My Husband Cooks...

David cooked me breakfast for the first time in our relationship. And there was nary a carb in the whole thing. Super.

It seems that I have not been responsive enough to David's new diet...er, I mean "new lifestyle". It seems all that normal, home-cooked, hot breakfast I cook every morning is not meeting his "new lifestyle" needs (if you are behind on my husband's "new lifestyle", he's on one of those no bread, alcohol, pasta, potatoes, sugar or anything else fun diets...er, I mean "lifestyles") and so instead of asking me to cook something from the recipe section of his diet book, where I would just roll my eyes, mock his manhood or just shake with laughter, he decided to cook it himself.

Who am I to complain? I say: You just go do your thing, baby. Try not burn down the kitchen and I'll just sit here and write down everything you say. And take pictures. I like pictures.

Okay, so the first thing he tells me after coming back from Pathmark with several large bags of groceries is that he has made a few ingredient "substitutions". Now, if you're, like, a Top Chef contestant, you can make a few ingredient substitutions and no one will be the wiser, maybe it will even be better, but if this is the first time you've cooked in like EVER, you might not want to be free ballin' it.

But not my husband. He free balls.

So, at this point, I have no idea what he's making because he has refused to tell me the name of the dish or disclose the protein which is concealed in several ominous-looking bags at the far end of the kitchen.

This makes me worry. Yet, I am curious - the way people are curious to watch the "Taxi" guy on "Celebrity Rehab" vomit on himself and fall asleep while speaking. I am inexplicably drawn to this bizarre sight, my husband in the kitchen waving a wooden spoon around an acting like he belongs there. I cannot divert my eyes.

Then, he does this thing where he talks like a cooking show host while he's cutting up peppers and onions, explaining to me his process, and he's really performing for me now, explaining his philosophy on carbs and why a certain group of people in a certain area of the world who eat a lot of potatoes look "puffy" and that's why he isn't "puffy" because he doesn't eat potatoes and then he launches into a diatribe about how prep is all-important, but he doesn't want to call it "mise en place" because it's French and pretentious and being grounded and close to the food source is important for any cook, but he goes on to say that being prepared is essential to every chef no matter what you call it and yes, he does refer to himself as a chef and decides he needs an apron for himself and thinks we should take a little trip to Williams Sonoma, even though I think this is the last time I'm letting this guy into my kitchen and then he starts chopping his spinach and tells me he's going for a "rough-hewn artisanal style" which is code for "big and irregularly-sized and chunky with stems attached"

David walks in my shoes. Knife in one hand. Baby in the other.

I ask him again about the protein and he says, "There's more to life than cured meats, baby" and he winks at me and makes that clucking sound with his tongue that lewd guys make while you walk by them on the street. The guys with dirty fingers nails who chain smoke cigarettes and drink over-sized bottles of beer out of paper bags. Those guys. He clucks his tongue like that.

Then, he lets me know that whatever he's making, he thinks the girls won't eat. And this, I am overjoyed about, because you know, not only do I have to eat the carb-less breakfast without anything, you know, delicious in it, but I have to cook a separate meal for the kids and as you know, I have a fairly strict policy on cooking separate meals - I don't - and then, my heart falls when he confesses that this is a "vegetarian breakfast" and immediately, like a Pavlovian dog, I start craving fats. Lard. Butter. Bacon. I really want bacon at this point. Bacon cooked in butter and lard. Or just a bowl of lard.

Then, he starts complimenting his own knife skills and after completing the cutting of the garlic, runs his fingers through the little nuggets sensuously and says in his most self-satisfied voice, "very nice work."

And it was very nice work...in the "rough-hewn artisanal style" of the knife arts.

And then, we have an audience of kids, who cannot help but wonder what the hell Daddy is doing in the kitchen, which prompts a "cooking is not just for girls" talk and this all seems educational until he says "Mommy, is a little worried, girls. She thinks Daddy might turn into some kind of cooking prodigy and knock her off her little kitchen throne" which then made me sputter and make a raspberry sound with my lips and the girls joined in and David cooked while we made fart sounds with our mouths, which is like the kind of thing we do in our family.



Here is where we see that bad cooking habits develop early: David keeps his recipe book on the stove. The recipe made of paper. Near the fire.

I document for the insurance company.


Then, more ingredient substitutions. It seems the chard is "a bit awkward for a first time cook", so he substitutes leeks and spinach. "The leeks are my own personal touch" he tells me, all proud and I confess that spinach and leeks sound way better than chard. So, score 1 for David.

He doesn't know what Tamari is or where to find it at Pathmark, so he asks if he can throw something in from "one of your bottles in the pantry", as if you can substitute one liquid for any other liquid just because they are both liquids, to which I am aghast and my mouth is hanging open like a sea bass and then, he says, "This cooking thing isn't so difficult. You just throw a bunch of things together in a pan."

I feel like pelting him with eggs.



I remove the sesame oil from his hand and hand him the dark soy sauce. I reach over and throw a little salt into his carmelizing vegetables, which completely throws him off and he shouts, "Hey! There is no salt in my recipes!"


And so, I do a brief history of salt and preserving and everything I've learned on Ruhlman and why you don't want to be the cook known for never using salt because like, no one wants to eat food that tastes like cardboard. Or feet.

And then, I make this analogy about how cooking with salt is the difference between seeing the world in black and white or color and I'm thinking that's cool and I'm cool and kind of rico suave in the kitchen and he must be totally soaking up my cooking gems, but he has his head in his recipe and he barely knows I'm in the room because he is in some ecstatic cooking revery.

Apparently, he can't wait for me to taste his recipe. I sense an episode of Fear Factor coming on.



And then, there is another mishap with fire. A dish towel left on a burner. Seriously, any minute I'm thinking this is yet another blog post with a picture of firemen.



Oh, what the hell.


As long as we're making it all up...


You know, I never let you guys down.

Back to the food, people. Eyes on the food - I offer to make Chinese eggs to go with the mystery dish and I am rebuffed.

"No. That's the whole point," he says earnestly. "It's a self-contained meal."

Gotcha, Chief.

We're getting to the big reveal. The mystery protein. David struggles with plastic bags. Strings out the tension as long as he can, but whatever this protein is, it needs to get in the pan.

Voila.



Tofu. The kids cheer like it's freakin' Christmas.


Little do they know they'll be expected to eat it. Wa Ha Ha.


My man has gone out into the wilds, wrestled the beast and made us...Da Da a Daaaaaaaa...a tofu scramble. I'm hot right now.

If he starts wearing Berkinstocks and calling everybody "Dude", he's outta here.


Actually, you can't tell from my photography skills but it was pretty good. Except it needed some kind of fat and even David conceded that it was screaming for fat. But the kids ate it, which meant it really was self-contained. Who knew?

But if you talk to David, don't tell him he did a great job with breakfast. You really don't want to hear about the puffiness. And he won't be able to stop himself.

xxoo YM

PS You don't really want the recipe for this, do you?

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I Was Attacked By A Rabid Kangaroo...

Uh yeah, that's me. And a rabid kangaroo.

I haven't written because I had a tragic altercation with a rabid kangaroo. I was manhandled. It was horrible. This is a photo from the actual manhandling (above) and one of the kangaroo after he molested me (below).

This picture was taken before he lit his cigarette.

Oh alright, it really didn't happen, but the truth of why I haven't written is much more ugly and sordid.

I mean, I had the perfect excuse in Australia because we had that whole 1984 interweb, non-connectedness thing where it took like 2 hours to check e-mail and really I could’ve written you all personal postcards and sent them through the mail from Sydney and you would’ve gotten them in your mail box before I’d get a post up.

And that was understandable.

And God bless you, you all suffered through that. You stayed with me. But see, this is where it all went wrong – I absolutely could’ve blogged when we got to our hotel on the beach in Venice, CA where I had perfectly acceptable 2008-era wireless internet. I could have but I didn’t because…I went to the beach.

A lot.

See in CA it was 88 degrees and sunny and we stayed right on the beach and the air smelled like salt and fish and I was intoxicated by the spray of the ocean and the fact that the girls would sit for hours and just play happily in the sand with their sand toys. Well, you can imagine, it was pure heaven and so in my bliss, I didn't write you.

And yes, I could’ve blogged at night but see, my husband’s project with "the famous people" has grown and I am now writing on that project and so at night I was working with my husband while our children dreamed and the ocean banged away on the beach. And there was something nice about that and our quiet talks about scripts and dialogue and our half drunk bottles of wine and even though it was work, it was lovely and so, I just kept doing it and neglecting you.

I was thinking about you, but I was neglecting you, for sure.

And everyday I said, “I’ll blog about this today” because all these wacky things were happening and I kept writing them down in my journal to share with you but then I would hear it was 55 degrees and rainy in NYC and I would think about the California bloggers - like Evil Chef Mom who grows her own lemons and avocados and soybeans or whatever in her backyard, which I find profoundly irritating since I don't have a backyard and even if I had one would not be able to grow lemons anyway and I'm convinced she's just showing off and that other California blogger, Undomestic Diva who has lately been prattling on about how her air conditioning is broken and how prone to perspiring she is, and it's all so damn insensitive to us East Coasters who are still wearing wool socks and turning on our heaters.

And as I was thinking about these bloggers as I looked out at the cloudless sky and the roller bladers in bikinis, the deep tan settling into my skin and I wondered how these two ever dragged theselves out of the amazing weather to write a blog post at all. And then flumoxed by this question, I went to the beach in the skimpiest clothes I had and baked in the sun, while the kids picked up shells and clams and ran naked in and out of the water.

Oh and speaking of nudity and skimpy clothes – I wanted to buy one of those cheap beachy dresses they sell on the beach for like $5, but David said they looked like hoochie dresses and that there are classier ways to be sexy and then, in a fit of conservatism that is remarkably not his style, he accused me of having the taste of a “stripper” which perhaps is a compliment if your husband is, oh i don't know, Flav O Flav, but not so much if your married to David.

Suffice to say – I didn’t buy the beachy dress.

So, anyway, that is why I didn't write before now and I apologize for leaving you high and dry. I came back with some great recipes, some fun news which deserves its own post and some of the best sausage I’ve ever had in my life. More on all that over the weekend.

Until then, know I’m glad to be back…

Xxxooo YM

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The Plane to Australia

Bet you thought I was dead, didn't ya?

Sorry to be gone so long, my friends. Problems with the inter-web thingy at the hotel. So 1998.

I have so much to tell you about our visit here but let's start with what I promised - The diary I wrote during the 20 hour plane trip. With my kids.

Sadly none of it is made up. Here goes...

Sunday

4:00 pm - Car picks us up at home. As soon as we get in, David reminds me the shirt I’m wearing is stained. Poor sucker. Little does he know this will be the least of our problems.

5:32 pm - Eat gourmet pizza at Wolfgang Pucks pizzeria in the airport. Well, David doesn’t because crust doesn’t jive with his diet. I silently admire his fortitude. And resent him for it. He says he has gone down a notch in his belt. Smug bastard. He has a chicken cesar salad.

6:08 (above) We move around the airport like gypsies.

6:10 pm - We miss pre-boarding because we are stuffing our faces. Qantas staff takes pity on us and our traveling caravan of chaos and lets us through.

6:50 pm – Grumpy old sod sitting ahead of us with his grumpy old sod wife gives us a dirty look when Lucy walks over and says “Hi”. A sign of bad things to come.

6:52 pm – Quiet, clean looking people behind us with their quiet, clean child, who sits in her seat for like 30 minutes at a time and who is so well-behaved I think she might be some kind of pod child, say they “admire” us for taking the kids on the flight, which is their polite, clean way of saying, “You people are freakin’ high on crack to do this”. We, unfortunately, do not take this is an omen.

7:00 pm - Ah! This is when the flight should have been taking off. But wasn’t.

7: 22 pm – Qantas staff wises up and brings out the Wiggles activity packs. This keeps the children occupied for like 6 minutes, except for the clean people's child who seems hypnotized by the incredible powers of Anthony the Blue Wiggle and the only Wiggle I believe who can dance. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

7:28 pm - No sign of booze.

7:33 pm – Captain apologizes and tells us that there are electrical problems, which are like a complete mystery, and we won’t take off for like at least half an hour. Promises Promises.

7:35 pm – Bad news: children are now ready to make a run for it and insist on singing “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” at the top of their lungs while standing on the arm rest and leaning over the seat and serenading the clean child in back of us, who thinks my kids are like the best thing she's ever seen and whose mother is just hoping we won't undo all the sequestering she's done for the last 3 years. Good news: I start to think this will make a great blog post. David realizes this as I scribble things into my notebook gleefully and he rolls his eyes at me. This will not be the only time there is eye rolling.

7:41 pm – Still no booze. People without kids decide to sleep. Bastards.

7:50 pm – We realize that “electrical problems” really means “We won’t serve you any drinks or food or turn on the movies when we lock you in our aircraft.”

7:53 pm – We’ve burned through 2 coloring books, one jumbo princess sticker book with 600 stickers in it, the Wiggles activity packs and a couple of slinky’s, one of which suffered a fatal man-handling just minutes after opening it, when Lucy unsuccessfully tried to make it into a belt and an Olivia Newton John style headband all at once.

7:54 pm – Children start jumping on seats and climbing over. All hell breaks loose. There isn’t a coloring book in hell that can save us now.

7:56 pm – Grumpy old sod in front of us, who David starting calling “The Stinky Bog Monster” says to his grisly old wife in a very loud voice, “It’s not as if these kids are babies. My GOD, they must be 6 years old.”

7:56:10 pm – David and I start laughing.

7:58 pm – Still holding out hope for booze.

8:00 pm – We move to a 4 seater so we can spread out and we dive into our auxilliary toy bags. We set up a small preschool. I ask the clean Mom if she and her clean daughter want to come over and join us for some activities. She thanks me politely but never leaves her seat. I feel rebuffed and rejected. I figure she doesn’t want her well-behaved child near mine. I decide to hate her. Then, I decide that her husband reminds me of one of those Lifetime movie wife beaters and I fantasize that she wants to hang with us more than anything, but she can’t because her husband will slap her around in the bathroom if she does. I decide not to hate her.

8:05 pm – Stinky Bog Monster’s wife walks by us to go to the bathroom, obviously suffering from pinched ass disease. She looks at us. Never cracks a smile.

8:10 – 8:58 pm – More re-booting of the plane. They turn off the electricity. And turn it back on. Off. On. Children love sitting in the pitch black. Think world as they knew it is coming to an end. Still not a drop of booze.

8:59 pm – I actually say the words, “You do not write on my head!” Don't ask.

9:00 pm – Captain announces we should de-plane. Everyone dashes for the door.

9:01 pm – Lucy asks us if we just landed in Australia. Everyone laughs. It is the hollow laugh of desperation.

9:12 pm – We and our traveling caravan of chaos go to the restaurant next to our terminal to wait for more instructions. It’s called “Sapphires”. It is very blue. Clean people with child the same age as Lucy see us, smile politely and sit on the other side of the room. (Note to self: Husband must have given her the business before they de-planned. This is the only explanation) Sapphires waitress tells us the kitchen is closed. They ran out of white wine. And since they are closing, we have exactly three minutes to down whatever we order. David has to stop me from knocking her to the ground.

9:14 – David again accuses me of being happy about our misfortune because it will make an entertaining blog post. I only exacerbate the situation by promptly writing down everything he says in my notebook.


9:15 pm – Margarita. Thank God.

9:30 pm – Qantas staff hands out meal vouchers. This is never a good sign. We vow to drink through our vouchers.

9:31 - Our children scam mini-oreos from the clean people who act like they are giving rations to the poor. It's only mini-oreos people, not a ticket to Sydney on a working plane.

9:32 - Children take their mini-oreos and run out of restaurant. David runs out and fetches them. And then, they run out again and David runs after them. Stinky Bog Monster frowns a lot and looks like he might give us a parenting lecture. Clean Mom shields her child's eyes. I just keep writing in my journal.

10:05 - Still hope to get on the plane. So naive. We throw aside our foodie mantras and head to the golden arches.

10:23 - Happy Meal Orgy. Not one ounce of guilt.

10:24 pm - David tells me I look flushed. It's because I had sex and McDonalds in the same day.

10:30 pm - Turns out clean mom is really lovely, just very reserved and her husband is not a felon, just quiet and her kid is sweet, but doesn't play with a lot of other kids (and I have an overactive imagination) and clean mom, out of sheer weariness abandons all concern for how my children might turn her well-behaved pod child into toddler delinquent, and allows my children to lead her child in a marathon around the terminal where they climb all over each other and shriek like hyennas.

It's so late, not even The Stinky Bog Monster and his Stinky Bog wife give a crap.

10:45pm - (above) I raid the goodie bag for a project we should be doing somewhere over FIJI Weirdly enough, kids are having a great time at the airport. Adults are in the seventh circle of hell.

12:26 We get the call. Plane mechanics stumped. We are on our way home.

So, 6pm the next day we are supposed to get the same plane out of JFK. We head to the airport with great hopes and the expectations of millions of travelers before us, but we find the mechanics still think our plane is a dud and they decide to re-book us ALL on the next flight to Sydney in an hour, which means we are not really leaving in an hour and that means we are back in the Sapphire Lounge, which mercifully has ordered more white wine and is now serving food, and we play My Little Pony and get drunk.


Which suites us...


And we're playing My Little Pony...



And lovin' it. Really.

And then, we board the plane, one that actually works and can, you know, make it over the Pacific Ocean and leave around 9:30pm or so and at this point, I'm tired of myself and stop writing my journal because thinking about this trip in like 15 minutes increments makes my head want to spin off, so I take lots of pictures and this will give you an idea of what it's like to spend nearly the span of a day with your husband and 2 kids in the space of three seats that are together the size of a fat man's coffin.


This picture is us reading Dora. Now, I know I have disparaged our little knob-headed friend before (see my favorite Yummy Mummy posts in the right hand column) but this book of seven stories which costs us like $175.95 in the airport book shop bought us some fun times in the coffin.



Aaaaaah! The Disney channel and head phones. There's several hours right there.



Engine starts. Food and booze to follow. It all starts to look better.



We send like two hours in the bathroom playing the water while the rest of the plane sleeps with their fancy eye masks and neck pillows. Wimps.



There is a lot of laying on me. It's quite possible I've never been so "touched" in all my life as a mother. And that's saying a lot.


And don't even get me started on how much boob Edie had. It was a lot.



There were gymnastics and aerial feats.

Playdoh.


Princess Stickers. See, there really are 600 stickers. I wasn't exaggerating.


Princess Stickers every-freakin-where.


And this is the look that says it all.



And this one.



But we made it to Sydney. And now we are here and so many fun things are happening. I'll try to post soon and I'll be checking my e-mail and loving your comments as always and trying to get back to you.

I have a great grill recipe that I got from Jamie Oliver on the plane (No, he wasn't actually on the plane) and I have this great story about an Australian butcher I met. So much to tell and so many things to do.

Miss talking to all of you!

xxxooo YM

PS And Happy Mothers Day. I know what you guys do everyday and you rock! Have a blast! I want to hear all the details.
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We're Going to Australia...Tomorrow

Okay, not tomorrow. We're going on Sunday. Psych.

This is, of course, a last minute thing. We are not the kind of people who plan things months in advance and prepare and develop long packing lists and have every conceivable thing in our bag in case of every conceivable emergency.

We're the kind of people who decide to go half way around the world to a different hemisphere with two small children in tow, like, on a few days notice, as if we were going to a bed and breakfast just outside the city for the weekend or something, with a sweater and a hairbrush stuffed into a backpack.

That's just our way.

Question to the Aussie's: Are there kangaroos on the beach?

I know this might sound romantic, like we are footloose and fancy free and spontaneous and are kids are unsullied by rigid schedules and control freak trip planning, but we're also the kind of people who will get seated next to the control freak trip planners on the plane and eat all their carefully-prepared organic snacks and ask them to borrow one of the five brand new toothbrushes they remembered to buy and bring with them, just in case of an emergency.

And it was an emergency, because we didn't have toothbrushes and these people were going to have to spend 14 hours with us on a plane, smelling our horrible breath.

We love you, control freak trip planners.




Anyway, this trip isn't completely spontaneous. The plan has been on the map for awhile. David has an important show touring there and we planned on going for part of the tour and visiting the grandparents and friends and having a nice little work/vacation, but we thought it would be later on in May.

Then, this thing happened.

See, you may not know this but my husband has a very sexy job. He doesn't think it's sexy, in fact, he spends a good deal of time telling me how decidedly un-sexy his job is and how all he does is work on spread sheets. But in between all the Excel, he does things like meet with 'Fantastic World-Famous Celebrities". And the way he talks about these meetings with "Fantastic World-Famous Celebrities" is to work it into the middle of a completely inane discussion. Like this:

David: You know, Edie has been having loose stools all week.

Kim: I noticed they were a little green this morning.

David: "Fantastic World-famous Celebrity's Manager" called today. They want to meet with me tomorrow...I wonder if she's been eating too many avocados...

And when I get kinda excited and all gushy about how cool my husband is, he reminds me that he's just "paying the bills", like he's a steel worker or a coal miner or something.

So anyway, "Fantastic World-Famous Celebrity" wants to meet with David on a certain date and we re-arranged our trip to accommodate. As you can imagine, I haven't packed a thing, the house is a mess and Lucy has packed every single stuffed animal in her room into a suitcase and is insisting all her "friends" make the trip.

And with that, we're off to Sydney, people.




I'll be posting regularly from Down Under, so stay with me. I'll also be doing some food posts. I have a back log of great recipes for you and I'll be cooking and eating out in Sydney. I also want to go to Bill's, since I am big Bill Granger fan.

I think the first thing I'll do is a photo essay of the FREAKIN' 14 HOUR PLANE RIDE. Hopefully, we'll be sitting next to the Control Freak Trip Planners, with their scads of Wiggles DVDs' and Diego coloring books.

Say a prayer the plane doesn't fall into the ocean. Or explode on the runway.

I'm not joking. Say a prayer.

xxoo YM

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