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.
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."
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.
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.
So it's taken me almost a full month to settle on a couple of New Years resolutions, but I'm not one to rush willy nilly into these things. So here you have it. I resolve...
1) to spend LESS time with my kids. I have already made good on this by taking a 4 day kid-less trip to Texas to visit friends, and by joining a choir that feeds my creativity and keeps me out of the house one night a week. Btw, the choir is very relaxed and welcoming and, in case anyone is interested, in need of male voices. Oh, and I joined a gym, which, while I refuse to make any health or weight-related resolutions, I am glad to have in my life as yet another place for some solo work and reflection (physical and mental).
2) to make the time that I DO spend with my kids count by dropping everything, pouring my heart into playing, reading books, indulging their fantasy worlds, making them laugh, and really really listening and engaging them.
4) to start each day asking myself the question, "what one thing would make today a good day?" and then doing my damndest to make that one thing happen.
Jules has a new pet. Several hundred new pets, to be exact. Jules loves his ants. Well, maybe not the ants, but he loves to watch me squish them between my fingers when I find them, and he loves it when I use the word HATE when I talk about them.
If you haven't surmised it yet, let me spell it out for you: we have an ant problem. It started about three years ago with a tiny trickle and, over the last few years, has grown positively unwieldy. They started out simply coming through the front door, and the very old and very drafty windows. I kept them at bay by sprinkling baking soda along these openings, but ants do climb, and the crafty little bastards were soon coming in through the tops of our doors and windows. Not wanting to spray some nasty birth-defect-or-worse causing insecticide, I opted for the next best thing: ant bait, which coaxed our new pets into neat little trails in and out of the house, and then on to certain death.
They've returned sooner than they usually do this year, and have already gotten craftier, coming into the house through the vent in our bathroom, a place un-bait-able. And three times now I have had to fish them out of my pants. MY PANTS! I've had enough. Really. Enough.
So I called a couple of pest control companies and one of them came out to my house this morning. The nineteen year old guy that inspected our house assured me that the insecticide they used (Cloraphenapyr) was perfectly safe for humans (even of the small variety). He even told me that he considers it so safe he's stopped wearing much in the way of protective clothing when he applies it. They've sprayed the Ronald McDonald house with it, for crying out loud, so it must be safe. He encouraged me to do the research on it myself, and if I was happy enough with what I found, to call and schedule an appointment. So I Google'd and, of course, found reports that found it mostly safe, except that it may be carcinogenic. Stop.
So I contacted another "ecologically sound" company and asked about what they used. Their brand of insecticide (Bifenthrin) got similar reports. And because they're supposedly eco-friendly, their services cost approximately three times as much.
So what's a mother to do?
Some days I wish I could move to a simpler age, where I was not required to play the role of EPA agent, personal chef, nurse, vocational counselor, the list goes on and on and on... to my children under five. An age that looked more like this:
Yes, that's right. I wish I could just slap up some DDT-treated wallpaper in the kids' room (because ants carry disease and not merely because they're annoying), convinced by the ad that it's perfectly safe and oh-so-handy, and kiss my ant problem goodbye. Sure, my children might be diagnosed with malignant cancerous growths 57 or so years on, but by that time I'd be dead, or at least too far gone in my dementia (no doubt brought on by the aluminum in my deodorant, but that's another vocation) to even realize it. Ahhhhh, simpler times.
I just finished looking at all the photos from Johan's family's New Years Eve celebration, sent to us via email, and I can't decide whether to be jealous, sad, exceedingly grateful, or all of the above about them.
Don't get me wrong. We had our own kind of fun in a snowy cabin in the woods that friends of ours invited us to, eating Tostadas de Tinga and catching up after the kids went to bed. But the pictures, well, you'll see. They made me miss New Years, Belgian-style.
A big New Years Eve gathering has been the tradition since well before I joined the family, and this year was no exception. Every year the menu varies, from stewed rabbit to a "koue pla" (spelling in dialect is always tricky) of cold meats, cheeses, spreads and slimy (OK, just to me) smoked fishes. This year the family settled on "tapas," small plates, spread out over the entire evening, that ended, as usual, with a truly beautiful smorgasbord of desserts. I can think of nothing better than an evening full of fancy small plates and family (especially this one), and am yes, OK, very sad about not being able to be a part of their celebration this year. I miss Belgium, the food, but most of all, I miss the people who have become such a big part of my life there, and hope we'll be getting back to visit soon, very very soon. To all of you in Belgium, please save some 'toostjes' for me. And to the rest of you, enjoy some of my favorite photos from that night.
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.
