like a million bucks for using real juice. Make it in little molds for extra points.

2 cups fruit juice
1 envelope (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin

Pour 1/2 cup of the fruit juice into a medium glass bowl or measuring cup and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Let stand for 1 minute.

 In a medium saucepan, bring the remaining 1-1/2 cups fruit juice to a boil. Stir into the gelatin mixture until dissolved. Pour into individual bowls or into one bowl. Chill until set.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

3) Blueberry Tart
This tart is basically half cooked and half raw berries, with the cooked ones holding the whole thing together.

1 quart of fresh blueberries
3 T. cornstarch
½ cup sugar
fully baked tart shell, ~9”

Put half the berries in a saucepan with the cornstarch, sugar and a splash of water. Cook gently until most of the berries have burst and the mixture is thick and gloppy looking. Stir in the remaining uncooked berries and spread gently in the tart shell. Eat.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4) Non-Traditional Hollandaise
This is adapted from Harold McGee, food scientist extraordinaire. Try a cook-off – one person does this, and someone else does it the tedious decreed way. This one is much easier and the results are great.

2 egg yolks
1 stick of butter
2 T. lemon juice
½ t. salt

Cut the butter into 1 T. chunks. Place the egg yolks, lemon juice and salt in a cold saucepan, and beat together thoroughly. Add the chunks of butter, place the pan over moderate heat, and begin whisking gently. Control the heat so that the butter melts gradually and evenly into the yolk base. Once all the butter has melted, continue heating and whisking until the sauce just thickens.

The rules:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 4 recipes they especially like.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 4 recipes.
4. Players should tag 4 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

So, I hereby tag: Bipolar Lawyer Cook, Pinknest, Antropologa, and Crunchy Granola. I'm looking forward to another 16 simple recipes!

Book Karma

Midlife Mama led me to Overwhelmed with Joy, who started a Book Exchange. I love this idea. It's kind of like PaperBackSwap.com, but for a smaller, more personal audience. The full rules are at Joy, but the quick synopsis is: I'm giving away a copy of Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grownups. If you want it, leave me a comment on this post by Thursday August 16. I'll pick a random winner and mail you the book. One thing, make sure your email address is available, either in the comment or on your own blog. The only requirement is that you pass the book along when you're done - either through a Pay It Forward post of your own, or just giving it to someone who wants to read it. Obviously, this is on the honor system. But we're honorable like that, right?

Edited 8/17 to add: Nancy wins the book!

Hermione and the Big Funnel

I feel a little like Hermione, knitting hats for the house elves. I finished another two little hats - I'm getting better at the circular needles, and at doing regular decreases. Both of these, in true magpie form, incorporate bits of yarn that were wrapped around Christmas presents last year: the hairy yarn in the red hat, and the green stem on the other.

In the aftermath of the release of the final Harry Potter book, there was a piece in the Times about the many Chinese frauds and imitations and spin-offs. I think my absolute favorite was "Harry Potter and the Big Funnel". Nothing so exotic as sorcerer's stones or deathly hallows. Nope, a big funnel. Those crazy Chinese!

PS: That Times link probably won't work, unless you've got Times Select, which the New York Post says is soon to be a thing of the past. Nice that the Post broke that story, not the Times, huh?

What Will They Think Of Next?

I think this goes in Mir's Retail Gone Wrong category - liquid dish soap with an air freshener built into the bottom of the plastic bottle. WRONG. On so many counts, just WRONG.

CSA Week 10

The CSA to which we belong sends out a weekly newsletter. The farmer is occasionally practical but more often philosophical in his missives. In this week's letter, he riffed off a discussion of grass/animal and human/animal relationships, including a quote from a book called Soil Fertility and Animal Health which opens with the line "all flesh is grass". Immediately, the second movement of the Brahms Requiem earwormed its way into my head - "Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras". Despite having read Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma last year, which includes a visit to a "grass farm" in Virginia, I'd never before made that connection between the biblical "all flesh is grass" and the organic farmer's cycle of grass feeds animals, animals feed people, animals fertilize grass. It required Brahms. I only wish I knew in which box the CD is hiding.

• Corn (6 ears)
• Fairytale Eggplant (5)
• Italia Sweet Peppers (2)
• Green Peppers (2)
• Juliet Tomatoes (pint)
• Golden Rave Tomatoes (quart)
• Cucumbers (2)
• Green Beans (quart)
• Chard
• Salad Mix
• Basil
• Cilantro

We are starting to get behind the produce. For dinner tonight, we'll have a quiche with last week's chard, and a salad with the remainder of last week's salad greens. And there's still eggplant and green peppers left from last week. At least I used last week's squash yesterday. And, I even liked it!

Sauteed Yellow Squash

1 onion, chopped
olive oil
3 yellow squash, quartered the long way and sliced ~ 1/4" thick.
1 tomato (or a handful of little ones), chopped
1/4 cup verjus (or wine with a splash of vinegar)
1 scallion
handful of minced basil
salt & pepper

Saute the onion in the olive oil. Add squash and cook for a bit. Add tomato and verjus. Add scallion, basil, salt & pepper. Don't overcook the squash. Eat.

Wednesday Whimsy

Yes, Warhol painted me back in...oh wait, that's from Photo Booth. The little camera on the laptop stares at me, so I thought I'd take my picture.

What Kids Call Adults

The kids at daycare figure out which mommy/daddy belongs to which kid pretty quickly, but what the parent's name is takes a little longer. So, when parents show up, there's a lot of "Hi, Joe's Mommy" and "There's Jane's Daddy".

Next door to us, there's a family with identical twin girls who are a little bit older than Miss M. She can't figure out which one is which, and frankly, I think their father gets it right about 50% of the time. So, she doesn't use their names much: she calls them "the children", as in "Can I go to the children's house?".

Last night, I was in the kitchen, she was in the living room, and W. was outside. All of a sudden I hear her calling out the window:

Hi!

Hi!

The Children's Daddy, hi!

Hi!

Sure enough, there was the children's daddy, outside talking to W.

Amanda Hesser is stalking me!

There's no other explanation. A few months ago, I posted about David Eyre's pancake...soon thereafter she wrote about it in the Times magazine "Recipe Redux" column.

On Wednesday, 7/26 I posted about our summertime staple pasta dish - something we invented together, W. and I. On Sunday 7/29, Hesser had another "Recipe Redux" column featuring "Pamela Sherrid’s Summer Pasta" - almost identical to mine, yet way fussier.

Skip hers. Try mine.

Puff the Magic

The child, she is obsessed with Puff. It's all she wants to hear in the car and it's what she asks the music guy at school to sing (so she can sing into his microphone in front of her classmates, the little ham).

So when I wandered into Barnes & Noble last week looking for a book that the nearby independent children's bookstore didn't have (which made me feel bad, because I was all set to give them my money for a full-priced book, which they didn't have in stock and seemed to have no intention of ordering) and saw that they had a mess of dragon books - perhaps as some loose Harry Potter tie-in? - and one of those books was a new illustrated Puff, the Magic Dragon complete with a CD of the song, I had to buy it.

And it's quite sweet. The text is just the lyrics to the song, with lush full-page paintings as illustration. The sadness in the song, where Puff crawls into his cave because Jackie Paper has outgrown him, is ameliorated in the book by the appearance of a new playmate for Puff at the end. And that, to me, works in the context of the original song, which ends with an upbeat reprise of the chorus.

Edited to add: Snopes says there's NO drug references in the song. I do so love Snopes.

Friday Snark and Anti-Whine

It's hot, I'm cranky, the email server at work is screwed up and I had to fire someone today.

The Times had a box on the front page announcing that they were cutting the page width from 13.5" to the "national newspaper 12-inch standard", but that this would mean "somewhat fewer words per page". How many fewer? 11.11%? That's a lot less news that fits to print. Or maybe they'll print the same amount of news, but take out every 11th word?

Gelsey Kirkland's lips are even worse in person than in photos.

Anti-whine: My favorite sandwich shop has bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches back on the menu - because it's August and there are great local tomatoes available. Yum.

CSA Week 9 - A Plethora of Swiss Chard

The tomatoes are coming in, there was no corn this week, but they are still going strong on swiss chard. Alas, I still have swiss chard left from last week.

• Red Onions (3)
• Chard
• Salad Mix
• Green Peppers (2)
• Juliet Tomatoes (pint)
• Beefsteak Tomatoes (2)
• Squash (3)
• Cucumber (1)
• Green Beans (quart)
• Basil
• Cilantro

But: here is a nice simple recipe to use up all that chard that the CSA keeps sending. The dough is really easy: it uses olive oil instead of butter, and just gets squished into the pan. I've tossed in a few crumbs of bacon if there's some leftover from breakfast. Some pignoli would also be excellent. Make it first thing in the morning - it's a great light lunch.

SAVORY SWISS CHARD TART
adapted from "Bistro Cooking" by Patricia Wells

For the Pastry
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup water

For the Filling
1 pound swiss chard leaves (or you could substitute spinach)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 large eggs
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Make the pastry: Combine the flour and salt in a medium-size bowl. Stir in the water and then the oil, mixing until thoroughly blended. Knead briefly. The dough will be very soft and moist. Press the dough into a 10" loose-bottomed metal tart tin. I find it easiest to take about half the dough and pat it out on the bottom, and then break off small chunks of the remainder, roll them into snakes, and squish those in place for the sides. Just try to seal the cracks and holes as you go.
3. Prepare the filling: Wash the chard leaves, discarding the center stems of the big leaves. Coarsely chop the leaves.
4. Place the chard in a large, shallow skillet and season with salt and pepper to taste. Over low heat, wilt the chard and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. It won't need much salt; the parmesan adds plenty of saltiness.
5. Combine the eggs and the cheese in a medium-size bowl; mix until thoroughly blended. Stir in the chard and mix well. Pour the vegetable mixture into the prepared pastry shell.
6. Bake until the crust is golden and the chard mixture is firm and browned, about 40 minutes. Serve at room temperature.

(in)fertility extras

1. IVF drugs are expensive. For the third and last cycle, we were lucky enough to get all of the stims donated - a handful of vials of Repronex from a nurse at Cornell, a huge batch of Follistim from an internet friend in NJ (who, at that time, I'd never met in person), some more Follistim from a NY friend (passed under the table at a Starbuck's), and more Repronex plus a huge bag of assorted syringes from another IF compadre in NY. I did have to buy the microdose Lupron and the trigger, but I think the cycle was blessed by the good karma of all those donated drugs. When I was done, I passed on the extra Follistim to another friend (under the table at a Mexican place in Grand Central), and she got pregnant on her next cycle. And I turned in all the extra syringes to the RE's office for them to use in training classes.

2. Peer support is really important. It's one thing to talk to friends and family, but talking to people who've been through the process, or are in the middle of things, is a good way to learn things and share experiences good and bad. Through on-line resources like Resolve, Inciid, and IVF Connections, you may find peers who are local or age-similar or diagnosis-compatible. And, of course, there's blog-land: there are lots and lots of infertility blogs.

3. A hot washcloth compress immediately following an injection of progesterone in oil is a wonderful thing.

4. Don't forget about taxes. Specifically, infertility treatment is a medical expense that can be included on your tax return if you meet the threshhold (meaning that your expenses are more than 7.5% of your adjusted gross income) and you're intemizing deductions. In each of the two years that we were spending piles of money on drugs and doctors and procedures, W. and I filed our taxes separately, because the threshhold against only one income was lower and we could deduct more of the medical expenses.

Bad Rhymes

My mother kept everything - clothes, toys, books - so there is a cache of smocked dresses, metal Tonka trucks, old blocks, odd dolls, and kid's books at her house. And books and books and books. I found a somewhat idiotic little book while there the other day, called "I Like The Farm".

It's a short picture book from 1961 with rhyming couplets:

Hill - Bill
Cat - Hat
Cow - Mow
Doo - You
Be - Me
Horse - Course
Wet - Bet
Jim - Him
Pup - Up
Will - Hill

Okay then. What's the problem here? COW does not rhyme with MOW. Do you think that they thought they could away with a bad rhyme just because the words are spelled similarly?

Edited to add:
Doo = Cock-a-Doodle-Doo. I suppoose I shouldn't have shortened it; I did it for the aesthetics.

Book Path

It's increasingly difficult for us to get the child to go to bed at night. One night, not so long ago, I'd been downstairs, and hadn't heard any noise, so I thought I had successfully gotten her to sleep in her own bed. When I went up, I discovered this in her room:



And she was asleep across the hall in our bed.

Pain Perdu aux Courgettes

The other day, I announced to W. that I was going to make a zucchini bread pudding for dinner - we had bread getting stale, and CSA zucchini to use up. He made gagging sounds, but I carried on. To his great surprise, and my great amusement, he sheepishly confessed that it was really good. But, he proposed a renaming, reasoning that a bread pudding by any other name would taste better.

Zucchini Bread Pudding, or, Pain Perdu aux Courgettes

1 onion, chopped
2 medium zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 cobs fresh corn, cut off the cob
2 tablespoons olive oil
2-6 cloves minced fresh garlic
1/2 cup snipped fresh basil
1/2 cup snipped fresh parsley
5 cups 1-inch sourdough or Italian bread cubes
4 ounces Swiss cheese, shredded (1 cup)*
2 cups milk*
5 eggs, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Grease a 2-quart baking dish; set aside. In a large skillet, sauté the onion in the oil. When the onion is translucent, add the zucchini and corn and cook for about 3 minutes. Stir in garlic, basil and parsley. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more or until zucchini is tender. Stir in bread.
2. Place half of the mixture in prepared dish. Sprinkle with half of the cheese. Repeat layers. In a medium bowl whisk together milk, eggs, salt, and pepper. Pour over the bread mixture.
3. Bake, uncovered, for 35-50 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes. Makes 5-6 main-dish servings.

I adapted this from a recipe I found on-line. I added the onion, bumped up the quantity of basil and parsley, dropped the sage and nuts and red peppers - mostly because it was all what I had around from the CSA. The original recipe called for half & half or heavy cream. I didn't have either, so I used 2% milk. I found that the pudding needed to cook rather longer than 35 minutes - more like 50 minutes - likely because of the milk issue. Also, I used what cheese I had in the fridge: a tiny bit of Swiss cheese, some diced fresh mozzarella and some grated aged Gouda.

The basic idea is a mess of lightly cooked vegtables tossed with bread and cheese, and made into a pudding/custard with the addition of eggs and milk or cream. It's adaptable, and, in this iteration, another disguise for zucchini. What's not to like?

Malaprops, Grammar, Typos and Unbusinesslike Email Addresses

The Irish Goddess just had a post about her co-workers' malaprops, which reminded me of a memo I once got from a woman in our office, who was Japanese. It began "Firstable", that is, "first of all". I now use "firstable" every chance I get, but only orally - I try to write without typos or grammatical errors.

I'm in the process of slogging through hundreds of résumés, looking for a receptionist.

They are riddled with grammatical errors and typos. Someone can "miltietask". Someone began "From the your website...". Someone wants to be my "receptionest ".

And then there are the people with simply inappropriate email addresses, like anything that includes "sexi/sexy", "baby/babi/babee", "girl/gurl/grrl", "QTpie/cutest/cutie" , "luv/love/lov" or "hard24get". People, you're applying for a job! Act like a professional! Email addresses are easy to come by - have a bland one for job applications, and use "Ihave8grand@***.com" for something else.

Oh, and we can't forget the one that posseses "a positive and professional aura" or the one that "dressed up as Santa's Elf and spread Holiday Cheer". It's not in this batch, but I once got a résumé in which the applicant included "colonic irrigation" as a hobby.

I think I need some holiday cheer. This is way too demoralizing.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Yes, I finally got that long-delayed mammogram a couple of weeks ago - the breasts look fine. And no, I don't have breast cancer.

But WhyMommy does, and it's a particularly virulent type. She's asked that everyone steal her post about it, to further spread the word, so here goes:

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the US today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer? I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine. Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly. Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out. There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one. Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago. You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

Pass the word along.

CSA Week 8

One of the benefits of commuting to NYC through Grand Central Terminal is the food market, and specifically, the very wonderful outpost of Murray's Cheese. Last night, I missed my train by about 10 seconds which gave me the chance to scamper over to Murray's for some fresh mozzarella. I was guessing that the CSA delivery would include tomatoes and basil, which, with the addition of the mozzarella, would mean the first summer's meal of pasta with mozzarella and tomatoes and basil. And I guessed right!

• Sweet Corn (4 ears)
• Scallions
• Swiss Chard
• Salad Mix
• Summer Squash (2)
• Zucchini (1)
• Tomatoes (2 big, and a box of small ones)
• Mariachi Peppers (3)
• Basil
• Dill
• Parsley
• Cilantro

So for dinner, we made our favorite summertime pasta dish. It's so simple it doesn't really need a recipe, but here goes anyway:

Boil some salted water for pasta. Chop up 2 or 3 fresh tomatoes and toss them in a bowl. Chop about a pound of fresh mozzarella into 1/2" pieces and add it to the tomatoes. Chop up a mess of basil and toss in the bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Toss it all together. Cook some pasta - whatever shape you like, as much as you think you'll eat. Drain, and add the cooked pasta to the tomatoes. Toss, and serve with grated parmesan. Celebrate summer.

Ecumenical?

I drove home up the Henry Hudson yesterday. That route goes past one of my most favorite signs:

Hebrew Home for the Aged
Baptist Division

But hey! Where's the Catholic division, or the Islamic division? Why draw the line at the Baptists?

On Blogging

It's my anniversary. I made this little blog and started posting a year ago today.

Years ago, I'd created a tiny website, for my own amusement and because Earthlink offered them up for free. And I posted a picture of the cats and a picture of W. wearing the family wig and a picture of myself lying on the couch with cucumbers on my eyes and a cat on my stomach, and I called it a day.

When Miss M. was born, I started it up again, and posted pictures of her and some other weird stuff that I wanted to share. And then we moved and Earthlink simply could not get it together to get our DSL service working so we up and switched to Verizon thank you very much. And my tiny website disappeared.

But I kept collecting oddities "for the website". And so finally last summer, in a stretch of glorious free time while my office was being renovated and I therefore got to stay home for most of July, I created this blog. The first post was something that had been kicking around my desk for two years. Finally, or again, I had an outlet for all the bits (bytes?) floating about in my head and on little scraps of paper scattered hither and yon.

Back in May, the Blogrhet women issued a sort-of meme, in the form of four questions about one's blogging experience:

1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days? Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?
2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like?
3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?
4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

I didn't start this to become a part of a community - but it has sort of, slowly, happened anyway. At first, the only person reading was my sister. In November, I participated in Fussy's NaBloPoMo - and made 45 posts in 30 days - and I started getting some readers and some comments. But things didn't really gel until about six months ago - though I can't for the life of me say why. Starting in about February, nearly every post would get at least a few comments. And while I'm not writing for an audience, I often sense - as word hits paper - which posts may attract comments from which readers. And those readers, I read them too. And I find them reading the same people I'm reading. The other day, I was working my way through my Bloglines list, and found that I was commenting just after the same person each time...it was like I was following her around in real time. And the people? I've come to know some of them off-blog, through back channel emails. It's like my circle of friends got bigger, in a mysterious way.

When I first embarked on infertility treatment, I perused the internet for information and fell into support. Through some boards, I ended up meeting other women - in person, on the phone, by email - and I'm still in touch with many of them. Blogs weren't part of that equation, but I can see how they could have been.

But now, it's my place to scribble thoughts, remember toddlerisms, share recipes and collect the odd whimsy that floats past on the sidewalk or in the pages of the Times.

Dinner Conversation

While drinking a lovely 1994 Pinot Noir with our steak and corn on the cob and carrots braised in wine and butter (and plain pasta for the little girl):

W. to Miss M.:
This wine is nine years older than you are.

Miss M., looking at the bottle:
Well, I'm bigger than it.

Little New York Moments

This morning, the line for Harry Potter at the Barnes & Noble was way longer than the line a couple of weeks ago for the iPhone at the AT&T store. Of course, Harry Potter costs a lot less than an iPhone, and it doesn't need batteries.

* * * * *

I had to have falafel for lunch today. Sometimes it's just the right thing. The falafel joint in my neighborhood is a hole in the wall. I think the whole place is about 8' wide, and 16' deep. Two thirds of that is the counter and the kitchen behind it. The front part has about 9 square feet in which to stand - the remainder being taken up by stacked cases of soda/juice/water and a sliding door refrigerator for said beverages. Hole in the wall. But the falafel is great, and a falafel sandwich with a Coke is $4.50. As a result, on a nice day, there are often 10-15 people on line waiting to order.

Today, while I was waiting, a group of kids from a local daycare went by, heading back to their center from the park. They were all wearing sleeveless yellow mesh smocks, and holding onto handles on a rope. Oof. The thought of trying to take a group of 8 or 10 preschoolers out on a walk on the streets of Manhattan rather overwhelms me with anxiety, complication, stress. And the kids looked none too happy - because of the unbecoming smocks, or because they were headed back inside?

Anyway, the line moved quickly and I bellied up to the counter to order my falafel: "Falafel sandwich, with everything, to go." What was I thinking? To go? Of course it's to go. It's not like there's anywhere to stay.

* * * * *

Amplified cactus! You have to love it that there's a bunch of guys in Brooklyn playing all manner of found objects as instruments, including a cactus.

During a rehearsal in the loft on Monday, Jason Treuting played an amplified cactus, running his hand over the plant’s unfriendly spikes to produce an alluring sound like a babbling brook...“We play David Lang because it’s an amazing experience and Xenakis for the same reason. And then we play a cactus for 20 minutes for a different reason,” he added. “Not because the audience will say, ‘Wow, that’s the best cactus player I’ve ever heard,’ but because the sound is beautiful.”

Hiring

I'm a little stunned. I put an ad on Craig's List at 1:10pm, for a receptionist. An hour and a half later, I've gotten 54 responses by email, and another handful by fax. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings, she said wryly.

Edited to add: It's 9:45 the next morning, and there are now 218 emails from people applying for the job. I'm not sure where to begin. And, no, we're not offering some fabulous salary - it's an entry level position at a non-profit arts organization. I think there are a lot of people out of work.

(in)fertility, part 2

My first visit to Cornell was right before Christmas 2002. We discussed the previous treatments, and how things would be handled by this clinic. The doctor was encouraging, and suggested three things that would be done differently. First, a laparoscopy to check on things, and to see if there was in fact endometriosis. Second, baby aspirin throughout the cycle, as a "can't hurt, might help" gesture. And third, co-culture for the embryos - that is, they would be grown in a medium that included cells from my endometrium, thought to be a more hospitable environment than an ordinary petri-dish for certain IVF patients with cycle failures in the past.

We got started in January 2003. They took many many vials of blood for the co-culture. I had an endometrial biopsy, also for the co-culture. I had the laparoscopy - in which they found Stage II endometriosis and cleaned it out. I began birth control bills at the end of January, began micro-dose Lupron in late February, and gonadotropins a couple of days later. I started with 4 units of Follistim and 2 of Repronex, and decreased to 1 Follistim/2 Repronex by the end of stims. I stimmed for only seven days, and triggered with a half dose (5000 units instead of the usual 10,000). We got 12 eggs, and ten of the 12 fertilized. And by the day 3 transfer, all ten were still around. We transferred five embryos, ranging from 6 to 10 cells each. Remember, I was 42 at the time, hence the transfer of so many embryos!

The beta, at 11dp3dt, was 113. It was high enough that I was told to come back in a WEEK, not the standard two days. A nail-biting week later it was 882. Six days after that (at 5w6d pregnant), the beta was 3813, and an ultrasound showed one properly located sac. At 7w2d, we saw the heartbeat on ultrasound, and we were released from Cornell to an obstetrician.

The product of that IVF is now a curly blond girl of three and a half. The geek in me likes looking at the CDC reports for 2003 and knowing that she's the result of one of the 354 cycles, at Cornell, of women of my age, that used fresh eggs.

If you missed part 1, it's here.

CSA Week 7

We're cooking with gas now, the produce is coming in fast and furious:

• Sweet Corn
• Onions
• Swiss Chard
• Salad Mix
• Green Peppers
• Beets (with greens)
• Yellow Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Parsley

The farm's website had hinted at tomatoes, but there weren't any - with luck, we'll have tomatoes next week.

Dinner tonight - grilled steak, with corn on the cob and a green salad.

Dinner tomorrow - kebabs, with balls of ground lamb skewered amidst green peppers, quartered onions and yellow squash. And a quick garlicky sauté of the beet greens and some chard to go alongside the kebabs, using the two garlic scapes left from last week.

We'll probably grill the beets one day, because it's the only way W. will eat beets (despite his Polish heritage!). Slice them about 1/3" thick, slather with olive oil and grill slowly 'til soft. Sprinkle with kosher salt and serve.

And there's enough basil for at least one batch of pesto (though I still have pesto in the freezer from last summer).

And the zucchini? I don't know. Zucchini bread for the vultures in my office?

Infertility

In retrospect, I was an idiot.

I was brought up and educated to believe that I could do anything. What I failed to realize was that my body, my corporeal self, might not comply.

W. and I got married when we were 34 because we decided we wanted children, and he felt very strongly that the children needed married parents. So we stopped using birth control, and got married, and nothing happened. And nothing happened. And. Nothing. Happened.

I woke up on the verge of my 41st birthday and realized that I wasn’t pregnant and that maybe it was time to do something about it. So I made an appointment to see my ob/gyn, who I’d been seeing for about 15 years. She did a checkup (including a sonogram), sent me off for day 3 blood work and an HSG, and gave me a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist. Little did I know that that sonogram was the only the first of many viewings of my ovaries with the dildo-cam (a/k/a transvaginal ultrasound).

The HSG wasn’t that bad (take a painkiller an hour beforehand). However, while my tubes were clear, the HSG showed that one of them was in a fixed position. Because of this, the radiologist suspected endometriosis.

Once all that prep testing was in hand, we went to see the RE. He said, pretty much right off the bat, that he thought we were a candidate for IVF. This freaked us out! We’re just starting here and he wanted to jump straight into an IVF? After some discussion, he agreed to let us try a medicated IUI. In some ways, that IUI was like sticking your toes in the water – figure out how the system works, how the injections go, etc. Needless to say, the IUI was unsuccessful, and not inexpensive.

So we got on the IVF calendar. The arrived at protocol was a month of birth control pills – oh, the irony – followed by microdose Lupron and a combination of Repronex and Follistim. I started the BCP, and went to my college reunion, where I met a classmate with little hair as a result of ovarian cancer. She'd had multiple IUIs and multiple IVFs. Her doctors said that the cancer was unrelated to the many ovarian stimulations, but, but, but...it was a little freaky.

The IVF proceeded smoothly - six eggs were retrieved, three fertilized, all three embryos were transferred (4, 5, and 6 cells). And - bingo! First IVF worked! We won the lottery! Beta of 23 at 11dp3dt. Appropriate increases to the beta! Egg sac seen at 5w3d! Heartbeat seen at 6w3d! NOTHING seen at 7w3d - the whole sac had disappeared, and the beta had dropped. Early miscarriage. It was probably a chromosomal issue, but that's just a hypothesis as there was no tissue to test.

So we waited a couple of months. I had a saline sonogram to check the interior of the uterus. We went on vacation for a week. And we did another cycle, but with a different protocol - an Antagon suppression. I was on stims for 11 days, starting at 6 vials a day, increasing to 7. Eight eggs were retrieved, seven fertilized, but only two 6-cell embryos made it to transfer. Wait, wait, wait, the interminable two week wait. BFN.

Following that failed cycle, I went back to the RE for a follow-up and discussion as to next steps. His initial reaction was that we should try donor eggs. I asked if it was worth getting a second opinion. To his great credit, he said yes and offered the names of doctors at both NYU and Cornell, and when I expressed interest in Cornell, he called a doctor there on my behalf. If I had called that doctor directly, it would have taken months to get an appointment. Instead, I was in the office at Cornell 3 weeks after the BFN.

(to be continued)

Happy Birthday, Little Brother

My brother is two and a half years younger than I am, and it's his birthday today.

When he was tiny, our mother was inspired to try parental multitasking: she was nursing him while reading a book to me, when all of sudden he let out a holler. I had calmly reached over and chomped down on his foot. Damn it, read to me and stop that nonsense with the baby!

This is a picture of him when he was about nine. Is it any surprise that he's grown up to be an omnivore with a distinct predilection for pork?

Happy Birthday!

More from the Backseat

After I refused to repeat Puff the Magic Dragon for the sixth time in a row and tried to play something else:

"I don't like all of these songs. They make me incredible. I want Puff the Magic."

It's lovely that she can use a four syllable word with no sense of its meaning.

And:

"Look, Mommy, there's a racing car!"

Because all convertibles are racing cars.

Sour Cherries

Sour cherries are one of those fruits that just don't travel. You never see them in the supermarket in January, flown in from Peru. Sometimes you can find them in a jar, packed in juice, usually European. I know they're available frozen, but the shipping makes them rather spendy.

But, now, here in NY, it's the fleeting season of sour cherries, and therefore time for pie. About 10 days ago, I made a strawberry cherry pie with the last of the strawberries and the first of the sour cherries. This weekend, I might try blueberry cherry.

Some years ago, I was at the greenmarket and idly asked the cherry seller "what can I do besides pie?". She replied "why, cherry bounce!" and I ran right home and made some.

Cherry bounce is basically a cherry cordial, and because I know you need to run home and make some, the recipe is at the bottom.

The best low-tech way to pit cherries is with a hairpin - an old-fashioned metal hairpin. You sort of scoop the pit out with the bend in the middle. You could try with a partially unbent paper clip, I bet, if you've got no hairpins.

There are hand-held cherry pitters out there, but I find that they tend to punch out a piece of cherry along with the pit. My mother has an antique cast iron one that clamps on to a table - the cherries roll along into a divot, where you punch the pit out. The pit goes one way, the cherry into a bowl. It is as clever as all get out, but not for sale at Bed Bath & Beyond.

Cherry Bounce

1 quart pitted sour cherries
1 750 ml bottle vodka
2 cups sugar

Combine ingredients a big glass jar with a cap and let stand in a dark cool place for a month or 3, stirring occasionally. Serve the cherries over vanilla ice cream, and drink the liquor.

Why, oh why?

Why is it that my child can say yes, with a y, but yellow comes out lellow?

We were hysterical last night:

Say yellow.

Lellow.

No, yellow.

Lellow.

What color is your shirt?

Lellow.

CSA Week 6

If you're keeping careful track, you'll have noticed that there was no CSA entry last week. Because our delivery happens on Wednesday, we were skipped last week because of the Fourth of July. They'll make it up at the end of the season - though the prospect of winter vegetables like butternut squash horrifies me. (I gag at butternut squash. Literally. This could be a problem in a few months.)

The produce from the farm is running fast and furious now:

• Salad mix
• Sugarsnap Peas
• Broccoli
• Swiss Chard
• 2 Cucumbers
• 3 Yellow Squash
• 2 Green Onions
• Garlic Scapes
• Cilantro
• Parsley

And at the greenmarket yesterday morning, I bought blueberries, red gooseberries, and sour cherries.

AND, one of my co-workers returned to the office from 10 days in Alaska, and was preceded into the office by a Fed-Ex delivery of 35 pounds of flash frozen silver salmon and rock fish that he had caught on Saturday, and which he proceeded to hand out to anyone who wanted some. I took a piece of each for the other members of the household...since I don't eat fish.

So, all in all, it was a great day for local and/or wild foodstuffs.

You Get What You Pay For?

Last summer, I went to the in-network dermatologist and had a cyst removed from my forehead. It cost me a $25 co-pay. But it came back. In December, he removed it again, for another $25 co-pay. It came back again. He then suggested that I see a plastic surgeon. Instead, I went to the fancy Fifth Avenue dermatologist who doesn't take insurance, and does charge an arm and three legs. Last week, he cut the thing out, and put in subdermal stitches as well as five exterior stitches. All told, the bill for the consultation and for the surgery came to somewhat more than my deductible, but I won't get anything back because the insurance company will knock it down to "usual and customary" which will be less than the deductible. Argh. But I think the thing is well and truly gone.

Miss M. came along when I had the stitches out on Monday. They were all tickled to see a kid in the office, and the nurse came in and took her picture with the Polaroid camera they use to document skin ickies. She sat and watched the photo appear before her very eyes, while the doctor pulled out my stitches. I'd forgotten how magical a Polaroid can be. However, it is a strange picture, taken about3 inches away from her face.

I did learn one thing while he was suturing me - catgut is not made from cats. How did I get to be 46 years old and not know that? He wasn't even using catgut; he was using a synthetic dissolving suture.

Grave

This breaks my heart. A baby girl, who died the day she was born. Her family buried her in the church graveyard, with a headstone. But she never had a name.

The headstone reads:

INFANT
Dau. of James
& Julia A.
Van Valkenburgh
Born & Died
Sept. 12, 1857

Rest in peace, little girl.

On Broadway

I work on Broadway. Not on Broadway, but my office building is located on that street that meanders diagonally across the Manhattan grid.

Down the street from my office is a storefront that recently changed hands. The windows are all covered up with brown paper while they renovate. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed a neatly typed sign on the door:

Geox
862 Brodwey

Hmm. They can type but they can't spell.

This morning, there was a new sign on the door:

Geox
862 Broadwey

They still can't spell.

I'm putting bets on the next version being:

Geox
862 Broadwhey

Meatl Prots

I can't stop saying Meatl Prots. I think it's my new favorite expression. Maybe I'll start shouting it out the car window when teenagers fail to yield, and muttering it under my breath at slobs who put their feet on the seats on the train. Meatl Prots.

Filamentous Outgrowth

I've got hair on my mind.

My mother's hair is falling out; her wig arrived yesterday.

WhyMommy cut her hair in preparation for chemo next week.

W. got his cut last week; Miss M. announced it to everyone at daycare - it made a big impression on her. When I got my hair cut a few months ago (after far too long), she cried and cried - "when will it be longer?"

Recently I saw a woman, an older middle class black woman in a shirtdress, with her hair bundled into a tube-shaped bag of fabric that reached to her knees. Her hair was visible at her head, but from the nape of the neck to her knees, it was encased. It was a truly odd sight.

Finslippy wrote a paean to the Hair movie with Treat Williams, which got me thinking about the original Broadway cast album that I grew up with, of which none of the songs were off limits. So my brother would walk around the house singing:

Sodomy
Fellatio
Cunnilingus
Pederasty
Father, why do these words sound so nasty?
Masturbation
Can be fun...

And of course, there's the Hair anthem:

Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen…
Down to here
Down to there
Down to where
It stops by itself

S. posted recently about getting her hair cut; she's got LONG hair - she had 14" cut off and it's still down to her elbows.

I used to have long long hair, but never that long. But enough that I could have 5-6" chopped off at a time and still have a lot of hair. In kindergarten, I had pigtails and bangs. In fourth grade, I started growing the bangs out. By high school, I wore it in a ponytail, or clipped back with two barrettes - one over each ear. That there photo of a high school marching band? That's me towards the left, playing the piccolo with the long blond hair. Somewhere along the way, I started using one barrette at the back, to hold back some of the hair - I've never met a barrette that could take ALL of my hair. Eventually I figured out how to put it up in a nice tight bun with five hairpins - the good old-fashioned sturdy 3" hairpins that are awfully hard to find. I was about 40 years old the first time I got my hair cut professionally. It was frightening to walk into a fancy-schmancy salon, since I never learned how to be a real girl and I'm terrible about the whole tipping thing, but it was a great haircut.

Since then, I've been fairly erratic about keeping it up - who has time to get their haircut when they have a full-time job and a small person? Right now it's a couple of inches above my shoulders, thanks to a cheap cut by an old man at a low-rent no-appointments salon.

I seem to have lost my train of thought.

The Dangerous Book

A couple of months back, there was a lot of hoopla about a new book called "The Dangerous Book for Boys". A good part of the hoopla involved around the boys part - like, can't girls do those same things? Of course they can. And shouldn't they get good instruction? Of course they should.

I'm the mother of one child - a daughter. She is 99.99% sure to be our only child. So, I rather wanted the book for her - it sounded like fun and chock-full of all sorts of things everyone should know. It also sounded like a great Father's Day present.

I toyed with the idea of buying the book and taking a Sharpie to the cover but that seemed overly destructive and not nearly cunning enough. Instead, I bought the book - which conveniently comes without a dustjacket - and made a book jacket for it. I took a large piece of Miss M.'s artwork, scanned the bookcover, found some extra bits, and made a collage cover. The whole shebang got laminated with clear Contac paper. I am distinctly amused with myself.

Declaiming

It being the Fourth of July and all that, the New York Times has reprinted the Declaration of Independence, as it does every year. I'm inside with Miss M., but I can hear W. mumbling from somewhere; I thought perhaps he was on the phone. No. W. is currently sitting on the back porch, alone, reading the Declaration of Independence out loud. All's right with the world.

Well, it isn't, really, but here in these parts, we're for the Declaration of Independence. Too bad Shrub and the Puppetmaster are not.

Questions from the Back Seat

How do we make water?

How do we make school buses?

How do we make signs?

and...

What kind of aminals eat poop?