I’m Flying Solo Without a Babysitter

The CSFB (the Competent but Sexy Finnish Babysitter) is off on a long weekend in Miami where she will:

(a) Drink large quantities of alcohol with her friends (b) Tan her stunning 25 year old body on the beach (c) Pick up strange frat boys who will slur their words and say ridiculous, cringe-inducing things like, “Just call me milk, I’ll do your body good” and (d) Jump up on the table when “I Will Survive” comes on, strip off her bikini and sing at the top of her lungs while a crowd of gay cabana boys surround her and tell her how fabulous she is...

Oh right. That last one was me.

Here’s what I’m going to be doing today:

I’ll be pushing a humongous double stroller packed to the brim with wipes, diapers, toys, coats, hats, mittens, snacks and water bottles from playground to playground through Harlem and we still will have forgotten something seriously important, like Lucy’s pink sunglasses, which we always must have whenever there is even a tiny ray of sun peeking through the clouds. And no matter where we are, we’ll have to turn the whole Mack truck around and come back to get the pink sunglasses, lest the child have a severe meltdown on the street and embarrass her mother with her piercing screams and flailing body parts.

And all this is fine except it originally took us two hours to leave the house in the first place because there was dressing, brushing teeth and hair, two separate sessions of pony tail–making, a long lecture on nose-picking and several changes of clothing that lasted until we found just the right skirt to wear and the dress to wear OVER the skirt and the stripey socks and the appropriate matching shirt and perhaps, to do all this we had to rummage through the dryer and find stray pieces of clothes since what we want to wear always seems to be in the dryer when we need it.

And someone will remove their shoes after I’ve put them on and the one that came off will mysteriously disappear and a search will ensue for the missing one. So I’ll be on my hands and knees, looking under beds and couches for the offending shoe and then, someone will poke someone else very lightly with a finger or a baseball bat or a princess wand or a frying pan or whatever is handy and there will be accusations, rebuffs, tears, hurt feelings and like a super-therapist is at work, a resolution will be hammered out in minutes and kisses will be doled out in apology. And that’s why I am bummed we have to return home because I know we’ll get stuck there like we’re in quicksand, flailing about unflatteringly and trying to extricate ourselves…But pink sunglasses are essential, like the air we breathe and the water we drink and so who am I to question this and we head back.

By time we get home, some of us are still sniffling and recovering from our near tantrum. We’ll get in the door and someone will have to go to the bathroom, which means coats will come off and hats will be thrown aside and pants will come down and little people will get naked and distracted and start playing.

The quicksand is at our necks.

I start rummaging through things to get the pink sunglasses. It’s our only chance. The pink sun glasses are not where they are supposed to be, of course, and I have to clear out several drawers and a couple of toy bins to find them, only to discover they are broken, which is when the tears start. And this will take some time because hugging, kissing and consoling must be done just so and it is always time-consuming, but well worth it for all the obvious reasons.

And so you can understand that it’s now lunch time and even though we’ve accomplished nothing really, the quicksand is covering our ears and devouring us slowly. We’ll never get out of the house again. It’s over. Plans aborted. Hopes dashed. And I resign myself to poaching "pink fish" in butter with one hand (see how I worked food into this post?) and breastfeeding Edie with the other (and drink), while Lucy colors on the floor.

I hum a few bars of "I Will Survive".

And think, this is soooooo much better than being 25 and single on Spring Break in Miami. Thank the freakin’ lord that’s not me…

Xxxooo YM

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Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage

We have the best neighbors in the world and they are always over here which is a real hoot for us.

Someone is always walking in with a big bowl of mash potatoes to compliment my braised veal breast or I throw together a salad after Kian across the hall roasts a chicken. We end up sharing tables together in different combinations of people four sometimes five times a week and we usually congregate here. We’ve found through some trial and error that the kids can run around like loons in our apartment while we adults sip wine and chat and everyone seems to be able to digest their food while the kids (anywhere from two to five kids, ages 1 ½ to 5) are climbing over us and scurrying under the tables, grabbing bites off of forks, screeching like dolphins and doing “animal twists” off the end of the couch into the giant bean bag on the floor.

It’s super casual, but there’s no special grill cheese orders or Annie’s Mac and Cheese coming out of the kitchen. The kids eat what we eat and sit with us for awhile at the table, but we don’t ask them to sit like statues ad nauseum or force them to glaze over while we discuss brioche or Obama.

That said, I suspect that occasionally our neighbors without kids would like to have a meal here that doesn’t include Edie spitting her partially-chewed food out onto the table or Lucy wearing nothing but pink beads and a tiara trying to do a cartwheel just inches from the dinner table. They might long to finish a story, get to the punchline of a joke or have a whole conversation without Lucy interrupting them with her long-winded analysis of why "Sahara the horse" could not be tamed by anyone but Princess Jasmine.

"Um...um...she has a...um...horse...Sahara...and, and, and, and she, um....jumps around and um...she, she, she, she, she...won't go anywhere..and Jasmine...Princess Jasmine washed her hair." This takes several minutes and everyone loses their train of thought.

Then, this story triggers the desire to actually ride a horse, so Lucy and the neighbor children beg David to get down on all fours and carry them around the living room floor pretending to be Sahara, while they mercilessly pile on top of him and lead him around by the neck with the red satin sash from my prom dress (from 1983) and cut off the circulation in his carotid artery. They also get very demanding and say things like "Giddy App, Horsey! Go faster, you old slowpoke!" and kick his sides with their socking feet to make him go faster.

This pretty much halts all dinner table conversation.

And we never host a dinner that doesn't involve fighting. Quite predictably, one kid finds the "pinky umbrella" or some other pink object of great value and the other kids want it and no one seems to care or notice that the purple umbrella is exactly the same umbrella, only a different color, but the color thing is CRUCIAL and no one wants to concede, so whatever we were talking about must stop because somewhere in the house, a child is shrieking as if she were being burned with lit cigarettes and there is screaming, tears and an open call to any parents that might be paying attention.

And so conversation stops again and the parents all look at each other over their food to see which one is due a turn and they'll stop eating and go into the toy room and try to broker a deal. The negotiation that ensues rivals the mid-East peace talks and a temporary (read: 6 minute) peace is brokered, as one kid gets to control the Gaza Strip and the other settles to wait her turn with the less desired purple umbrella. Oh, there's some sulking and the long pitiful faces come out, but then, it’s all forgotten for a few minutes and the kids pile under the bunk bed to pretend they are bats in a cave and maybe that parent can pop back out to the table and finish his dinner before the treaty is discarded, the bats come flying out of the cave and another parent is dispatched.

It’s pretty much always like this, but people keep coming back for more, so obviously we're enjoying it, although I don't remember ever finishing a conversation with anyone in like 3 years. The night before last when the gang was all here, I made this Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage from Cook’s Illustrated and it’s a keeper.

As a rule, I am always scared to adapt any recipe from Cooks Illustrated because well, these people are super-anal (Hey, Tammy at Food on the Food...You're one of them, aren't you?) and they live in that little test kitchen of theirs like sequestered mice and test and re-test and re-test all those recipes, so who am I to re-jigger what is probably perfect?

But re-jigger I did. The CI folks call for soaked beans, which are ideal, but I was making this dish on the fly and didn’t have time to soak. Really, sometimes I’m cooking from The French Laundry Cookbook and sometimes I’m just lucky not to spill boiling oil down the front of me, so I adapted the recipe for canned beans. So sue me, Christopher Kimball.

I made this dish in about 20 minutes active time and it was bubbly and comforting and addictive. The neighbors devoured it. I suggest making this now before the warmth of spring takes you over and you feel the need to move on to lighter fare. It’s well worth it.

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Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage and Cabbage (adapted from Cooks Illustrated for people with minimal time to fritter around with dried beans)

Serves 8

Ingredients

Table salt
2 large tins of good quality cannelini beans
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (plus extra for drizzling)
1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausage
1/2 medium head Savoy cabbage, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 dash of fresh or dried oregano to taste
1 large onion, chopped medium (1 1/2 cups)
2 medium celery ribs, cut ingo 1/2 inch pieces (3/4 cup)
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (1 cup)
8 medium garlic cloves peeled and crushed
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (I didn’t have chicken stock, so I used home-made beef stock from the freezer. Still fantastic.)
3 cups water
2 bay leaves
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes drained and rinsed (optional: see asterisk and note below)

Ground black pepper
8 slices country white bread, each 1 1/4 inches thick, broiled until golden brown on both sides and rubbed with garlic clove (optional)

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut up sausage into bites and cook in olive oil until it nearly loses its raw color, about 8 minutes. Transfer sausage to paper towel-lined plate. Add onion, celery, and carrots to pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are softened and lightly browned, 10 to 16 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in broth, water, bay leaves and beans. Increase heat to high and bring to simmer. Add sausage. Transfer pot to oven, and cook about 30 minutes, until bubbling hot.

2. Remove pot from oven and stir in cabbage*, oregano and tomatoes*.

* I was supposed to add the cabbage, but there were six hungry faces staring at me from the table and I got flustered and forgot it. No one noticed. Or cared. Use it or lose it - either way, it’s still a pretty great recipe.

*Honestly, I omitted the tomatoes because David told me on New Years Eve that he didn’t like beans and tomatoes together, but then while we were eating this dish, he told me that he didn’t remember saying that to me and that he did, in fact, like beans and tomatoes together. Go figure. But this dish is pretty wonderful without the tomatoes. When I do this dish again, I plan to leave out the tomatoes again.

3. Discard bay leaves and season stew with salt and pepper to taste. If desired, use back of spoon to press some beans against side of pot to thicken stew, but most likely you won’t need to. Serve over toasted bread, if desired, and drizzle with olive oil.

xxxooo YM

PS Thanks to the boys at The Bitten Word for allowing me to flat out steal their photo of this stew, which is much nicer than CI's. If you have too much time on your hands and you want to make this recipe with the soaked beans as recommended by CI, you can check out the Feb. 26th post of The
Bitten Word for the complete recipe.

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It's Been An Orgy Around Here...

...a freakin' chocolate Easter bunny orgy. Here is the post-mortem on our bunnies:

This is Lucy and her very large chocolate bunny, which she had been begging to have since she saw it on the shelf at Duane Reade in like January, which is when they start putting out the Easter candy anyway:

Lucy holds the box up to the the window so she can get a good look at the bright orange of the candy carrot in the bunny’s hand and she turns the box this way and that way to look at every nuance of the bunny. She likes the carrot a lot and we have an in-depth conversation about how orange the orange is, how tiny the carrot is and whether or not the bunny has eaten any of the carrot because it looks to Lucy like there aren't any bite marks and if there aren't any bite marks he couldn't have eaten any, unless of course he was sucking on the carrot, which seems to us unlikely. This takes like 7 minutes to sort out the carrot thing.

Then, she carefully starts to undo the box and when it looks like the box might rip, she asks me to help her remove the bunny, who she has named Peter for Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit and then, we take the bunny out and she holds it for a minute and makes the bunny run across the floor, shrieking, "No! No! You can't catch me!" and when I ask her what she's doing she tells me she is pretending to be Peter Rabbit running away from Mr. McGregor's garden and I think this is all quite imaginative, but I wonder aloud whether she might want to actually EAT the chocolate bunny because I'm thinking she might want to share a bit with her mother who, by the way, was in labor with her for like 37 hours and most of that was hellish, unrelenting pain and I felt she, well, owed me a freakin' piece or two of her bunny.

But this suggestion rankles her. She informs me, with the horrified look of someone who has been asked to eat a dear friend, that this is exactly what happened to Peter - the unfortunate soul ended up playing a leading role in Mrs. McGregor's prize-winning pie. And so, scared that I might try to maim her rabbit when her back is turned, Lucy promptly puts Peter back in the box, closes the lid, spends 10 minutes securing the lid with sticky tape and forbids me to get near the bunny.

She puts the box in the fridge and spends the rest of the morning painting pictures, but doing it right next to the fridge, in case we decide to try something funny with Peter. Clearly, our 3 year old doesn't trust us around chocolate. God help me when I try to get juice from the fridge and the eyes of death were unleashed upon me.

As of this writing, the bunny is still there - silent, cold, clutching his carrot.

This is Edie, who in an attempt to prove that siblings can be quite different from each other, can barely waste a second getting the box open and shoveling big slabs of chocolate into her mouth.

Edie and David are quietly huddled in a corner of the living room, breaking off the bunny ears, cracking open the ass, biting off the legs. The box is in tatters and discarded on the floor. There is no sound, just the eerie silence of a bunny meeting his end bit by bit. These two spend no time ogling the orange carrot or pondering its existence. There is no back story, no desire to know this bunny's life. They don't bother giving the bunny a name, that just gets in the way of the carnage, makes it more painful to rip the bunny limb from limb and digest him. These two are pros.

I look over at Edie. A large bunny tail is hanging out of her mouth. David is wiping the chocolate off his lips with the back of his hand. Edie has smears of chocolate all over her cheeks and some of it is running down her chin. She could care less. There is a point where I suspect they no longer realize Lucy and I are in the room. The two of them communicate with each other in grunts and they have a secret, unspoken cadence between them. Edie hands David the bunny. David tears small pieces off for Edie and hands them to her. She shovels them in her mouth. David grabs whats left. Later, he'll tell me he was eating the bunny to keep Edie from eating it all.

Yes. Yes. He is the suffering hero.

After some time, the bunny is down to one single chunk. David senses they are near the end. He is the male lion leaving the zebra carcass to the rest of the pride and the vultures. He goes to take a shower. He goes to wash himself clean of the carnage. This is untenable to Edie. She is not finished. She grabs the chunk of bunny and heads into the bathroom after him. She finds him in the shower. She wraps on the door. No, really, she knocks on the glass until he opens it. He's soaking wet. She silently holds up the bunny to him.

He knows what she wants. They are cut from the same cloth.

He breaks the big chunk into a handful of smaller chunks and lays them in her palm, careful not to drop any. She takes them, sits right in front of the shower (so as not to waste any time walking back into the living room) and finishes the last of the bunny.

No traces of Edie's bunny have been found by anyone.

xxxooo YM

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Sushi With Kids

My mom had a hip operation and last weekend we went to Saratoga Springs, where she lives, to visit her in the hospital. She’s doing quite well now. Thanks for asking. She's in pain, but up and walking. A good thing.

One night we took the kids for sushi at a restaurant called Sushi Thai Garden and they were very friendly and kid-welcoming and good, fresh raw fish was had by all. The staff, made up of lovely Asian girls, smiled a lot and acted like our kids were the cutest thing since puppies. They barely seemed to mind that we left the floor littered with bits of raw fish, flecks of seaweed, discarded edemame shells and stray noodles, even though we tried to pick up as much as we could with our fingers. The floor clearly needed one of those steam cleaners and I’m quite certain they'll be picking Edie’s dinner out of their carpet long into next year.

Still, the staff smiled politely at us all through the meal as if they were glad to have us there. Actors all of them. They barely bat an eyelash when Lucy decided she didn’t like the red flowers on our table and made a rather authoritative and determined b-line across the restaurant and stole some poor couple's plastic pot of pink flowers off their table. The couple was a bit taken aback (By the loss of plastic flowers...Get a life, Freaks.) and so, we made Lucy bring a similar pot of red flowers back to their table and forced her to whimper a pathetic, insincere “sorry” to the couple, who smiled their best fake smile and then huddled together, undoubtedly judging us with their whispers and making a mental note to themselves to start using a condom with their diaphragm...just in case.

Still, the restaurant staff barely flinched and their steely, unflappable nature became even more apparent when Lucy became enamored, dare I say obsessed, with the sushi chefs behind their station. She loved standing off to the side or on her father’s shoulders watching the guys cut the fish and roll the rice and eel in the seaweed. And these guys LOVED it.

No, really, they LOVED it. I mean who the hell ever pays attention to them anyway? And now, this little kid was obsessed with everything they were doing and asking, with machine gun fire speed, every sort of question imaginable – What is that fish? Is there pinkie fish? What is that thing? Can I touch that? What’s a maki? Can I roll that thing? That looks like poop. Do I like seaweed? Lets count the pink fish…one…two …threefourfive. Now, let’s do it in Spanish…uno…dos… Are sushi alive? Can they swim? It's octopussy!! Can I ride it like a dolphin? I want to ride it like a dolphin. Really, that looks like poop.

It was like they were movie stars.

And because Lucy was so interested – and so freakin’ loud about it – the whole restaurant started watching her and then, started watching the sushi chefs and they started realizing it and hamming it up and the next thing you know they were singing Ethel Merman and knocking down a standing ovation…okay, I exaggerate. The Ethel Merman thing was in my head.

When we left, Lucy - sitting on David’s shoulders - yelled “Bye bye sushi chefs!” at the top of her lungs, which made the whole restaurant crack up and we tried to get out quick so we wouldn’t disturb our fellow diners anymore, but the sushi chefs couldn’t resist one more minute of contact with humanity and like all 6 of them started waving and yelling things to Lucy, who was soaking up all the attention like some kind of 70’s child star starring on The Love Boat and we left with the whole restaurant in a trail of fish crumbs and salutations and the couple who hated us a minute ago put a wreath of baby's breath on Lucy's head and someone threw rose petals at our feet and then, everyone got up from their seats and joined arms and we all sang "Amazing Grace".

Okay, that's a lie - the amazing grace part. And the garland thing, And the rose petals.

We just left.

oooxxx YM

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Sister Maria Theresa Hidalgo Alonzo Martinez & Mario Batali's Make-You-Feel-Better Asparagus Risotto

I went to Pathmark today looking like a nun.

I didn’t mean to. I thought I was pretty hip-looking in my knee-length black skirt and boots and black suede blazer. I wasn't covered in breast milk, peanut butter hand prints or dried boogers. I was proud.

That is until I caught a glimpse of myself in the window of Starbucks and heard myself say in my head, “That looks like Sister Maria Theresa Hidalgo Alonzo Martinez from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary.” And then, I gave a second look and realized it wasn't the sister at all. It was, in fact, me. I looked like one of those nuns that doesn’t have to wear a proper habit, but instead wears matronly and drab skirt and blazer combinations and pantsuits from the 80s they picked up a the local thrift shop or the bargain bins at JC Penney.

And I didn’t look like just any nun. I looked like this one nun, Sister Maria Theresa Hidalgo Alonzo Martinez who lived in the convent down the block in my old neighborhood. She was pretty stylish - as nuns go - and wore skirts and boots and blazers and you’d see her walking down the street and think “Wow! Sister Maria Theresa Hidalgo Alonzo Martinez has style…” but you’d always add “…for a nun” onto the end of that sentence, which is why it's cool to look like her and be a nun, but kind of sucky to look like her and not be a nun. If you get my drift.

So I couldn’t wait to get home and take my clothes off because I was afraid my husband would get a good look at me and wonder why I was dressed like the church lady.

Sexy.

So, to make myself feel better, l made Mario Batali’s Asparagus Risotto. You should watch the short video of Mario making it for Mark Bittman because you'll learn the 3 most important things you need to make amazing risotto - (1) you don't need to stir it constantly as is the myth (2) add a lot of fat (butter- huge glorious knobs of butter - or even better, butter and duck fat, which is what I did) and (3) it should be served creamy and nearly soupy.

This risotto is finished with some pureed asparagus which gives it a brilliant, springy garden green color and is perfect if your kids are in a green cycle this week. Try it. Seriously life-changing.

xxx YM

Mario Batali's Asparagus Risotto (adapted from Mario Batali)

Servings: 3 to 4

Time: 45 minutes

1 pound asparagus, peeled, trimmed and cut into one-inch-long pieces, tips reserved
4 to 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter (I used way more and added duck fat. Be generous)
1/3 medium red onion, diced
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
Salt to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add half the asparagus stalks and cook until quite soft, at least 5 minutes. Rinse quickly under cold water. Put cooked asparagus in a blender or food processor and add just enough water to allow machine to puree until smooth; set aside.

2. Put stock in a medium saucepan over low heat. Put oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large, deep nonstick skillet over medium heat. When it is hot, add onion, stirring occasionally until it softens, 3 to 5 minutes.

3. Add rice and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is glossy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add white wine, stir, and let liquid bubble away. Add a large pinch of salt. Add warmed stock, 1/2 cup or so at a time, stirring occasionally. Each time stock has just about evaporated, add more.

4. After about 15 minutes, add remaining asparagus pieces and tips, continuing to add stock when necessary. In 5 minutes, begin tasting rice. You want it to be tender but with a bit of crunch; it could take as long as 30 minutes total to reach this stage. When it does, stir in 1/2 cup asparagus puree. Remove skillet from heat, add remaining butter and stir briskly. Add Parmesan and stir briskly, then taste and adjust seasoning. Risotto should be slightly soupy. Serve immediately.

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The Kid Version of "The Diner's Bill of Rights"

Oh sure, they look innocent enough...

Lucy and Edie walked into the kitchen today holding hands. Very sweet. They handed me a piece of paper.

Seems they had been conferring with Tim and Nina Zagat and felt that I needed to be reminded of "The Diner’s Bill of Rights". Their version differs slightly from the Zagat version (which you can check out here).

Lucy & Edie’s manifesto, scribbled in pink crayon on green construction paper and cut into our favorite new shape, a triangle, was assembled by a top-ranking group of toddlers and pre-schoolers hell-bent on hammering out some kind of meal time shock and awe campaign. They have asked me to disseminate the manifesto on behalf of your children.

Yes, that's right - your kids attended the Summit as well. Read it and weep:

The Kid Version of "The Diners Bill of Rights"

1. The right to believe that ketchup is a main course.

2. The right to stay seated for less than 5 minutes at the dinner table before you’re overcome by the desire to remove your underpants, place them on your head and run around the table singing “Spoonful of Sugar”.

3. The right to take an otherwise spotless dining room and turn it into a crumb-infested pig trough within 30 seconds of coming to the table.

4. The right to demonstrate that you’re really a thrill-seeking, power-hungry, narcissistic, demi-god disguised as a cute cuddly kid and prove it meal after meal by refusing to eat food unless it is your favorite color or because it has some egregious ingredient like, oh I don't know, sauce, cheese, flecks of green or anything that even vaguely resembles a vegetable.

5. The right to make a gargoyle face and shout “This food is yucky” to the same food you loved three weeks ago for absolutely no apparent reason.

6. The right to discuss the color of your poop just at the moment the guests start to eat.

7. The right to make a horrible face and slowly spit spinach out of your mouth into your mother’s hand if you try it and decide you don’t like it.

8. The right to have perfectly wonderful table manners until Grandma comes to visit and then decide to use your straw to fire peas into her hair as if you were part of some tribe from the Amazon.

9. The right to try to do a somersault at the table and kick the plate into the air with your foot, so that a fork nearly takes out your father’s eye and the food goes flying through the air and there are permanent beet marks on the wall…and still be loved and adored by your parents.

10. The right to go on a hunger strike so long and intense that your parents are convinced you might actually perish, only to wait just before they call the doctor before you gorge yourself at a single meal and save yourself from the throes of death.

Did they miss anything?

YM

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Thomas Keller's Favorite Roast Chicken...and Albert The Mouse

Let me begin this post by telling you about the newest member of our family...a pet.

A mouse named Albert.

Okay, he’s not really our pet. He’s a small, weirdly-adorable, disease-carrying interloper who nearly scared the crap out of me this morning when he decided to blow his cover and run across the living room floor and skid to a stop behind a shelf.

At first I thought I was seeing things. Perhaps I was still in some kind of sleep state and required caffeine and a shower? This idea set in for a few minutes and I convinced myself that I was, in fact, seeing things. I re-gained my sense of confidence and trust in the world.

But then, Albert decided his position was precarious and there were too many children hovering about who might grab him, stuff him into doll clothes and make him eat pretend baby food in the pretend kitchen and he made a break for it.

My sense of well-being was crushed.

So, I did what any self-respecting mother would do. I picked up one child under each arm and ran. I ran as if I were walking across hot coals carrying two bags of sand, but still, I ran right into the bathroom where David was attempting to take a peaceful shower. I put the girls down safely in the bathroom and ordered them to stay put the way someone in Kansas would, say, order children to stay put in the root cellar until the tornado blows over.

The children stood there looking at me as if I had lost my mind. This must be the vacant bewildered stare that children have when they realize their once loving parents have gone truly mad. Great.

David said, What’s wrong?" And I said, “Mouse.” And he said "What?" and opened the shower door. And I said "Mouse" again only this time I was not quite sure why he didn't understand that if I was saying "Mouse" over and over it was because there was a "Mouse" scurrrying around the living room and a "Mouse" leaving bits of vermin and disease throughout our home, where our children roll around naked trying to do sommersaults and Edie eats scraps of fish off the floor. Wasn't it clear what "Mouse" means?

"Mouse"? he asked. "Yes, a mouse." "Do you mean there's a mouse in the house?" "Yes, there's a mouse in the house with a clock on a rock...what are we?...Living in a Dr. Seuss book????"

Why wasn't he running to the kitchen, rifling under the cupboards and squeezing the life out of this thing with his manly Australian hands? Hadn't he heard about the bubonic plague? Didn't he know that our kitchen cupboards probably looked like a casting call for "Ratatouille"?

So, I said "Mouse" again only this time I pointed to the living room, as if that cleared it up, and glanced at the kids the way parents do when they want to keep important information from the children, only this time my kids were looking up at me intently, reading my face and my bad attempt at chirades and Lucy took the opportunity to squeal hopefully, "We have a mousey?"

And without any thought or hesitation she grabbed her sister's hands and said, "We have a mousey, Edie!" and the two of them held hands and skipped in a circle.

"I guess the only one who's scared of the mouse is Mommy." David said...and smiled...and closed the shower door. Wise ass.

Now that you're thrilled you don't live at my house, I leave you to embark on an Elmer Fudd-like attempt to rid our house of Albert. But before I leave, I want to change your life with the most incredible and easy family dinner on the planet. We had it last night, courtesy of Thomas Keller. I have not adapted this recipe at all and give it to you in the chefs own words. This recipe for roast chicken is so simple and unfussy that you won't believe the chicken can possibly turn out so juicy and the skin, so salty and crisp, with absolutely no effort on your part. Just follow his recipe verbatim.

It's effortless and it speaks to how often simple is just better.

xxxooo YM (and Albert)

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Thomas Keller’s Simple Roast Chicken

Serves 2 - 4

Ingredients

One 2- to 3-pound farm-raised chicken
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons minced thyme (optional)

Accompaniments (optional)

Unsalted butter
Dijon mustard

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Rinse the chicken, then dry it very well with paper towels, inside and out. The less it steams, the drier the heat, the better.

Salt and pepper the cavity, then truss the bird. Trussing is not difficult, and if you roast chicken often, it's a good technique to feel comfortable with. When you truss a bird, the wings and legs stay close to the body; the ends of the drumsticks cover the top of the breast and keep it from drying out. Trussing helps the chicken to cook evenly, and it also makes for a more beautiful roasted bird.

Now, salt the chicken — I like to rain the salt over the bird so that it has a nice uniform coating that will result in a crisp, salty, flavorful skin (about 1 tablespoon). When it's cooked, you should still be able to make out the salt baked onto the crisp skin. Season to taste with pepper.

Place the chicken in a sauté pan or roasting pan and, when the oven is up to temperature, put the chicken in the oven. I leave it alone — I don't baste it, I don't add butter; you can if you wish, but I feel this creates steam, which I don't want. Roast it until it's done, 50 to 60 minutes. Remove it from the oven and add the thyme, if using, to the pan. Baste the chicken with the juices and thyme and let it rest for 15 minutes on a cutting board.

Remove the twine. Separate the middle wing joint and eat that immediately. Remove the legs and thighs. I like to take off the backbone and eat one of the oysters, the two succulent morsels of meat embedded here, and give the other to the person I'm cooking with. But I take the chicken butt for myself. I could never understand why my brothers always fought over that triangular tip — until one day I got the crispy, juicy fat myself. These are the cook's rewards. Cut the breast down the middle and serve it on the bone, with one wing joint still attached to each. The preparation is not meant to be superelegant. Slather the meat with fresh butter. Serve with mustard on the side and, if you wish, a simple green salad. You'll start using a knife and fork, but finish with your fingers, because it's so good.

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Crazy-Kid-Proof "Coq au Vin"

The first thing I want to say about Coq au Vin is that it’s not for weanies.

Let me rephrase, it might be fine for weanies, just not people with small children. Oh, okay, it's fine for people with small children, just the kind of small children who sit quietly with a book in their laps and read to themselves while you cook.

That or you'll need a kid-proof recipe.

Oh don’t get me wrong, the Coq was great and the 4 kids and 6 neighbors ate like crazy and I’m thrilled I made it. It’s just that I was working off this recipe that was riddled with problems for a cook who has one child driving her tricycle into my leg while I’m at the stove and the other pelting me with raisins until I give her some boob. So, I re-jiggered the recipe to meet my needs.

But here are some things I learned while making Coq au Vin:

• It's not really Coq. Coq au Vin generally requires a rooster - an old bird with lots of sinewy connective tissue that gets you a better broth. This is great except I don’t live on a farm and the nearest organic chicken is like 30 blocks away and I barely was able to drag myself downtown to get 2 organic birds, much less a rooster that spent his long, pastured life meandering around the barnyard, nibbling corn off the ground and chasing the hens at some hippy farm in the Catskills… and sells for $40 a carcass. Puh-lease. This Coq au Vin was made with a young (organic) chicken. And I reduced the cooking time. So sue me.

• There are several recipes for this dish that require multiple pan changes and sauteeing vegetables separately. Are these recipe writers high on crack? Do they have so much time on their hands that three extra pans and separate cooking time is no big deal? Are they childless? Because I think if they had children and they had to clean the floor in front of the sink 10 times a day like I do, the idea of 3 extra pans would be akin to wearing a hair suit.

• Jointing a chicken takes approximately 6 steps and about 10 minutes (with the usual interruptions for juice and boo boo kissing). Maybe more if you are a complete mess with a knife. In my world, an extra 10 minutes can mean the difference between getting dinner on the table or having to stop dinner because one little person tried to stab another little person with a Sleeping Beauty Princess Wand and one of them is screaming and bleeding and the other is pissed because her wand is broken and is demanding that I procure some sticky tape and fix the magic implement, so they both come screaming and crying into the kitchen, dripping blood and demanding justice. As I know these things happen while I cook, I asked the meat guy in the market to joint my chickens. Seriously, I’m like a genius.

• Did you know that flambe is a part of making Coq au vin in some recipes? Like one of the ones I was using last night. Funny. Because dousing the chicken in brandy and setting it on fire and purposely igniting a column of alcohol-soaked flames shooting three feet into the air and burning off my eyebrows and possibly igniting several nearby flammable pink tutus is definitely going to put a damper on dinner. I ignored directions to set things on fire. And you should too unless your kids are on the other side of the house, dressed in Hazmat suits, ready to stop, drop and roll and have a clear path to the fire exits.

I re-jiggered the recipe using the best strategies from three recipes (one from amazing cook and fellow food blogger Anita at Married With Dinner, another from Gordon Ramsey, who is always extraordinary and reliable) and one from Martha Stewart, who can joint a chicken, throw a clay pot and weed her prize-winning daffodils all at the same time) and came up with this highly do-able version. I also broke it into steps so you can prep ahead or divide the steps into different parts of the day, so you don’t have one big hunk of cooking right before you eat. For instance, you can do step 1 and 2 in the morning and step 3 and 4 right before you pop the dish in the oven.

This is great meal for Sunday lunch, but it’s a wee bit complicated for a week night meal unless you do steps 1 and 2 in advance. Last night I cooked and served the whole thing in a big paella pan which looks mighty impressive when you bring it to the table all hot and steamy.

This recipe makes dinner for 6 and change (I fed 6 adults, 4 small kids and had leftovers for lunch for David and the girls.)

I wrote this recipe on the fly this morning, so don't be afraid to add or subtract to your taste. Don't worry. I trust you.

Xxxooo YM

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Crazy-Kid-Proof "Coq au Vin"

• 2 chickens jointed or 4 breasts, 4 thighs, 4 wings, 4 legs
• 2 cups full-bodied red wine, such as Cabernet Sauvignon
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
  
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups chicken stock (home-made if possible. If not, College Inn organic which was judged by Cooks Illustrated to be the best store-bought brand)
  
• 8 ounces slab bacon, cut into 1/2-inch dice (sliced bacon or pancetta will do in a pinch but slab is better)
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 8 ounces of small onions (pearl or cippolini) or 3 medium onions, finely chopped
• 8 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (if the kids are climbing up your legs begging you to watch the Wiggles with them, use pre-chopped garlic. Who the hell is gonna know?)
• 1/2 pound small cremini mushrooms
• 2 handfuls of flour
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 coursely chopped tomatoes (you can use a tinned chopped tomatoes in a pinch)
• 4 celery stalks, cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths
• 6 to 8 good size carrots cut into 1 1/2 inch lengths
  
• 2 tablespoons Cognac (optional, but no need to flame it. Please.)
• 2 bay leaves
• 8 fresh thyme sprigs

Step 1

Mise en place: Cut celery, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, bacon and mushrooms and have them ready for later cooking. This will probably take you 10-20 minutes depending on how good you are with a knife.

Step 2

Heat the butter and oil in a large ovenproof casserole (or a big paella pan, if you are feeding a crowd). Fry the bacon pieces in the butter/oil until browned, and remove to a plate with a slotted spoon. Lightly brown the onions in the same pan, and likewise remove them to the plate.

In a ziplock bag, add chicken pieces and flour (salt the flour a little) and shake until pieces are covered. Shake off excess flour, tapping them slightly and working in batches, brown the chicken in the bacon-butter-oil juices until they are golden on all sides. (You may have to add a bit more oil if you are browning 2 chickens instead of 1). Remove to a platter when they are browned.

If you are doing this step ahead, set aside browned chicken and onions and bacon for later cooking. But don't wash out the casserole, there are lovely juices and flavors in there.

Step 3

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Add the red wine to the casserole, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan to remove any stuck-on bits. Add cognac. Add the stock to the pan and heat to a simmer. Return the bacon, onions, and chicken to the pan along with the herbs, garlic, and tomatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook in the oven for about an hour and a half until the meat is completely tender.


Step 4

An hour before serving, throw carrots, onions and celery in the pot.

About a half hour before serving, saute the mushrooms in a bit of olive oil. Anita suggests salting at the end so your mushrooms are tastier. I agree.

When the dish is done, remove from the oven. Discard any stray herbs and skim off the fat. Add mushrooms. Serve in the pan/casserole for country style dining or prepare bowls of meat and veg with ample sauce.

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