Lunch Is Better with Underpants on Your Head

I'm writing this to you while sunning myself pool side. Oh, there's Aldo the young pool stud, who lives to please me, bringing me another margarita.

Gratis. Cause I'm a hottie. In like some weird alternate universe where opposites are true, which is, like, here apparently.

Just in case you were under the mistaken impression that my children were little angels in restaurants and you imagined them sitting quietly cleaning their plates of vegies and saying things like, "Please pass the porridge, Papa" and "May I be excused now, Mumma" in adorable faux British accents and you pictured David and I leisurely drinking wine and feeding each other foie gras with our fingers and me gently tossling his hair while he recounts all the ways he fell in love with me.

Yeah...No.

My kids decided to take their underpants off in the middle of the restaurant and wear them on their heads for, like, the entire meal.


Nice.


We were at this tourist trap called Tapas & Tintos on Espanola Way. The meal turned out to be pretty scrumptious and the little tapas plates were just perfect for the kids, who grazed from one plate to the next, trying some things, leaving some, gorging on others. The tables and couches were also low, so the kids just kept walking around the table fingering everything, smelling the new foods and experimenting when things looked inviting.

I think the tapas/small plate concept is a great way to dine out with kids. And I'm thinking about making some of our at-home dinners more in this style. We do a lot of breakfasts this way, sort of a "breakfast buffet" concept, but this felt nice as a relaxing lunch out with the kids.


And you know, any place that lets you wear your underpants on your head while you eat Croquetas, Salpicon de Mariscos, Necora Tempura, Verduras and one of the best home-made pates I've had in a long time, can't be all bad.


Wait...Aldo is here with another drink. Mmmmmm...Very nice. Thanks, Aldo.

Which reminds me, we are leaving "The Stripper Shoe Capital of the World" to return to civilization tomorrow. This is my last post by the pool and we are really indulging today.

Next time we talk, you will not catch me dead in a bikini. And Aldo and his attentive helpfulness will only be a distant memory.

Bummer, man.

xxoo YM Continue Reading...

I Have Nothing to Say. Really.

My life is a complete blur of tanned skin, free drinks at happy hour and children swimming in the pool in their ducky flotation rings, joyfully singing “Jingle Bells”.

I barely remember what my life in New York was really like; what I did every day, all the important things I remember I had to get done. It’s like New York was a decade ago and I am marooned on a tropical paradise and my biggest decision is whether to use SPF 15 or 30.


What happened to that woman who managed to pull one child off the other as they pummeled each other senseless, negotiated who should have the sparkly princess wand and who should have the sparkly princess crown, shamelessly and brazenly gossiped about the neighbors that I barely know, pulled together three home-cooked meals a day and wrote stuff that people actually wanted to read? Where is all that hair-raising conflict that I am so famous for? God, I haven’t been to a grocery store with my kids in like years. I haven't even yelled at a store clerk in recent memory.


I have become the dullest person on the planet. Could someone pass me another Daquiri, please? And a little lotion on my back. Right there. Thanks.


As I was saying, barely a day goes by where I make it out of my bikini. It’s brutal around here. I just wanted you to know that I may need an intervention from my friends and readers.

But not right now. Really, a little later.


As you can see we have a semi-unnatural relationship to a bright yellow hammock on the beach. There is a lot of lying about going on. I leave you with these images in lieu of creativity and brilliant writing.

xxoo YM


PS: I did pull myself together enough to write a column for Imperfect Parent. I wrote a manifesto against box macaroni and cheese. I did it during one of my brief moments of sobriety. Please read it so I can feel whole again... Continue Reading...

I've Been Very Busy, People. Important Things Going On Here...

I love you guys. Really, I do.

I love this thing we have going. I write things. You write things back. It makes me happy. You make me happy. But I gotta tell ya - I'm having a hard time dragging my sorry, tanned, bikini-clad butt out of the rooftop pool and coming here in front of the computer and writing a post.

Not that I don't have a lot to tell you. Oh, I do. Lots. I think of a bunch of things I want to tell you as I'm gliding like a mermaid across the warm water letting the sun shimmer on my ever-browning skin, while the kids paddle around the shallow end naked and I am interrupted by bursts of uproarious laughter and shrieks of joy. And don't forget about those Strawberry Daquiri's ushered to me poolside by our bartender who is like my new best friend.

Oh yes, I'm thinking about you, my friends. I'm lovin' you. But love alone will not get you an inspired blog post.

I will, however, take this opportunity to make fun of my husband who as always makes for entertaining reading. Most of you who follow along regularly know that David has banned carbs and sugar and anything tasty from his diet. And you also know that this has been greeted with great consternation, hand-wringing, eye-rolling and mockery from me. Gratefully, he has lightened up a bit lately, although we are still working our way through the $70 worth of low-fat, low-carb whole wheat tortillas he had shipped across the continental US.

20 down. 80 to go.

But this trip has given me new insight into my husband. See, David's one real vice is ice cream and although he won't actually order an ice cream for himself, because he would have to ingest "the white death" (sugar) and this would violate the very tenants of his diet, he chooses instead to "help" the children.

And by help, I mean relieve the children of the burden of their ice cream.

Oh, he says he is just licking the edges, smoothing the drips with his tongue, inhibiting the melting, preventing clothes from being stained...His rationalizations know no bounds.

But I'm so onto him. Here's documented proof. Because that's the kind of wife I am.


The baby is ordered a cone as large as her head, which is convenient.


Someone please tell the baby to keep her eye on the cone. Her father is lurking nearby.


David swoops in "to help".


More swooping. Edie is concerned. As she should be.


Notice the ice cream is much smaller now. Poor thing.


Ah. Another child in peril.


As I write this, David leans over my shoulder. This is our conversation:

David: I had to eat it.

Kim: What?

David: The ice cream. I had to eat it.

Kim: Really? Why?

David: Lucy needed help. I didn't like it though. It was pistachio. Very green. With nuts.

Kim: So you ate it, but you didn't like it.

David: That's right. My daughter needed help. I ate the pistachio for her.


His love for his daughters knows no bounds.


As the cone gets smaller...


And smaller...


And smaller. And he knows I'm taking pictures of him and that I'm going to blog about this and still...


No shame.


xxoo YM


PS: Thanks to Gillian and Saint Tiger Lily (who writes a hilariously funny blog and is now getting even funnier because she is freakin' out about her up-coming wedding and there's nothing like wedding panic to make for funny blog posts, so go read her.) for obviously getting very drunk and spamming me with naked porno pictures of Bourdain...with a bone. (Wait. Is that a bone? Or could it be...?)

You girls made my night. Now, go have another drink.

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Miami Beach Sushi Orgy

So, Lucy and Edie and I spent the day in the hotel pool, which was warm, like bath water and the girls played in the tanning cabanas and jumped into the 3 foot roof top pool with nothing but their nudey little bodies and there was laughing and some cajoling so that I would take them far out into the deep end, which was like all of 4 feet, and Edie slept in the shade while Lucy and I splashed each other and I pretended I was a friendly shark and then a terrible shark, until the screaming of little girls, mine and other people's, was too much for our ears to bear, and I became a friendly shark again, much to everyone's relief.

That was my day in a nutshell. Pretty freakin' fantastic, huh?

Poor David was stuck in the theatre working. He was stressed. I was a shark. With a tan. There you go. Life isn't fair.

So, it's not always easy feeding all of us when we travel. There are always situations we can't predict or plan for, like that first meal after we get to a destination or before we do the first proper grocery shop or if we are laid over unexpectedly, so sometimes it's a challenge to get everyone eating the way I want them to.

I'm not the type to carry a neatly wrapped wad of organic, grass-fed bison in my brassiere for that "just in case" moment when the children cry out in hunger, nor can I butter poach a lobster with nothing but a hot pot and a bag of M&M's from the mini-bar.

So, I want to share with you the sushi orgy that occurred on our first night here. I particularly loved this dinner because we were all ferociously hungry and we gourged ourselves. There is a sushi restaurant and "Sakatini Bar", whatever the hell that is, in our hotel and so we stumbled down there before unpacking and settling. And we went a little nuts.

What I think is important about this meal, that you will see in the pictures (below), is that Lucy really went to town on her sushi and maki. This is important because although she has played at eating sushi - she's tried it, ate a little here and there, rolled it around her mouth, but never really made a meal of it - this time something clicked and she really indulged lavishly on her sushi. And mine.

This means that the old food wisdom about kids is indeed true - sometimes you have to put food in front of kids time after time - while they turn up their noses or spit it out onto the table or shout "That's disgusting!" at the top of their lungs - before they come to accept it and eventually love it.

This meal reminded me that it's all worth it. See for yourself...

xxoo YM


PS: Notice that my children started out the meal clothed. And ended up topless before we got to the entrees. That's my girls...

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Dear Mr. Smoked Meat Man...

You are pudgy and your hands smell like cow and you wear a funny little paper hat, but damn it, I love you. And I love your meat.

Smoked meat, that is.

I'm talking about Schwartz's Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, a place I did not know even existed until my worldy husband, the one who knew that people speak French in Montreal and the one who has had to listen to me speak in "zee French accent" ever since I learned this little fact, insisted we go.

He actually said, "You can't leave Montreal until you've had smoked meat." My man is very decisive about "zee beef". I was all like "What eez theez smoked meat you speak about, mon petite chou?"

This is when he starts to pretend I'm married to someone else.

Now, I know that going gaga over Schwartz's is a little like being a tourist in New York City and going gaga over the Carnegie Deli. I mean, yeah, the corned beef is good, but is it worthy of a blog post and a photo essay?

I mean, it's not like I found this little hole in the wall in some Montreal tenement where a little old lady hand-smokes sides of beef in her garage and her place can only accomodate like six people and a dog and requires a reservation four months in advance and like, 30 people total know about it and Demi Moore is a regular. Hell no, I discovered a place that like 10 million people discovered before me.

Somebody call Gourmet Magazine. I'm a freakin' trendsetter.

Everyone knows about Schwartz's and I know this because the Smoked Meat Man offered to take a picture with me holding a slab of meat, and any deli guy that wants to get in on the picture is a guy who gets his picture taken a lot. And the shot would have been great but my boob was hanging out and you know, no one needs to see my nipples. Again.

I will, however, share a little photo essay with you (below) that illustrates our time at Schwartz's which was absolutely, insanely scrumptious.

We're in Montreal for a bit, then on to Miami. We are with one of David's shows, which is always fun for the girls because they love playing on the stage, climbing the wardrobe racks and running around with backstage passes dangling from their necks, which besides being cute, is a strangling hazard waiting to happen.

David is out hobnobbing right now with someone famous "you are not allowed to blog about". Okay, honey, I haven't said a word.

Anyway, I'm drinking alone and watching CNN. That's not a bad thing, right?

xxoo YM


PS Thanks for the tip YM #2 in Toronto. What nut would order smoked meat "lean"? That seems rather blasphemous, doesn't it? I'm looking forward to the Poutine next, although I wish you hadn't told me it was actually "cheese curds". Always better to keep me in the dark about these things...

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