I Cubed A Mango with One Hand & Breastfed Edie with the Other...

You think I’m kidding, right? Nope.

I stood in front of the thick wooden chopping block in our kitchen and began carving the mango in its skin into cubes and Edie decided she wanted to be close, so she toddled into the kitchen while Lucy and David sang songs in the living room and were waiting for breakfast. Today we had our Saturday Blue Plate Special - bacon, spinach, avocado and tomato sandwiches on toast, the make-your-own variety, with a little mango on the side.


She whimpered a little and had this pathetic, sad unattended-to look on her face, so I picked her up and held her in one arm while I steadied the mango on the cutting board by propping it up between two plates. I cut long deep lines down the mango with my one free hand and then, jiggled the knife around and jostled the baby a bit, so I could make the cuts crosswise.

It wasn’t pretty, mind you, but Edie was happy just to be in my arms and I wasn’t completely butchering the mango, although the cuts were jagged and the little chunks of yellow mango meat were battered a bit and some juice had puddled up under my fingers where I held the knife and dripped down onto the cutting board.

It all seemed to be going rather harmoniously, this one-armed thing, until Edie decided that sitting in my arms wasn’t enough and like a starved penguin diving for a mackerel, she all of a sudden dove for my boob and kind of bent over and popped my nipple in her mouth, which required that she bend down to meet it while pulling it upward to meet her mouth. Very tricky getting that nipple into your mouth from that position, but my children are...well, gifted.

I thought about abandoning the mango and just sitting down somewhere and breastfeeding her, but I was almost done and I only had a few more cuts to go and I really wanted to get breakfast on the table and really, Edie was probably eager to breastfeed because she was hungry, so I just soldiered on. I let Edie nurse while she was sitting on my one arm, but kind of bent over and down to reach my boob and sucking away and I kept cutting the mango one-handed and scraping the mutilated little cubes into a bowl as if I were a woman on a mission.


I got breakfast to the table...with my one free hand. BSAT was great - a wonderful Saturday breakfast. The kids love to make their own and pick and choose over the bacon and veg. And really, anything with bacon is heavenly. Mango looked kind of sad but it still went down just fine.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

The Prawns that Made Lucy Fall In Love

We are a little prawn crazy in this house.

Yes, we use the term “prawn” exclusively, not “shrimp” because David is Australian and they all seem to say “prawn” instead of “shrimp” over there and it sounds better with their accents, so the rest of us just go with it.

Lucy began her love affair with prawns at a restaurant in Australia at Bondi Beach. It was last year in October. Edie was three months old and spent most of her time in a pouch on my belly and was interested only in my boobs and the stuff that came out of them. Lucy, however, had grown into a voracious eater. She loved anything she could eat with her fingers or dip in a sauce or tear up into little pieces.


We found this restaurant on the beach. I can't remember the name. We sat on the second floor on a monster of a balcony, with our shorts and sandy feet, looking out over the water.

Now the water was something special, a kind of indescribable deep blue, laced with creamy rolling foam. But it was the sky itself that moved me. An Australian sky is one of a kind.

Maybe because sitting at the bottom of the earth gives you a fresh view of the whole universe of sky above us, but it just feels infinitely high and long and bright and endless. It’s actually brighter in Australia, like they just use a higher wattage of light bulb to light up their days. Anyway, I remember watching the sky meet the ocean from that balcony.

And Lucy chowed on the prawns. I can’t remember the exact recipe, something with trace amounts of cilantro, chili and lime I’m sure (because the Australians love their Thai ingredients), but she loved it. She barely looked up at us, just touched and pulled apart and dipped and savored each pearly nugget of meat and I realized we had a fish lovin’ girl on our hands. It wasn’t her first prawn, but it may have been the one that made her fall in love.

Now, prawns (wild ones, not the chemicalized, bad-for-the-environment, farmed stuff) is a common Saturday Lunch or casual Friday night supper at our house. We do it a bunch of ways, but perhaps the most fun for Lucy is the “Peel and Eat” variety.


Here’s the recipe and man, is it simple: I just throw a couple pounds of raw, un-peeled prawns into boiling water until they turn pink, about 3 minutes (Don't over cook 'em or they'll be tough), throw them in a bowl, set out some drawn butter (or just melt a stick in the microwave), set out an empty bowl for discarded shells, make a quick salad and throw some crusty bread on a board. I put everything on the table and call the troops.

Then, I let the kids pull out their own prawns, peel them, dip them and eat them. Lucy loves it. Her fingers get all juicy and buttery and fishy and her mouth glistens with prawn juice. And Edie is getting into the act now, too. She loves munching on these little guys and carrying the shells around in her hand and dropping them on the living room rug and behind the table. Sometimes the floor around the table looks like the bottom of an ocean after a feeding frenzy.

This kind of informal gathering at the table is also great for having someone in to eat with you at the last moment because it feels welcoming to come to someone's house and slide up a chair and dip your hands into a common bowl and have your fingers bumping into their fingers, and pulling out a meaty prawn and dipping it into a bowl of warm butter and hoisting the whole dripping, buttery, messy thing right into your mouth and catching the warm juices with your free hand. And the best part - not worrying that you're making a mess because everyone is making a mess and it's all okay.

So satisfying for big people, lots of fun handy work for the little ones.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Apples, Pumpkins & Friends On the Farm

We went to Jenkins Farm in New Paltz this weekend to pick out pumpkins and pick heaving bags of apples with our good friends Lara, Shadrup and their daughter (who we just adore) Ruby.

David went rock climbing in the Gunks, so he was doing his “man against the mountain” thing, while we tended to the fall harvest. Lucy and Ruby are best friends (as you "can see from the pictures) and they spent the morning happily trolling through the pumpkin patches hand-in-hand and trying to haul enormous pumpkins out of the patch and onto the muddy road.

Watching them made me happy to have girls – no kicking the pumpkins, or shooting them with imaginary guns or trying to destroy them with their ferocious punches, just girls giving each other body-choking hugs and pulling each other in and over winding paths and stopping occasionally to re-latch their hands or have a brief conversation and then, peels of lovely laughter and squeaky giggles loft out over the wet morning air and they are running and then, falling into the soft dirt, still clasping hands and laughing so freely and without abandon that I want to run after them (But of course, I don't because no one wants to see a cackling middle-aged woman running through a pumpkin patch. It's quite enough to just be near them and their sweet, untethered spirits.)


Lucy was not so fond of the apple picking because it involved walking through what she referred to as the “icky wicky” which was a concoction of wet grass and mud that covered her feet and flip flops and felt, well, I’ll say it “icky wicky”. So, she stood on a patch of dry ground and Edie and I went and plucked plump McIntoshes off the branches and gave her armfuls to fill her bags.

We are now flush with apples and pumpkins and gratefully, friends. (Thanks Lara for "taking control" of the camera and sending over these great pictures!) Now, what fun things can we do with all these apples?...

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

How Do I Get the Egg Beater Untangled from My Daughter’s Hair?

I collect old kitchen utensils.

If you want to win me over, don’t give me a bouquet of wild flowers or a little blue box with a rock in it. Give me a rusted out old egg beater or tin spoon completely worn down on one side or a 40 year old garlic press. If it is useless, rusted, lead-paint–covered, chipped, lop-sided, worn-down, dented, beaten to a pulp with wear and extricated from the back of an old rotting barn, then, I am so excited might explode.

I love them...all aging metal and stained and marvelous, worn with years of stirring, chopping, grating and mincing, held by hundreds of cooks or sometimes just one, dipped in thousands of sauces and gently put to the cooks lips for a quick tasting or last minute seasoning. They carry the memory of all those hours working in the kitchen at the behest of some home cook, who may have loved or loathed their work.

They are reminders of cooking amazing food, but they're also humbling reminders of the kitchen's comedy of errors - pots boiling over and meats burned and tough as leather and a roomful of guests and no appetizers in sight and maybe even the occasional singed forearm and slashed index finger and a few dishes that are so abysmal and horrible tasting that they must simply be erased from memory. Each utensil is an artifact of that real-life blooper reel.

I have one enormous metal spoon that my mother remembers was her grandfathers. One side of the spoon is worn down from his stirring. It was his favorite spoon. How could I not have that hanging in my kitchen?


I just simply adore them…which is why I let Lucy and Edie play with my utensils. I let them touch them and poke their fingers into them and spin them around and throw them into bowls to stir imaginary concoctions.

And they were doing all that on the kitchen floor when Lucy decided to put the beater in Edie’s hair and spin the hand crank until thick twines of blond baby hair were all caught up in the gears and my baby was screaming and Lucy was panicked and trying to pull the beater out and I had to grab the beater and bob and weave through the kitchen and out into the living room, following this little moving, crying baby and holding the egg beater gently and close enough to her head, without pulling any more hair and uncurling it from around the shaft of the beater and calm Lucy who kept asking, quite annoyingly over and over, “Edie crying?” as if there might be some debate.

It all ended just fine. Tears were shed and dried. Feelings soothed. Curls back in their pretty nest on Edie's head. Artifacts hanging back on the kitchen wall. Where they’ll stay for right now...

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

I Want to Go to Pathmark Naked

No not me. Okay, maybe me sometimes, but Lucy told me that yesterday before we went grocery shopping.

In fact, she all out refused to go shopping with me unless she could go naked. I was tempted, you know I often fantasize about walking through those long wide aisles all naked and free, throwing toilet paper and organic artichokes into my trolley, as I spurn the gawking on-lookers and feel pity for the clothed… but you, know, I refrain and she must refrain as well.

We went to Pathmark fully clothed.

I bought some fresh lump crab and organic spinach, some cold-pressed olive oil, a few plump and juicy nectarines still swollen from summer, two jersey tomatoes and at Lucy’s request, some lovely New Zealand Kiwi. I brought it all home and stowed it in the fridge and then, made some lump crab cakes – which I dubbed “Crab Burgers” and made a bunch of clawing gestures as I did it. I do amuse myself.


The secret to crab cabs, I believe, is twofold: 1. Have more crab than cake and 2. Make the cakes and chill them for an hour before you fry them, that way they stick together and you have cakes, not crumble. Other than that, crab cakes are a cinch to make. Really, I had forgotten how quick it is to whip these babies up.

Here is my general recipe for crabcakes stolen from a variety of more competent chefs and magazines too numerous to mention, but this one most closely resembles Gourmet Magazine’s Creole Crab Burgers:

This recipe serves 4 people

Crab Burger's

Ingredients

1 lb lump crabmeat (Don’t crack ‘em yourself. Who has time for that? Get the container of real lump crab meat. It’ll run you less than $20 and there’s no sweat equity)
¼ cup of mayo
3 scallions or 1 ½ leeks
1 egg
1 teaspoon of Worcestershire Sauce
¾ teaspoon of dry mustard
½ teaspoon of cayenne (if the kids won’t eat it, omit it)
1 cup of dry bread crumbs
¼ teaspoon of salt
¾ cup of oil

Preparation at naptime

Mix together the crabmeat, mayo, scallions, egg, Worcesterhire, mustard, cayenne, salt and the breadcrumbs and keep mixing with your hands until combined. Form into patties – you can make a bunch of small ones or a few big ones – your call. Make nice well-formed patties and line them up on a tray, stick them in the fridge and go play with our kids.

Right before dinner

Heat oil in a heavy skillet on medium heat. Plop those little guys in and fry once on each side, about five minutes total. Transfer to a paper towel and drain off excess oil. Assemble the cakes on warm buns and make a gorgeous salad and do that crab claw thing with your hands and the troops will devour them.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Kitchen Supper - Meatball Sliders from The Little Owl

At 7am, I spilled cold beef stock down the front of my shirt and then, as I was holding Edie on my hip, she peed down the right side of my jeans. At 7pm, I was still wearing the same peed-on jeans and the same stock-stained shirt. I smelled like a stable. I was downstairs running the kids around the monkey bars on the terrace. The guests were set to arrive in a half an hour.


I look up and saw David waving from the upstairs window, still wearing his cycling helmet. He was home. Fantastic. I love when he first gets home and the energy shifts and the kids squeal with delight and run into his arms and there is all kinds of chatter about the day and the things they did and they are so excited, they hop up and down and cling to him and refuse to let go even though he has yet to remove his sweaty shirt or the bike chain around his waist. And I scoot into the kitchen and start putting the dinner on the stove and we pour glasses of water and wine and do a quick de-brief of his day and ours. The air is different the minute we hear him open the door. It is one of my favorite parts of the day and the thing I miss the most when he travels.

But there was no de-brief before this kitchen supper night. Just a made dash before the guests arrived.


Fortunately, supper was in the bag - Meatballs sliders, recipe from The Little Owl – was prepped. Homemade tomato sauce sat in the big pan on the stove. A pile of ping pong ball-sized meatballs mounded on a plate all browned and crunchy on the outside, raw on the inside, sat expectantly in the fridge.

The food was all good, but the house was looking a little like my clothes - banana had been mashed into the floor in the living room, the bathrooms were as clean as the bathrooms on the subway, the toy room looked like FAO Schwartz exploded and it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually swept “under” anything in a couple of weeks. God help me if someone moved one of the sectional pieces and exposed some week-old growth of moldy broccoli that had been pushed underneath by one of the kids. Well, there goes my “Mother of the Year” title.

I checked the time. Guests arriving in 15 minutes.

The roster for this kitchen supper was full of alums - Warren and Kian from across the hall, Amy and Alex from downstairs and Martha and Matt, David’s brother and our sister-in-law. Let me give you the highlights: meatballs cooked in the sauce while I dropped a wine glass and a cleaning posee had to be dispatched while I stood by watching and holding bare-footed babies, Amy and Alex brought Prosecco to kick us off and a plate of farm fresh tomatoes flecked with her homegrown basil, Amy regaled us with a very titillating description of the young farm hand who sold her the tomatoes that involved his sinewy arms covered in bits of newly mown grass and his sweat-soaked wife-beater clinging to his heaving chest muscles and another story about her husband’s strong, thick “Amish-farm-hand” hands…Okay, Amy has a farm-fetish, but what self-respecting city girl doesn’t, right? I approve whole-heartedly.

More highlights - Lucy stripped off her clothes pretty early on in the evening, which is starting to be a running characteristic of our kitchen suppers, and ran around naked for a good part of the evening, David sometimes lingered at the table chatting with guests and then went off into the living room to roll around on the carpet with Edie, (who decided to forgo bed altogether and kept us busy all night), David also danced the Irish jig with Lucy and the Wiggles in front of everyone (it is amusing and because he has so much fun with it, oddly sexy and appealing) and Amy, Alex and I all bent over the computer and read the article in The New York Times where David was generously quoted and then we stepped back and marveled at how cool his closing quote was.


The Little Owl Meatballs were great. I left them steeping in the sauce and folks made sandwiches with sauce-drenched rolls and arugula. I made a ton of the little guys and there wasn’t even enough left over for David’s lunch on Friday. And because I just left them in the pan on the table, they were great food for picking as the table conversation heated up. People popped one or two in their mouths as they told stories and dipped their bread in the pan, lapping up all the rich sauce. It was nice party food.

Here is the recipe. I made a few note here and there to make it easier to manage with your kitchen full of kids. And Joey Campanaro from the Little owl makes these Garlic Buns from scratch to go with them, but as you might imagine, I bought mine from the fresh baked goods section of Pathmark. If you're the baking rolls type, go for it.


Meatball Sliders From the Little Owl in New York City

For the meatballs:
1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground pork
1 lb. ground veal (I couldn't get veal that day, so I used lamb. It was just fine.)
3/4 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano, plus 1/4 cup for garnish
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 cups cold water
3 large eggs
1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
Vegetable oil for frying meatballs (approximately 3 cups)

For the sauce:
2–3 tablespoons olive oil
1 Spanish onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh garlic, chopped
1 bunch fresh basil
1 tablespoon fennel seed
1 industrial-size No. 10 can (or 4 28-oz. cans) of whole peeled tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

for the sandwich: small or mini rolls and a bunch of arugula

Mix the ground meat with the cheese, the panko, the cold water, the eggs, 3/4 of the parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Form the mixture into 36 golf-ball-size meatballs. In a large shallow sauce pot or cast-iron pan, heat the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, add the meatballs and cook until brown all over. With a slotted spoon, remove the meatballs and set aside on a plate. Pu them in the fridge and forget about 'em until 40 minutes or so before dinner. Discard the vegetable oil but leave the browned bits in the pan.

In the same pan, heat the olive oil, then add the onion, garlic, basil, and fennel seed. Cook for 5–8 minutes until slightly brown. Add the tomatoes and half a No. 10 can of water. Cook the sauce for 30 minutes, pass sauce through a food mill and return to the pan. (I didn't bother. I think the chunks of onion and tomato are hardy and make the sandwich feel manly) let the sauce sit on the stove (without fire) until dinner is ready. Go have fun.

When you are ready for dinner. Take the meatballs out of the fridge, pop them in the sauce and simmer for 30 minutes. Then, make the sandwiches or have them make their own.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Gourmet Magazine's Zucchini-Wrapped Fish Bundles

I found a really quick and tasty recipe in Gourmet Magazine that takes very few steps and after doing it several times, I found it turns out great every time.

Here's the run down: Peel long strips of zucchini, lay 5 strips side-by-side, a little olive oil, salt and pepper, cut a slice of buttery fish(I used Swai this last time, but whatever you love at the fish mongers is fine by me), pop a basil leaf on top, roll it up and pop 'em in the pan.

Now, here's my favorite part - you can prep the fish and zucchs in the afternoon while the little ones are playing or sleeping and you can pull a platter full of the little devils out of the fridge and dinner will be ready in about 7 minutes. 7 minutes, now we're talkin'. Less time in the kitchen. More time at the table.

Lucy and Edie love these little fish bundles. Especially Lucy, who sits on top of the kitchen counter and helps me peel the zucchini into long pale green strips. It takes her forever because she is so earnest and meticulous with her little fingers working the peeler over the zucch and there is always a smattering of shredded zucchini matter all over the floors and some smudgy green stains in the form of little hand prints on the walls and her legs are covered in little zucchini shavings that she trails through the house and I find them shriveled and dried up days later on her doll's face or way in the back of a toy drawer.

Once, I found a wad of zucchini ribbons hanging out of the back of Edie's diaper, as if she had gotten the toilet paper stuck in her pantyhose after a long night of bar trawling and had no clue about it. I let her walk around the house this way for awhile thinking she looked funny and cute and then, Lucy declared that Edie had a "tail" and I felt compelled to wrestle the strips out of her diaper to stave off some kind of emotional trauma.

This is still a good time to make this recipe since you can really take advantage of the farmers markets and get some crispy, fresh, right-out-of-the-garden zucchs. If you’ve never cooked “en papillote” which is a pretentious, French term for steaming in paper, this is a friendly introduction. (But do try working "en papillote" into your conversation. It sounds impressive and saying something like, "We're cooking "en papillote" tonight, honey" makes the dish sound fancier and harder to make than it really is.)

One thing – this is not a dish for a dinner party. They are labor intensive if you have to make a hundred of them, you'll regret it by the time you get to 50. This recipe makes for 4 people, according to Gourmet, but I find I never make enough. They are so tasty they fly off the plate. I've also made them for snacks for the kids, ate the leftovers for breakfast with toast and they make a nice light lunch with a salad and bread.

We eat these succulent, buttery little fish packages with our hands, as kind of a finger food, so forget the forks and let them grab them from the plate and pop them in their mouths.


Zucchini-Wrapped Fish


Ingredients

2 (6- to 7-inch-long) zucchini, trimmed
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus additional for brushing
16 fresh basil leaves
4 (6-ounce) pieces halibut or salmon fillet (preferably wild salmon), skinned
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Prep in the afternoon

Shave zucchini lengthwise into very thin ribbons with peeler.

For each piece of fish, arrange about 5 slices of zucchini on a work surface, side by side, overlapping each slice by half. Brush zucchini with oil, then lightly season with salt and pepper. Lay 2 basil leaves across center of each group of zucchini slices.

Pat fish dry, then sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper (total) and arrange crosswise on zucchini, covering basil leaves. Top each piece of fish with 2 basil leaves, then wrap zucchini around fish, overlapping ends.

Put the bundles on a platter and slide them in the fridge. Don't think about them until dinner time.

Right before dinner

Take the platter of fish bundles out of the fridge. Put 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet and swirl to coat bottom, then arrange fish, seam sides down, in oil. Lightly brush tops of zucchini and fish with oil.

Cover skillet and cook fish over medium heat, without turning, until barely cooked through, 6 to 9 minutes, depending on thickness of fillets (fish will continue to cook from residual heat).

Transfer fish to plates, then stir lemon juice and remaining 2 tablespoons oil into juices in skillet and season sauce with salt and pepper. Drizzle sauce over fish. Continue Reading...

Thursday Night Kitchen Supper - Baked Italian Sausages with Potatoes and Rosemary

Kitchen Supper was great last night. I cooked an old favorite of ours from Australian chef, Bill Granger (which I have admittedly posted on this blog before, but it is such a great recipe - and so easy - I feel compelled to do it again) - Baked Italian Sausages with Potatoes and Rosemary.

Unlike last time I posted about this recipe, I made it for 10 people this time and I roasted it in a big paella pan and brought it to the table that way. It looked lovely - the crunchy and oily ciabatta bread mixed in with the golden, sizzling sausages and the olive-oil drenched potatoes. The smell of rosemary and roasted garlic steeping in oily pan juices was heaven and nearly an amuse bouche in and of itself. Granger is a master of the simple and fabulous. Love him. (This is him - all white-linen-shirt-wearing barefoot chef walking on the beach with his daughter.)


During the evening, I found myself standing in the kitchen watching this lovely group of new friends - David, balancing a wine glass while trying to help Lucy, Hidaya and Edie “jump rope” with a sewing tape, Rachel and Warren, both teachers, so passionate and knowing about kids, huddled together in the corner talking shop, Kian, who was always so quiet and elegant as we passed in the halls, just a bundle of energy and stories of Shanghai, Craig, a singer in the chorus at the Met who I had seen in the elevator that day and just a few minutes in our house seemed like a friend I had known for years, Jaffer from Zanzibar, works at the world bank and who like David, prodded the girls until they shared their toys and who served as chaperone and nurse when they started jumping off the couch like little paratroopers, Amy, who should have been elected to the board of our building (the building elections were held just before supper) because she is pure drive, a burst of light and energy and charisma and her husband Alex, sturdy and calm on the outside, sweet and quietly, honestly, charming underneath. The girls ran in and out of rooms, pleased to be unleashed and free. Everyone else stepped aside as they slipped through their legs, sipped their wine and went back to their conversations.

Later, after the kids fell prey to their tired bodies and passed out on blankets on the floor, we sat around the table, surrounded by empty plates and melting candles, finishing bottles of wine, talking about politics and picking at shards of frozen chocolate on a platter in the middle. So many places around the globe were represented – Zanzibar, China, Australia, Germany and places closer to home - and they all spoke freely, shared stories and it was obvious how many miles everyone had traveled just to end up all together in one place on this one night. I am pleased to know these people will be a part of our lives over many nights just like this one for years to come.

So, here’s the recipe for this yummy dish for four people. For ten, I spit-balled it and used 20 sausages and two small bags of small red potatoes. I upped the spice amounts to taste and used about a half loaf of bread. The bread really makes this dish, so no skimping there. I threw the whole thing in a big paella pan and served it with a salad of greens, goat cheese, toasted almonds and garden tomatoes, with a little extra virgin olive oil (the good stuff), the juice of a whole lemon, salt and pepper. I prepped almost all of it ahead of time.

So simple - enjoy!

xxxooo Kim


Baked Italian Sausages, With Potatoes And Rosemary

This recipe serves four.

Ingredients

* 8 Italian Sausages (chicken sausage also works well, but you’ll need to add a little more olive oil)
* 800g. Potatoes (Scrubbed and Sliced)
* 1½ teaspoons Paprika
* 1 Rosemary (Stalk)
* 4 Garlic Cloves (Unpeeled)
* Sea Salt
* Freshly Ground Black Pepper
* 2 Slices Ciabatta Bread
* 50ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
* 1 handful Continental Parsley

During naptime:

1. Slice the sausages into 4cm pieces and place in a large roasting pan (or in two two cast iron frying pans)
2. Slice the potatoes and chill in a separate container of cold water in the fridge.
3. Add the paprika, rosemary, garlic cloves, sea salt and pepper to the sausage.
4. Tear the ciabatta into bite size pieces and add to the roasting tray.
5. Drizzle over the oil and gently toss to combine.
6. Place roasting pan in fridge and enjoy the rest of your day knowing that dinner is in the bag.

45 minutes before you want to eat:

1. Heat oven to 400 F.
2. Take potato slices out of water (pat dry with a paper towel) and place in roasting pan. Mix with sausage and spices to coat.
3. Place pan in the oven and cook, stirring occasionally, for 30-40 minutes or until the potatoes are tender and the sausages and bread are golden brown.
4. Top with continental parsley and serve with a green salad. Continue Reading...

The Awful Offal Adventure - Calves Liver

The “offal issue” has been popping up a lot lately.

David has been on a tear to get us to eat organ meat. To inspire me, David purchased “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon and surprised me with it (It came with a fetching note that said “To the most wonderful cook in the world, from her loving husband oxoxo – how sweet!) and Nina Planck’s book “Real Food” (It was from the girls and the note said, “Mummy, you cook the yummiest food ever. We love you. Lucy and Edie” – just darling). Most husbands use sweet notes and surprise gifts to get more sex. Mine uses them to get offal into his diet.


The only problem with David’s offal idea is that every time I even mentioned an organ-as-food in conversation, like “Honey, I was thinking about doing some brains in wine sauce for lunch tomorrow…” David would make this face that looked like he was mid-vomit.

I thought at first he might be doing it on purpose, but then as I started dropping offal into the conversation more regularly, I realized it was completely subconscious. So, I did what any self-respecting wife would do…I made a point of saying it every chance I got.

“How are we feeling about a brain omelet for breakfast this morning?” I said as he brushed his teeth. Vomit face.

“Did you know that kidney’s should be cooked until they are just pink inside,” I’d mention as he was about to put a spoonful of chocolate pudding into his mouth. Vomit face.

And while he was relaxing with a glass of wine and a nice buttery soft cheese, “Did you know that I can make heart kabobs with sheep hearts?” Vomit face.

It was comical and I felt a little like one of those people in the lab who kept shocking the monkey more and more even though they knew it was hurting him. Still, the mid-vomit face was not enough to throw him off the trail. He was chasing vitamin A like a greyhound chasing a rabbit at the dog track.


“Let’s do it,” he said, calling my bluff one day.

So, dutiful wife that I am, I surprised him with some calves liver night before last. Not terribly exotic but I thought a good, harmless primer on offal. I bathed the thing in lemon (hoping to smother the liver flavor, but apparently lemon doesn't do that) and decided to go with the guy who knows offal better than anyone (that’s a compliment really) – Mario Batali. I love him, but not even Malto Mario could pull this one out of the hopper for the Foster family. I did his Calves Liver, Venetian Style or as Mario calls it Fegato alla Veneziana and believe me, it sounds better in Italian.

Now, let me preface this next part by saying that my husband and his mother are the best eaters in the world. I always feel like a chef when I’m around them because I can pull a dish together with two twigs, a sprig of parsley and some ketchup and they’ll eat like I’ve just handed them butter-poached lobster tails. They are my favorite people on the planet to cook for. To give you an even clearer picture, yesterday David told me that we had left some Greek yogurt in the back of the fridge and it had gone past the expiration date three weeks ago. He also confessed to me that he really wanted some Greek yogurt that morning and he simply ate around the “green parts”.

Okay, so you see…my husband will eat anything and he has a stomach of steel. If he were stranded in the Australian outback, I am very confident he would drink his own pee and eat grubs and spit-fired Red Back Spiders until he was helicoptered to safety. I tell you this because it came as a big surprise to see my fearless, chow hound of a husband cower in front of the Fegato alla Veneziana.

Here is a little skit I wrote detailing our dinner conversation:

David: (Eyes like dessert plates) Look Lucy, Mummy made liver…It’s…yummy.

Lucy: Yummy for my tummy?

David: (Trying too hard) Oh yes! Very yummy….Did I tell you how yummy it was?

Lucy nods and looks at her father as if his head is spinning off his body. David begins to do a monologue about vitamin A and its impact on eye care in the United States and the Third World.

Kim: Okay, guys, let’s dig in…

David: Where are the vegetables?

Kim: What vegetables honey? I carmelized the onions and added balsamic…is that what you mean?

David: (getting a little anxious) I need vegetables, salad, anything leafy to cover this up!!!

Kim: Cover what up, honey?...The yummy liver?

We both look at Lucy and Edie. A silent parent dialogue has just taken place.

Kim and David: (sing songy and in unison) …the yummy liver

Lucy: Liver’s yummy!

David and Kim sigh with relief. Lucy is still toeing the party line. She tastes the liver, makes the vomit face (she looks just like her Dad) and spits it out.

David bolts up, rummages through the fridge and comes back to the table with an arm full of vegies and several bottles of condiments.

David: I’m not gonna get through this without a little help.

Kim is chuckling behind the napkin. Edie is holding a piece of liver in her hand but not eating and Lucy is practicing her knife skills on several pieces on her plate. She isn’t eating either. David, in an elaborate ritual, mounds vegetables around his liver and scoops various liquids and semi-solids into the vegies, while gently scolding Kim for not preparing more side dishes.

Kim: (now giggling uncontrollably) Baby, can I make you a salad? Or order you a pizza?

David: (looking bemused and squemish at the same time) Let’s just try this liver, okay?

David is smiling despite the big undertaking in front of him. He cuts a small, nearly miniscule piece of liver, soaks up the sauce, plops some onions on top and manages to pull in a veg or two. He gives Kim the kind of look men give their wives before they go off to war. Kim is now hysterical, pounding the table with her hand and Lucy and Edie are now giggling too and are staring at their father, waiting for him to put the fork full of food into his mouth.

He (finally) puts it in his mouth. The girls know we are on the precipice of something important. We all wait. For a moment, we think he might like it. David pushes it around his mouth and bobs his head up and down for Lucys benefit.

David: …yummy

Lucy smiles at me. She thinks her Daddy has lost his marbles. It looks like he might actually like liver. He smiles weakly, looks at me and is about to give me an approving nod until…the after taste. David makes big vomit face and chokes down wad of food in his mouth.

Lucy: Still yummy, Daddy?

She looks hopeful but we all know the writing is on the wall. Lucy and Edie decide to play with their toys in the playroom. Kim makes David and girls grilled Asiago and Parm sandwiches with spinach and tomatoes. She contemplates writing an e-mail to Mario Batali and asking him to come to their home with a bottle of Gripa and make them some offal they can really sink out teeth into.

That was the end of that dinner (and the end of my little skit).


See, the thing about liver is that the first bite tastes fine, but it’s the back splash of liver flavor that floods your mouth with this grimy, mealy stink that blows you off your feet. One minute you are sitting there innocently chewing a harmless piece of meat and the next minute the flavor hits your tongue and you feel like you’ve been blown off your feet by Harry Potter in a wand duel.

I will say this about my husband - he is undaunted by the experience.

“Maybe liver is just the wrong organ,” he told me later that evening, while thumbing through a magazine.

“Maybe brains or kidneys will taste better.”

He said this as if it were perfectly reasonable and made me realize what a positive and hopeful person my husband is...until a few minutes later when he must have thought better of it.

“Maybe you could buy some organ meats and chop them up in a sauce or in meatballs,” he suggested. "Sally Fallon says we can get the same nutrients that way as we can be serving it as a main course." He raised the magazine again and started reading.

"...just do it and don't tell us about it.”

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Thursday Night Kitchen Supper - Baha-Style Fish Tacos

I was making the bean dip for last week for our Thursday Night Kitchen Supper and Lucy asked to make it herself. “Make it myself” is a phrase we use often around here. So I hoisted her up onto the kitchen counter and gave her the can of black beans. She held the can opener while I turned the can and then somehow got her ring finger in under the handle and when I pressed the can opener down, I completely squashed her finger.

It wasn’t hospital-worthy but it turned several ominous shades of blue. There was a lot of crying and screaming (mostly her, although a little wimpering from me) and the bean dip-making came to a grinding halt. Edie had been staring at this scene with some curiosity and decided that this might be a good time to play with her sister’s toys, which worked out well for me until she got bored, realized Lucy was getting all the hugs and sweet words and proceeded to cling to my leg in agony and chimed in with some ear-splitting wailing of her own. It was 7pm. No husband. Guests arriving any minute. No bean dip. No pressure.

By the time David walked in the door, both of the kids had conked out in my arms, which I thought might be a sign of them going to bed early but turns out they just decided to take a tandem 7pm nap. I had prepped the Baha-style fish tacos during the afternoon. I diced the tomatoes, thinly sliced the green cabbage, sauteed the onions in rice vinegar, sugar and salt, marinated the fish in lime, cilantro, oil and salt, made the crema with mayonnaise, sour cream, lime juice and salt and got the tortillas ready for heating.

I found out too late that the Gourmet Magazine “quick kitchen” recipe was not entirely quick and not do-able in 45 minutes of active time as they promised (bastards), unless of course you are some kind of Ginzu knife expert. It has so many moving parts that it is not a great recipe for prepping while children are around – case in point - Lucy enjoyed throwing the cabbage into the air to make cabbage “rain” in the kitchen and Edie sat in the corner of the dining room stuffing little fistfuls of cilantro into the gaping hole between the legs of her stuffed bunny. That bunny still isn't right.

By the time the guests arrived, the kitchen was cleaned, I wasn’t wearing anything stained, everything was ready to fire and the kids slept like small, lazy angels. The bean dip turned out great – So simple – black beans, diced red onion, diced tomoatoes, fresh cilantro, garlic, generous squirt of lemon and a dollop of sour cream on top. Bowl of chips next to dip – Voila! It all started so flawlessly. That is until, the pain in Lucy’s finger woke her up and she started screaming, which then woke up Edie and she started screaming. Both of our children wailed. David and I pushed a bottle of wine into the uncomfortable hands of our guests, Nat and Charna, and slid the bean dip their way. That seemed to do the trick.

We excused ourselves and disappeared into the bedroom, which must have seemed like some horrible chamber of torture to Nat and Charna, neither of whom have children, and probably think that children only scream when they are being dragged out back to the shed to be whipped with a shaving strap or something. Little do they know we are loud when we are happy and sad.

Our other guests, Rachel and Jaffer came with their 18 month old daughter Hidaya, so I knew they would understand that dinner might have to be aborted if we needed to take Lucy to the emergency run or force a hit of Motrin down her to help her with the pain. I wasn’t so sure about the childless people. Dinner prep stopped until we could get the kids in good sorts. Finally, Lucy and Edie saw Hidaya and realized they could be having fun in the toy room and giggles and jumping off the couch replaced tears and slumber.

I got dinner on the table, but I made it a “make your own” Baha-style fish taco instead of fussing over presentation. Bottles of wine were killed and we got to know each other as we scooped crema onto our hot tortillas and lime and cilantro-infused fish. Oh! And the onions cooked in vinegar and sugar really worked with the taco – the tangy taste was a great contrast to the creamy sauce and mild fish.

David and Jaffer stood around monitoring the children and chatting with wine glasses in their hands. Rachel drank too much and had a little hangover the next day. Nat and Charna were funny and they had opinions and insightful things to bring to the conversation, which is always a joy...and they didn't seem at all phased by having to talk over the kids tearing through the apartment. The kids didn’t get to bed until 11pm.

We fell into bed tired and happy.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Hey Barista! Give Me A Starbucks Grande, Quad, Ristretto, Nonfat, Dry Cappuccino, Please!

David usually makes me a gigantic container of iced tea and I drink it everyday while I’m working. We do this because Starbucks is right down stairs and there is a big temptation to go there everyday and order a tea and have the friendly staff in the clean, brand new store hand me the freshly brewed tea, which is fine until you calculate the cost of making iced tea at home and compare it to the cost of buying iced tea at Starbucks. Pennies versus dollars, and even though it feels like handing over two bucks is a small thing, it adds up over a period of months and years. So we try to keep our tea in the family.


I used to avoid Starbucks like I avoid Rubella. Not the company itself mind you - which seems like an excellent, well-run company that treats employees well and understands their customers - but the way they ask you a million questions whenever you want a cup of coffee. You know what I’m talking about - it goes like this:

Kim: I’d like an iced tea, please.

Friendly, Well-Intended, Barista Person : What size?

Kim: Medium would be great.

FWIBP: Tall, grande or venti?

Kim: What? (Looking confused, mouth gaping open. The annoyed clerk points to the board and angry customers behind me shuffle their feet)

Kim: Oh, grande, I guess

FWIBP: What kind of tea would you like?

Kim: You know, regular tea…

FWIBP: We have black, green or passion tea.

Kim: I’d like the kind of tea you get when you order an iced tea in a diner. (FWIBP figets uncomfortably and shrugs unknowingly. Main in suit behind me looks at his watch. Someone from way in the back sighs loudly.)

Kim: Um…black

FWIBP: Lemonade?

Kim: Uh…No I want tea.

FWIBP: No, in your tea….Do you want lemonade IN your tea?

Kim: Lemonade In my tea?

FWIBP: Yes. That’s what I said…(FWIBP is looking a little tense now. She tries to keep the half smile on her face, but it's fading)

Kim: I don’t think so.

FWIBP: How about sugar?

Kim: No sugar, but lemon would be nice.

FWIBP: We don’t have lemon.

Kim: Really?...That’s odd because if you sell iced tea, I would expect a little lemon and…

FWIBP: We don’t have any. (FWIBP suspects the line behind me might mutiny. She tries to save me by moving it along)…Anything else?

Kim: No, I’m tired now.

And I feel a little foolish. A wisp of a college co-ed sidles up next to me in her cellulite-free legs and cute shorts and smartly gives her order to the FWIBP.

”I’d like an iced, decaf, triple grande cinnamon non-fat no-whip mochachino,” she says. The FWIBP nods to her warmly and says, as if they are long-lost birth sisters and kindred spirits, “That’s my favorite, too”.

This was why it took me so long to warm up to Starbucks – I felt like an outsider whenever I was there. Everyone seemed to speak a language I had never heard before and deftly maneuvered through a culture (while maniacally clutching their to-go cups) that seemed odd and foreign to me. I mean, the store offers a little manual on how to order your syrups for heavens sake! Is this really such a rich and sophisticated experience that I need a manual to do it?


Anyway, this all used to annoy me and I used to steer clear of Starbucks, but now that we have one right downstairs, I have to come to be more patient with them. I don’t mind when David gets busy and forgets to brew my tea for the week on Sunday evening. Lucy likes to go there and sit in the big chairs and have Passion Tea and Rainbow Cookies – an activity that makes her feel very grown-up. And the staff acknowledges her and Edie by name, like it is a small tea shop and not the sprawling, metastisizing mega-corp we know it is. I’ve come to know and really like Fernando, Roxie and Vanessa and they know me. They cheerfully shout at me when I walk in the store, the way the gang from Cheers shouted at Norm when he came in.

It feels like a neighborhood, like we and they all belong here together. Roxie, God bless her, knows how I like my tea so I don’t have to ask for my drink in some complicated monologue. I just stand there, make chit chat and wait for my gigantic iced teas – black, no lemonade, no sugar - to appear in front of me, perfectly made without any interrogation or oration.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Gorton's Fish Sticks...Otherwise Known as Gorton's Death Sticks

Skye came to visit the other day with the kids. She picked up some Gorton’s Fish Sticks and fruit to feed the kids for lunch. I haven’t had a Gorton’s fish stick since I wore knee socks, so I was both repulsed and excited to give ‘em a try. Repulsed because they violate my “no more than 5 ingredient rule” – because they have like 60 un-pronounceable ingredients in them – and excited because well, they are junk food and since they were just sitting there all brown and glorious, there was an implied permission to eat them.

So I caved (like David in front of a Big Mac) and let me tell ya – They are little bread crumb-covered miracles! I couldn’t stop eating them. They are unnaturally satisfying because some brilliant scientist at Gortons whipped up the fish stick taste in a beaker in his laboratory. Still, I plundered through them with relish until all that was left was some grease on my fingers and a few crumbs on the plate.

The “Death Sticks” are crispy on the outside and have an un-fishy-like taste. The coating is thin but the taste just candies up the fish and completely disguises it. No wonder kids eat these things – they don’t taste anything like fish. It’s like feeding them liver that tastes like Hershey Bars and sunshine.

Nevertheless, I sucked them all down before the kids had a chance to know they were there. As I like to recall it, I threw myself in front of the train to protect the children. If you think I’m kidding, let’s look at the ingredient list…get out your dictionary of toxic substances.

Minced pollock
Enriched bleached wheat flour
Vegetable oil
Water
Yellow Corn Flour
Modified Corn Starch
Sugar
Salt
Whey
Dextrose
Dried Yeast
Leavening
Caramel color
Hydrolized Corn Gluten (tasty)
Monosodium Glutamate
Autolized Yeast Extract
Onion powder
Paprika, Annatto and Turmeric extracts (for color)
Natural flavoring (whatever that is…)
Disodium inosinate (this with MSG & Disodium Guanylate gives it the “Umami” taste)
Disodium Guanylate
TBHQ (aka tert-butylhydroquinone, added to protect the flavor. Shown to be carcinogenic in larger quantities in the lab)
Sodium tripolyphosphate (to retain moisture, also used in soaps, detergents and toothpaste)
Methylcellulose (a thickener – safe but not digestible. It just passes through…)
Rice flour
Hydrolized wheat protein


Appetizing, right? I don’t think the death sticks will actually give my kids cancer but a lifetime of death sticks has to do some damage - like deaden my kid's palates or something. It’s easier to buy fresh fish, roll it in some bread crumbs and bake it in the oven for the same time it takes to reheat the frozen death sticks…and it's just better, worry-free eating.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...

Labor Day

Lots of putting up shelves, unpacking those boxes of things we didn’t need urgently but might be nice to have out now. We’ve lived in a rather barren apartment for some time, since I recently finished my book deadline and David has been working furiously on his shows. It was lovely to have David all to ourselves this long weekend. We did some home improvement mixed with some play time with the girls.

We took them back to our old playground for a birthday party, where three old friends - Lucy, Sophia and Ruby - remembered why they loved each other and walked around together, their arms linked around each others waists and having conversations about balls and sand shovels and the colors pink and red. They spent a good deal of time picking up each others sandals and trying them on and taking them off, until finally they abandoned them for the freedom of bare feet. I watched them pour sand in and out of plastic cups and huddle together whispering as if they were 12 and talking secretly about boys or some other topic that was just their own.


We stayed late, until the sun was down and the girls were tired and then, hopped on a bus and headed home, dirty and bruised from a hard day on the playground. Edie had a swollen, black and blue nose (from which fall we are not sure, there were quite a few. She has graduated from walking to running and struck off on her own on the playground, so free and not worried about how far away she was from me. She smiled through the falls and the missteps with dirt and tears and roses on her cheeks.

Lucy also got to see her friend Benny this weekend. We went to Sharleen and Marc’s and ate steaks and bean salad and corn on the cob with cayenne & lime butter (very good) and the kids stripped off their clothes and played in the pool and stomped through the dirt and fell asleep on the Metro North ride home. Shar used to live down the hall in our building (before striking out for the more countrified surroundings of Ridgfield Connecticut.) To this day her departure has left me without anyone to borrow olive oil from and without a friend who will sit cross-legged in the hall outside our apartments and drink a glass of rose, while watching the kids tumble after each other, screeching like dolphins and chasing balls and falling on the floor in hysterics. I miss her so much and am thrilled she and Marc are pregnant – complete with all that nausea and projectile vomiting that I remember so well.

We walked to Fairway yesterday for a stash of cheese – some triple crème St. Andre, Brie, Goat, Manchego (for mac and cheese with truffle oil), Asiago (for grilled cheese, tomato and spinach on crusty bread) Pecorino–Roman, Parm-Reg. Some really lovely Australian Picual extra virgen olive oil (slightly sweet with a very mellow after taste), aged balsamic, whole peppercorns, fish sauce and sesame oil, freshly-made pastas, spinach fettucine, hand ground organic peanut butter, smoked salmon, organic pork chops and steaks. Will go today to get bones for broth and some fish – because Lucy is asking for fish every day now and enjoys talking to Charmaine at the fish counter.

Sad to see David go to work this morning. Sad to see the weekend over. Sad that the time flew by and I didn't catch it before it disappeared. Happy for this time together.

xxxooo Kim Continue Reading...