What I Did Over Christmas Vacation

By Lucy Foster, age 4 years, 11 months.


"I am a polar bear from Mexico. I am mad because they made me leave the beach".






























That about sums it up. Glad to be back with you in the New Year.

xo YM

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The School Year is Kicking My Ass (Part 1 of 2)

I didn't realize that I had been living this life of luxury. This is my life before Lucy started school. My life after school started is in the following post. Note the differences.

My Life Before Lucy Started School

5:00-6:00: I get up early and write, either my stuff or for a client. I mean to exercise, but that never really happens. So by the time the kids wake up, I feel fat and sedentary but accomplished. I have purpose. I am woman. I roar a lot.

7:30: I do the dishes from the night before, clean up kitchen. Prep David's lunch. Start prepping hot breakfast for everyone and everyone likes a different breakfast, so I'm prepping three completely different breakfasts, not including my own, which is caffeine and whatever anyone else doesn't eat and I can scrape off the plate with my fingers.

8:00: David gets up, showers. I poach eggs for him. I start a load of wash.

9:00: Kids start getting up. Lucy first and then Edie more toward 9:30. They transition from bed to couch and ease into their day with some cartoons. Maybe they are still dirty from the day before, who knows.

David eats poached eggs, sprinkled with salt, herbs and a nice cheese, whatever we have on hand. Lucy eats egg whites cooked in butter and sprinkled with salt and chives. Edie eats sausage, usually wrapped in a paper cone so she can hold it in her hand and eat it like a lolly pop while standing around.

10:00: David leaves for work. I hand him his lunch, which is usually leftovers reconfigured from the night before, with a salad, usually spinach and lots of vegetables, goat cheese and walnuts. The kids finish up breakfast, kiss daddy good bye and we start our day.


The rest of the day: Well, we live like kings. We usually spend the next two hours bathing. Really. There is playing in the bath, lots of bubbles, swimming in the tub, hair washing a couple times a week. It's an extended affair almost always that involved laughing, smiling, tears when shampoo time took too long or sap dripped into our eyes. There was so much emotion. It was a microcosm of life

Then, there is play with friends, our house, other people's houses, or at fun public places. When it's hot we are outside, in pools, in sprinklers on playgrounds. When it's not nice or too cold, we stay inside, usually with friends and cook, play games, eat and hold impromtu parties.

We do whatever we want. Whatever little thing pops into our heads. We feel like making meatballs, we do it. We take three hours going to the store and picking out ingredients and then, bring them home and with everyone sitting on the counter, we dive into the piles of meat and make the best freakin' meatballs ever. They rock. We are the stuff of legends. And the house is a mess from stem to stern, most days, but these are the days of bliss and we never care.

We don't have meal times or formal meals. We eat out of the fridge when we are hungry. There are always healthy snacks on the bottom shelf of the fridge within hands reach of a kid. Most days the kids eat some kind of home-made soup for lunch. We are soup people. My kids are soup people. Sometimes we spit in the wind and decide lunch is gonna be guacamole and chips. We surround ourselves with towers of books to devour, and dig in until the bowl is empty and our fingers are covered in salt and guac. Who the hell is gonna tell us otherwise? WE ARE FREAKIN' KINGS. The total boss of us.

4:30: I prep dinner, if I hadn't already prepped it in the morning. The kids watch a little TV while I'm in the kitchen. A way to unwind. I am so ahead of myself. My fridge is full. The kids are nourished, happy, relaxed. I have dinner ideas in my head way ahead. I am improvising, creating more technically-advanced recipes, really stretching myself from a culinary perspective. I'm chopping like the Ginzu knife man and little shards of carrots are flying all over my kitchen. I'm freakin' Martha Stewart on steroids. Only nice. And not as pinched.

5:00-7:00: I take the kids to the residents terrace in our building with the monkey bars on it. Every parent in the building with small kids hangs here at the end of the day. We drink a beer and watch the kids play and reconnect. It feels like home here to the kids. They know every child and adult intimately.

7:00: David comes home and hangs with the kids on the terrace while I make dinner. Usually whatever one is prepped and ready to go. We eat together either on paper plates on the terrace with wine in paper cups, or at home gathered cross-legged around the low coffee table in the living room, picking off each others plates and over-lapping each other with stories of the day. After dinner, the kids fall into bed late, exhausted, happy, dirty. David works. I write stuff. And even with our laptops in front of us, we watch DVD's of Dexter and Lost and The Office and manage to chat, cuddle, re-connect. And we also have sex, but you probably realized that.

See? Life of luxury. Now, compare to my life now...(see next post)

xo YM

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The School Year is Kicking My Ass (Part 2 of 2)

This is part two of my life continued from the post above:

My Life After Lucy Started School

5:30: I'm up. Some days I have to move the car on the street. I get a "Vente black ice tea, no water, no sweetner" at Starbucks when I am too lazy to make it myself.

6:15: I write for a bit. I drink my tea.

7:00: I make Lucy's lunch. This lunch thing is a bit like a science experiment. My credentials as a serious cook and food blogger are meaningless here. Just because she eats it at home, does not mean that she wants me to pack it artfully into her bento box and send it to school.

And every day as I labor over the contents - fresh carrot sticks, slabs of mozarella, a little bin of pistachios, home made pizza magarita, stir fried rice, linguine carbonara - I take silent bets about how much of it she will eat. It's like my own soap opera inside my head. What will she like better, the panko crusted fish bites or
the edemame? Will she snub the farfalle with peas or will she send back an empty box? Oh how the sight of a nearly empty box makes my heart soar, although I never let on, never show that any of this matters to me. I ask her matter-of-factly and she tells me in the same matter-of-fact voice. It's like a game we play.

The pressure of it all is excruciating.

Everyday after we get home, I search the bag and see what was eaten and what was left. It always surprises me. The thing I think is going to be a winner, is the thing left untouched. And vice-versa. Scientists will find a cure for cancer before I figure out what my kid loves to eat for school lunch.


7:10: I wake up Lucy. And usually David. I carry Lucy's mumbling, raccoon-noise making little body to the sofa where she watches Pink Panther episodes until she drifts into near consciousness.

7:15: I poach David eggs but the timing is sometimes off because he's in the shower or out of the shower or I hand him the eggs when he is trying to put one leg into his underpants. Sometimes he is so rushed and behind schedule, he has to eat while putting on his socks. Sometimes he just looks at me and silently lets me off the hook without making him breakfast. I love him for this.

7:15-7:45: We are dressing. I am chasing Lucy around the house with a brush and pony tail holders, which leads to an exhaustive negotiation about the hair. How much I brush it, where I brush it, can I brush it while she is laying on the floor and bouncing her head up and down? I say despicable things like, "Mary in your class has beautiful hair. I'm sure she sits with her mommy for a long time getting those pony tails just perfect." Ugh. When I hear myself, I want to slap myself across the face.

Lucy also uses this time to share with us how much she doesn't want to got to school and how her life would be much more improved if we just let her stay at home and watch unlimited hours of Wow Wow Wubzy.

8:00: Sometimes Lucy is dressed, hair combed, usually I'm fishing clothes out of the laundry to make that happen. But she hasn't eaten her hard boiled egg or her "lightly toasted bagel with butter" - which is exactly how she orders it and if you give it to her even medium toasted, because maybe you're busy and doing 10 things at once and you leave the bagel on a little too long, she will limply toss it back on the plate and ignore it nearly into non-existence.

Sometimes Lucy's eaten her egg but the back of her hair is rolled up into a ball of snarls so thick it projects out of the back of her head like a poltergeist. Sometimes she is half dressed and putting her shoes on on the bike as David is taking off, but her hair is reasonably combed and I have popped a bagel into her hand, which she probably finishes while whizzing down 125th street in the bike seat. Sometimes she doesn't eat at all. And I don't feel even a smidegeon guilty for that because well I'm just happy to get her out the door before I morph into one of those ugly, screamy moms.

8:15: I clean the kitchen. Maybe write some more. I pick up and mutter that I live with gypsies and how all I do is clean. Seriously, I'm reduced to muttering.

Rest of the Day: Edie wakes up. We play. We read. I examine her poop and declare that they look like meatballs. Or green snakes eating malted milk balls. Some days we meet people and go to zoos, museums and other engaging public places. Edie and I walk two miles to Lucy's school to pick her up.

Two days a week, I walk two miles to drop Edie off at her school. On those days she breaks the record for a three year old who can say "I don't waaaanna to go to shcool...I don't waaaaana to go to school...I don't waaaaannnna to got to school..." so many times that I consider enterng her into the Guiness Book of World Records. Then when we get there, she clings to me as if I am handing her over to ax murderers only to be running wild and laughing with a bunch of kids five minutes later, as if I was erased from her memory.

3:00-4:00: I pick up kids. Make small talk with other parents. I usually embarrass myself when I learn that my kid is the only kid who didn't get any books from Scholastic because I never submitted the order form, and I didn't submit the order form because the check book disappeared and I have not been able to find it, so I kept saying I would do it on-line, but of course that actually never happens, so there you go...crappy parent amid a sea of people getting it right. Or at least this is what it feels like.

We return home on the bus, carrying 15 pounds of groceries I forgot to buy earlier, because I am no longer a long-term planner. I am a grasper of straws, trying to get a handle on the schedule, always a step behind. Always a quart of milk shy in the fridge.

I hop on the bus with my grocery bags, an arm-full of toys, a stray shoe, a double stroller a four year old who is pissed and cranky after a full day of behaving nicely in school and a three year old who just wants to be home and is not afraid to tell me 100 times in succession.

One day last week, I broke down and bought the girls little bags of Gold Fish (You know how much this kills me. See? School is helping me abandon all my principles) thinking they'd have a better bus ride home. I left the bus with the floor strewn with goldfish, parents shaking their heads and both kids sobbing because I wouldn't let them eat Gold Fish off the floor.

4:30: I make the kids take a bath. They holler about having to shampoo or do any kind of basic hygiene maintenance. I stick wet kids in front of TV and make them dinner. I become a cliche. The TV is my babysitter. I stare into the fridge hoping I had the good sense to prep something in the morning (sometimes) or figure out how to simply make something awesome on the fly before the children's stomaches explode in unison.

One kid hits the the other one just as I am covered to my elbows in egg batter and panko. Or they come in the kitchen demanding to help, which was great when we lived our life of luxury, but these days I am fighting the clock. So I stop making dinner to make them a healthy snack, give them two knives and a tomato and tell them to go at it. They eat the healthy snack and butcher the tomato while I finish cooking.

It's a game show. A sick, twisted game show.

They mess up and destroy either the kitchen or another room while they are cooking or waiting for more food. There is probably tomato on the wall. Within the hour, without much supervision, it looks like we live in one of those houses on the show "Hoarders".

5:30: We eat. Without David. If the kids wait to eat with David, they will not be in bed or able to settle until 10. We tried this. We can't do it. Sadly, family weeknight dinners all together are out. We become a statistic.

6:30: David comes home. There is re-newed energy. They bounce on beds. They make a deeper, more refined mess, with more tiny toys and little parts strewn everywhere and a much more gripping attention to destruction. If there is a pile of clean folded laundry somewhere, they will knock it to the ground and use it as their "dance floor".

6:45: I pour myself wine. A big honkin' glass of wine. I feed David and pour him wine too. We de-brief about the day, everyone chiming in about stuff that happened to them. The kids hang onto him while he eats and as if I didn't feed them at all, eat off his plate for a second dinner. We defy the statistics and end up eating together after all.

7:30: Books. Brush teeth. As of this post, Edie has gone two days without brushing her teeth. I've taken away all sweets, treats and chocolate milk. Still, I hand her the brush expectantly and she shakes her head and says "I no want any chocolate milk anymore." I consider that I need Super Nanny to come to my house and straighten us out.

8:00- 8:45: Bed. Let me just put it this way: You know how on TV, the really pretty Mommy leans in to her child's room, the child is laying still under her tucked in blankets, Mom winks, says "Love you, Muffin", shuts off the light and quietly closes the door? Um, well that's not us. Our bed time is a mixture of cajoling, threatening, soothing, kissing and ultimately after much stalling and asking "Why? Why? Why must I go to bed?", we get two snoring, beautiful kids.

8:46: There is quiet. Weird, really.

9:00: David is working on his laptop. We kiss, cuddle. Adult talk. Watch Lost on the Roku box when Edie hasn't stolen the remote and stashed it in an obscure, never-used Hello Kitty bag in the back of the closet. I work on my laptop, returning e-mails, reading blogs. David and I send e-mails to each other even though we are sitting right next to one another. We look up periodically and laugh about something, remind each other of a task, tell a funny or stupid story. Sometimes we make love. When we aren't comatose.

I have about an hour, maybe two, or maybe none at all, before I fall into bed completely exhausted.

I miss my life of luxury. But...eh, this is a life, still and all.

xo YM

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What I Miss Most About Summer...

Twilight. Sunset falling across the fountains at Columbus Circle. Warm, magical, anything-can-happen air. Little girls so free that they abandon dresses and shoes and cares. And dance. And think of nothing but their release, their bodies moving like wild, jungle butterflies. With the city wrapped around them. And David and I smiling at them nearby. Close, but not too close.

And all of us content, thinking nothing but happy, free, warm, fleeting thoughts.





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Sucka! Udon Noodles with Broccolini, Chicken, Cherry Tomatoes & Butter Beans

So, Lucy told me yesterday she thinks I like Edie more than her.

These were her exact words. She had her sad face on when she said it. She has a sad face. It doesn't come out very often but when it does, it's powerful, mind-warping stuff.

Then she said that she knew this was "for real" because I get mad at Edie more and so this means, in some world where the uncontrolled expression of anger equals love, I like her sister more.

So, I learned three things from this discussion: (1) one or both of my kids think I love one of them more than the other, (2) I yell a lot at one particular child, (3) And somehow this is a good thing. A ringing endorsement of my adoration.

Of course, this just boosts my current belief that I am like the most painfully confused parent on the planet.

Now, it is important to bear in mind that David is quite sure I am being played and that Lucy knows exactly how to manipulate me and drive me bananas and she is using her God-given right as a daughter to drive her mother completely insane. Or get extra attention. Or make me give her cash. Or whatever is going on in that cunning brain of hers.

He reminded me - with his calm, motivational-speaker voice - that when kids this age express what they're feelings, they often don't get the details right. Good point. Then, he muttered something about mothers and daughters and crazy people and then, something about headless chickens. The rest of the time he was telling me what a sucker I was.

Pep talk over. I still felt like shit.


Truth is, after the "week of going to school without David" last week, I noticed how much easier it was for me to separate from Edie. Because of the extended breast feeding and the weaning, which was rough on both of us, Edie and I have this long history of intimacy, a clear understanding of our place in each others life, a close unbreakable bond that is expressed over and over throughout the day and the success of having weaned and gotten through this tough "giving up the boob thing together."

I feel quite sure that Edie knows how much I love her and what her place is in my heart. I can urge her to get into the class room a little harder, a little more assuredly - I can be tougher on her - because I know that she is sure I won't abandon her.


But when Lucy was having a tough time making the transition to school without David, I wanted to pull her in and tell her she didn't have to go to school. I wanted to save her from her sadness and tears and show her that I would save her. That she was that important to me, so important that I would break the rules for her.

I wanted to do this because I have abandoned her. We have that history. Edie was born when Lucy was 17 months old. Lucy went from being my one and only, to being the one who's demands were not as urgent as the new baby's. And it was David who jumped in and healed that wound. He showered her with extra attention. Slept next to her at night, doted over her, made her feel special. This cemented their bond. She knows no rejection from him. She never had to wait for him to finish up with the baby. Or stood by as he took the baby's needs ahead of her own. She is sure of him.

And, of course, I'm still trying to make up for this with Lucy every day. Even though she has no memory of any it. Even though she doesn't demand any sort of repayment or penance. Even though she probably doesn't care anymore what happened when she was a baby.

Because, well, I like to create problems that didn't exist before, and never actually solve them, but just worry about them incessantly and carry them everywhere on my back, like a big sack of rocks, and torture myself for the hell of it.

And I explained all this to David in the car last night on the way back from the country, while the kids slept. And he told me all my heartfelt concerns were, well, hooey. That I was projecting my fears onto the children. That this was about me, not them. He was using his motivational speaker voice again. And then, he said a lot of nice things about how we love our children - both of them - everyday and ways in which Lucy gets more than Edie. And it was good to remember that.

And then he told me that he was really happy he didn't have to live in my head and that it must really suck being me and having to deal with all these crazy thoughts all the time. Then he quoted his shrink. And suggested I go back into therapy.

Then, he thought we should have sex. Because apparently sex will make me feel less guilty about having stunted my childrens sense of well-being. And of course, I have no idea when I'm being played by a member of my own family, so I thought that sounded like a great idea.

Sucka!
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The first time, I made this dish, I got the idea from Vegan Yum Yum (a really fantastic vegan food blog) and did a version of the recipe as a vegan dish. But, um, yeah, it needs chicken. Just sayin'. So, here is the omnivore's version. If you are vegan, just take out all whispers of the bird.

I named the dish "Sucka!", well, because you know why.

I love using udon noodles instead of Italian pasta for many dishes. I find the noodles are satiny and slippery and delicate. Kids love slurping them up. Also, the butter beans, which are a gentle, sweet little bean, do not feel at all like large bugs in your mouth the way lima beans do and they provide extra texture to the dish which makes it special for a quick week night meal.

You heard me...lima beans feel like cockroaches in your mouth. Again, I'm just sayin'. See? You don't want to be inside my head.

Sucka! Udon Noodles with Broccolini, Chicken, Cherry Tomatoes and Butter Beans
Makes enough for 4 people

Ingredients

2 bundles Udon Noodles
Oil, about 2-3 Tbs
A knob of butter
Chicken, two breasts, skin on
6-8 Stalks of Broccolini, depending on size
1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
Salt and pepper
12-15 Cherry Tomatoes, quartered
1 15 oz. can of Butter Beans, drained and rinsed
2 tsp of whatever Italian herbs you have on hand, rosemary, thyme, oregano
Balsamic Vinegar, for drizzling
A 1/2 cup of chicken stock or pasta water
Parsley, chopped

Preparation

Wash chicken. Heat a cast iron fry pan on high heat. Add a squirt or two of oil. Put chicken pieces, fat side down, in pan. Leave it until it has a nice sear, 3-4 minutes. Flip and sear the other side. Take out of the pan and on a cutting board, start cutting pieces off the bone or if it's boneless, start cutting up chunks. The chicken will not be fully cooked at this point and that's great because it will cook perfectly when we add it to the pasta mixture later. When you have a good pile of chicken slivers, put them aside.

Heat a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add udon noodles and cook for four minutes (or per package directions). Rinse noodles in cold water but save the pasta water. After rinsing, set noodles aside in a bowl and add a little pasta water back in to prevent noodles from sticking.

In the pan with all the nice, hot chicken juices, add a bit more oil and a good size knob of butter and scrape up those lovely bits on the bottom of the pan. They'll add flavor. Keep the heat at medium. Add broccolini and coat with oil. Season with a pinch of salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. When the broccolini starts to turn bright green (just a minute or two), push them to the edge of the pan.

Add the quartered cherry tomatoes. Stir and coat in the spices and oil until they soften up, 1-2 minutes. Once tomatoes are softened, add butter beans. Stir everything together and let them get nice and warmed through. Take the veg out of the pan and set aside in a bowl.

In the still-hot pan, add a 1-2 Tbs more oil, if needed. Add the chicken pieces and let them cook through until they are no longer pink. Add cooked udon noodles to the hot pan, seasoning with salt and Italian herbs. Toss to coat the pasta. Once the pasta is coated and is heated through, add back the broccolini, beans, and tomatoes. Taste and season with more salt or pepper if needed. Throw some chopped parsley on top for bright color.

Plate and drizzle with a little balsamic vinegar if desired.

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My Sordid Confession (Served Up with Mario Batali's Cacciatore)

So, we are going out to play on the playground yesterday and Lucy really wanted to wear this dress that she loves because her father loves her in it. And she looks just beautiful in it. Really.

And this is great, except I knew she was just going to get it filthy and I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be in rags by the time she started school in September. Not to mention that I am, in fact the world's worst housekeeper and laundress, so I have no shot of getting out a big grease/ink/grass/propane/red wine/Kool Aid/blood/mud/you-name-it stain out of said dress.

That and - here's where I make a sordid confession - I have this little disorder that I have kept a kinda-secret (Okay, I have more than one disorder. Who am I trying to kid?). David knows about it and I've worked on it with my therapist, but other than that, this is not the kind of thing you brag about at industry functions and family reunions.

Then, I passed it on to my daughter and bang! - I have to deal with it. Right out there in the open. Parenting sucks that way. I really tried not to pass it on to her. I tried doing everything the opposite or reverse or backwards, but it must be encoded into her DNA, cause she's just like Mama.

We, Lucy and I, like to save things.

And by save things, I mean we like to get things brand new and then, like, never use them. That way they can always remain in their perfect, unfettered state and never be worn-down, sullied, bruised, creased, dirtied, folded, bent, or worked into any other unseemly man-handled condition. Oh yes, we like to use things, but only if they aren't totally special or we have a back-up of the special thing, a perfect replica waiting in a drawer in the wings, or if the special thing belongs to someone else. Then, we can have at it.


Don't get me wrong, I intend to use that one gorgeous, expensive, cool-looking Williams Sonoma pot holder. But when company comes. Or I cook a dinner for Stephen King. Or Gael Greene. Or when the Food Network people come to see me cook a demo for them. Or when pigs fly. But dammit, I'm going to use that awesome potholder someday. I'll just keep it right here for safe keeping until the perfect opportunity comes.

Except the perfect opportunity never comes. And the pot holder sort of molts and discolors from years of sitting alone in a drawer. And I continue to use my cheap ugly pot holders.

This strategy has worked similarly for Lucy. At Easter, she and Edie got these big chocolate Easter bunnies in their baskets. Edie, glutton that she is (like David, of course), sat right down and power-chowed that Easter Bunny. By 9:30 in the morning that bunny was dust. Not one ounce of hesitation.

Lucy, on the other hand, held the package in her hands. Admired the beautiful box. Opened the cover just a bit to peek in at the beautiful chocolate bunny. She held it. Stroked it. Made it sing. Then, when she thought the warm room might actually make the bunny melt, she demanded that I put it in the freezer immediately.

Every day, I'd say to her, "Lucy, don't you want to eat some of your bunny?" And she would say, "No, I want to save it."

Little did she know that every night after she had gone to sleep, her father would open the freezer and snap off a piece of ear. A nose. A tiny foot. Within a week, David had eaten the entire bunny. And Lucy had forgotten all about it, never having tasted a bit of it.

In this house, Edie and David make out the best. Their motto: you snooze, you lose. They are unapologetic.

So, I've been making an effort to encourage Lucy to just use things. Trying to explain to her that the world is full of plenty, not scarcity. That there will be more Hello Kitty stickers after all the Hello Kitty Stickers in her drawer get used. That things are there to be used, not be attached to. That what is important is us, our love, our lives, our health, our joy, our time together. The things, they come and go.

And I'm explaining it to myself, as well, that there are more pot holders in this world, that perfection is not important, that enjoying things and people are, that holding onto things prevents me from embracing new things, that this is not the legacy I want to pass on to my girls. I hear all of it in my head and for the most part, it has been working. I'm using the potholder. And Lucy has been admiring less and digging in and using things more.

But occasionally, we slip into our old ways. Yesterday when I saw Lucy wearing the new dress she loves so much, I faltered. I wanted her to save that dress, keep it clean and new and perfect for that perfect up-coming occasion because as David says full of sarcasm, "You're afraid we won't be able to buy another $8 dress from Target, which is ridiculous."

Okay, I know. I'm an idiot.

But I thought I had her. Lucy was considering my arguments and my logic and considering taking off the new dress and swapping it for the older one I was holding in my hand. I had her thinking about it.

And then she put her hand up to stop me, like she was Diana Ross or something (Stop! In the name of love, before you break my heart...) and said in the most assured voice I've ever heard come out of her little body, "Mommy, you worry about yourself and I'll worry about me."

She wore the dress. The grasshopper surpasses her teacher.

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I may have forgotten and given you a chicken cacciatore recipe in the past few months, but this one is my take on Mario Batali's recipe. I really like it. Wholesome. Comforting. It's lovely. You should try it. And the sauce is also very good and very simple, although I prefer mine, because well, it's mine. (I also like this old post. So, it's worth a look-back.)



Pollo alla Cacciatora
Serves 4 people and a couple kids

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 branch rosemary, leaves only, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
one 3-pound chicken, cut into 8 serving pieces, rinsed and patted dry (or just the pieces you like, breasts and legs work just fine)
2 large yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 pound portobella mushrooms, stems removed, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 ounces pancetta, cut into 1/2 inch dice
4 ribs celery, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 cups Basic Tomato Sauce (recipe below)
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
pinch of sugar
pinch of hot red pepper flakes

Night before:

In a large bowl, combine the garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, and add enough olive oil to make a somewhat dry paste (3 to 4 tablespoons). Add the chicken and rub the paste evenly over the pieces of chicken. Cover and refrigerate.

Next morning:

In a dutch oven, heat 1/4 cup olive oil over high heat until smoking. Brush the excess rub from the bird, and sear the chicken pieces, in batches if necessary, until browned on all sides. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Place in fridge. Feel good your dinner for tonight is nearly prepped.

About 50 minutes before you want to eat:

Take chicken out of fridge. Bring to room temperature. Add the onions, mushrooms, pancetta, and celery to a stock pot and cook until the onions are golden brown and the pancetta has rendered its fat, about 8 minutes. Drain off the excess oil, then add the tomato sauce (use this recipe below from Mario Batali or this one, The Yummy Mummy's "Never Buy A jar Again" Marinara, or use the stuff from a jar, but please don't ever tell me about it. My head might explode) and wine, stirring with a wooden spoon to dislodge the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the stock, sugar, and red pepper flakes and bring to a boil.

Put chicken to the pot, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Uncover and cool until cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes more. Transfer the chicken to a festive platter, top with the sauce, and serve.



Mario Batali's Basic Tomato Sauce
From Molto Italiano

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Spanish onion, cut into 1/4 inch dice
4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
two 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
salt

1. In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot and cook until the carrot is soft, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the tomatoes, with their juice, and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer until as thick as hot cereal, about 30 minutes. Season with salt. This sauce can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for 6 months.

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Don't Mess with Mama (Or How Roasted Tomatoes Make Everything Better)

So, this was the kind of day I had yesterday:

There was only one plastic case that holds all the princess toys. This was a problem because Edie wanted one and Lucy wanted one. So, I got creative. I explained to them calmly that we only had one princess case, but that I could find another for Edie that was just as good. This was just fine with Lucy who was happy to have full ownership of the princess case.

That is until I procured a plastic bag from a fancy pet store with a big paw print on the side. Well, that was great for Edie who set about loading all her princess supplies into the very cool paw bag. But Lucy cried and demanded I find her a paw bag. But of course I only had one.

So, I got creative again. I went to the gift wrapping bin that I hide under the bed and found a gift bag with a garden of flowers all over it. Lucy likes flowers. I knew I was in.

Tears dried immediately. Lucy was elated. But, oh yeah, this sucked for Edie who was left with the crappy plastic paw bag. And the water works began. And not just water. There was wailing, high-pitched, crazy-ass, someone-call-social-services-a-child-is-being-misused wailing.


That is until I found, in the bin, a bag with a cat on it and knowing Edie loved cats - like, lurves the cats - I proudly raised it up so Edie could see it. And she beamed from ear to ear. Beamed, I tell you.

I was the Goddess of all Mothers. Healer of the world. Mender of disputes. I was Mother Theresa, only fatter, less wrinkly and more fertile. And liking sex a whole lot more.

And Lucy saw the cat bag and all its awesomeness and then, looked down on her own dilapidated, sorry excuse for a garden, flower bag, that I had the audacity to give her, and fell into a crumpled heap on the floor pointing to the great and awesome cat bag and mouthing the words between gulps of air.

"I...w-w-w-want...c-c-c-cat...bag...waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

And this is why mothers often feel compelled to drink vodka at 10 am.

So, I picked them both up - and they were both wailing by this time and had thrown their bags to the floor in disgust and horror - and I carried them to the sofa in the living room and looked into their sad, pathetic, bagless eyes and said in the most compassionate voice I could muster: "I love you. You are good girls. But you're driving me bat shit crazy. If you don't pick a bag and like it, we'll stop everything and I will...WASH. YOUR. HAIR.

They were panicked. Wide-eyed. They stopped crying. The room turned cold and silent. God, how they fear the clean. I freaked 'em out.

"That's right. I'll wash your hair." I say to them. I am bolstered. Empowered. The control has changed hands. They are wondering why their mother had turned on them. Years from now, they will discuss this moment in therapy.

"And I'll use conditioner. We may have to rinse TWICE."

"Um, we don't want to play with bags anymore." Lucy says definitively and Edie nods in agreement. They both slide off the couch, happy to get away from me.

And I, my friends, do "The Naked Dance of Glory" around the living room and celebrate that the balance of power has been restored. And I still have the magic. The mojo. The bling. I can do anything.

Bring it on, toddlers of the world. You are no match for me. Hear me roar! HAAAAA!

___________________________________________________________________________________


Okay, this is exactly the dish you need after securing enough paw bags to keep every one of your kids freakin' blissed out.

This is actually two separate recipes I adapted from the August Gourmet. Separately, they are nice. Together, they are insane. This was devoured at Edie's birthday party by crazy toddlers and adults alike. It also has the distinction of being vegan, if you have a vegan guest coming to your next gathering, this will satisfy them. But really, after a crazy day with the kids, you'll want to just eat the whole bowl of these things by yourself. With a box of wine.

The first is a recipe is for Garlic-Oregano Pita Bread, which is basically just a grilled pita drizzled with warmed olive oil that has been infused with garlic and oregano. And the second is slow roasted tomatoes that have been drizzled with olive oil and flecks of garlic and roasted in the oven on very low heat for 8 hours.

Cut the pita into triangles and serve on a platter next to a bowl of the roasted tomatoes and let people scoop it up themselves. Or make little pizzas. Whatever, but both take little active kitchen time and yield bold results.

Here they are:

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Yield: Serves 4 to 6
Active time: 15 mins
Total time: 6 to 8 hr

Ingredients

* 4 pounds tomatoes, in fat wedges
* 6 garlic cloves, minced
* 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil


Preparation

Preheat oven to 200°F.

Put tomatoes, cut sides up, in 2 large shallow baking pans. Combine garlic and oil and spoon over tomatoes. Season tomatoes with salt and pepper and roast in oven 6 to 8 hours (tomatoes will be reduced in size but will retain their shape). They will also get loose and light aromatic sauce will pool around the soft tomatoes. It will be just the right consistency to lop up all the goodness with a thick pita round.

Cooks' notes 1: Roasted tomatoes keep in an airtight container, chilled, 2 weeks. Bring to room temperature before using. They are better on day 2.

Cooks notes 2: I started roasting these the night before for 4 hours. Then, I covered them and put them in the fridge and popped them in the oven 4 hours before I needed them. Came out perfectly and all the sitting around over night, really set in the flavor.



Garlic-Oregano Grilled Pita Bread

Yield: Makes 6 servings
Active time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min

Ingredients

* 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 2 garlic cloves, smashed
* 2 tablespoons finely chopped oregano
* 6 (6-to 8-inch) pocketless pita bread rounds
* Kosher salt to taste

Preparation

Heat oil in a small heavy skillet over medium heat until it shimmers. Cook garlic, turning once, until pale golden, about 1 minute. Discard garlic and remove skillet from heat, then stir in oregano.

Prepare grill for direct-heat cooking over medium-hot charcoal. I used a cast iron fry pan on a medium-high flame indoors.

Grill pitas, 2 or 3 at a time, covered only if using a gas grill, turning once, until grill marks appear, about 2 minutes total per batch. Transfer to a cutting board and cut into wedges. Put pitas on a platter and drizzle garlic-oregano oil over them. Be generous. It's just fine if it's a little sloppy in the bottom of the dish, people will be soaking it up with pitas before you know it. They are scrumptious. Sprinkle with salt.

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Big & Small

Edie turned three this week.

I could write you a sappy post about what that means to me, about how for the last six weeks we have prepared for the this day by slowly weaning her off the breast, sadly and sometimes catastrophically, and that one night, it was so hard for her to give up the boob that I broke down in tears with her in my arms and apologized to her over and over until she held my face in her hands and said, "Don't cry, Mommy. I'm okay." Gah!

I could also make this post about how she goes to ballet with Lucy every Friday and how she looks in that damn adorable tutu and how, unlike Lucy who does the "kissing hand" ritual with me for like 5 minutes when she says good-bye, little Edie, little secure, confident, nothing-gets-in-my-way Edie just runs into the room without even looking back at me. Not even a wave. Or a thanks for the memories. Or hey, that was cool you did all that laboring and pushing back in July 06. Thumbs up, Ma. Nothing.


Like I'm not even there. She is definitely the kid that is going to break my heart and move half way around the world to Hong Kong when she grows up. I just know it.


And I could tell you about how she graduated from Early Intervention and speech therapy just yesterday. When she started in January, she barely said 20 words. The intake person described her as "nearly mute". Now, we can barely get a word in edge wise. She is a non-stop stream of descriptions, assessments, opinions, ideas and thoughts. She is bursting forth with singing, with nonsensical characters and stories. She is pure imagination unleashed. She has learned from Lucy to narrate everything she does..."I'm washing my hands now. Oh, where's my towel? I think I need soap. Soap is fun. I like soap..." The other day I heard Lucy tell her, "Edie, please stop talking to me so much. You're driving me crazy." Beautiful.


I could also share with you that Edie has her Mommy's temper. The difference between us is that I wage an on-going 24/7 battle to maintain and contain my hairy dragon. Edie feels no need. It doesn't happen everyday, but when just the right measure of tiredness, or frustration mixes with a lost Barbie or a spilled cup or a lost turn, the hairy dragon can come bursting out from nowhere. And it's always a doozy. She goes totally limp, screaming the most high-pitched, ear-shattering scream possible, and lays on the floor kicking in the air and throwing her hands around and begging me to pick her up, only to fight me off when I do and go completely rigid, so I can't gather her up and try to help her calm down.

One time, a few weeks ago, we were on 5th avenue in the 50's. The sidewalk was teeming with people. Edie was tired and we were weaning off the boob and she lost it over something and she screamed so loud and for so long in the middle of the sidewalk, a crowd actually gathered to watch and make sure I wasn't hurting her or kidnapping her or something. The screaming and flailing and bartering and soothing and attempted cuddling went on for almost an hour. Security people came out of their buildings to see if someone needed to be called in to help. I finally had to pick her up, amid stares and pointing and curious concierges coming off their posts to see what all the fuss was about, to sit on the floor of a nearby office building and give her boob.

Then, like that, she was fine and the tears were dried and she was asking to go to the Disney store. Go figure.


All that stuff is real and important, but what I really want this post to be about is how Edie herself characterized perfectly what I think "three" is all about.

The other day, we were at Lucy's friend's house playing. A couple of Lucy's friends still treat Edie like a baby because only recently has she caught up to them developmentally and so they often lag behind a little bit getting the hint that she isn't a baby anymore. In some ways, this works for Edie. They give her a pass on having to share and if she really wants a toy, they give it to her. She also gets to be the patient when they play doctor, the baby when they play house and these are all prime, attention-getting roles.

On the other hand, she is being directed by the other kids, told what to do, where to stand, what game they are playing next and most irritating of all, these kids often feel the need to pick her up without her permission and carry her around the room, as if she were a doll. Did you know four year olds are hard-wired in their DNA to want to pick up kids smaller than themselves and carry them around and look up at you with a proud smile and say, "See? I'm carrying her." And four year olds are also designed to be little narcissists and crap at picking up cues and so all of Edie's protests, like screaming, saying "NO", crying or running away seem to go unheard.


A day of fun and many frustrating attempts to carry Edie around the room, led to an amazing conversation she and I had in the bathroom. I was wiping her bottom. As you know, many important things happen while wiping poop from bottoms and Edie said: " Everybody thinks I'm a baby...And this makes me happy. And this makes me sad."

OH. MY. GOD. Such an abstract and complicated thing for a little kid to articulate. I was thrilled for her. Thrilled she is both big and small. Big enough to tell the four year olds to back the hell up and leave her alone and young enough to still like playing the patient who needs both a stomach bandage and a cast for her broken leg and must be rushed into surgery.

Big enough to have the words to have relationships with older kids and play imaginary games with them about dragons and princes and magical wands and gardens full of Black Eyed Susans. Big enough to be eager to go to school alone, without me. Big enough to eat sushi and love asparagus...and chocolate ice cream and M&Ms. Big enough to tell knock knock jokes and pummel her sister in a wrestling match turned all out pillow fight and say something so weirdly funny that she has Lucy hyper-ventilating and rolling on the floor.

But still small. Small enough to love to go to sleep every night in the pouch with her head on her Daddy's chest. Small enough to miss having boobie and wanting to visit them dancing in the M&M aisle in Duane Reade (that's where she thinks they went. Small enough know exactly how to drive her older sister and their friends bananas and doing it with the most menacing little grin and using that grin to totally get away with it.

Small enough to make me remember that just a minute ago, just a short blink of time ago, she was a tiny, tiny baby that I barely knew and that David and I had made and now she is all kinds of things I had no input in. She is just herself. Just Edie Just perfect. Both big and small.


Happy Birthday to my baby, Edie. God, I love her.

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Dear David, Please Come Home & Save My Sorry Ass

I'm generally not one to call David at the office and tell him I'm about to strangle the kids and he should drop everything and come home and bail me out. But I did, in desperation, send him this text message yesterday:

Update: House a wreck. Edie wailing and begging for boob, like, all day. Presents, kisses, abundant amounts of patience and ice cream did not help. More crying. Just poured myself some booze. We adore you and require your serene guidance and wisdom at this difficult juncture. Before your wife's head explodes. xo

God bless him, he came home early.

xo YM


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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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On Finding a Chiquita Banana Sticker on Your Naked Bum

So, David is home from Australia. I can breathe now. I can also shower now, which is a huge relief to myself and people around me.

The whole week I had been trying to get up before the girls and sneak into the shower and sort of quickly wash myself off, being sure to hit all the major areas, before hearing Edie freaking out in bed, because I had the audacity to actually be more than six inches away from her at any given time.

This meant showering with the shower door open, so I could hear her. And using the shower head hand-held so that there wasn't a lot of rushing water around my ears, preventing me from hearing her outpouring of agony from the bedroom. I also didn't do any shower acts that would require a commitment of time, like, say, washing my hair, since I couldn't be sure that I wouldn't have to leap out of the shower with a full head of shampoo only to realize I was never getting back in the shower to rinse off.

I planned ahead.

So, by the time my husband walked in the door. I smelled okay, but my hair was like matted, dirty straw. I looked like a scare crow. So, one of my acts as a woman-with- a-husband-in-the-house was to have a long, hot shower. It was nice. Not one person sat outside my shower door and wailed tears of betrayal and abandonment. I was golden.

That is until I washed my bum.


See, that is when I felt something kind of smooth there. A smooth patch, if you will. And upon further investigation, I found that I was wearing a Chiquita Banana sticker on my naked bum.

Now, the funny thing about this is that David and I had some "welcome home" nookie about two seconds after he walked in the door, where we clutched each other feverishly and said hot, romantic things to each other, and fumbled around like the middle-aged adults we are and, like, either (1) he just didn't notice I was wearing a Chiquita Banana sticker on my bum or (2) he missed me so much he didn't care I was wearing a Chiquita Banana sticker on my bum or (3) he put the Chiquita Banana sticker on my bum while we were having the sex, as some kind of misguided spousal humor or (4) we were so caught up in the ecstasy of the moment, we made love in the fruit bowl and totally didn't realize it.

These are the things running through my head. It's all still a mystery to me. I mean, could I have been walking around with a Chiquita Banana sticker on my ass the entire week? What if I had been taken to the hospital for an emergency? Forget the clean underwear, would the trauma team have been able to hold it together after seeing a sticker that said "Fresh Tastes Best" on my ass? Am I really that uncool and pathetic these days?

And that's why I need to pay attention to my body a bit more. Or more precisely, what's stuck to it or hanging off of it.

I'll get right on that.

xo YM

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A Christmas Tree Sings "Patty Poopie"

Okay, so the best video of this is one that I did while holding the camera vertical, which was INSANE because apparently you have to know how to perform brain surgery and have a PhD in molecular biology and be a member of Mensa and be married to Bill Gates to understand the complex inner workings of turning a video on it's side.

Seriously Microsoft, make a button for heavens sake.

This is either the cutest video you'll see today or the most annoying. If you don't like Patty Cake sung as "Patty Poopie" over and over again, in the high screeching voice of an overly-excited child, well, this version may not be for you.

This second video is not nearly as fun as the first, but you won't have to turn your computer on it's side or cock your head to the left like a cocker spaniel. And you'll get to the see the outfit - my daughter dressed as Christmas Tree. It took her an hour and a half to create, while raiding my Christmas bow box, but she wore it for two days straight. Finally, I made her take it off in the bath.

This marks my first foray into the world of video on my blog. Isn't this exactly the kind of diversion you needed on a Friday? I think so.

Have a great weekend.

xo YM



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The Crap Mother of the Week Award Goes to...

Uh, yeah, that would be me.

It was a longish week of work. We handed a client’s book into the publisher today. Lots of last minute edits and changes. And I think that my kids have spent enough of this week watching me stare into the computer screen and tapping frantically at the keys.

At one point, Lucy wanted me to help her put this pink hula skirt on her head so that it looked like she had a head full of long wild hair. She brought it over to me and asked me to put it on her head and when she saw that I was in some trance-like state, staring wild-eyed and dazed into the computer, she quietly gave up, turned around and set out to figure it out herself, cross-legged on the floor.

She didn’t fight for my attention or demand anything of me in a loud voice or crumble croissant crumbs all over the floor to get my attention. No, she knew I was gone somewhere and there was no retrieving me. She just resolved that I wasn’t there for her. And her big pink head of hair.

I saw her face as she turned to walk away. Uh, kill me.

I officially get the crap mother award this week.


I asked Lucy about it when I was putting her to bed. I asked if she was frustrated about me being on a deadline with a book. This is what she said: “Daddy should work and make the money. You should just love us…” And then, she added, “…and cook. You should be the cook”.

So, I’m writing this post Thursday night before bed and I’ll post it for Friday. But the whole day Friday will be for the kids. I won’t look at a post, call a client, read a blog, answer comments, respond to Twitters, IMs or even open this crazy sucker of a computer. Not until they are asleep. Then, I'm all yours.


We got big plans. We’re gonna poach some eggs in the morning, ride bikes out on the terrace, hit the playgrounds hard, read all the library books we took out today, eat shrimp and pasta for lunch, maybe Edie will nap a little and I’ll let Lucy watch a Pink Panther or two, while I just hold her on my lap and hug her a lot. And then, friends will come over and we’ll just shed all the rules and live it up. I’ll break out edamame and maybe make some Guacamole and chips. And it’ll be a regular party. That is, until Daddy gets home and we eat pot roast and all of us get reacquainted and make up for lost time.

That’s the order of the day, folks. No more crap mother, at least not for a little while. I can do better.

Hope you have a great weekend with your family and friends, too.

Xxoo YM


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Spring's Terrible Onion Tart

Dear Spring,

Dude, what the hell?

You blow in for a single weekend, give me all kinds of delirious hopes about balmy nights and warm, sun-kissed days. You even go so far as to do your little daylight savings dance and bring us all your evening light, so that we can no longer convince the kids that 6 o'clock is like a "super-late" time to go to bed.

I even thought about putting away the winter clothes. That's right. I'm a sucka. I thought, for one unbelievably incredible moment, that I could ditch that big, bulky winter coat, the one I wear to keep me warm even though it makes me look like the Michelin Tire guy.

But no.

There will be no flip flops in March for me, my friend. I will still have to drag thirty pounds of coats, gloves, hats and boots with me every time I leave the house with my kids, which means it will still take me precisely two hours to get anywhere because as soon as we get bundled up, someone has to pee and then, while one is peeing the other is peeling off her clothes, or crying or setting her clothes on fire with my creme brulee torch, or whatever and the process starts all over again.

We are the most immobile people on the planet.

No, maybe Natalie Suhleman is more immobile that me, but just barely.



So, Spring, thanks for that. Thanks for getting my hopes up and then pulling the rug out from under me. I feel played. And the next time you come around with your early blossoming daffodils, promising you'll stay, seducing me with your soft gentle breezes and dewy green grass, I won't be fooled. I know you'll be pulling out of town, like a trucker who found a dead hooker in your hotel room.

Best,
The Yummy Mummy

__________________________________________________________________________

So, I'm pissed. Guess you can tell. But this tart will make you feel better. It is basically carmelized onions sitting on melty hot cheddar cheese in a supple dough and just heated until it is warm and sweet in the oven. This is a dish that looks ahead to Spring with it's gorgeous new onions and still, feels cozy and comfortable, for a blustery night.

I originally adapted this recipe from both Nigella Lawson and again from Matthew Amster-Burton, and the scone dough crust is lovely, but if you don't have time to ignore your kids, or sit them in front of 20 Max and Ruby's, you can totally buy sheets of Pilsbury pie crust dough and use those. If you use two sheets, the dough comes out thick and gorgeous. Unless, Ruth Reichl is coming for dinner to eat your tart, no one will ever know.

I named this tart "Spring's Terrible Onion Tart" because it sat on a cutting board in the kitchen and David picked at it all evening until it was gone and then, got up the next morning, proclaiming he was fat and had gained at least two pounds and blaming it all on my "terrible tart". But really, it's only terrible, folks, if you EAT THE WHOLE THING.

But it will be hard to control yourself. Here's the recipe:

Spring's Terrible Onion Tart


Filling

1½ lb. yellow onions, halved and sliced ½-inch thick
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. minced fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried thyme
~ Salt and pepper to taste
5 oz. sharp cheddar, shredded

Dough - For Over achievers

9 oz. (1⅔ cups) flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
~ Scant ½ cup milk
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 large egg, beaten

Dough for people who have a life outside the kitchen

1 Box of Pilsbury Pie Crust, 2 sheets


Steps

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat the oil and butter in a skillet over medium heat and add the onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown and softened, about 35 minutes. Stir in the thyme and salt and pepper to taste. Don't cook the onions on high heat. You aren't frying them. This process will take about 30 minutes. You can make/prepare the dough while the onions cook.

2. To make the dough from scratch, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining cheese in a mixing bowl. Combine the milk, butter, mustard, and egg in a measuring cup. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until they come together into a dry, shaggy dough. Let the dough rest for a couple of minutes to hydrate, then turn it out onto a work surface. Knead a few turns and press the dough into a pie pan.

3. If you are using Pilsbury, put one sheet, then the other loosely into a pie pan.

4. Place cheddar cheese in the bottom of the pie pan on top of the dough. You should cover the bottom of the dough with cheese.

5. When onions are brown, creamy and sweet, take them out of the pan and put them right into the dough on top of the cheese. Pull the outer ends of the dough around the onion cheese mixture to form a rustic tart or shape it to form a pizza-like crust around the outside of the onions.

6. For the scratch dough, bake 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees and continue baking about 10 minutes or until bubbly and golden brown. For the Pilsbury, just follow the package directions.

Let stand for five minutes, then pop it out onto a serving dish or cutting board. It is a great snack and can be served alone or with a tangy brown sauce, such as A1 and some nicely fried bacon on the side.

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Venus Basile & Fish En Papillote

I went to a very rough school.

It was in a small town in upstate New York, called Corinth. It was home to one traffic light, a paper mill, two gas stations, two markets, a bunch of dive bars and a funeral home. If it was fall, there was always deer hanging in garages all over town and apparently someone gave us the title of "Snowshoe Capitol of the World", which basically meant we got a lot of snow.

There were 86 kids in my class. It was a small school, but a tough one. There weren't a lot of places to hide. I used to get the crap kicked out of me on a regular basis at my school - Marlene Shippie hit me in the face while wearing her boyfriend's class ring and gave me a black eye and my parents had her arrested. (Having a classmate arrested really ups your cool factor.) The "Let's Beat Up Kim Game" was on. Marlene and her gang of giant girls did things like stand outside my bedroom window and taunt me and threaten to dismember me and then, they'd wait for me while I was walking home and follow me home, talking about me like I wasn't there.


Marlene wasn't the only one. Carol Plummer, Thawn Baker, they all kicked my butt. Carol also had the distinction of dating the boy I was madly in love with, so she had a special place in my heart. She could beat me up and then, smile at me sweetly while she heavy-petted the love of my life in the hallway.

I was beaten up mostly in gym class, where I spent most of my time wishing I would get my period and then, when I had my period, wishing people couldn't see my big thick super maxi pads hanging out of my orange gym shorts. Needless to say, the gym was a place I was very vulnerable. I hated gym the most.

But I was not the only kid who got beat up. In fact, I was just a fun diversion. There were other girls who were the main attraction. Venus Basile was one. Venus, who had the terrible distinction of having a name that wasn't Mary or Margaret or Maxine or anything even remotely familiar to us, was also not pretty or tall or well-dressed or coordinated or smart or charismatic or thin or pale white or even without glasses. And her voice was sort of nasally and high-pitched.

As I remember her in 5th grade, she was unique and a mess and everything we hoped we wouldn't be. And she paid the price for it. She got cornered in bathrooms by girl giants and called cruel names until she cried or a teacher rescued her, but sometimes she would fight. It wasn't pretty - she would do this crazy, flapping thing with her hands, like a dog paddling wildly in the deep end as it was drowning. The giant girls found it so funny. They loved getting her worked up so she would do it over and over again. Then, they would sit back and watch her flail around the bathroom trying to connect her fists to a person.

I can still smell the bathroom, industrial soap and urine cakes.

I had forgotten all of this. Until the other day, Lucy and Edie were tumbling around and laughing and kind of flapping their hands at each other, play fighting and I said, "OMG! That's just like Venus Basile!" It came out of some old, dusty fold in my brain.

Well, they loved this Venus Basile thing. I'm not sure what it was about her name , how it is nearly like poetry, but now, everyday they say, "Let's do Venus Basile" and then they flap their hands at each other and fall down laughing. Lucy asked me yesterday if Venus could come to our house. She thinks she might be a princess. Apparently, she likes to wear pink and crowns. David told me tonight they made up a song about Venus.

"Who is Venus Basile?" He had no idea what they were talking about.

Here's what I hope - that somewhere in the world, Venus Basile had the last laugh. I hope she has a really happy life. I hope she has kids and a great partner and a career that fulfills her and that she is loved and healthy and feels cherished everyday of her life. I hope she has gotten the ultimate retribution. God knows, I have.

What I know is that I don't remember the giant girls, but I do remember Venus. Still to this day. Some 30 odd years after the fact, I could still pull her image right out of my head. And that's sayin' something.

I'm going to think of her every time my kids do a Venus Basile. I think she might actually be a princess.

xxoo YM
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So, I give you a recipe that is gentle and kind and simple and I dedicate it to Venus Basile...It is Fish En Papillote.

Sounds exotic, like Venus, but really this is just fish and vegetables tightly sealed in either parchment paper or foil. The fish and the vegetables gently steam in the little pouches and come out succulent, moist and without a spot of mess. This is a great week night meal, especially if you can make the pouches ahead, pop them in the fridge and then get them in the oven 20 minutes before you sit down for dinner.

My favorite thing about this dish is that the kid's love opening their own pouches and seeing what's inside, like a little gift. They always eat all their fish and most of the vegetables when we serve these. I like that there is almost no mess. I did this one in aluminum foil, which is as good as paper (although not as sexy), and you can use many different kinds of white, flaky fish - cod, halibut, flounder, catfish, haddock, snapper and sea bass are all fine. I use basically whatever vegetables I have in the hopper.

Venus Basile's Fish Baked in Foil With Vegetables

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 medium leeks, cut into matchsticks
A handful of broccoli, cut into florets
12 small cherry tomatoes
2 medium stalks of celery, cut into matchsticks
4 tbsp. olive oil
4 tbsp dry white wine
4 skinless fish fillets
4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 lemon cut into wedges
2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press
1 tsp minced fresh thyme leaves
Table salt and ground black pepper
2 tbsp minced fresh parsley leaves

Preparation

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Cut four large sheets of foil. Divide vegetable mixture among foil sheets, mounding in center. Pour wine and a drizzle of oil over mound of vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.

Pat fish dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper and place one fillet on top of each vegetable mound. Squirt a little lemon juice over the fish and vegetables, season with thyme and put pat of butter on top of fillet. Throw a few of the lemon wedges right on top of the fillet and crimp edges of foil together to form a tight seal and forming a pouch. Place pouches on rimmed baking sheet.

Bake pouches 15 minutes. When done, open them carefully as the steam will escape. Use a thin metal spatula and gently slide fish and vegetables onto plate with any accumulated juices and sprinkle with parsley. Or serve the pouches closed and let the kids open them, squeeze their own lemons and sprinkle parsley over the top. Serves 4.

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