Herb-Soaked Lamb Shoulder Chops

I think Lucy is going to be a chef when she grows up.

I don’t say this lightly. I’m not sure I even want to wish that on her (I’m picturing Tony Bourdain’s face on my little girl’s body), but really, this kid loves to cook with me in the kitchen. It’s THE thing we do together.

Sure, when she’s upset she asks for Daddy. And when she wakes up at night, she asks for Daddy. And when I act all parental and put my foot down about one thing or another, she asks for the phone so she can call Daddy and beg for clemency. And now and again, I feel a little like chopped liver to his porterhouse - but Lucy and I, we still have the kitchen.

Lucy getting some love from Daddy
(or trying to get him to put on her princess movie "one more time")

Lucy is asking to cook with me at every meal and snack. She asks to get on her cooking stool and stand next to me at the chopping board, the two of us snipping chives with scissors, working the handle hand over hand, cutting spring onions (which made her eyes tear up yesterday learning a very important kitchen rule about onions) and tearing off sprigs of herbs and landing them in a pot and lobbing butter into a cast iron pan.

It's the thing we do together – the place we connect – and so, I want it to go on like this endlessly. I want us to have the kitchen as a place where we can always come back to, where we can poach a catfish and talk about what's happening and just be together.

That's my fantasy. On the other hand, cooking could be displaced by Barbie Dolls and Hanna Montana next week, so I'll just enjoy this moment.

Anyway, Lucy and I had fun making this lamb recipe. She loves tearing off the herbs from their stems and lofting them into the pot. I know we recently gave you lamb tacos, but I wanted to post this recipe especially for one of my readers - Megan - because this meal is great for busy families and also busy grad students who might want to impress a suitor one Friday night or host a few friends over in between exams and papers. So, this one's for you, Megan.

Herb Soaked Lamb Shoulder Chops

Lamb bathing in herbs and oil

You should buy lamb shoulder chops for this recipe. They are fatty and have a lot of flavor. They are also very cheap. So, you can make this dish for friends and guests and not spend a fortune. I throw the chops in a covered pot and marinate them in olive oil (be generous), dried oregano, rosemary, thyme, (be generous with the herbs, too) salt and pepper and throw them in the fridge.

The longer you let the meat steep in the herbs, the better the flavor. Really, I tried marinating for a few hours, over night and two days and the two day meat was better than the over night meat which was better than the two hour meat. I also go into the pot several times through the marinating process and turn the chops around and get them all slick and drenched with oil and herbs.

Here’s how simple it is: Ten minutes before you are ready to eat, take the chops out of the fridge and out of the marinade, shake off any excess oil, but don't wipe. It's just fine if there are sprigs of herbs stuck to them. All the better. Throw them in a VERY HOT cast iron skillet or cast iron grill pan. You won't need any oil in the pan because there is enough on the chops.

Cook on each side until the meat is medium. (When you're cooking lamb, the shoulder cuts should be done a little more than other parts like the ribs). Serve with your favorite veg side dish, salad and a crusty bread.

Oh! And don't forget to let your guests see you take the pot of chops out of the fridge before you cook. The chops look so pretty and smell so fragrant coming out of the pot and into the pan, you'll have your guests salivating before they get to the table.

Enjoy!

xxxooo YM

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Jerry Springer: The Opera

This is the post where I shamelessly use my food blog to gloat about my husband and his sexy, non-food-related job.

David's new show, Jerry Springer: The Opera, starring Harvey Keitel will be at Carnegie Hall on February 29 and 30. The show was originally a huge hit in London and won an Olivier Award for Best New Musical. David has been quoted in several magazine articles - I've included the Variety article and another in Time Out New York - which I want all of you to read because I am very proud of him.

David and his business partner, Jared
(who Lucy calls "Daddy's cousin" although we don't know why)

Also, the Catholic League has gotten their cassocks in a bunch and have come out against the show, saying it "celebrates moral nihilism", so check out what they have to say. They even found a way to link the show to the Nazis and the Nuremberg Trials, which I think is very creative of them.

Lucy has been asking to "go to the show with Daddy" but I think she can sit this one out. I don't know how we'll explain the tap dancing Klansmen...

xxxooo YM Continue Reading...

Just When I Thought I Had It All Together...

David got up this morning and because I never got to the store to buy toothpaste, like all week, and because he would never make me feel bad about it or give me a hard time or remember to do it himself and because he is a real trooper, he silently padded to the girl's "cow bathroom" this morning, in his bare feet and underwear, toothbrush in hand, and brushed his teeth...with the girl's Princess toothpaste.

It was a bit sad really. I mean if he had a better wife, he'd be using Crest or something, like other lucky husbands.

It was Lucy who ratted him out. "Daddy is using my Princess toothpaste, Mommy!" This made her very happy. And he seemed to enjoy the pink foam in his mouth. (Or perhaps this was wishful thinking)

But I got the message - I bought some real toothpaste today. Crest. Only the best for my terrific husband.

I'm sure he's feeling like he hit the jack pot...

xxxooo YM Continue Reading...

Crab Leg Carnage

We steamed and ate crab legs over the weekend. Simple, quick and just the kind of food my kids love…the kind that requires violently cracking things open with a mallet.

Stupidly, I was unprepared for how much Lucy wanted to pound the crap out of things. There is some serious toddler anger in that little body. She ate a lot, but the walls are now splattered with butter marks and David nearly lost a cornea to a flying shard of crab leg.

I had to step in and save Edie when Lucy (softly stroking her sister’s foot with one hand and fondling the mallet with the other) asked “Can I smash Edie’s leg, too?” Edie, sensing danger, grabbed a crab leg off the table and bopped her sister over the head. There were tears and a UN-sized conflict mediation was required, but a stalemate and eventually, peace were achieved.

By the end of the session, the table was crab carnage. Splintered shells, dismembered legs, bits of oily flesh flecked about the floor and small buttery-mouthed children sucking the last bits of meat out of the shells…and then blowing air into the empty shells to make crab leg whistles and buckling over with laughter.

And then, they got all loopy and hopped up on crab and started hucking shells around the room "It's raining crab, Daddy!" and David and I had to shut down the party. But all in all it went pretty well. No one was permanently maimed in the eating of this meal - except for the crabs who suffered greatly - and not one child was rushed to the hospital where we would have to explain all this to social services.

I like this meal mostly as a fun snack on a weekend – to carry you from lunch to dinner. It’s super tactile for the kids, almost like a project, a lot of work getting the meat out of the shells which keeps them busy and sitting at the table. And, of course, the meat is mild and buttery and easy to love. Yes, it’s ridiculously messy, but I’m not Martha Stewart and a little flying butter never scared me. It just blends with the rest of the stuff stuck to my floors.

Next time, we’ll dispense with the mallets and crack ‘em in the kitchen before they get to the table. Or maybe we'll just continue to live dangerously...

xxxooo YM

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The Children Ate Fish Heads

The other day in the market, Lucy stood up in the shopping cart in front of the fish counter, pointed to the Red Snapper and demanded that we only buy “fish with eyes”. Then, she noticed that raw Snapper has pink scales, and since we are in our princess stage and everything pink is a good thing – the whole “fish with eyes” thing was galvinized.

My daughter wants her dead and lifeless food staring up at her while she devours it. Pre-schoolers are scrappy little buggers.

None of this is my doing, by the way. It’s Kian and Warren’s fault - the guys who live across the hall. Kian is Chinese and cooks homestyle Chinese food…and let me tell you, I’ve eaten in a lot of Chinese restaurants and I’ve never had Chinese food as good as his. He is an extraordinary cook. (I have a lot of things to say about Warren, too. But he requires his own post. His story involves duck eggs and horse urine and a passionate desire to make me eat the most disgusting delicacies he can find in China town. Thanks for that, Warren.)

My generous friend and amazing cook, Kian

So Kian and Warren had a dinner and invited us and our friends who also live in the building, Rachel, Jaffer and their 2 year old, Hidaya, who we adore and is like our third kid. We poured some wine and hung out while the kids (Hidaya looking sweet and clean and being all well-behaved, and my two in stained painting t-shirts, underpants and ransacking cupboards) ran wild through the apartment, looking for priceless antiques to up end and Wedgewood candle sticks to shatter, while Kian chopped fresh cilantro, diakon and bamboo shoots in the kitchen, ladling braising liquid over his fish head and setting veg in and out of the fire for short periods of cooking in the wok.

Kian set out cold plates (much to Edie’s delight, who much prefers cold to hot dishes) - Pickled cabbage and daikon, Cucumber salad with Garlic and Chili and Sweet and Sour Watermelon Radish Salad. Edie kept reaching for things across the table and sticking them in her mouth – eating up the cucumber, spitting out the daikon. Her favorite was the Watermelon Radishes.
She spent the night chewing on these spicy, pink candy-colored wedges. She adored them.

Edie's favorite - Watermelon Radishes
(in our favorite color, princess pink)

Then came the hot plates. One by one, so we could ruminate slowly over each of them. First plate - the heat of Kung Pao Chicken, nuggets of chicken steeped in hot chilies, was David and Rachel’s favorite. The kids avoided this one and good thing because one accidental nibble on one of those sassy red chilies and we’d have to call the Fire Department and have the children hosed down.

Next, the more subtle Steamed Tofu with Mushroom and Bamboo Shoot. I loved this dish because it has this dark, slippery broth, soft mushrooms that float over the tongue and tofu so gentle that it nearly melts in the mouth. A sensual experience.

Lucy enjoyed drinking the broth from the Chinese spoons, which reminds me...Lucy was a rapt and enthusiastic dinner companion because of one very important reason – chopsticks. What an incredible invention. I could keep Lucy busy picking up radishes and noodles at a dinner table for hours! Fantastic!

Next came the fish head. Lucy had never been served a head, with it’s eyes blankly staring up at us, so I was worried she might feel some empathy for the creature. I could just imagine her staging a protest and screaming, “Don’t hurt the fishy!” just as people were diving in. But she didn’t have one sentimental opinion about the fish – she LOVED it and kept diving into the carcass with her chopsticks and fingers and pulling out nuggets of juicy fish meat from the cheek.

“I like fish with eyes Mommy!” she told me, sloppily plopping a big piece in her mouth with both chopsticks and fingers.

And that's how the whole fish thing began. Now, we are ONLY allowed to eat fish that has eyes. The people working the fish counter think we've lost our minds.

There were two more plates after that - a steaming plate of Stir Fried Bok Choy. Simply done, very comforting and fresh but without all the unnecessary theatrics and a Stir Fried Rice with Dried Shrimp and Asparagus that still haunts me to this day. It was the cleanest, most delightful fried rice I ever had and a reminder to me that what gets served in a lot of Chinese restaurants (especially the take out joints) is not authentic, made with less than fresh ingredients, over-sauced, unnecessarily heavy and flavorless and not at all emblematic of real Chinese cuisine.

Dried Shrimp
(looks like a bowl full of insects now, but once hydrated are pretty tasty)

And then there was the impromtu Chinese cooking lesson. David and the kids mingled and drank wine (David, not the kids) and cleaned the last bits off their plates as I stationed myself right next to Kian at the stove, asking him questions while he chopped unfamiliar vegetables and poured in liquids from bottles with lots of Chinese writing on them.

He explained each step as he went along and I realized that these dishes were quite simple to prepare. They entailed quite a bit of prep and chopping up front, but the cook time was quick, so if you needed to, you could prep and chop early in the day and just cook the food 5 minutes before you want to eat. This makes homestyle Chinese cooking perfect for busy families – great, healthy, fun food with minimal time in the kitchen. Love it.

So, after David leaned in and whispered, “You have to become an expert in Chinese cooking,” I’ve decided to spend some time staring over Kian’s shoulder and learning some of his simple, completely satisfying Chinese dishes. I'll throw them in, here and there, with my Western recipes. And, of course, I'll share the stories with you as I stumble through the steps.

And then we’ll get out the chopsticks and let the little ones have some fun at the table…And maybe eat a few vegetables in the process!

xxxooo YM

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Our House is Like A Petrie Dish

I nearly have another post for you, dear readers, but the plague has descended upon us...again. And I doubt I'll get it off to you before tomorrow. I need to go wash the vomit off my shoulders. And the whole front of me. And the back of me. My apologies. Again.

This time it's Lucy. Sweet, exuberant Lucy, who just went to her first day of pre-school yesterday and was so un-traumatized by the idea of leaving me that she pushed me aside and stepped over my lifeless body so she could sprint into her classroom. The teacher said she didn't even ask for me or look longingly at the door even once in the entire 2 1/2 hours.

Note to self: Remind her over and over I was in labor with her for 37 hours.

Then she cried when it was time to leave. "I want to take ballet class!" she wailed and large tears slid down her cheeks. There was great anguish. Hers. Mine. Then we medicated ourselves with ice cream. All in all a pretty great day.

Today, whole different story - poor little thing laid on the couch, watching Wonder Pets, singing the theme song in a weak, pathetic, barely audible voice, her head on her pillow, bunny tucked underneath her blanket, hot, feverish and flushed. Even in the throes of the Bubonic, she was tough. She refused the Children's Tylenol because it was purple, not pink and then, when David got her the pink bubble gum Tylenol, she was unmoved by it's pinkness. Still she suffers with her fever, allowing only a cool cloth on her forehead. Tough cookie.

It's nearly 11pm here. She just woke...she was having a nightmare that Swiper was coming to swipe her. David and I just confirmed for her that we had indeed made Swiper go away. She's falling back into a hazy sleep. Hope my girl feels better tomorrow.

I'll try to have a new food post up for you sometime tomorrow. I have a back log of things to tell you and some amazing new recipes to share. But that will have to wait for Lucy to return to her amazing little self. Thanks for being patient.

xxxooo YM Continue Reading...

I'm Only Going to Blog About "Food & Kids" This Year...Really

No more adorable pictures of my beautiful children,
unless they are eating something or stirring something in a bowl

This year, I'm going to limit my non-food postings about the kids to just ONCE a week. Really, I am. Or only when something really fun and extraordinary pops up.

Why? Because there are folks who read this blog who don't have kids (or maybe they just have really clean kids) and frankly, they are probably less than thrilled with coming here, maybe looking for a good braised short ribs recipe or wanting to hear more about Lucy's bizarre obsession with raw fish and finding instead, a long treatise on baby diarrhea, replete with colorful descriptions (greenish brown) and gross details of form and consistency (liquidy and loose).

See, it's like I can't stop myself....

No more pictures of David horsing around and pretending to be a male model
(He's going to be soooooooooo mad at me for using this picture)

I'm going to try to post 3 to 4 times a week now. Some posts will be long and rambling, others short. I'll change it up to keep you all guessing. I'll try for posts Monday, Wednesday and 1 or 2 over Friday and the weekend (I like to consider Friday as a part of every weekend), depending on our travel schedule and my book deadlines. I'd like to cover a wide spectrum of "cooking and eating with kids" topics and of course, most of them will end up being pretty wacky because we here at "Casa Foster" are out of the closet and unashamed about our wackiness.

I'll keep trying new foods and recipes in my kitchen and passing them on to you. I am, as always, hard on the trail of simple, fresh, delicious, exciting food that can be prepared efficiently for a family-style kitchen - weekday meals, entertaining, special events, etc. I have some interviews planned this year from people who have something to teach me about food and kids and hopefully, you'll get a kick out of what they have to say. And I'll be chewing the fat about fun, interesting, relevant food news and controversies just to make sure you guys are staying awake out there. And once in awhile, I'll be downright snarky and rude, just to keep it interesting.

I'm also going to be radically up-dating my blogroll this week because I want to really keep up with food news and I want all of you to be able to do that as well.

And no more adorable picture of my kids doing cute things,
like hugging each other in FAO Schwartz. I mean what does that have to do with food?

And I want to hear from you and tell me what you'd like me to write about, what food topics I should be exploring. I want your opinions. I want to hear about the things you find challenging with kids and cooking. I especially want to hear from the closeted ones - you know who you are - the ones who are reading, but never say anything.

I know you're out there...

I especially want to hear from my enthusiastic readers in Botswana (yes, you know who you are. I couldn't be happier to get love from Botswana) and Australia (because Aussie's just rock). I also want all you anonymous commenters, especially the dissenters and the ones who want me to a write book (I love you the most) to come out from the shadows and make yourself known. This is a community after all. If the thought of baring all in the comments section is too horror-producing, drop me an e-mail.

And I'll try to keep the poop stories to myself. (I hear a collective sigh of relief from the blogosphere.)

This is going to be a wonderful year. Here's to eating and cooking and gabbing together!

xxxooo YM Continue Reading...

Lucy's Lamb Tacos (Inspired by Mark Bittman)

Lucy and I made dinner last night. Actually Lucy made the dinner and I was the sous chef.

I was looking through Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and I noticed a recipe for Onion Marinated Lambchops (p 478). Mark suggests marinating the chops in shredded onions, olive oil, cumin, cilantro, salt and pepper. I didn’t have chops, nor did I have time to marinate, but I did have a stray package of ground lamb hanging around the back of the fridge and a quick check showed I had everything I needed to make lamb tacos inspired by Bittman's recipe.

And Lucy wanted to do the cooking so this dinner was perfect for a nearly three year old chef – lots of stirring over open fire and cutting things with dangerously sharp knives. Frankly, it was a toddler’s den of iniquity.

We got out the “cooking stool” and washed our hands and she was poised with her wooden spoon, ready to stir anything in her reach. I helped her pour the olive oil in the pan. “Not too much, Mommy!” She’s a bit bossy when she cooks. And I gave her a good size knob of butter and she put it in the cast iron pan. Then, she used the knife to cut a little wedge for herself and licked it, while she informed me she was licking it, as if I didn’t notice she was licking it. “I’m licking it, Mommy.” which totally clarified it for me.

I diced the onions and Lucy threw them in the pan and we watched them get all slick and golden. Lucy stirred and I taught her how to stir without flicking the oil around the stove - and not just to keep the stove clean, but to avoid having her end up in a pediatric burn unit, where I would have to explain why a pre-schooler was cooking our dinner. Then, smarty pants that she is, she touched the pan with her finger on purpose and looked at me and said, “That’s hot, Mommy.”

Master of the obvious, my daughter.

We crumbled the ground lamb into the onions and butter. It was pretty fun to crumble the smooshy meat between our fingers and it seemed at that point she learned her lesson because she was pretty hell bent on staying far from the hot pan. Then, she stirred some more, which is her third favorite cooking activity, next to cutting stuff up with a knife and picking things up with chopsticks.

We added some cumin and then we smelled the cumin and tried to describe the spicyness of the taste and we tasted the meat and decided it needed more cumin. But I think Lucy just liked pouring in the cumin and it wasn’t really a taste decision. So we added a lot of cumin because the pouring was so fun.

She dropped in several “pinches” of salt. I have to really watch her with the salt because she LOVES to put like a hundred pinches of salt in the food. If you turn your back for a second when she is near a salt bowl, there will be little white towers in your food. So after doing only a little pinch she looked at me and said, “That’s enough, Mommy. Not too much.” which I think is verifiable proof that she actually is listening to me.

Amazing.

Then, we moved to the cutting board and I put my hand over hers and we cut the cilantro into a chiffonade. I write this because I liked teaching her to say "chiffonade", which really comes out more like “shamaladerer” when she says it, but still I’m hoping she drags the word out in front of guests. I’ll pretend it’s nothing, but inside I’ll be wanting to alert the Food Network that we have a little Alton Brown on our hands.

The cutting was fun. Lucy produced a flurry of tiny cilantro pieces which rained all over the kitchen counter and the floor. “Look Mommy! The cilantro is flying!” and when the lamb was nearly done and the heavy scent of cumin filled the apartment, Lucy dropped in overstuffed handfuls of bright green into the pan “It’s snowing green snow in the pan!!”

Come to think of it, she is kind of like a little Alton Brown with her astute, perhaps even obsessive compulsive commentary and all. Hopefully, she won't grow up to look like him...

Anyway, we stuffed fork fulls of meat into soft taco shells and lavished them with tomatoes, avocado, asiago cheese and sour cream. That was fun. And messy. There are still little flecks of cheese stuck to my kitchen floor.

We folded our tacos into little hand-held sandwiches and ate them with Edie, standing around the kitchen, proud of the little meal we created ourselves. Well, actually Lucy loved the tacos, but she didn't want me to eat anything because she apparently made the entire meal for her father and every bite I took was like I was taking precious food away from a starving man. She glared at me every time I took a bite or appeared to enjoy it.

I chewed quietly.

Daddy's girl

But there was plenty for David when he got home and Lucy was proud of her cooking and David raved about the tacos, which made her very proud and full of accomplishment.

It was all very satisfying.

xxxooo YM

PS Thanks to Homesick Texan for these scrumptious taco pics.

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The House Bubonic Built

The Sick Child (Edvard Munch)

The plague has nearly ended.

Let's just say there hasn't been a whole lot of cooking around here these last few days, save for a piece or two of rye toast and some chugging of Pedialyte. The kids are just starting to be back to their old spunky selves. I can be away from a bathroom for like hours at a time.

And Edie in particular taught me some kernels of wisdom that will stay with me right into the New Year - I now understand the term "explosive diarrhea" in a way that I really hadn't before.

When people use the term, like "My horse has explosive diarrhea", (Okay, I guess people don't say that very often, but you know what I mean) I thought they were exaggerating. You know, to be funny and visual. Or gross.

Well, they weren't. There is such an animal as "explosive diarrhea" and you can imagine my surprise when my tiny, sweet, 20 pound baby was able to launch a spray of missile fire with so much velocity that in a single second she had blasted the stuff across her Princess bedroom and full-on drenched me, her father, her sister (who was very confused by the ass attack), a rug, several dolls, some brand new bedding from Ikea, the newly-painted pink walls and the wood floors covering about half the room. We all sort of stood there stunned, covered in poop, looking at each other like she had unexpectedly turned on us with a paint gun.

But the upshot was that this made her feel better and she was content again and fell asleep on my shoulder while David, God bless him, cleaned up and answered all of Lucy's in depth questions about flying poop and it's unusual consistency and it's remarkable ability to be shot out of the tushie at high speeds. And Lucy spent a lot of time on her knees examining the poop on the floor and describing it's color, form and shape to all of us in case we missed it's intricate detailing. "This poopie looks like a triangle riding a cow, Mommy!"

The Bubonic is passing now and tonight we are going to a neighbors to eat German food. I want to tell you all about our big Xmas doings and how we hosted a bunch of parents and kids at our house to ring in the New Year in Rio De Janeiro (which is 9pm our time, so the kids can celebrate - it's our second annual and both times has been a huge success) but it all seems like so long ago already. I doubt you all want to do any more re-living of the holidays.

But I want to start talking about food again next post - I have big plans for really stretching my cooking abilities and techniques this year and I want you all involved with me.

Thanks for all your kind comments and e-mails wishing us a speedy recovery. We are on our way!

xxxooo YM Continue Reading...

Happy 2008!

Hey Dear Readers!

Happy New Year! I have lots to report about the holidays and hope to have a post up tonight or tomorrow morning with pictures and lots of talk of our food. I'm feeling a bit under the weather today and need to lick my wounds a bit. A little bug has hit our family and spread from one to the other of us like the black plague.

I'm excited to be back on the blog again and am looking forward to lots of talk about food and families in 2008!

xxxooo YM Continue Reading...