Aftermath

1 turkey + 5 gallon bucket + 1 recipe brine = a very delicious bird

12 total hands + new door + a little brawn = bedroom moved up upstairs

6 adults + 1 little boy + 1 dog + 1 cat = fun visit

1 exhausted woman trying to have 1 actual vacation day out of the week off = pictures next post.

Brine and dine

There's been a lot of talk out in food world about turkey brining and its supposed benefits, for several years now. I've never done it, and I've never had it. It's supposed to make the turkey super juicy and perfectly flavorful. Well, this year, we are going to try it. All it took was us catching an Alton Brown (heart) show about it last night, and we thought it sounded pretty darn easy. Then there's this fancy foil breast guard thingie too.

I picked up everything we'll need today (oh my, it was a long, tedious, and expensive morning...and since when is heavy cream nearly $5 a freaking quart??), including the 5-gallon brining bucket. I couldn't find juniper berries, but I also didn't look that hard. Two stores tests my patience limit these days.

I think it will be fun! We will brine it Wednesday night, until just before cooking time on Thursday. Yea, take THAT turkey!

Tuesday is pie and dessert baking day! Wednesday is cleaning and screaming day! My guests arrive Wednesday eve, and we'll have additional visitors for a dessert-eating crowd. And a chaotic and unfinished house. I really am doing so well with all this. Only minor break downs so far. This is much better than I'd anticipated for myself.

Have a lovely holiday!

No chicken fingers. Please.

The kids menu at Chez Cristina:

Entrees are portioned appropriately for children and come with choice of side and drink. We don't DO chicken nuggets or fingers, mac and cheese, hot dogs or frozen pizza.

Rice and beans $4

Vegetable quiche $4

Turkey sandwich, on whole grain $4

Hummus and pita triangles $4

Grilled cheese, on whole grain $4

Peanut butter & jelly, on whole grain $4

Pasta with butter or marinara $4

Chicken quesadilla $4

Fresh egg salad, tuna salad, or chicken salad with pita triangles or as a sandwich, $4

Sides:

Fresh fruit (seasonal)
Peas
Sauteed or steamed veggie of the day


Drinks:

Milk/Chocolate Milk
Soy milk
Almond milk
Orange juice
Apple juice

Try my Tiramisu

Tim requested Tiramisu for his birthday dessert. While there are many variations in proportions and preparations, he loves my family's standard recipe. Here's how my grandmother made Tiramisu, the simple and famous Italian dessert that gained popularity in the 80s:

This recipe will yield approx a 9x9 pan full, double layer. For more, just double!

• 2 eggs, separated
• 100 grams of sugar (a scale will work for you gram-o-phobes)
• approx 1.5 cups of espresso, or, if you don't have an espresso maker, brew some very strong coffee
• light dash (about a tablespoon) of rum or marsala, or some other nice little something, although you can omit this
• 250 grams of plain mascarpone cheese. You can get an 8oz container at the grocery store (usually by the fancy cheese) though you'll be about 25 grams shy, but that's OK. Just don't lick too much. Beware - don't get the stupid 'tiramisu mascarpone' which is pre-flavored. That's just wrong in my book.
• 1 double sleeve package of Savoiradi. This is key. You can substitute toasted lady fingers, but, just like brewing American coffee instead of espresso, it's not really proper. So if you're kind of crazy about these things like I am, look for Savoiardi (any brand will do) in your grocer's "Italian" section.
• Cocoa powder, for sprinkling on top

More about the Savoiardi. They are sometimes called Lady Fingers, as I mentioned, but they are not all created equal. Do NOT be fooled by the ones that are actually called just LadyFingers though. These are not the same and I hate them and people that think these are it. These are soft and squishy, so they have to be toasted, and then they're still not the same. Lame. For authenticity, go with the right ones. Authentic ones are hard, and have a flaky, sugary look. Or you could make them. But that's a lot of trouble, in my opinion, when they're quite good out of the package. They look like this:

OK. So here we go:

Make the espresso. Pour into a shallow dish (a pie dish will do) and dissolve half the sugar into it, completely. Add the dash of liquor. Set aside.

Beat the yolks with the remaining sugar, and and the mascarpone. Continue to beat until smooth.

Beat the whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold the whites into the mascarpone mixture.

Working quickly, dip the Savoiardi, sugar side down, in the coffee and allow them to soak up some coffee, but not too much so that they get too soft and hard to manage. Create the first layer in your pan using coffee-soaked Savoiardi. You may have to break some in half to fit the pan bottom, that's fine.

Add half the mascarpone mixture and smooth it out. Add another layer of coffee-soaked Savoiardi, then top w/ remaining mascarpone mixture. Smooth. Sprinkle or sift a little cocoa powder on top. Cover and chill overnight. Sometimes my grandmother would freeze the whole pan, this is OK too.

Finally, note that this uses raw eggs. It's kind of like a Zabaglione thing happening with the yolk part. MMMMM.
Do not question this. It has to be done this way or it's not real Tiramisu. It's very unlikely you'll get sick, as very few fresh eggs are tainted with salmonella. The probability is stupid low, like a .000something% chance. So crack open an egg and drink it down, kids. Or eat Tiramisu worry-free.

Experiment over - for now

The standard recipe I'd been using to make pizza dough was good, but I wasn't completely satisfied with the crust. I wanted something lighter, with a crisper and more golden bottom.

In search of the best method, I changed something in that recipe nearly every time(I make pizza once every 10 days or so). I didn't change the ingredients - I just kept varying amounts, kneading and resting times (I was even using a no-rise version for a while, but it mysteriously started coming out gummy, so that was the end of that), as well as oven temps. I also alternated the aerated pan and pizza stone, sometimes using the pan on top of the stone.

Without going into detail on all the variations and their outcomes, I will just tell you that the problem was my water to flour ratio. Too much of both, especially for a 12 inch pie.

Last night, I hit the mark. Here's what I did:

Put your pizza stone in the oven, set to 500 degrees. I use a 12 inch round stone.

Dissolve 1 teaspoon sugar and 1.5 teaspoons active dry yeast in .75 cup of 110 degree water. Let sit 5+ minutes. It should be foamy.

Combine 1.75 cups unbleached all purpose white flour (King Arthur is excellent)with 1 teaspoon salt in the mixing bowl of stand mixer.

Using dough hook on low setting, pour yeast mixture into flour. Let it go until the dough forms a ball and clears the sides. If it seems too sticky, dust with additional flour. If it seems too dry, add a little olive oil, a few drops at a time.

Take out the ball, and knead on a floured surface for another minute or two. Place the ball into an oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest 20 minutes.

In the meantime, assemble toppings of choice. In my opinion, about 8oz of shredded cheese is plenty. Easy on the sauce.

After 20 minutes, slowly stretch and press the ball onto a big cutting board into a 12 inch diameter circle. Use plenty of flour to prevent sticking - unless you have a 'pizza peel' you'll be using the cutting board to side your pizza onto the stone.

Lightly dust your stone with cornmeal, and slide pie onto stone. Try to be quick about this, because the cornmeal will toast pretty fast. Pre-bake untopped in the 500 over for 2 minutes. Dough will bubble, but it's ok.

Carefully remove entire stone and pie and top as desired - leave the pie on the stone while you do this, of course. Put back in the oven and bake until cheese starts to brown. Remove promptly and allow to rest for a minute.

The crust will continue to cook on the hot stone, so consider sliding right back on to your cutting board.

Brown is good

I am a terrible baker...I've told you before.

If any day of the week is a 'cooking day' here, I suppose it would be Sunday. Not that I marathon cook every Sunday, goodness no...but it's a good day to kind of get your kitchen working for you: I usually get most of the groceries on Saturday, and I'm trying to use up week old produce and other odds and ends that have been 'chillin (ha-literally) in the fridge for a while, and it gets me in some sort of mode to assess the meal situation for the rest of the week. Whatever that means.

OK, let's bring it back to the baking. I did some today, among other things. I have pulled pork slow simmering away, potatoes baking in the oven, and I made minestrone for lunch. All that cooking got me thinking of sweets (weird, huh), and of course nothing I have in the house is good enough. I stumbled upon a recipe for oatmeal cookies that called for browning the butter. Ooooh. HAD to do it.

I made a few modifications to the original (courtesy of Food Network Kitchens), but it's one of those recipes that is derived from a classic cookie recipe and so that's one too many stupid links for this lazy blogger.

Here's what I did, which clearly is more important:

2 sticks of butter, browned (melt in a pan over medium heat, and watch and stir until butter turns light brown, like the color of whiskey...then stop cooking it)

3/4 C packed brown sugar
3/4 C granulated white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 C flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 C oats
1/2 C (generous) of dried cherries - the original recipe called for raisins. How boring.
1/2 C coarsely chopped walnuts - original recipe had none -- crazy if you ask me.

Allow the brown butter to cool. I put the pan outside because I'm impatient.
Beat the butter with all the sugar. This smells amazing because the milk solids are caramelized. OMG.

Add the eggs and vanilla.

Beat some more.

Add flour, soda, salt, and beat until fully incorporated. Stir in oats, cherries, and walnuts.

Scoop table-spoonfuls on to un-greased cookie sheets.

Bake 350 for 12-15 minutes. Mine took 13:30, and they appeared perfect, and were indeed.

Take the sheet out, let cookies sit for a minute, then transfer to cooling rack with spatula.

Eat all of them, then go to sleep.



If you like, bake half the dough, and freeze the other half for another day. That's also what I did.

Favorite Things: Food Edition

In no particular order, I present a very short and incomplete list of yummy little things I really appreciate. And by appreciate, I don't mean hint hint buy these for me, but more that I appreciate them as products. That's not to say they would be unacceptable gifts.

Maille Dijon Mustard: Because dijon is amazing, and this is some of the amazing-est. Alton Brown said it was the best. Then I knew I was a genius. I've spooned this. It's that tasty.



Dogoba Xocolatl: This is cocoa mix with cinnamon and chilies. Yes, it's spicy cocoa, and it takes a few sips to be sure you like it, but then you LOVE it. If you don't, you are dumb.


Wallaby Yogurt, Maple: Just freakin yummy.



Ines Rosales olive oil tortas: Light little flat bread things made with olive oil, flour, and some spices. So simple but so delicious. Yummy with cheese or fruit or whatever. I could make these at home probably but I'm lazy. Plus anything so prettily wrapped in wax paper makes me feel like I'm all gourmet and fancy, and I like that.

And don't let the door hit you...

There's some foods that I just can't stomach ever, others that I merely tolerate, and still others that will usually go down, and yet forever weave between the Acceptable and Blech lanes of my taste highway (that was an awful metaphor, wasn't it? I'm keeping it).

These foods represent a tiny percentage of my food world, however, because generally speaking, I am not 'picky' or freaky about foods: I seek out new foods, try exotic things whenever I get the chance (sadly it's not often), and I very rarely have ambiguous problems with texture or aroma. I don't mean to imply that I'd like to chomp into a fresh, beating caribou heart, but I think it's exciting to taste some beautiful dish and ingredients you have never tried before. As I've grown up, I've come to appreciate many of the foods that grossed me out as a kid. Given an opportunity, I think I would try culinary school.

Phew, ok, now you know my framework (much of which is also supported by the awareness that unlike a significant segment of the population, we are fortunate to be able to eat a sufficient, wholesome diet and maintain a lifestyle that allows us to be incredibly selective about food). Just wanted to clarify.

So - a week or so ago, I bought some cottage cheese. I was eating it with fruit semi regularly, and got through most of the container. Just tonight I opened the fridge and eyed that container. I really don't like cottage cheese that much. It goes down and I try not to think about it too hard. You see, I was going through a 'guilt phase' about my diet recently, and let's be honest, cottage cheese kinda tops the 'foods-that-are-actually-kinda-nasty-but-women-tolerate-for-the-hope-of-thinner-thighs' list. Right? Right. I hate myself when I realize I've bought into that bull. Again. Seriously, the stuff looks like what I am trying to keep off my body--why am I spooning it? I winged the container into the trash.

That little episode got me thinking about foods that I put up with for no good reason, and the few foods I can't stand. That, in turn, inspired me to list some foods that I wouldn't miss if they ceased to exist, like, at the stroke of midnight, tonight.

I give you the top 10 "Get Out of My Kitchen" items.

1. Lemon Merengue Pie - vile. always.

2. Tripe or "trippa" - Come on already, it's gotta be the longest standing culinary joke since widespread famines ended. It's just uncalled for.

3. Panettone - I have always hated it, though I'm supposed to be genetically predisposed to loving it. I've tried commercial boxed ones, home made ones, and ones straight from Italian bakeries in Italy. I despise it and wish it would just go away. Its cousin Pandoro can stay, but it has to sleep on the floor.

4. Okra - seriously, this is not a vegetable. They are baby alien heads, replete with brain slime.

5. Cottage cheese - see fourth paragraph. There was a time in college when I was sort of into it. Scooped it on my fruit at the dining hall. Then my roommate started eating it, but she would go for the real soupy scoops, and I had to watch her slurp from what looked like a bowl of grapes floating in lumpy milk. Barf.

6. Sweet pickle relish - looks like boogers and tastes like sweet, tangy boogers. Pass.

7. Fertilized chicken eggs - I don't care how illogical my reaction is - if I break open a fertilized egg, I suffer a mild heart attack and then quickly dispose of it. Then I try to not think too hard about eggs and cell division and embryos and the circle of life. Farm-fresh eggs are great, and I like getting them around here, but the chances of getting fertilized ones seems to be much higher. Farmers need to tie their cocks down now and then, or (wait for it...) give them tiny rooster condoms: Cock-Block*, by Trojan.

8. Jello (gelatin) and gelatin based desserts - come on, America! We can do better! It's just embarrassing. If George W. Bush were a dessert, he'd be a big, sparkling bowl of lemon jello.

9. Pistachio ice cream - tastes like a mistake to me...

10. Organ meats, giblets, and all that jazz - anything that can easily be arranged to replicate a page out of Gray's Anatomy is not generally something I wish to consume.

What are some foods you'd like to see vanish?

*Thanks, Tim, for the great name idea.

Yogurt is sexist.

What is it about women and yogurt, or more specifically, yogurt commercials targeted at women?

Have you noticed that most of these TV ads feature young-ish, attractive women eating yogurt with such giddy, childish joy, you'd think they were toddlers spooning ice cream. Watch the next one you see carefully - it's nauseating.

If they're not laughing and dancing about how wonderful their yogurt-filled life is, or talking about how yogurt is just every bit as as good as cheesecake, or subtly reminding you that pooping regularly is hot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxASvaM7kHQ
--My fave part is the woman 'tiger' pawing at the yogurt.


Then they are having a moronic conversation comparing yogurt to life events typically associated with women. Surely you remember this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emp_CtPy1Gw
--And who eats yogurt after a wedding reception?

Currently the worst one of all, this woman downs a supposedly decadent (but not fattening!) Dannon Light yogurt in a supermarket and then gives a grossly, sexually 'naughty' look. Sorry, but this woman makes me want to call Chris Hansen, not buy yogurt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dftDBFwY2Lk

I found lots of other women that are annoyed by this as well. Here's a hilarious little video to sum it all up, and she makes a similar point about the wedding:

http://current.com/items/88941392_sarah-haskins-in-target-women-yogurt-edition.htm

The second most targeted group seems to be kids. Are there any yogurts targeted to men? I don't know of any. Just women and children. I think there's an untapped market of constipated, bloated men out there looking to indulge in a guilt-free treat.

Let's come up with some awesome manly names for yogurt marketed to men...post away.

mmmm fried corn

Who knew? A few Fritos are really not a bad snack. Really. You could easily do a LOT worse than Fritos.

In my quest to take as many preservatives and fake junk out of my diet in a reasonable (ie not obsessive and obnoxiously nutty) way, I've been revisiting classics and breaking down the nutritional info. I know it might be hard to think of Fritos as a classic...or even in the same sentence with any form of the word "class" in it, but I say we reconsider.

Ingredients in original Fritos: corn, oil, salt. That's it. And that means Fritos are all natural. It's not an organic product, but again, it's way ahead of most snacks. No artificial flavors, colors, or petroleum based preservatives (like BHA, BHT and the like). Notice lately that stuff in everything? Ugh.

Fritos are clearly high in fat, but fairly low in saturated fat. Fat is not necessarily the enemy. Most would agree that compared to the potential effects of all the crap in most junk foods, some natural fat from the cooking process is harmless. One could closely replicate Fritos at home. That's important.

Sodium is another story, of course, but now there is a low-sodium version of Fritos that are equally natural. Yay.


So move aside, Joe Six Pack, this girl is gonna eat some of your Fritos - but I'll pass on the Mountain Dew.

My new boyfriend, the Doctor

A few summers ago I gave up drinking diet soda. At the time I wasn't consuming much of any kind of soda, so it wasn't that difficult, but in college I believe I drank more Diet Coke than any other liquids combined.
After a few weeks' detox, I took sips of a variety of diet sodas and they all tasted terrible - bitter and poison-y. It's amazing how our taste buds adjust. I've avoided diet soda since. As for regular soda, I'll take a sip of Tim's on occasion, but I generally don't crave it. Except for root beer. I stay away from it so as not to guzzle it.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday, lunch time. I won't go into details of the hectic lunch ordeal and why I had a diet soda in my possession in the first place, but I did indeed pop open a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. And it was good. Not bitter. No chemical flavor. It was perfect. Crisp and lovely, really. Mmmm. Wow, that's a lot to say about a can of soda, no? Worried that this was somehow a mistake, I double checked the ingredients, and the usual suspects were all listed. Dammit! It can't be. Tim offered that Diet Dr. Pepper is supposed to taste better as far as diet sodas go. I looked it up. It is their claim, and yes, in my experience it is true.

The next day I went grocery shopping and I bought a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper. I drank one when I got home. I brought one to work today. I drank it at lunch. It was good. Too good. It's a new kind of love. What happened to me? I suppose one can of diet soda a day probably won't hurt. I hope. Should I have one with dinner?

I'm sure we'll break up one day, but in the meantime, I'm totally in it for the fizz.

Three Generation Pizza

For years I've admired my grandmother's home made pizza crust. My mom can make a pretty mean one too, but they differ slightly. Grandma claims that they use the exact same recipe, but my mother and I suspect there's a secret step or ingredient we don't know about. About a year ago, I took an over-the-phone lesson from my mom, and I started experimenting with my own version of this tasty dough. Just as family traditions get tweaked a bit from generation to generation, my version is just a little different from each of theirs. Variations in water quality, weather, ovens, and of course, pans, all combine to make a varying final product...and who knows, maybe just they way we use our hands might make a small difference. Nevertheless, I am happy with my interpretation, and I'm putting my secrets out there for anyone who wants to try it out.

Texture: It's not a thin,crisp crust, but it's nowhere near a thick and bready one (like Sicilian style-yuck). It's in the middle but leans toward the thinner versions.

Pan: I use a round pan, it's heavily punctured for aeration, about 12" in diameter. It's NOT a non-stick one - in fact, it has seasoned and turned dark brown over the years, and I think that helps give a nice texture.

Recipe:

*1.5 generous teaspoons dry active yeast
*1 cup of warm water
*1 teaspoon of sugar
*1 teaspoon of salt
*1 generous Tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
*approx 2.5 cups of unbleached all purpose white flour (I'm a fan of King Arthur brand)
*extra olive oil for kneading and oiling bowl/pan

In a large mixing bowl, combine yeast and water, swish until dissolved and let sit for 5 minutes or so. I'm impatient, so it sits for like 2 minutes.

Add sugar, salt, and the tablespoon of olive oil. Swish again until everything is dissolved. Begin adding the flour, one half-cup at a time. Using your hands, mix in each half-cup until the dough begins to separate from the sides and can be taken out of the bowl in one mass - keep oiling your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to them. The final dough should be neither dry and crumbly nor too wet and sticky, but somewhere in between. I've used as little as 2.25 cups up to 3 cups of flour to get this consistency.

Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface (I just dust my counter top with some flour) and knead it for maybe 3-4 minutes. Keep oiling or flouring your hands. I choose depending on my mood...the olive oil does leave my hands very soft.

When the dough seems supple, with no big cracks or sticky areas, transfer it to an oiled bowl (I use another glass mixing bowl oiled with olive oil). Cover snugly with a kitchen towel. My mother uses plastic wrap and then a towel. I don't think it makes a difference.

Put the bowl in a warm place (if possible). A sunny spot in a room will work, or you can even heat your oven to its lowest temp for a few minutes, turn the oven off, and put the covered bowl in there. Either way, you'll need about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes for the dough to rise.

After the rise, move your oven rack to the bottom, and preheat to 450 degrees. Lightly 'punch' down the dough, and transfer it to your OILED pizza pan. Oil your hands AGAIN, and working from the center of the dough, begin pressing it out to the edges. Keep going around and around until you've spread the dough evenly over the pan surface. This will take some practice at first, but soon it will go really fast and even.

Do not top the pizza yet. Pre-bake it on the bottom rack for about 5 minutes. Take it out and then add toppings. Bake again for 10-15 minutes or until the mozzarella begins to just show some slight browning on the high spots.

Take it out and let it sit for about 5 minutes before cutting.

If you don't think this recipe makes a tasty, lovely crust, then you are a total weirdo.

How not to make little cupcakes.

I'm a decent cook, but I'm no baker. I hope to pass on my terrible baking skills to my child(ren).

The rain kept us inside today, so I needed a fun project to keep Sam entertained. I suggested cupcakes, and he started dragging a chair to the counter right away.

He was so cute with the stirring (and the dripping and the spilling) that I had to take some pictures.

I let him stir the ingredients and every couple of minutes I gave the batter a shot with the hand mixer. He pulled the trigger on it while it was sitting next to the bowl, and we got batter-spray everywhere. I'll be finding chocolate batter splatters for weeks.

Apparently we over filled the mini muffin pans, as you can see from the oven shot. If I were a skilled baker, I would have known to not over fill. Actually, a little voice of realization told me not to overfill about halfway through, but we were having so much fun, and there was a lot of batter.

Mini cupcakes are supposed to be cute. These are pretty darn ugly.

He ate one before his nap, and went to sleep excited to tell his daddy all about making cupcakes later on.



Changing gears: I'm pleased that McCain has decided to show up tonight. If that wasn't a totally lame distraction, I don't know what is. I guess he's trying to prove that he's 'Country First' or something, except it's pretty self-centered to presume that our country and our government can't operate properly for 36 hours without him being in the same room...

Debate Party at my house tonight. There will be plenty of ugly cupcakes.

Organic Guilt

Without going into an examination of the benefits of organics, or its market explosion of the past five years or so, I will reveal that I have been buying organic products (food and cosmetics and household cleaners) on and off since about 1994, making me feel a little bit more qualified than mainstream consumers to whine about the topic.
In college it seemed sort of like a postmodern hippie thing to do, an elitist little secret. Buying handmade soap felt as anti-establishment as getting a tattoo, or at least as anti-establishment as you can get for a state college student in the mid-nineties - occasionally shopping at the local health food store in a thick coat of L'oreal Raisin Rage lipstick and a credit card. It all made sense, didn't it? OK, so that's my back story.
Today if I choose organics, it's in a more purposeful and planned way, taking price and practicality into careful consideration. I'd love to buy 100% organic, sustainable, fair trade all the time, but it's just not financially realistic (I hear a huge uh-huh out there). I mostly stick to the dirty dozen principle, some organic dairy, and natural bath products for Sam. Sorry, that was more back story.
Yesterday I stopped in the Green Earth (Oneonta's health food store) for a few specific items. The cashier gave me a free promotional magazine called, "Delicious Living". I had a chance to look at it this morning, and I realized that every page was yelling at me. Shrill, white, upper-middle class mom's voices rose from each page, condemning me.

--What? You don't buy raw vitamins??
--You don't supplement your child with DHA? His brain will shrivel!
--Non-organic milk is poisoning your family!
--All your produce is devoid of nutrients!

Alright, so these are not exact quotes, but they are pretty much the messages the mag was sending. I started over, from the Editor's page. The red-headed, simple-but-gorgeous Editor is pictured sitting lakeside on a rock (Colorado) wearing hikers and cargo pants, smiling smugly, suggesting,"I'm a natural mom. Why aren't you?" What a bitch.
The next article was something about Argan Oil in skin care. Dump out your olive oil everyone, this one has twice the vitamin E! If you don't use it, you'll look like Phyllis Diller by Tuesday. I also noticed that the photography was so totally blase. You can picture it pretty easily: small ceramic ramekins filled with creamy looking concoctions arranged on a neutral background. Think Clinique ads for the past 2 decades. Groundbreaking work, people.
As I leafed through the rest, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen one non-white woman, man or child...in the whole mag, including the ads. Hmm. Seems like a magazine with such principled values would make an attempt to be more inclusive. See? Snobby Bitches.
This stupid magazine bugged me for the rest of the morning, and I finally figured out why before I sat down to write. It made me feel guilty - on a couple of levels: the most obvious being that I'm somehow not providing enough for my child, or protecting him enough...whichever. On another level, I felt guilty for being a part of all this and paying attention to it, choosing an organic over a regular product - I do not identify with all of these women, and I don't want to be pegged as one....but I want to shop in the Green Earth sometimes. Maybe I'm having an identity crisis.

Pastooli night

Tim had to work tonight so he couldn't watch Sam while I went to class. It was sort of a scheduling blunder. Thankfully, my parents happened to still be around, and they offered to stay longer, until one of us got home.
The best thing about mom taking over the kitchen when I'm gone is that she makes dinner (and makes extra for leftovers), cleans up, sweeps, and leaves everything tidier than it was before. I think it's part love and part subtle criticism of my cleaning skills. Whatever, it still works to my advantage.
She planned to make pasta & fagioli (it's pronounced FA-GEE -O-LEE. The corrupt but more familiar pronunciation is pasta fazool, which makes it sound totally unappetizing to me). Before I left, she was building the anticipation for Sam, describing the dish to him. She asked him, "So what do you think? Are you going to eat pasta & fagioli?" and Sam announced, "I like pastooli. I'm gonna eat it!"
Pastooli. How cute is that?