Matthew Amster-Burton's "Hungry Monkey"

The other day I was at Lucy's gymnastics class and a very nice mom I met there let me borrow a food memoir she had been reading. The author was a parent/chef writing about feeding her kids. The mom who gave it to me had abandoned the book halfway, but thought I might give it a go anyway. I got about 10 pages in before I realized it was the most boring book ever to have been penned by anyone in modern civilization. Chaucer was more boring, but not by much.

Truth is, writing about food and kids and making it interesting is harder than it looks.

Many kid/food books (and blogs for that matter) are overly earnest "Your child will gobble up this delicious TOFU SCRAMBLE. My Harry eats it every day." Too many focus on dumbing down food so kids will eat it "Here's how to make the broccoli look like a magic elfin forest. Kids love trees." And face it, many just end up making you feel like crap, "Charlie's favorite afternoon snack is kale...Charlie eats kale three times a day! His doctor says he's the healthiest kid he's ever seen!" I mean, no one with a normal, finicky kid wants to hear about how some chef's kid slurps down eel and asks for kimchi to be served at his birthday party.

Writing about kids and food in most people's hands is a big, fat bore. It is nearly overlooked by much of the food writing community, for good reason. And that's why, when someone does it well, with humor grounded in reality, it is a relief. And well-worth the read.

So, I'm telling you to by-pass all the other smiley-faced recipe books this holiday season, the ones that tell you your kid should be eating and loving Pea Popsicles (Good God) or the food memoirs from parent cooks who have one year olds who can spot a chive across the room, and pick up Matthew Amster-Burton's book, "Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater."


Hungry Monkey is about Matthew's food adventures with his young daughter, Iris. In the hands of another food writer, this could be the reading equivalent of eating a piece of dry toast, but Matthew - in between challenging but compulsively do-able recipes for such dishes as Carnitas, Pad Thai, Thai Catfish Cakes and Iris' favorite Ants on a Tree - shows his readers that even kids who have pretty adventurous eating habits can despise something as simple as soup and take serious offense to something as middle of the road as ketchup.

I don't do a lot of stumping here, and Matthew is a blog-friend, so bear in mind I am less than impartial, (I have been a big Roots and Grubs fan since I started blogging) but I think he has something special here. I think he wrote the book that other food writers should have written and didn't. I think marrying food and kids and humor is a winner for the reader because - as you do with Hungry Monkey - you'll learn a little something, pick up a few good recipes you can take back to your own kitchen, laugh out loud and wake your spouse from a deep, deep sleep and ultimately, you'll realize how absurd feeding your kids can be and how we are all in the same ridiculous, mind-numbingly frustrating boat together.

Matthew was kind enough to answer a little Q & A for me. I think you will find him joyously warped. He also uses the word "fuck" in his interviews, which I find kind of sexy.

xo YM
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1. Most people aspire to have a full fridge and shop as minimally as possible. Why do you love a bare fridge and shop like 8 times a week? That’s so quirky.

I love grocery shopping. One of the reasons I love it is that I only have one kid and I rarely take her along. But I also love going outside. I live in one of the world's most awesome neighborhoods, and every time I go out I feel like part of a story.

A bare fridge means I can make whatever I want for dinner tonight without feeling guilty about neglecting the stuff in the fridge.
Easier said than done. Earlier this week Laurie said to me, "There seem to be a lot of assorted meats in the fridge."

"Just chicken and pork," I said.

"And ham. And what's in this box?"

"Roast duck," I admitted. Oops.

2. Can you talk a little bit about giving kids decision-making power at dinner and how you tackled that with Iris? How important do you think it is that kids can choose dinner sometimes and what if they choose Ho-Ho’s?

I think Ho-Hos for dinner would be fucking hilarious. Don't Ho Hos look a lot like sushi rolls? Everyone will get a little dish of chocolate sauce and a dab of mint green whipped cream to mix in, and Iris will be required to eat her Ho Ho slices with chopsticks.

Okay, I'm convinced. Ho Hos tonight. Thanks for the idea.

Seriously, I love cooking dinner but hate deciding what to make. Iris likes making a pick every week. Everyone wins. She's never chosen something absurd, but if she did, I would totally go with it. Lately, her top picks have been pizza, burgers, udon noodles, tortilla soup, and sukiyaki.

3. What do you wish Iris would just love to eat, but doesn’t? Have you tried overtly to “cultivate” her taste or are you as laid back and cool as I suspect?

I'm extremely laid back (read: lazy). There are definitely things I wish Iris would enjoy, especially spicy things. Like, I can't make Thai curry for the whole family, because if it's not spicy it's not good, and if it is spicy, Iris won't eat it. She also hates risotto. I get away with salad by putting crispy chicken or pork on top.

I wouldn't even know where to begin if I wanted to cultivate Iris's taste in something. It would end up being a catastrophe. I'd be better off hanging my happiness on peace in the Middle East than convincing a five-year-old to eat broccoli.

4. I love that you had a little fun at the expense of Ruth Yaron’s decidedly comprehensive, but super-preachy “Super Baby Food”...How intense is that book? What’s one thing every parent should know about feeding their baby that Yaron won’t tell you or just doesn’t know?

Babies can eat mashed-up grownup food starting with their first mouthful. Just take some of that curry, noodles, casserole, or anything else chewable, smash it, and put it in your baby's mouth.

There's no such thing as baby food.

5. One thing I love about “Hungry Monkey” is how you distinguish between feeding iris and having a lunch date with her. I feel like exhaling every time I think of having a “lunch date” with the kids, not “feeding them”. I’d love to know how Iris would describe a typical lunch date with her dad.

Well, when I wrote that, I was talking about when Iris was a baby and we'd have lunch together at home. Now she's in kindergarten and has lunch with friends at school. Sometimes I get to come along, which is awesome. I love hanging out with kids, because they never complain about their jobs. They want to tell you about something that happened in class that makes no sense and may be fabricated, but who cares?

I do like to take Iris out to lunch on the weekends. The other day we went to Blue C Sushi, the conveyor belt sushi place I described in chapter 18 of Hungry Monkey. They had a new dessert item, mini-donuts.
Iris was thrilled.

By the way, I think you're hinting at the tragic flaw of my book, which is that I style myself as an expert, or at least a reporter from the trenches, but I ONLY HAVE ONE KID. Feeding one kid is easy.

Feeding two kids who are guaranteed to hate precisely the opposite foods, shit, I don't know what I'd do. Drink, I guess.

6. You put candied bacon in your Irish Oats...what else can I do with candied bacon?

Check the ads in the back of the Village Voice for ideas.

7. I remember getting a sneak look at your chapter “The Only Snack Dad in Preschool” just as I was coming upon my own tenure as a snack parent. I felt rejuvenated by your neurotic (I mean that in the nicest way) and hilarious search for the perfect class snacks. What is the best advice you can give parents who are looking to bring or pack snacks/lunch that kids might actually have a snowballs chance in hell of eating?

Here's a lunch that I guarantee your kids will finish: Ho Hos and a juice box.

Just kidding! Sort of. I struggle with this because I don't really like lunch box food myself. If I were packing myself a lunch, I'd make a bento box with rice and leftover meat and vegetables and stuff. I just dropped Iris off at school and, let's see, her lunch contains a couple of slices of ham rolled up in a flour tortilla and sliced (I call this a Ham Ho Ho...not really), a homemade cranberry-coconut cookie, and some dried honeycrisp apple chips.

8. Why? Why? Why are frozen brussel sprouts better than fresh? Is there some kernel of knowledge that has eluded me? (I went out and bought a bag of frozen to test this theory. Very scientific.)

What was the result of your experiment? Here's the deal: fresh brussels sprouts are only really good in the winter, and prepping them is a bitch. Frozen ones require no prep, are always in season, and cost less. And they taste great. Not as good as in-season sprouts from the farmers market, but very good.

9. Do you go out to eat with Iris often? Give us one 4 yr old eating out success story that you are proud of and one you and Iris are still working on?

We have a short roster of local restaurants where we'll take Iris. Any Chinese restaurant is fine, or any burger or pizza place, but the only fancy-ish restaurant we take her to is called Poppy. It's down the street from us, and they serve Indian-inspired thali meals--i.e., a bunch of little dishes of tasty stuff. Every thali includes meat or fish (or good vegetarian options), salad, pickles, hot vegetable sides, sometimes fried stuff. And our friend Dana Cree is the pastry chef and makes a mean dessert thali. It's a great place for kids because they can pick and choose among all the little dishes without being told, "Try this, and this, and this." And one thali can easily feed an adult and a child.

I never take Iris out to eat with the expectation that she'll try something new. That's a sure way to suck all the fun out of the experience for me. Have you noticed that I put a lot of emphasis on trying to make my life more fun? Me too.

10. You have the best snack philosophy ever – introduce them to the good stuff. I love that you love treats and chocolate and embrace the idea that kids like to eat them too. I also love that you do treats in the afternoon, so there is no “eat your dinner or no dessert” struggle at dinner. Please change the face of neurotic parenting and tell us why we should relax about sweets. And what, if any, constraints do you have on treats and nutrition-challenged snacks?

I think parents have three main worries about sweets: (1) Sweets will make my kid hyper. (2) Sweets will make my kid fat. (3) Other parents will make angry eyebrows at me if they think I'm letting my kid have too many sweets. Number three is probably true. The others are a load of crap. Why should you believe me? Because I'm some random guy on the Internet and I say so. (Seriously, there's more about this in the
book.)

I'm a hedonist. I have three great sensual pleasures in life: food, music, and, uh, I forget the other one (oh yeah, it's the one Iris is allowed to become interested in after I'm dead; see how cool and laid-back I am?). As far as it's possible in this society, I think I have a pretty uncomplicated relationship with food. Iris does, too, and I'd like her to enjoy that for as long as possible. You'd think that would be a recipe for unrestrained gorging on Ho Hos. It's not.

11. How was the process for you while writing this book? Anything totally surprise you? Things you would do again? Or differently?

The irony of every book about the author's family is that the author had to spend long hours away from the family in order to write it. I'm not looking forward to that part when I write another book.

I have to put in a plug for Scrivener, the software I used to write the book. It's a Mac word processor specifically for authors: it doesn't work well for short documents, but for writing a 75,000 word book, it's irreplaceable.

12. Any plans for another book?

I'd like to write another book, but I haven't had the right idea yet, and a sequel to Hungry Monkey isn't in the offing. Sorry!
(Alternatively: you're welcome!)

Matthew Amster-Burton writes for Culinate.com, Mint.com, Seattle Magazine, and the Seattle Times. A former contributing writer for Gourmet, he has been featured in the Best Food Writing anthology repeatedly. Find him online at rootsandgrubs.com.

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I've Been Gone Awhile, Haven't I?

Um, so first let me tell you that this is us grocery shopping. I start with this so you know some things stay the same. Grocery shopping with the Fosters is and always has been an endurance sport.

Notice my kids are wearing underpants on their heads and have decided to bring half their stuffed animals and carts and strollers, which I ended up having to carry home, along with a full trolley of groceries, because well, bringing all that stuff seemed like a great idea when we started out, but not so much fun a few hours later when everyone was tired and crying.

So yes, these peculiarities of my little family have stayed the same, but how I feel about this blog has changed. I'm sure you noticed that I just stopped writing. I know you noticed because you wrote me e-mails and told me and tried to woo me back with your nice talk and compliments and for this, I am grateful. The blog is the problem. Not you.

Truth is, I had decided to stop writing this blog altogether. Really decided. Firm. A few days ago I was composing my final blog post in my head, trying to figure out why and what I was thinking. I was dreading it. I kept putting it off. That is until someone I didn't know at all left this message in my box:

Hey Kim!

I know I don't actually know you, but of all the blogs I read (about 20... Yes, I'm ashamed) yours is by far my favorite. You said once before that getting emails helped motivate you so--get posting Girl! :)

Much Love,
Brande

So, first - thanks Brande. That was very cool of you. And your e-mail made me realize why I started writing this blog in the first place. I started because I'm a writer and I love to, need to, must write to be happy, sane and not bark at bank tellers and my husband. I started because I love good writing, great stories. I love funny, poignant writing. I wanted to write about this experience and write well. That was all that concerned me.


But the business of blogs has changed over these past years. It has become something else. It is not so much about the writing. It is about getting comments, getting bigger blogs to recognize your work, counting your readers like a neurotic bean counter on Google Analytics. It's about conferences, media appearances, handing out business cards, meet-ups, networking, give-aways, sponsorships.

I realized after reading people's Twitters that there was a whole world out there I didn't even know existed. Food writers, moms, bloggers in general, whatever, were flying all over the country, having meet-ups, attending conferences, meeting each other at bars, solidifying friendships and creating these powerful bonds that they parlayed into greater influence on the net. Yes, much about having a successful blog is luck, but another facet of that is being connected both on the internet and in person. You have to show up.

People take care of their own. This is a natural part of things. It happens here. I support bloggers with whom I have connected. But in the larger world of the web, I'm not very connected. I'm, like, in the AV club in high school. I couldn't be connected, of course, because you can imagine how long it takes us to get the grocery shopping done, I mean, that doesn't leave much time for developing my "Mama Brand", does it?

And really, I guess that's what I figured out in my time of abandoning this blog. I don't want to develop myself as a brand - just a person, a cook, a writer, an author, a mom, a wife, a friend, a person on the hunt for adventures and a person just trying to do everything with passion, instead of flying through it all half-assed, hoping something hits the wall and sticks.

I want to savor every little moment.

I don't want to be on a plane flying all over the country going to conferences and drinking in bars with other cool women, although I'm sure it would be a hoot. I just want to stay around home for this, because I like people who wear underpants on their heads. I like four hour shopping trips that end in tears and crushed eggplant. It makes me happy. I like not missing any of it, or most of it.

I don't want to examine each post I write and wonder if I've supported my mission to conquer the world.

I just want to write well with a quirky, funny take on things. I want to never see ads cluttering up my blog. You should kill me if I ever do a give-away or hold a contest. That stuff is great for other folks, but it just isn't me. And you probably know this, but for the record, I will never let some company pay me and then try to endorse their product in my blog without telling you.

I don't want to think of myself and this blog as some kind of construct or business model. I want to make friends with people because they are cool and share my interests and passions, not because they might be influential in helping me get new readers or extend my presence on the net. I want to help new bloggers and be generous with my time when I can. I want to never be too cool or too big to respond to a new commenter or blogger, even if it takes me forever to do it.

I want people to read my blog, but not because I want to position myself for a two minute stint on Good Morning America, although I would do the stint if offered, it just isn't my raison d'etre. I want to not be one of those irritating bloggers - I've done this before - who drums up sensationalist, nonsensical topics, just to get into the fray, cause a dog fight and then, jump right in. The latest media-driven discussion of what it means to be a "bad mother" comes to mind...ugh, who cares?

I want you all to read. I do not want to write in a vacuum. I do want people to enjoy my writing and I love hearing from people when they do. I also don't mind shitty comments from time to time. That's all part of it. I want to be a part of a community and I want to be as avid a reader of your blogs as I am a writer. I want to be there for you, too. I just want to do it all with some kind of purity of purpose. I want to just be Winnie the Pooh. And be. Not for a purpose or a mission or a goal.

And so, that's what I figured out in my mini-sabbatical. And I'm gonna try to honor it here. If I don't, you have my permission to call me on it. I respect your opinion. You know me very well. You proved that when you picked up falsehoods in the chapter I wrote and posted here. You were straight shooters and I like that.

Just know that I appreciate you coming here. That I consider you friends. That I will try not to disappoint, you or myself. I will also try not to disappear again.

xo YM

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Fear of Swine Meatballs

I'm back, people. And here to tell you I am not afraid of Swine Flu. I am, however, afraid of swine, um, I mean pork.

Or at least I was until a few years ago. I come from a world where mothers and grandmothers and generations of women before them believed that a single piece of under-cooked pork could fell an entire village. If one of the women folk saw any pink - perceived or otherwise - in a piece of pork, she would throw herself in front of my plate, as if she was saving me from on-coming traffic. And God forbid you had a little stomach ache after eating at the neighbors house, one of the women folk would get all worried and start calling the doctor, "It was Patsy's pork. I knew I saw some pink in my piece...For cryin' out loud, that woman's gonna kill someone with her pork butt."

Swine was never to be messed with. It was the meat that could kill.

From the time I remember, I believed that pork was a dry, tasteless meat that was akin to eating a sneaker. I never loved anything pork-related - except bacon, of course, which is like food of the Gods and if it didn't exist would make, I believed, killing a pig for food absolutely unnecessary.


Pig as I knew it, was served after a good hearty incineration in the oven until it was bone dry and throat-closing. You'd have to be drunk to eat this stuff and believe it didn't taste like shoe laces. I never had really succulent, juicy pork until I was well into my adult years and definately by accident because I would never have ordered it from a restaurant on purpose.

Think I'm nuts? If you don't believe me, all you need to do is go to a BBQ joint where there is always a disclaimer on a prominently-placed sign saying that pink meat is just fine in BBQ/smoked meat and is not a sign that your meal is underdone or that you will have to be admitted to the ICU several hours after paying your bill. Every BBQ joint has one of these. And there is a reason - someone from my family might be eating there.

So, when I was reading Matthew Amster-Burton's new book "Hungry Monkey: A Food-Loving Father's Quest to Raise an Adventurous Eater" - a fantastic and funny book that will give you some great ideas about cooking for and eating with your kids - he was going on and on about pork meatballs and I thought I would give them a whirl.

In the past, I have been faithful to Rocco DiSpirito's mom's recipes for meatballs, which involve a veal, pork, beef combo with breadcrumbs. (For the record, I also often make a variation of her marinara, which is both easy to make and lovely to eat.) Matthew suggests all pork and as filler, bread and milk in his meatballs.

He even brazenly says that the secret to good meatballs is more filler/less meat, which I had never even considered, so I tried out his theory and discovered that more filler, gives a lighter, fluffier meatball and the milk/bread filler is way easier to work with than the breadcrumb one.

The meatballs were awesome, but working with ground pork makes me a little crazy. There is always a child around here that needs to be held or breastfed or comforted or needs a juice just when I am up to my elbows in killer meat. And so, I was going to the sink a lot to wash my hands, which is fine except I kept getting raw pork meat all over the handle of the faucet and so, I'd have to wash my hands and then reach over to turn off the water, only to remember that I turned the faucet on with my swine-covered hands and I had probably reinfected myself. I washed my hands and the faucets, like 30 times.

I also kept having utensil issues. I kept forgetting which utensil I used on the raw meat, so I kept having to go in the drawer and get out a new one to use for the other food. I used about 30 different spoons, forks and knives just for the preparation of this one meal. I had to re-wash flatware just to get through dinner service. And even then, I wasn't sure that some of the swine hadn't lived through the surge of hot tap water and soap. I would've felt better running them through the dishwasher, but there was no time.

And then there was what happened to the gigantic wedge of parmagiano that we bought at Costco. I was adding the cheese to the meatball mixture when I realized that I grabbed the wedge with my hands all porky and probably contaminated the whole thing. I was horrified because (a) it was our only parm and (b) it was so huge and so expensive that to throw it out was like throwing cash right in the bin.

I was flumoxed. I kept staring at the infected edge wondering what to do: throw it in the bin or wash it off and hope innocent parm-eaters don't perish. It was a real toss-up - throw it in the bin, kill people. Throw it in the bin, kill people.

This should have been a no-brainer.

But I couldn't throw it away. It looked perfectly fine and I was bound and determined I would figure out a way to scrape off the bacteria and make it a viable hunk of cheese again. Surely 100 other people have googled this, right?

I did this neurotic dance as 4 children and 4 adults waited for their lunch - Bin. Death. Bin. Death. There's me, frozen, holding a contaminated wedge of cheese. I was a mess. Finally, I washed the cheese in hot water and stashed in a plastic bag in the fridge. I could deal with this later after the guests left. I had more than enough cheese in the meatballs. I still have no idea what happens to parm when you wash it. I'm too afraid to look in the fridge this morning.

As I write this, I'm pretty sure there is a spot on my counter harboring live and active raw pork bacteria, just waiting for me to touch it and infect everyone around me. Every once in a while I walk into my kitchen and just spritz the counter for good measure. I'm sure it will stay there for weeks. I'm contemplating having David rip up the counters and build me a new kitchen.

So, forget the swine flu. That's for amateurs. I have my own swine issues to deal with. Cooking with ground pork turns me into an obsessive-compulsive mess. It's in my genes, written into my DNA.

Still, the meatballs were great. But at least with veal I can pretend to be a sane person. I give you your choice here. Enjoy!

xo YM


PS: And thanks for all the e-mails gently telling me to get off my ass and post something. I love you all.
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Matthew Amster-Burton's Pork Mini-Meatballs
(Also known as The Yummy Mummy's Fear of Swine Meatballs)


2 slices of white sandwich bread, crusts, removed torn into pieces (or just a quarter loaf of the skinny Italian loaf, which was all I had)
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten
2 ounces grated Parmigiano-Reggiano (Not sure how much I got in before I contaminated the wedge)
2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano (I usd dried because it was what I had on hand)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound or so of ground pork

1. In a bowl, combine the bread and milk and mash with a fork until it forms a paste. Stir in egg, Parmigiano, organo, garlic, salt and pepper. Add the pork and mix (hands work well)until well combined.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick (or cast iron) skillet over medium heat. Drop 1 tablespoon dollops of meat mixture into the skillet. (The meat mixture will be soft, but don't worry about that, the meatballs hold together nicely.) Working in two batches, brown the meatballs on two sides, about 2 minutes per side and transfer to a plate.

Make your marinara (either Matthew's from "Hungry Monkey" page 142-3 or Mama's or your own favorite) and bring a large pot of salted boiling water to boil. Add your pasta and cook until al dente. Drain. Combine the pasta, sauce and meatballs. Serve.


Mama DiSpirito's Meat Balls

1/3 cup chicken stock
1/4 yellow onion
1 clove garlic
¼ cup fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped fine
1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground pork
1/2 lb ground veal
1/3 cup plain breadcrumbs
2 eggs
1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp salt
3-6 cups of Mama's Marinara or your favorite marinara sauce
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Place the chicken stock, onion, garlic and parsley in a blender of food processor and puree.

2. In a large bowl, combine the pureed stock mix, meat, bread crumbs, eggs, Parmigiano-Reggiano, red pepper flakes, parsley and salt. Combine with both hands until mixture is uniform. Do not over mix.

3. Put a little olive oil on your hands and form mixture into balls a little larger than golf balls. They should be about ¼ cup each, though if you prefer bigger or smaller, it will only affect the browning time.

4. Pour about 1/2-inch of extra virgin olive oil into a straight-sided, 10-inch-wide sauté pan and heat over medium-high flame. Add the meatballs to the pan (working in batches if necessary) and brown meatballs, turning once. This will take about 10-15 minutes.

5. While the meatballs are browning, heat the marinara sauce in a stockpot over medium heat. Lift the meatballs out of the sauté pan with a slotted spoon and put them in the marinara sauce. Stir gently. Simmer for one hour.

6. Serve with a little extra Parmigiano-Reggiano sprinkled on top. Serve alone or over spaghetti (in which case, you will need 6 cups of marinara).

Yield: Serves 4 as antipasto or over spaghetti

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Where the Hell Have I Been Anyway?

I totally went AWOL on you. Sorry. It's been a little action packed around here.

Let's take care of some business:

First, I want to say thank you, you wonderful people you. A bunch of you out there e-mailed me or left comments telling me that after my last post you went out and bought tickets to Slava's Snowshow. I can't even begin to tell you how touched I am that you would read what I wrote and then go out and do something so lovely and extraordinary.



This blog thing and all that it creates really amazes the hell out of me on a daily basis and so do you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For just being there. It's beyond cool.

A special thanks to Lisa who went out and bought tickets to the show for herself, her husband and three kids for the Christmas Eve matinee because she wanted to do something special and different with them on that day - God, I love you and your impulsiveness and your crazy fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants ways and I will seriously kiss you full on the mouth if I ever get to meet you - The fate of Lisa's children's Christmas Eve rested squarely in the palm of my recommendation and that might have been frightening except for the New York Times review that came out yesterday and totally vindicated me with a BIG FAT RAVE! I am posting it here so that Lisa can read it and breathe a little easier that I have not totally trashed her kid's Xmas memories. It will be magical and fun day, Lisa. No worries.

A note to my readers who are going to see Snowshow:

1. Don't worry about your hair as you might get spritzed with water by a clown climbing over your seat and then, you'll be pissed that you ruined your $250 hair cut and blow dry. Just go looking like a freak and enjoy yourself.

2. You will invariably carry handfuls of snow home in your purse. You may think you pulled all the snow out of your hair and from out of the collar of your shirt before you leave the theatre, but you will end up with snow stuck down in your bra and all kind of sweaty and plastered to your breasts. It happens to me every time. It's nice in a weird sort of way.

Lastly, something amazing happened at the show's opening night party on Sunday. I finally got to meet Saint Tigerlily, who is a very clever and funny writer on her blog, but it also turns out is a complete hottie - long blond hair, legs from here to Cleveland, all statuesque and "I'm so pretty, but unaware of it at the same time" and I think in this regard I was very disappointed.

I was hoping she would be a little more frumpy and dour. Someone with a lace collar and sensible shoes. Someone who might want to enter a convent and then, make fun of the nuns behind their backs. Someone who has to be funny because she has few other virtues and a face like the back end of a ham.

But, oh no. Tigerlily was all standing on the table and shaking her moneymaker to the music and showing off her boob job to the menfolk panting at her feet. (Those breasts were like lighthouse buoys. They have to be fake. They just have to.)

This is Tigerlily:


You be the judge.

By the end of the night, a crowd of gay men had gathered around her as she laid out across the baby grand piano, applauded wildly and begged her to sing one more chorus of "Over the Rainbow", which she did in perfect pitch.

I kinda hate her.

The last time I saw Tigerlily, a line of people were forming at the bar to do body shots off her rock hard abs. We might be friends for life.

xxoo YM

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I'm Speechless...

I was on Google Analytics for like the 3,000th time this month and have been thrilled to see my reader numbers increasing a lot and decided to happily troll through the the search terms that people use to get to my blog, just to see what people are looking for. Many were predictable, food and kids and marriage related, some very cool - apparently a lot of Martha Stewart fans come here to read about me lovingly making fun of her - and some just down-right perverted and ridiculous.

I share the perverted and ridiculous ones with you now. Because that's the kind of blogger I am. And it's Friday. And I am trying to amuse myself. Three very good reasons.

Now, remember what this means is that at least one person, usually more, typed this phrase into Google. And somehow my blog popped up. My comments and observations are in italics.
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Pictures of girls in big girl underpants (leave my blog and never come back. Asses)

Yummy sperm (Well, okay...)

Aussie whore (That’s tea whore, freak)

Are fish sticks good for sperm? (yes)

Pork yogurt (sounds tasty)

Eats her boogers (all the time. Tastes like chicken)

Glimpse of my nipple (can’t you see your own nipple?)

See her hoo ha (and?...)

101 uses for maxi pads (I got one use, that’s it)

Big boobs of yummy Kim (got me some of those)

Boob torture video (my nipples know torture. Video has nothing on me)

Then he touched my hoo ha. (why do you Google this?)

Wife likes big coq. (that’s cock, you freak.)

Bourdain sperm (obviously the work of Evil chef Mom and Saint Tigerlily)

Can you sue Pathmark for a wet floor? (the litigious even come to my blog)

I apply curd on my wife’s boobs. (this isn’t you Cheesmonger’s Wife, is it?)

I see my mom take sexy shower. (this sentence should never even appear in your brain)

I still wee in my big girl underpants. (use Depends. Helps a whole bunch)

Kids that eat their own poop. (apparently many kids eat their own poop and their parents are turning to Google in record numbers. And then ultimately to my blog)

Poo eaters.

Poo eating mummy.

Poop eating kids.

Is it better to say poop or poo?

Daddies who have kids who eat poop.

Mommies married to Daddy’s who have kids who eat poop.

Do your kids eat poop?

What to do about kids who eat poo.

Shrimp poop eaters. (huh?)

My boyfriend wants to eat my poop. (get new boyfriend)

Spray Lysol on crotch. (you’ll need to if boyfriend is asking to eat your poo)

And my personal favorite.

Kim Foster naked. (obviously the handy work of someone with good taste)


My readers are nuts.


xxoo YM

PS To Robin at Local or Express?: This is why you need to get on Google Analytics immediately.

PPS: And yes, Molly at The NonHipster Mom. You're right - the picture from my last post of the woman on all fours with a milk machine attached to her breasts will not help. Continue Reading...

How I Like to Eat My Apples...

That's right, baby. Right off the tree. Bring. It. On.






Oh yeah. That's me. I'm hot. Like Billy Idol's younger sister.






Two lovely women, Amy and Jaime, who thought they were getting away for a relaxing day in the country, but who instead ended up schlepping broken bags of apples, ridiculously large pumpkins and dirty kids around all day because my husband was off defying death and climbing a sheer rock face with their husbands. They were both troopers and great company.

They will, however, be staying on the birth control for some time to come. Thanks to us.


See the cliffs way in the back behind Edie? That's where the boys were doing their studly, man-against-the-rock thing.


Apples tossed recklessly aside to search for the Great Pumpkin...








This is my friend Lara (above) with Lucy and Edie and this little beauty (below) is her daughter Ruby. She's also Lucy's BFF.


And we're getting naked in the pumpkin patch...




And making the crazy naked pumpkin face...




And that's how I like to eat my apples. Fall is definately here.

xxoo YM


PS: Many thanks to Lara from Ruby Stories. She took many of these pictures. She is, like, the most humble, sweet, non-self-centered person on the planet, but behind the camera she turns into Richard Avedon on steroids and after every click, she's exclaiming, "Ah! That's amazing!"..."OMG! What a brilliant picture!"..."My God, it's like a professional took this!"

She's a freak. But I love her. And the photos are, indeed, beautiful. Continue Reading...

More Talk of Ice Cream

First, Evil Chef Mom has made the malted milk ice cream I posted last week.

Her post is way more inspired than mine, with all kinds of photos depicting "Whoppercide". You can see her take out her anger on some poor unsuspecting malted milk balls. "Bludegeoning" is a word that comes to mind. "Lunatic" is another, but I'm not sure why that one popped into my head.

She also went on and on about raccoons, although I'm not exactly sure why. Weirdly, the raccoon thing actually makes sense.

Anyway, Evil Chef Mom is wielding a hammer. Those poor malted milk balls, they did absolutely nothing to offend her, but just because they look all brown and ball-like and taste like little pieces of orgasm, she pounded the crap out of 'em. Evil Chef Mom is definately a bitch.

Poor little malted milk balls. You've seen the crazy close up and didn't live to tell the tale.

Now for you readers, who've never heard of Dibs and wondered what the hell I was talking about last post...


Dibs are these little hunks of ice cream covered in chocolate, like an ice cream sandwich only the size of a malted milk ball actually and you kind of pop them in your mouth. They are so small they make a good little treat that isn't a whole appetite-sucking ice cream cone.

The catch is, they are so utterly addictive, you can eat, like, all 60 of them in a single sitting. They are ridiculously good. And the fact that I shouldn't eat them just makes me feel all decadent, tingly and rebellious in my nether regions. And that makes me wanna eat more.

Yes, they have corn syrup in them, so if you are vigilant about making sure there is no corn syrup in your cupboards, you will have to pass on the Dibs, but if you feel like breaking a rule and going off-book for a special occasion, Dibs rock the house.

If I endeavored to make the home made ice cream version of Dibs, I'm sure they'd be absolutely off the hook. (Can you say "off the hook" when you're middle age?)

Hmmmmmm...Maybe I should make Dibs with home-made ice cream...What do ya think?


xxoo YM Continue Reading...

The Dinner Party: Malted Milk Ice Cream

I can honestly tell you that I had screamin' good fun at our dinner party Tuesday night. Our guests were just lovely, talkative, warm-hearted, accomplished, fascinating souls who were good sports and good eaters. It was a pleasure to cook for such a fun crew.

But I love the cartoon above because it shows how anxiety-provoking these affairs can be for guests and hosts. It's funny to think about all these hidden thoughts and feelings going on as we socialize and eat together. Anyway, I did learn a few things from this experience and of course, I want to share:

1. Doing 10 to 12 "small plates" is still making 10 to 12 dishes no matter how itsy bitsy the plate is. Duh. You think a girl as crafty as me would've figured this out ahead of time.

But no, it was a shocker a day into the cooking. Moral of the story: a banquet of tapas is still a ten course meal anyway you cut it. I'm so happy I did it and it really helped me stretch my cooking, but it could have been a complete train wreck.

Like when I was whipping the butter into the cognac-soaked chicken livers with a whisk and the whisk went flying across the kitchen and liver stuck to the wall for like three seconds before falling to the ground behind the trash can (Guess I should look for that..) and a huge piece of liver flung out of the bowl and slapped me across the eyes and then, kind of stuck to my nose and dripped slowly down my face and I nearly hurled into the bowl of softened pate.

"The Chicken Liver Parfait" (what a crazy name. Isn't "parfait" an ice cream dish?) from NTSC at Art of the Pig, a man truly in love with offal, actually tasted great and I'm going to give you the recipe, which was pretty easy even for me, but I had a lot of liver mishaps along that way that made me do that ugly dry heave thing where your mouth keeps opening and shutting like a sea bass, but no sound comes out.

Yeah, like that.

2. I am now prepared to be on "The Next Food Network Star" (not that I want to be or anything since being in front of a camera is my idea of bathing in cognac-soaked chicken livers) but only because my cooking life is such a freak show. And frankly, this makes for exciting TV.

I realized this as I was driving all over Manhattan with my friend, chef, resident saint and fellow blogger Kian over at Red Cook in my husband's pick up truck going from fish market to butcher shop trying to buy two things I thought I would find easily: fresh sardines and pork belly.

At about 10 O'clock am the day of the dinner party when I hadn't cooked a thing all day and I thought I would have to kill and replace two dishes - - the Sardines Escabeche and the Red Cooked Pork Belly. And I actually thought, "Oh the producers must have gone around and bought up all the sardines and pork belly to make this challenge harder...Until I remembered I wasn't actually on TV.

3. If you have ingenious and curious small kids who can do things like set their own hair on fire using nothing but two chopsticks and a hunk of pink Playdoh or ones whose innocent, impressionable heads might explode if faced with the prospect of watching 15 straight hours of Diego, you will need help to get this menu on the table.

I had a team. Because it takes a village to raise a dinner party.

I had a paid babysitter, a house cleaner, my incredible, amazing friend and neighbor Rachel who stopped working on her doctoral dissertation for two days so she could host dance parties and princess dress up games to keep my kids from missing their mother.

And I had, God bless him, Kian over at Red Cook who, when it became clear I was not going to find fresh sardines or pork belly, stopped working and went to Chinatown for me and bought both of those ingredients, delivered them to my door and also gutted the sardines when I looked at him like, "Um, yeah, what the hell am I going to do with these? I need fillets!"

I am a bitch. But feel comforted knowing I have the most awesome, patient friends on the planet.

4. Not to hurl a stereotype at you, but if you're having a dinner party, invite a lot of gay men. They will just love you up for all the work you did in the kitchen. It was like I was Gloria Gaynor (and I was thin. And not black. And not old) and the boys had hoisted me up on their shoulders and carried me around the dance floor, as the glitter ball illuminated my glistening face and I dove into my third resounding chorus of "I Will Survive". Not to work a stereotype too hard or anything.

I do love cooking for a room full of appreciative eaters. And they were appreciative and loud about it. Who wouldn't love that? Thanks guys for being so amazingly kind and supportive.

5. Note to self: "Food & Wine Magazine" is not a legitimate cooking magazine. It is a glossy, pretty promotional vehicle for American Express that masquerades as a cooking magazine and so even though they may have some good ideas for meals (like some of the tapas I made the other night) the seasoning and ingredients were so far off that I had to re-assess all the flavor profiles and re-season and re-jigger mid- cooking after I realized my dinner was going to be comprised of some good-looking dishes that tasted like communion wafer.

Lesson learned. Moral of the story: Read your "Food & Wine" in bed where it can't hurt anyone with it's blandness. Keep it out of the kitchen.


So, I'm going to give you the recipes for the tapas I think are worth repeating in my next post, but first I start with something so utterly delectable and amazing that David has actually banned the use of the ice cream machine in our house. Malted Milk Ice Cream with Crushed Malted Milk Ball Crust.

This morning, David actually said, "I'm throwing the ice cream maker in the trash so you can't make anymore of this stuff." He is soooooo off his "diet/lifestyle".

I got this recipe from Michael Ruhlman's blog who got it from David Lebovitz. It is ridiculously good and I think is one of the best flavors of ice cream I have eaten. Ever. It's also pretty easy to do if you have an ice cream maker and a great finish for folks who can't/don't/won't bake. Like me.

Make it. I dare you not to eat the whole freakin' thing.

xxoo YM
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Malted Milk Ice Cream

Makes about 1 1/2 quarts (1 1/2 liters)

Ingredients

1 cup (250 ml) half-and-half
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup (90 g) malt powder (see note below)
6 large egg yolks
2 cups (350 g) malted milk balls, coarsely chopped

Note: Malted milk powder can be found in the ice cream aisle of your supermarket. But sometimes it’s stocked alongside chocolate drink mixes like Ovaltine, which isn’t the same thing. But this is exactly where I found it. Most common brands of malt powder are Carnation and Horlicks.

Warm the half-and-half with the sugar in a medium saucepan. In a large bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, vanilla, and malt powder. Set a mesh strainer on top.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a wooden or heatproof plastic spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and whisk it into the malted milk mixture. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. As you remove the ice cream from the machine, fold in the chopped malted milk balls. Be generous with the balls, they float to the top and make this decadent crunchy topping. Continue Reading...

A Catholic Girl's Matzo Ball Soup

Don't worry, this isn't some wacky Catholic version of a Jewish soup. I mean, what could I add?...More guilt? A dash of martyrdom? A few firey embers of hell? Could I serve it in a Jesus bowl?

Hey, I can say these things. Because I'm Catholic and I'm allowed to make fun of my own. Even the pope would laugh at that one. Okay, maybe not this pope, but John Paul for sure.

Given my Catholic upbringing, you can be sure that even though I live in a city filled with Jewish people and one of the most rich and abundant cultures in the world, I often am weirdly unaware of Jewish foods, customs and traditions, which I believe is a shame for me.

I must confess - as confession is a big part of being a Catholic and I am particularly good at it - I am aware of Yom Kippur only as it impacts alternate side of the street parking, because finding parking in NYC is actually more important than, well, anything and if you are Jewish and you come to our house for a meal, I will undoubtedly forget and serve you pork chops. Or blood sausage. Or bacon. I like the bacon.

I once offered the most orthodox man I know, a plate of soft shell crab. I'm an idiot.

I can barely keep my own religious observations straight (and my husband's, which require their own post) forget the rest of the city. So, when we recently went to our friend Lara (who writes Ruby Stories) and Shadrup's for fun and a play date (Ruby & Lucy, below, are BFF's) Lara made matzo ball soup and the kids lapped it up like it was candy.


Soups in general have been the saving grace of meals in this house. If I can't get the kids to eat anything else, they'll sit down and slurp up a bowl of soup. I'd say 75% of their vegetable intake is soup-related.

But I had never made matzo ball soup. In fact, I've only had it one time before with the playwright Jerry Sterner, who took me to the Edison Hotel and ordered it for me just after I moved to the city. I was a bit of a hayseed then and he probably found it funny and naive that a girl had never eaten a soup so utterly comforting, familiar and abundant to so many people.

I'm sure I said 10 stupid things during that lunch.

Anyway, after seeing the kids eat like hunger artists, I vowed to make the soup. I would have gotten Lara's grandma's recipe but Lara, Shadrup and Ruby are out camping in a tent someplace and I don't know when they'll be back to civilization and I couldn't wait until they returned. So, I went over to Smitten Kitchen and got their take on Matzo.

Making this soup also gave me a chance to make some stock from the bone bags piling up in my freezer. I keep all my vegetable cuttings and old bones to save for stock, which is great, but if I don't stay on top of it, my freezer starts to look like a compost heap.

You do not have to use homemade stock for this recipe - the stock police will not come and drag you off to Bad Parent Land, I swear - but I suggest it, because it is always better. After the stock is made (obviously you can make it ahead and freeze it until you need it) the rest is quite simple and easy to prepare.

And dare I say, only a bit more work-intensive than Campbells.

Mazal Tov!


xxoo YM
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Matzo Ball Soup
Adapted from a recipe at Smitten Kitchen which apparently was tested by their mothers, which when involving mothers, only lends authenticity for me.

How to Make the Chicken Stock

Plan ahead: So any time you have a roast chicken or even if you buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, throw the carcass in a ziplock bag and hurl it into the back of the freezer. Do the same with leek greens, discarded onion peels, carrot cuttings, celery tops and leaves, discarded mushroom stems. These little leftovers all add flavor to soups. If you make the bags in advance as you are cooking everyday, you'll have a bunch to run off into stock whenever you have a chance.

Yield: About 3 1/2 quarts

3 1/2 to 4 1/2 pounds chicken necks, backs, wings or any left over carcass and bones
3 celery ribs, cut into big chunks or leftovers from stock bag
3 carrots, scrubbed and cut into big chunks or leftovers from stock bag
2 onions, unpeeled and quartered or leftovers from stock bag
1 head garlic
1 Bay leaf
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
4 quarts cold water

Bring all ingredients to a boil in an 8- to 10-quart heavy pot. Skim froth. Reduce heat and gently simmer, uncovered for 3 hours.

Pour stock through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl and discard solids. If you don't have a sieve, I found that if I keep the chunks of veg big enough, I can fish them out with a slotted spoon.

If using stock right away, skim off and discard any fat. If not, cool stock completely, uncovered, before skimming fat, then chill, covered. Reserve a few tablespoons of the skimmed fat if you wish to use them in matzo balls (below).
Stock can be chilled 3 days in the refrigerator or frozen for 1 month.


The Matzo

According to Smitten Kitchen, there are two matzo ball camps: those that like them heavy and leaden at the bottom of a bowl and those that like them light and fluffy. Who knew? We'll be going for light and fluffy today.

Makes 8 to 12 matzo balls

For the Balls

1/2 cup matzo meal
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons reserved chicken fat or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons chicken stock or seltzer (which both of our mothers swear by for making the balls extra light)

For the Soup

2 to 3 quarts prepared chicken stock (recipe above)
1 carrot, thinly sliced
A few sprigs of dill

Mix all matzo ball ingredients in a bowl. Cover and place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Bring 1 1/2 quarts of well-salted water to a brisk boil in a medium sized pot.
Reduce the flame. Run your hands under water so they are thoroughly wet. Form matzo balls by dropping spoonfuls of matzo ball batter approximately 1-inch in diameter into the palm of your wet hands and rolling them loosely into balls. Drop them into the simmering salt water one at a time. Cover the pot and cook them for 30 to 40 minutes.

About ten minutes before the matzo balls are ready, bring prepared chicken stock to a simmer with the sliced carrot in it. Ladle some soup and a couple matzo balls into each bowl and top with a couple snips of dill. Eat immediately. Continue Reading...

The Circle of Life at Slaughter Beach

We're home now. The holiday is over. But there's enough sand in the laundry basket to remind me of what a great time we had at the beach.

I want to tell you a little something about my friend Kian over at Red Cook. A warning, in case you all become friends with him - if he's at your house, and your kid's goldfish dies in the bowl, it's better you don't mention it to Kian because while you're considering how to embark on the inevitable "circle of life" talk you're going to have to have and your kid is drying her tears and writing the eulogy you'll all be saying over the toilet bowl, Kian will be in your kitchen gutting and grilling the little guy and serving it to you with a glass of good chardonnay.

The man will cook anything. I have two examples for you just from this holiday weekend. And the pictures to prove it. Here we go:

This is Kian eating. You can't miss him because he's Chinese. The other one is Warren.




Warren is Kian's partner and he spent a good deal of time this weekend trolling the shallow waters for little crabs, anemone and any shells that might house small edible vermin and then, like a small child with a fistful of weeds, held them up to Kian expectantly in the kitchen, with an expression of pure joy and then, Kian, like the dutiful Mommy, smiled and whipped Warren's scavenging into some kind of gourmet treat.

Seriously, if it wasn't bolted to the ocean floor or covered in barnacles, Warren was dragging it into the kitchen. This time, Warren brought home "Conch".

Or as I like to call it, "Slug".




And so Kian, like he was in some episode of "The Next Food Network Star" whipped up Conch Fritters. Because this is what you do when life gives you Conch...you make Fritters.




David liked the fritters (he made a small carb concession here, holiday and all that)and then he made the mistake of asking me what they were made of and I told him all about Warren with his pants rolled up around his knees and wearing his funny hat, pulling conch shells out of the shallow ocean and how Kian yanked the slugs out of the shells, all wiggling and screaming, and chopped them up finely and how they were kinda like escargot. And it was a nice story, I thought.

And I was just getting to the fritter part of the story when David made the biggest vomit face I've ever seen and said, "You have to tell me what's in these things!" and then he wiped the inside of his mouth with a baby wipe a lot.

When dining with Kian it's always best to not ask any questions, just eat.




I took some pictures of the Conch Fritters, but I think Kian downloaded them onto his computer and not mine, so go to his site and bug him to post the recipe and the pictures. They look completely normal and yummy, if you don't know what's inside them.

And then, there's the shark...




The kids get credit for finding this guy dying in the shallow waters in front of the beach house, but really, I found him first, and me and this other guy picked him up and tried to help him swim away, but the poor little guy had a huge hole in his head and he was scraped down the back of him and as a group of kids, fishermen, curiosity seekers and casual onlookers gathered around him, like they were watching a terrible accident on the highway, it was pretty clear he was on his way out.

Here are the gawkers, the lot of 'em. You'd think they had just gotten back from hunting the big cats in Africa.




This is the part where Lucy got all melancholy and I had to explain to her that the shark was dying and that we were going to bring him out to sea and let him die peacefully and that other fish would eventually eat him and this was "the circle of life" and then, Lucy seemed satisfied with this and noted that the shark was dead just like Murphy The Cat and maybe Murphy The Cat and the shark would be friends. But she wanted to stop looking at the shark and so we walked back to the house.




This was all fine until someone happened to mentioned to Kian who was chopping up slug in the kitchen, that a shark, so fresh that it was still in the throes of death, had washed ashore. It was like we had mentioned a 50% off sale at Williams Sonoma, because Kian dropped his butcher knife and was off down the beach like a shot and the next thing you now, he's fishing dying shark out of the water and contemplating shark steaks for dinner.

Look at him. He's butchering the fish in his mind.




This is when Lucy starts to wimper. Not cry exactly, but she's looking pretty sad and confused. And I think if she sees the fish being gutted, it'll send her into a life of veganism and because I don't want her to be palate-less and make people cook her special meals at dinner parties (Just joking vegan readers. I love ya.) I decide she's not ready to see "the circle of life" up close, so she goes to play on the beach with Edie and David and I shoot pictures of the slaughter in the kitchen, which is funny 'cause we are on Slaughter Beach at the time.

Slaughter. Get it?

Anyhoo, here is Kian disemboweling the shark. It is in fact dead at this point, so please do not call PETA. Thank you.




Here is the shark's decapitated head. Nice.




All meat. Nice and clean.




The stink of all the organs being pulled out of the body has subsided a bit, so now the gawkers come back to the kitchen to watch the easy part of the butcher.

Light weights.




This is where Kian gets all excited and starts talking about how "fresh" the fish is and putting it to his nose and smelling it and passing the carcass around the room asking people to take a whiff.

To which I reply, "Yes Kian, it's fresh. It was alive like two minutes ago."




Yeah, so, Kian actually saves the shark head for broth. You gotta have a mighty big pot for that thing, don't ya think?




If you were wondering, I did not actually eat the shark steaks, although I believe they were grilled with a little salt, pepper and olive oil, and as I hear it, they were pretty good.

Call me a wuss, but I just couldn't eat Murphy The Cat's friend in front of my kid.

xxoo YM


PS Kian, I love ya, but I'm not letting you anywhere near the aquarium... Continue Reading...