apricots, huckleberries, and failing my child

I suck as a parent. I feel like every decision I have made in the last, oh let's just say week, has been the wrong one.

Right now I am simmering a pot of apricot preserves on the stove (thank you, Amanda, for donating your apricots to what I hope is NOT yet another worthless endeavor in jam-making) while listening to my child cry his heart out while we "experiment" with letting him fall asleep on his own. It's waaaaay past his bedtime and he has been impossible all day, mostly because (a well-informed hunch) he's overtired. Sorry to those of you who can't relate to me right now as I regale you with the saga of my sobbing insomniac. I find it hard to believe myself just how much my universe revolves around when, where, and how long my kids sleep. I have been a sleep hostage for almost four years now. And I hate it. We've tried the Dr. Sears method (just sleep with your kid, when your kid sleeps, even when he's FIVE), dabbled in Ferber (cry baby, cry), danced with the Sleep Lady (go on and wail, baby, but know I'm here for ya), and spit on what we wish was Elizabeth Pantley's grave (there is NO "No Cry Sleep Solution,"at least for our kids, believe me).

Did I mention I'm also baking what smells like a delicious huckleberry-apricot breakfast crisp? And I'm drinking really good pinot noir? Tomorrow is bound to be a better day, right?

I just tasted the preserves, half-way through cooking, and they were SOUR, so I added what was left of a bag of sugar to the pot. I have no idea how much it was. Maybe 2 to 3 cups? Oh, and right after that, I turned on the back burner to get a pot of boiling water started to sterilize the lids to for my no-doubt sour preserves, and I set the cord to our rice cooker on fire. Did I mention that during our kitchen remodel last year we splurged on a gas range that cooks with real blue shooting flames? I guess I'll add "new rice cooker" to the list of "must-have" kitchen gadgets that I need to write this blog.

Back to the crying child, who is quiet now (except for the hiccup/shudder from the trauma he's just experienced of being left alone in his bed to fall asleep) because Johan is now lying next to him. Jules has never, not ever, fallen asleep on his own at night since the day he was born. Is that a bad thing? Most days I am quite certain, and quite willing to defend the position that that it is not a bad thing. It is just simply human to want to have someone you love lying next to you, feeling their warm body breathe in and out, in and out, as you drift off to sleep in the comfort of their embrace. Who would not fight until their last waking moment to fall asleep that way, every night of their life, if they could? Tonight, however, is not a night where I find myself willing to defend that position. I just need a break.

Preserves are done. A sweet-sour concoction that I pray will set up just right. It's much more gelled than the batch of strawberry jam I tried to make a few weeks back. So I'm hopeful.

Breakfast crisp is out, too, and now covered and chilling in the fridge. I have no idea how this will turn out, but I am, again, really hopeful. I made it with huckleberries picked by my Dad (some of which were plucked under imminent threat of black bear attack--Dad REALLY loves me, or he really loves huckleberries, or both). I've discovered that so far everything I've ever made with huckleberries has turned out just fine. I made a huckleberry apple pie last week and, while the pie was soupy (too shy with the flour in the fruit, according to Dad), the flavor was just right. Maybe I think so because huckleberries are, for me, the magic fruit. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that my Dad dragged me out to the woods to pick huckleberries as a kid, then stuffed me with pies and pancakes made with our berry loot for weeks after. I can't wait until Jules and Kasper are old enough to come picking with me. I hope they love it (and the huckleberries) as much as I did as a kid.

Right now, OK almost all the time, I feel like my life is much like my cooking. It's an experiment, one which ends with almost as many happy surprises as it does with heart-wrenching disappointments (did you note my "glass half full" speak here? Do I get any credit whatsoever for that?) . It's sometimes hard to believe that Jules has been earth-side for more than 3 1/2 years and I still have days where I feel like my parenting choices are based more on "hunches" about my kid, why he's behaving the way he is, what I could be doing to make his behavior conform to my wishes, than "hard facts."

Be that as it may, here's hoping this latest series of experiments (in cooking and in "life") end in happy surprises. Wouldn't life be grand if my "huckleberries" were the culinary equivalent to my parenting "hunches?" If that were so, then I could rest easy knowing that no matter what I might do to botch things up, as long as I relied on my "hunches," on what I knew to be true about my kids, then everything would turn out just fine. For some reason, though, I'm less confident in the "hunches" than I am in the "huckleberries" that populate my life right now.

Oh, and did I mention that we started potty training again last week for the umpteenth time? I've been warned against mixing poop stories with recipes, so I will spare you the harrowing details of the last four days. You should thank me for this. And you should also be grateful that our camera died from sand-poisoning on the Belgian coast. Fun, mouthwatering photos (I promise, no poo) will resume shortly. As will the recipes. And child-rearing advice. If, that is, my experiments turn out.

i scream you scream

I was not exaggerating.

we all scream

horsing around with grijze garnalen (gray shrimp)

Scampi-induced guilt aside, we DID manage to eat our fair share of locally-caught shrimp during our week-long stay on the Belgian coast. Small, delicately-flavored (read not too shrimpy) "gray shrimp" are abundant here, and every day we were witness to the many ways they're harvested: by men in chest-high fisherman pants pulling nets behind them, by the tiny shrimp boats trawling back and forth just a few hundred meters from the beach, and, the tourists' favorite spectacle, by "Brabanders"--a stocky Belgian breed of horse--saddled with nets and baskets and weathered fisher faces.

The fishermen and their horses put on a show at extreme low tide on an almost-daily basis in the summer for tourists. We'd planned on taking the kids down to watch one morning, but could convince none save Kasper (whose favorite napping spot just happened to be hoofing it down to the show) to join us. I, for one, was glad I went, and even more glad I was not trampled by one of the massive beasts while I posed in front of them for that perfect "been there" shot.

Kasper's first shrimping adventure

the shrimp shuffle
duwen (push), draaien (turn), trekken (pull)
Bomma (Grandma), demonstrating her finely-honed peeling skills
a new generation of shrimp peelers

Best enjoyed with a glass of Rodenbach, a slightly sour beer from Roeselare (Johan's mom's hometown, not far from the coast). Also often used in tomaat crevette (mixed with a mayonaisey cocktail sauce, stuffed into a hollowed out tomato, and garnished with parsley).

i heart croquettes

As promised, the first in a series of installments on what made me gain weight while in Belgium, the chief culprit of course being deep-fried goodness such as these. Potato croquettes. Little logs of mashed potatoes, dipped in egg and rolled in bread crumbs and plunged into hot oil. We've started a tradition of making these for Christmas Eve every year because we can't seem to find them in the supermarkets here. And because we're masochists, I suppose. Croquette making is not for the faint hearted. It takes time, lots of space in your refrigerator to leave them to dry overnight, and the patience of a conveyor-belt worker. Cut, dip, roll. Cut, dip, roll. Cut, dip, roll. No surprise they hit the platter just once a year.

Accompanying my croquettes this fine evening were scampis in curry sauce. We ate a fair amount of scampis while in Belgium, and have been cooking them at home in Seattle, too. This, of course, was a huge source of guilt for me last week when I passed the Mangrove Action Project booth at the Ballard Seafood Festival, which boasted a large and catchy banner that admonished us all to "Shrimp Less. Think More." Since most shrimp is imported from the other side of the world (I think most of ours comes from Thailand), the carbon footprint made by my meals of late is, well, embarrassing. But the scampis were good. I promise to do better from now on.

Belgium: where every day is a party

We're home! OK, so we've been back from Belgium for over a week now. Jet lag really did a number on us this time and it's taken me much longer to recover than I'd hoped. I'm not sure I really have recovered, since I'm still going to bed at around 8pm most nights, but at least we're no longer collectively waking at 4am. This is progress, believe me.

Traveling with two kids, even when our destination was "home" (at least for one Flemish-speaking, beer-drinking, chocoholic--wait, maybe make that two), was nothing short of an adventure. We managed the flights with minimal whining and tears, and were greeted in Belgium with a huge family reception. Johan's family always makes a big to-do out of airport welcomes and send-offs and this time was no exception. The next few days were full of food-filled fun. Champagne and appetizers at Bomma's (Grandma's) house, a birthday brunch followed by a summer barbecue the next day, followed by more visits, get-togethers, and outings, all choc-full with food and booze. On the third or fourth day of our trip, Jules woke up and asked, "where is the party today?" For him (and for us), every day in Belgium was a party, with much to celebrate--being "home," introducing baby brother Kasper to family and friends, re-connecting with so many people over good food and drink and, lets not forget, toys.

An adventure it was, of both the gastronomic and the disciplinary variety, and often at the same time. Jules is, and has always been, the kind of kid who simply cannot eat when there are too many new or distracting things to occupy his attention. The entire time we were in Belgium, we were showered with culinary delights, most of which Jules refused. Kid-friendly spaghetti made it on the menu more than a few times. It was ignored in favor of the kid-friendly toys and videos and new friends that Jules preferred to "discover." At barbecues (American or Belgian-style, didn't matter), Jules ate bread. And chips. And ice cream. And the occasional carrot stick.

We were, quite naturally, horrified, especially when all the other kids sat down for a meal, ate politely, and often in large quantities, and never seemed to make a fuss. But we knew our kid, and we knew he'd go back to his normal (not ideal, mind you, but it works for him) ways of eating once we were home, so we tried to be as lax as we could about it.

So while we gorged (and I really do mean gorged) ourselves on cheeses, pastries, meat, meat, meat, fries and croquettes, salads and seafood and more, Jules lived off of croque monsieurs (toasted ham and cheese sandwiches), fruit salad (and they make a mean one here), soft rolls (what, in Flemish, are quite confusingly called a "sandwich"), the occasional croissant, handfuls of chips, some fresh gray shrimp (a uniquely Belgian treat--maybe this kid is Belgian after all), and all the ice cream he could get his hands on. Ice cream was plentiful in Belgium, especially during the week we spent on the Belgian coast. Out of the 17 days we were there, I'm quite certain that 15 of those included ice cream in one form or another.

He would go for nearly an entire day subsisting on little more than a crust-less piece of bread and a bite of cheese, a little water and whatever cookies might find their way to him. Then, all of a sudden, hunger would overtake him. One night he ate SIX Nutella sandwiches, a 3 1/2 year olds' dream. Everyone was just so happy to see him eat something that they kept making them for him when he asked for another. Another night it was a more sensible meal of pasta and peas.

While Jules's diet (and don't even get me started on his table manners) was atrocious, for me it was also part of the adventure of (re)introducing him (and us) to his Belgian roots, and to long distance travel in general. And it was about us getting to know our own kid as a traveler, seeing how he handles change (in this case, in language, food, distance and time and a dizzying blur of new faces all at once--quite a whirlspin for a little guy).

The following posts (I hope) will give you more of an idea of what we ate (and what it looked like), but for now, this is just a first taste. It's good to be home, but that doesn't mean we all don't miss Belgium already.

american cookies

ok, maybe one post. In honor of the 4th of July, and my not being state-side to celebrate it, I give you my hands-down favorite recipe for what the Belgians call "American Cookies." I looooove these because they are a) chewy, not cake-y, not crunchy, b) salty (baked goods need salt, more than most people add), and c) nearly impossible to botch, even when your assistant-chef smooshes and mooshes and mooches "little tastes" more than is probably prudent.

Just one little taste
apron schmapron

Note: this recipe makes a ton of cookies, so I usually end up freezing half the dough in little balls and baking them for a bit longer than the recipe below at a lower oven temp (325 degrees).


American Cookies (adapted from this recipe in Gourmet)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (16 ounces)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or wax paper.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips.

If you have the time, chill in the fridge for an hour, or until the dough has firmed up a bit. This will ensure the cookies don't spread to fast when baking. When the dough is ready, scoop a heaping tablespoon of batter for each cookie, arranging mounds 3 inches apart, on 2 baking sheets. Flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds using moistened palm of your hand. Form remaining cookies on additional sheets of parchment.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in same manner using cooled baking sheets.

a few of my favorite (belgian) things

we are on a plane to Belgium tomorrow. no posts for a while, but I'll try to take some good food pictures on the road! In the meantime, here's a list of things I'm looking forward to eating while in Belgium:

pistolekes met kaas (little cheese rolls with soft gouda)
bitterballen (deep fried balls of gravy and meat, served with mustard)
vol au vent (puff pastry filled with creamy chicken and mushroom)
kroketten (fried potato goodness, served with mayo)
hazerug (jack rabbit's back, usually a winter food)
grijze garnalen (little gray shrimp, harvested by horse)
pralinekes (chocoooooolate)
bolleke Koninck (just good beer)
broodje smos (a "messy sandwich" -- french roll filled with veggies, hardboiled egg, and mayo)
frietjes met andalous (fries that are NOT french with a spicy pink sauce)