hippity hop

and away goes Easter...

little chickies

I don't know about you, but four days after Easter, we're still hunting for eggs at our house. Jules got so into Easter this year, he hasn't been able to let go. He started a few weeks before the big day drawing pictures of the Easter Bunny carrying baskets of eggs around, spent hours cutting out and decorating eggs we drew together on construction paper. As Easter drew nearer, I'd run out of craft ideas to feed his Easter urge. I am not a crafty person. I am jealous beyond belief at all of you crafty people out there. But I try. I really do.

Maybe it's the emotional scarring from my 7th grade art class that I've never completely recovered from. I remember Mrs. Zimmerman like it was yesterday, sucking all the fun and creativity out of every project she assigned, belittling the meek, sculpee-challenged among us. I think I cried making my color wheel. Needless to say, I was delighted when some not-yet-but-soon-to-become stoner kid nailed Mrs. Zimmerman in the nose with an eraser one day. Sweet, sweet justice, really.

With kids of my own, I'm now reliving some of my childhood anxieties around art, and hopefully working through them at the same time. Some of my little experiments have turned out great. Others, not so much. But I push on, mostly because I have amazing friends whose own projects I can't resist drooling over, coveting, and so then ultimately, I attempt them myself.

So in honor of Jules's bizarre fascination with Easter, I give you these (mangled) baskets and (sadly, hideous) fuzzy chicks.


We made them out of egg carton cups and tissue paper (the baskets) and cotton balls, yellow and black markers and construction paper (the chicks from Hades). If you'd like to see the gorgeous renditions of these (chick-less) baskets that inspired our little project, do not delay, and instead go visit my friend Sarah here. (And I won't tell you that Sarah's five year old did most of the work on these, while I was mostly responsible for mangling ours because the tissue paper kept getting stuck on my glue-y fingers). While you're at it, check out some of her other projects. You'll be just as jealous inspired as me soon.

If, for some reason you are still reading and have not fled over to Sarah's (like you should have), well then I have one more thing to share with you.


This would be the "home" Jules designed for his our new baby chicks after we'd hatched them. He dictated the signage, which reads, "FEED the tropical chickens that have really sharp beaks, as sharp as a blade. Do NOT give them water," followed by another sign that warns "Don't Put Fingers in Cage."

I guess creativity runs in a different direction in our family.

chew (and chew and chew) on this chicken

So I realized after uploading this photo to my computer just how obscene it looks. I'm sure there is some tutorial on food photography that bars photos of stuffed birds from this angle, but hey I didn't know. And it seemed like a good idea at the time. All fowl lewdness aside, this was one of the most properly tasteful specimens ever to spring forth from my oven. So the picture stays.

I'll come clean, though, and tell you that I have only ever attempted to roast a bird a handful of times, mostly on Thanksgiving. I've always been too intimidated by it. The washing and patting dry, the fishing out of the giblets, the sickening paranoia of cross-contamination I always get when handling a whole animal in my sink.

And had a friend of mine not sent me the link to this set of recipes by Kristen over at Cheap, Healthy, Good, I probably would have been content to buy my chicken in pieces shorn neatly by someone other than me. But this little cooking challenge I could not resist.

It starts out with roasting a 7 (or so) pound chicken and ends with using the meat to create five different dinners, most with at least one meals' worth of leftovers. Kristen claims to have made 17 meals (well, 17 servings, 5 separate meals) for $26, total. Sure, it seemed a little gimmicky. But the recipes looked GOOD. These were no chicken noodle casserole with a can of cream of mushroom soup and some frozen broccoli thrown in kind of meals. They were varied in flavor, a little Italian, a little Southwestern, a little Asian, and a whole lot of good.

So I roasted a bird. Stuffed it with a lemon which made for an oozy juicy sauce-y meal with roasted purple potatoes and carrots that had to get used up in my fridge. Day two we made White Chicken Chili and Trader Joe's Corn Muffins. Day three it was Sesame Soba Noodles with chicken and a load of crunchy veggies. Day four had us eating Cook's Illustrated Chicken Curry in a hurry with an added bunch of spinach, served with curried potatoes and homemade Puri (my Dad's favorite Indian fried bread, recipe courtesy of Manjula's Kitchen).

I have no idea how much I spent. But I'd guess less than $50, which is not bad considering all the extras. And most of the meals were even a hit with the kids.

So I will leave you with no recipes, but there are enough links above to get you started. Go check out Cheap Healthy Good for yourself!

longevity

Last month, Jules's preschool teacher had to put her 14 year old dog "Hamlet" to sleep. He's been a fixture of the school that Jules's teacher runs out of her home since Jules has been going there. He was the school doorbell, greeting our footsteps on the path up to the house with a one-dog chorus of barks, and its a mascot, a gentle creature who put up with small children tromping all over his house and never really seemed to mind. And now I sound like I'm eulogizing for a dog I barely knew, but that's where I head, I guess, when something like this happens.

Jules is not really a dog person. In fact, for whatever reason, he's actually mildly terrified of them. But he tolerated Hamlet like Hamlet tolerated him. They coexisted, peacefully. Hamlet's death prompted a slew of new conversations around death and dying, most of which I was not prepared for, mostly because I'm not myself prepared for losing anyone I care about. It's brought me to a place where I can no longer be the all-knowing parent, just a good story or a Google search away from the answer my kid seeks. Explaining death to a four year old has made me confront my own uneasiness around it, and ask myself some really hard questions. Am I really OK with not knowing for certain what happens after we die? I'm not, if only for the reason that I want to provide comfort and certainty to Jules (and later, to Kasper) when they want to know.

Jules has a peculiar (to me), but totally appropriate to his age, understanding of death. He seems to get that plants, animals, and people die, and is hugely fascinated with fighting, killing, and dying, but he doesn't see death as a permanent state. He wants to know what happens to his body, does it stop moving when he dies? When does it move again? What about his head? He's made up imaginary friends who he's said have died, but then later they did something special to make themselves alive again. For days we played "Hamlet in Heaven," a game where Jules took a little plush Texas Longhorn I brought back from a recent Dallas trip and named him "Hamlet" and used him as a sort of emmisary from heaven, taking his friends (us) from the land of the living on a tour of his new celestial digs. At the end of the day, when Hamlet has to send us home, he just waves goodbye nonchalantly. We'll be seeing him tomorrow, I'm sure.

So we've talked about (and role-played) heaven and reincarnation, and about what other people believe happens when you die, because I want him to be exposed to different ways of thinking about this (and about a host of other things) so he can make up his mind about what he does and doesn't believe, but I've yet to give him my position in a way that satisfies me. Though he seems satisfied, for now.

But until that time comes when I'm forced to confront this again, I'll leave you with my very escapist (perhaps) way of dealing with death: trying to prolong, or at least enhance this one life that I know we do have with a good, healthful, tasty recipe for soup. It's also a nice warming, earthy meal on a cold, sloppy day like the one I find myself writing in today. Serve it with buttered (yes, REAL butter, just don't go overboard) bread.

Spinach and Leek Soup with White Beans and Fresh Tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 large or 2 small leeks, white and light green parts only, sliced thin and rinsed well
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 ounces baby spinach
4 cups vegetable (or chicken) broth
1 (15 oz) can white beans, drained and rinsed
a handful of fresh (I prefer cherry or grape this time of year) tomatoes, chopped
plain yogurt or grated parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil and butter over medium heat in a large soup pot until butter begins to foam. Add leeks and a little salt and saute until soft and translucent, about five minutes. Add garlic and continue cooking until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add chicken broth and bring to a simmer, then add spinach and continue cooking, stirring, until spinach is wilted. Puree the soup with a handblender and then add the beans, cooking just until the beans are warmed through. Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped tomatoes and a dollop of yogurt or grated parmesan, salt and pepper to taste.

if you're not hungry enough to eat an apple...

then you're not hungry.


Over dinner the other night with friends, someone brought up this handy catch-phrase from Michael Pollan's book Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. I'm thinking about making it my new mantra. Or one of my new mantras. One thing at a time, I say.

Lucky for me, I now live in a world where "apple" means more than the bag of mushy Red Delicious apples we had rotting in the fridge when I was growing up. Those were anything but delicious. I still can't eat the things. But bring on the Fuji, Honeycrisp, Pink Lady. I can even enjoy a Granny Smith from time to time.

Some of my other favorites from Pollan's book:

"Don't ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap."

"The whiter your bread, the sooner you'll be dead." -- catchy, no? Eeeeesh.

"Eat all the junk food you want, as long as you cook it yourself."

"Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it."

a cake for mijn koning

Jo asked for a Black Forest Cake, "just like the one they made in Switzerland" when he used to go there on ski vacations, when he used to be European, for his birthday this year. Well, I'm ashamed to admit I've never been to Switzerland, but that did not stop me from, well, improvising, as I am wont to do with birthday cakes.

So I give you the Macrina-recipe chocolate bundt cake that's not a bundt, with chocolate cream glaze, (Italian) Mascarpone cream and (German) Marello cherries. A little Italian, a little German, and a lot of decadent chocolate, just like the Swiss. We served this warm because the thing had to bake for close to two hours and we could not wait for it to cool down if we were going to have it before dinner, which was imperative. It was delicious, though next time I think we'll need to invite at least 20 of our closest friends to help us polish it off in one go since it's best when fresh.

Happy Birthday mijn lieve spekje.

chipper up

I've been feeling blue lately. Not sure why. Could be the weather (though our glorious sunny days don't help that argument), the cold, creeping boredom and anomie that will hopefully dissipate with Spring and more time outside.

What I do know is that I'm restless and have writer's block. Nothing seems interesting, nothing seems worth sharing. So the silence. I've retreated to my own private cocoon, and tucked Jules and Kasper (and sometimes Jo) in here with me. I can't wait for a warm, fresh breeze to bring its glow inside, and force me to pop my head out and live out loud again.

But until then, I have cookies to cheer me. And I hope they might cheer you, too. I swiped this recipe, like many others, from Orangette, who swiped it from some guy at the New York Times. There is nothing like a chocolate chip cookie and a cold glass of milk to put a temporary stop to my whining, and I've been on the hunt for a good, simple recipe for a few years now. Something every parent should have in their arsenal. Orangette and the Times guys' recipes both call for "marinating" the cookie dough in the fridge for 36 hours before baking, something which I have absolutely no patience for, but which, they both swear, imparts a complexity of flavors unlike any other chocolate chip cookie you've ever tasted.

The Times guy uses a combination of cake flour and bread flour in his recipe, which he claims aids the texture of the cookie. He also uses fancy chocolate, while Orangette more sanely opts for Ghiradelli 60% dark chocolate chips. And for a finishing touch, these cookies are sprinkled with sea salt, the height of dessert fashion these days.

I followed Orangette's recipe exactly the first time around and the result was a really good, very thick but chewy cookie. But then months and months passed and, while I wanted to make the cookie again, I steered clear of it because I lacked the will power to let that dough sit for days in cookie purgatory. Yesterday, though, I NEEDED that cookie. So I cheated. I used all-purpose flour, and less of it than the recipe called for because I only had two sticks of butter and not the requisite 2.5 that the recipe called for, which forced me also to cut back on the sugar. I'd almost say it was a "healthier" version of the recipe, had I not settled on the bag of Nestle's chocolate chips shoved in the back of my cupboards instead of the antioxidant rich dark chocolate. The one thing I didn't mess around with was the sea salt. This step was NOT optional for me. There is something about adding just a little extra salt to sweet baked goods that kicks up the flavor, in a very good way, that I am now addicted to. I did let the dough marinate in the fridge for an hour while I went to pick Jules up from preschool. Then I slapped those cookies on a sheet and popped them in the oven.

The result? These cookies were just as good as my first batch (I write this with eyes rolling emphatically back in my head as I shake my head and my fists at the foodie cookie bakers who, ultimately, I have to thank for arriving at this recipe). And I was cheered for an afternoon while I shared my chewy gooeyness with my favorite boys. Now I'll share it with you.

Best fast chocolate chip cookies (seriously)
16 ounces all purpose flour (about 4 cups)
1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
12 oz chocolate chips (whatever you find in your cupboard, but I prefer semi-sweet)
Sea salt

Whisk together flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Using a handheld mixer, cream butter and sugars until very light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until each egg "disappears" into the dough. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, then add the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients, mixing just until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips. Chill dough for at least 60 minutes, and up to 72 hours.

When the dough is chilled and you're ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Scoop out a heaping tablespoon of batter for each cookie, spacing cookies 2 inches apart. Flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds using the wet bottom of a measuring cup, then sprinkle with a little sea salt on each cookie.

Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and keep on baking the rest of your dough on cooled baking sheets, stash the rest back in the fridge, or freeze the dough after forming it into cookie-sized balls. Keeps in the fridge for up to 72 hours or in the freezer for about a month.