Cooking With the Mighty Zah

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! And good news! Thanks to the money-grubbing powers that be (AKA MY OWN SELF), I accidentally scheduled a sponsored post for today so y'all are spared having to read something goopy about my husband. Instead, we're going to talk about vegetables, thanks to Hidden Valley Ranch.

Vegetables are romantic, right?

(I know where your mind is going right now and I do not like it. I LOVE IT.)

Specifically, I'm supposed to talk about getting kids to eat their vegetables. LIKE I HAVE ANY IDEA. The only kid in my house who is currently not a jerk about consistently eating his vegetables is the baby. Because vegetables are pretty much the only food group he is aware of. 

I make all of Ike's food, and I...well, I make his food because I think it's fun. It's very easy and satisfying and it makes me happy to see my baby's face light up when he tastes something fresh and delicious and baby-birds his mouth for more, more, more. Plus, it's cool to have a baby who eats vegetables beyond the jarred green beans and carrots. There's only a short window before the Great Beige Food Phase, so I like making the most of it, while I can.

The variety in Ike's diet, however, is also owed to a certain older brother's tendency to grab random things in the supermarket and sneak them into our cart. So then it's like playing a game of Chopped at home, as I try to figure out what to do with celery root, kale, a pomegranate and two tomatillos. 

The good news is I can put that same big brother to work in the kitchen. My homemade baby food insanity is contagious, I guess, because Ezra absolutely LOVES helping me cook Baby Ike's Veggietabuls. 

First up, baby veggie stock (to cook stuff like rice, grains, lentils, etc.), adapted slightly from this cookbook. Peel a shallot (or leek, or some spring onions...something mild) and cut into pieces. 

Crack open a sweet potato like an egg. (Then, you know, peel and chop it like a sweet potato.) Use two for a more intense flavor, or if they're small. 

Add about six lightsabers' worth of asparagus.

Four cups of water. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Mash and strain them. Refrigerate or freeze the stock; use the leftover veggies in a puree. The broth makes a nice drink option in a sippy cup, and will add extra flavor to bland baby cereals. Ezra also recommends adding pasta noodles or crackers to it for a big-kid lunch. 

Next up, roasted parsnips. Apologies for the blurry photo but OMG PLEASE DON'T PEEL YOUR THUMB OFF IN THE TWO SECONDS IT TAKES TO SNAP A PICTURE OMG.

Preheat oven to 400, arrange in baking dish.

Drizzle with olive oil and add some thyme or rosemary, if you want. Bake for 20 minutes, then puree in a food processor -- thinning with water or baby stock until it's the right consistency for your baby.

Don't forget to save some of the tiny extra-roasted end bits for your super-helpful assistant. They're the best part.

Finally, some old-fashioned basic steamed zucchini. All those springs and summers where I had more zucchini in my garden than I could ever possibly use? I just needed a Baby Ike, because that kid will eat a bushel a week, if I let him. 

But alas, it is winter, so I have no bumper crop out back. 

Luckily I have a REALLY good supermarket-sticker-remover at my disposal. The best place for the peeled-off stickers is your belly button, BTW.

Bring an inch of water to a boil, put (unpeeled) zucchini slices in steamer basket, allow your child to work at the stove because you are not a paranoid helicopter parent and he needs to learn to respect the heat and OMG IF YOU TOUCH THAT BURNER I WILL GROUND YOU FOR A MONTH OMG.

Steam for a few minutes until super-tender, then puree. Don't add any liquid to this one, but DEFINITELY let your preschooler man the food processor controls, because that's like, flying-a-rocket-ship-into-space level AWESOME.

Since we had all three batches going at once -- stock pot, steamer basket, oven -- we made everything here in a little over an hour. (After the zucchini steamed I added the rest of the asparagus to the pot and whipped that up, too.) Not too shabby.

I was going to make a mango puree for Ike as well, but decided Ezra deserved a little snack break. He ate the whole thing. This veggietabul business is no joke. 

Thanks so much to Hidden Valley Ranch for sponsoring this post, and to Ezra (who, despite SOME vegetable jerkiness, would admittedly eat a car tire if it was dipped in ranch dressing) for being so much fun to cook with. You're awesome, little chef-dude.  

This post is sponsored by Hidden Valley® Ranch. Discover how you can make vegetables delectable!

Post-Glurge

Well, hello! Everybody back to the grind after the hallowed day of national gluttony? Nobody got run over or squished too badly on the crazy batshit day of national consumerism-ism? Anybody want some leftover pie? I've got...three, I think, still. 

But not this one. 

Our holiday was fantastic, thank you for maybe thinking of asking, just now, once I said that.

The turkey was our most delicious ever, thanks to Jason's brine (he won't tell me what's in it, the bastard) and my basting (which I will tell you because I am giver AND a showoff; it's butter + thyme + honey + apple cider). He also made challah bread stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce (the secret ingredient to THAT is, no lie, vodka). I made a cauliflower and broccoli gratin with so much cheddar cheese and cream that I successfully destroyed the nutritional benefits of every vegetable from here to the White House garden.

Including the ones Ezra made. 

He then covered them in parchment paper and braised them in a little shitload of butter. He ate them too! Dipped in the vodka-spiked cranberry sauce, at least. He went really, really nuts for the cranberry sauce.

Damnedest thing, right?

In addition to his cooking skills, Ezra also provided a festive centerpiece for the table.

Noah wore a tie for exactly how long it took me to snap this picture. But at least he ate something. 

Then all the vodka tryptophan kicked in right when it was time to do the dishes. 

Oh, and one more, because you've been so good. 

The first look at the beginnings of The Belly. And a possible hoarding problem.

I must say, I am INORDINATELY pleased with the timing of this pregnancy. There is seriously nothing better in the world than officially hitting the second trimester riiiiiiiiiight after Thanksgiving, so one is completely justified in going directly from eating stuffing and gravy for breakfast to the expansive, forgiving comfort of elastic-waist maternity pants. That stupid pregnancy newsletter thing says the baby is still only the size of a "medium shrimp" but whatever. There's placenta and accessories in there too. Plus pie. A lot of pie. 

PS Today's the last day to enter -- or boost your winning chances -- the Windows 7 phone giveaway. And the one at Mamapop as well. Comments will be closed tonight, winner selected and contacted first thing tomorrow while me and my busted-ass iPhone with the shattered screen sit in a corner and sulk. AT LEAST I STILL HAVE PIE.

Turkey Run

DISCLOSURE TALKYSPEAK: Thanks to American Express for sponsoring posts today about small businesses.  American Express is presenting Small Business Saturday, a way to honor the local merchants who are the backbone of the economy, this Saturday, November 27.  They're offering statement credits to people who shop at small businesses, advertising for small-business owners, and donations to Girls Inc. for "Likes" of the Small Business Saturday page on Facebook.  Join the celebration by clicking the "Like" button at the bottom of this entry and then visiting the Facebook page to learn more about the program and read the terms and conditions that apply. 

ACTUAL AMALAH-TYPE TALKYSPEAK: 

I cannot lie. I just spent three hours in the car. Three long, torturous hours. Procuring our Thanksgiving turkey. 

It wasn't supposed to take three hours, of course. Half hour up to the farm, 15 minutes there selecting the bird, another 20 minutes or so wandering around with the boys, visiting with the -- ahem -- pardoned birds still wandering around the pens and the cows and what-have-you, taking adorable photos with them all decked out in Thanksgiving-y outfits I done picked out special...and then a half hour trip back, high on life and the knowledge that HOT DAMN, that is one delicious-looking, never-frozen turkey sitting on the passenger seat there. 

Most turkeys from the grocery store around here -- and all of them at the farmers' markets -- have to arrive frozen. Buying directly from the farm is the best way to get fresh, never-frozen bird, and as we discovered about three or four Thanksgivings ago, the difference will blow the top of your skull off. Figuratively speaking, with only the teensiest dash of hyperbole. So ever since, we've made the trek up to Maple Lawn turkey farm and lugged the thing home in a big-ass cooler. 

This year, it was my turn to make the trip. The day got away from me and I left a smidge closer to rush hour than I would have liked, but hey, I was driving to the COUNTRY. There's no rush hour in the COUNTRY. Come on, kids! Grab the camera and the earth-toned sweaters, and let's make some memories.

It took us an hour to get there. Noah fell asleep. Ezra demanded my entire stash of for-emergency-only granola bars. We hit traffic and red lights and detours and fender benders. It started drizzling at one point and the entire driving population of suburban-to-rural Maryland lost its damn mind. 

And when we got there, it was already too dark to take any pictures of the turkeys or the cows. But it wasn't too dark to see the line. THE LINE. 

The line for turkeys stretched across the barnyard to the...uh...turkey dispensin' barn, I guess, where it wrapped around and looped back and forth about four times inside. Most people came armed with their preorder slips and wheelie coolers -- except for me, who came armed with only a clunky SLR camera and two stir-crazy children. 

But we waited. "Everybody" swore they'd never seen a line or demand like this, even though "everybody" also swore that they'd been buying turkeys from this farm for years. That math didn't really compute, but I didn't really care. I was...happy for the farm. Happy to see the dozens and dozens of people buying their food directly from the growers and caretakers of that food. The other parents explaining to their children that yes, the turkeys in that pen over there were, in fact, the same thing that they now carried wrapped in butcher's paper and a plastic bag. Everybody, despite being gobsmacked by the line and worn out from the drive, readily swearing up and down that it was worth it. Buying from here was worth it. 

"You should have seen my mother-in-law's face," the woman behind me said, as I eavesdropped on her conversation with another stranger in line. "You can't screw these turkeys up, but SHE doesn't know that."

Eventually, it was our turn. One of the farmers asked Noah and Ezra if they were excited for Turkey Day, and they both obliged him with an enthusiastic "GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!" on cue. I selected our bird -- which cost just about a buck less per pound than the equivalent organic birds at the supermarket -- and wearily corralled the boys back outside, where it was now way, way, WAY too dark to get the pictures I'd hoped for. 

Instead, we marched back to the car and prepared to leave. Suddenly, Noah started to shriek and laugh. I looked over out the window...just in time to see two or three dairy cows stick their heads over the fence I'd pulled in next to, close enough for Noah and I to reach out our windows and touch the tips of their noses. They mooed in approval before moving away. 

Yep. Just like every year: Totally worth it. 

In Which I Go Total Mommyblogger Up On Your Ass

Shh. Come here. Slowly. Casually. 

God. Seriously. BE COOL. ACT NATURAL.

I need to tell you something but I'm absolutely terrified I'm going to jinx myself and ruin everything, so I'm going to type it out very s-l-o-w-l-y and s-o-f-t-l-y and hope that maybe the vengeful gods above are too distracted right now to pelt my ass with lightning bolts.

(And yes, it IS also Invent Your Own Hodgepodge-y Religious Deities Day today. Thanks for asking.)

So we appear to have stumbled upon a solution to Noah's picky eating habits. 

And by "picky" I should clarify: This child has eaten NOTHING since his first birthday. In fact, he has continued to ruthlessly edit down his list of acceptable foods ever since, meaning that up until a few weeks ago he would willingly eat ONLY the following:

1. Dry Cheerios

2. Plain toasted waffles

3. Peanut butter & jelly, though he usually opened the sandwich, licked off the peanut butter and left the rest

4. Grilled cheese, except for the "cheese" part

5. Pizza, but only the crust

6. Individually wrapped cereal bars

7. Frosting

And that, my friends, was seriously it. No fruits, no vegetables, no meats. There were, once, a handful of other foods he'd occasionally eat, that have dropped off the list one by one. He rejected macaroni and cheese, for Christ's sake. I became the mother who would have been THRILLED to see my child agree to eat a damn chicken nugget or hamburger or french fry. I hid traces of pureed fruits and vegetables and beans in whatever I could, but seriously, look at at that list. My subterfuge options were quite limited, at best. The kid drank a LOT of homemade smoothies, packed full of dubious combinations like...apple juice, pineapple chunks and frozen broccoli, which he would drink no problem. But put any of those ingredients in front of him, in solid form? Forget about it. 

We read books. We ate as a family. We ignored him. We refused to short-order cook and did the whole "division of responsibility" thing where we placed food in front of him and that was that. Well, except for the histrionics and wailing that accompanied every meal. And the no eating. He skipped meal after meal knowing that he'd eventually make it to breakfast where he could get some Cheerios.

We tried playing hardball. We pushed and insisted and threatened and re-served rejected foods over and over. He threw tantrums and whined and was sent to bed early night after night, and it solved nothing except for further entrenching everybody into a miserable battle of wills. 

We tried peer pressure and bribery and "just one bite" and a good five dozen other tactics that YOU KNOW aren't going to work but the tactics everybody SAYS will work aren't working and it's driving you crazy because OH MY GOD, the buttons this kid manages to push at dinnertime when all you want in the world is for him to EAT SOMETHING. BESIDES CARBS. AND AIR.

Another problem, besides how incredibly limited his diet was, was that Noah was a s-t-a-l-l-e-r, even when he was served an acceptable or favorite food. Meals stretched on for h-o-u-r-s, or until we gave up and dumped his plate. He sat and sang and turned around and flopped upside-down off the edge of his chair and pretended the spoon was the Millennium Falcon and ate at a rate of one bite per 20 minutes. 

This meant he was frequently getting hustled onto the school bus at 12:15 with only a third of his sandwich eaten -- the sandwich he was originally served over an hour before. This meant dinnertime was a constant nag-fest as Jason and I attempted to keep him focused and on task and EAT, NOAH. TAKE A BITE. 

One night, during a torturous meal of spaghetti and meatballs (translation: practically naked-from-sauce noodles, one sad little turkey meatball that I put on his plate like always, knowing it will be pointedly ignored but "they" tell you to "keep trying!", and a metric ton of parmesan cheese that he deigned to eat granule by granule)...I got frustrated with the stalling and told him I was going to set the timer on the oven. He had 30 minutes. If he finished before that, we'd have time to do something fun, like watch a movie or play a game or have some dessert. He could choose, too.

If he didn't finish, or at least come close, I'm sorry, you're going straight to bed. BECAUSE YOU HAVE A TERRIBLE WITCH OF A MOTHER WHO STILL MAKES BATCHES AND BATCHES OF PUREED BABY FOOD EVERY WEEKEND TO HIDE IN YOUR MEALS AND STAVE OFF SCURVY AND RICKETS.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that child ate every bite of spaghetti. And then he ate the meatball.

In between bites, he would ask how many minutes he had left, nod appreciatively, then get back to the task at hand.

The next night, I upped the challenge with some fish sticks. Noah has never eaten fish in his entire life, nor any meat or vegetable or foodstuff "cleverly" covered up with delicious crunchy breading. (Meanwhile, Ezra prefers them with a nice spicy cocktail sauce.) I put a plate in front of him, and set the timer again.

Five of 'em, down the hatch, like it was no big thing. "I like these!" he announced.

Since then, Noah has eaten -- WITHOUT PROTEST OR ASSORTED STURM AND DRANG -- rotisserie chicken, steamed peas, roast pork loin, mashed sweet potatoes, bison chili loaded with extra vegetables, chicken nuggets, a tzatziki and chopped tomato pita sandwich, spinach linguine and the inside actual cheese part of a grilled cheese sandwich. 

Since the fact that he couldn't see the timer seemed to cause a wee bit of anxiety, we upgraded (with his occupational therapist's advice) to a visual Time Timer clock, which allows him to see exactly how long he has left. His beloved Ms. Meredith uses this to help him with transitions and focusing problems during their sessions, so it seems to have positive connotations for him, and holy mother of Timex, he continues to eat anything and everything we put in front of him. 

Is it still, at the core, bribery? Yeah, I guess. He does indeed get to choose "something special" when all is said and eaten and done. Some nights it's a cookie, or a lightsaber duel on the Wii, or a boardgame, or a DVD. Which are exactly the things we LIKE doing with him after dinner ANYWAY...but were all precisely the things we weren't doing all those nights he spent sitting at the table for two hours moaning over a plate of pasta, or the nights he was sent to his room for throwing a massive tantrum over our refusal to serve him peanut butter and jelly 27 meals in a row. 

In other words, I DON'T CARE. I WIN AT EVERYTHING. I bet u r jelus like a 23-month-old at his big brother's bday party, amirite?

(Yeah, these photos were a stretch in relevancy. But I am feeling gleeful and reckless. I'M CRAZY, MAN. DRUNK WITH TIMER POWER.)

(OH SHIT LIGHTNING BOLTS EVERYBODY DUCK.)

 

Thanksgivingthat'sover

Or, The Crazy-Eyed Peacock Octo-Turkey Bandit Finds a Home

So. Thanksgiving happened. Time to put the food where my braggy mouth is. Photos, confessions, and plenty o' dorkwads, ahoy!

 

If there's anything better than homemade piecrust, it's husbandmade homemade piecrust.

I asked Jason to provide a recipe, and he said it's something like this one, only different, and he went on and on about the importance of apple choices and using the perfect variety and his various tweaks to the topping (oatmeal) but you know, he wasn't 100% happy with the topping this year because it was a too crunchy and NEXT YEAR he's going to try such and such and zzzzzzzzz.

All I know is: Make your own. Not sharing. Goway.

Same goes for the stuffing. I mean, we barely have enough for two people here. BARELY.

 

Cauliflower and broccoli, pre-cheesified. This concludes the healthy portion of our meal.

OMG! The sweet potatoes don't have a serving spoon! Don't take a photo yet! People will think we are savages! Good thing I spent no less than five whole minutes combing through our leftover sage for a single perfectly shaped and photogenic leaf to put on top of them! I think I may have just singlehandedly saved Thanksgiving.

And now, I must talk about the turkey. Which, for all of my Big Talk about my thumpingly good track record with Thanksgiving turkeys, turned out HORRIBLY. Like, the worst turkey ever. Two reasons, only one of which was kind of my fault, but NOT REALLY.

1) Despite ordering our turkey directly from a local farm like every year, we figured we'd save ourselves a trip to the actual farm and arranged to pick it up at the farmer's market. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that D.C. law meant that the turkey HAD to arrive at the market frozen, no matter what. And once you've tasted the difference between a frozen bird and a never-frozen fresh one, well...you become a Turkey Snob, is what happens.

2) AND despite making approximately five separate grocery store runs throughout the week, we* forgot to pick up another turkey essential: the little plastic pop-up timer doohickey thing. Our turkey didn't come with one and of course, our back-up fancy digital probe thermometer chose Thursday OF ALL DAYS to malfunction and we completely overcooked the stupid thing, torn between the 10-minutes-per-pound-math and the alarmingly low temperature reading. We opted to maybe not risk salmonella. Result: dry, shoe-leather turkey that I actively despised and spent most of the meal complaining about.

Oh wait, and also, 3) maybe: We** also forgot to buy more aluminum foil, leading to a panicked discovery mid-cooking when it was time to tent the bird and oh shit! We have no foil! Quick, raid the leftovers in the fridge and cobble together not-quite-enough from some pizza slices and Indian food delivery. While that probably wasn't the WORST thing to happen to the turkey, it certainly didn't help.

But, still. The side dishes were amazing, the wine was...present and plentiful and Jason managed to make a fairly outstanding turkey salad out of the ruined bird AND we still were able to make enough turkey stock to see us through the next year. Liquid gold, as it is known around these parts, guaranteed to camouflage mediocre recipes and cooking skillz for MONTHS.

Plus I also finally found a use for all those extra breastmilk storage bags I had lying around.

Now, who wants to come over for dinner?

EVERYBODY SMILE AND REFRAIN FROM DIVING HEADFIRST INTO THE NEAREST CASSEROLE DISH UNTIL AFTER THE FLASH GOES OFF.

*Jason did the shopping.

**Although as the person responsible for making up the shopping list, I am fully aware of who is the true guilty party. Clearly, it's the Shopping List iPhone app. Way to almost ruin Thanksgiving, TECHNOLOGY.

Beautiful Plumage

Noah's school was thoughtful enough to provide a timely craft this week, in the form of this tasteful, understated centerpiece:

 

I feel like it's either going to take a candy-colored shit on the table or hold us up at gunpoint for some stuffing.

***

Have I told you that Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday ever? While it used to be the thing I barely tolerated as a kid, a stupid holiday with no presents or candy, it's now BY FAR the best day of the year. I spend the day awash in butter and heavy cream and carbohydrates and the first bottle of wine gets opened at 11:30 in the morning because I need to "deglaze" a "pan." Plus, not to brag or anything, I make a fucking amazing turkey. The secret is basting with my secret basting baste of awesome every 10-15 minutes or so, and really the only hard part about that is not drinking all the melted butter directly. Some is okay. I mean, it is a special occasion.

Also on the menu this year: roasted elephant garlic with French baguette, assorted fancy cheeses, Jason's mushroom, leek and challah bread stuffing that is pretty much the reason I married him, mashed sweet potatoes with orange, a broccoli and cauliflower gratin that does absolutely UNSPEAKABLE things to the vegetables, and some kind of apple crumb-top pie that somehow managed to survive a full 12 hours last year before we all ate the rest of it for breakfast the next morning.

(I should probably clarify that yeah, it's totally just the two of us, plus the kids. If we are lucky, Noah might eat the crunchy burned bits off the edge of some stuffing, although I worry that Ezra might SERIOUSLY cramp our style and put quite a dent in our coveted stash of delicious leftovers.)

Anyway. I am jazzed. I am antsy. I keep going to the basement to coo at our very-recently-murdered turkey and out to the garden to talk shit to the heads of cauliflower. YOUR HOURS ARE NUMBERED, BITCHES. IMMA GONNA FUCK YOU UP WITH SO MUCH CHEESE YOU'RA GONNA THINK YOU CAME FROM A COW. 

(I wonder why none of the neighbors asked us about our plans for the holidays? Hmm.)

 

The Crazy-Eyed Peacock Octo-Turkey Bandit hopes you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I do too, but, you know. Stay away from my house. I have no food for you. All for me. NOM NOM NOM, etc.

In Which a Good 75% of You Will Glaze Over By Paragraph Four

Since you guys proposed SO MANY awesome topics yesterday Tuesday, I shall continue to mine them for awhile, or at least until something actually important happens in real life that requires a veryimportantblogupdate!, and no, I'm not counting last night's Tuesday night's all-night preschooler-puke-a-thon. (He's just fine now, of course, which is good because we are plum out of clean sheets.)

From Cagey:

I have been reading The Unhealthy Truth and seem to remember you mentioning it on one of your Advice columns. The book is blowing me away and I am shocked at how few folks realize how food can really affect us - say, Red #40 for example.

I was wondering your thoughts on this and if you have seen whether certain things affect Noah. For example, artificial colorings are the devil now in our house because my son flips his lid every time he has them. And this is the same kid who can eat ice cream and go right to bed! For him, Red #40 is like main-lining a bit heroin.

Yep. I did write about this book, mere HOURS after I'd finished reading it, while I was freshly seething with rage. I have since gone back and re-read sections and pondered it some more and guess what! I AM STILL ANGRY.

(Hold on, 'cuz it's about to get screedy and caps-locky up in here.)

(I mean, more so than usual. And about other things besides an overflowing coffeemaker, or something.)

For the record, I am not a big conspiracy theorist. I am more of skeptic than a believer, and while I certainly gotten crunchier in recent years with the cloth diapers and homemade baby food and all, I still am a BIGFAN! of things like modern medicine and scientific advancements. I'm allergic to most antibiotics -- HIGHLY SO -- thus personally have always had to depend on alternative treatments for myself, and I'm not trigger-happy with the prescriptions when it comes to the kids. But both of the boys have gotten both seasonal and H1N1 flu shots this year and I would jab 'em in the arm again in a heartbeat. We fully vaccinate, falling on the "debunked" side of the vaccine/autism fence, although I think the chicken pox one is bullshit. (I never had it, and have to depend on the half-assed, temporary protection of the vaccine myself. Glad it exists; disagree that it belongs on the childhood schedule; worry about kids not getting their boosters and getting sick as adults.) I've seen the Feingolding gone amok at Noah's school, am a bit weary of suddenly every problem in the world being blamed on yeast and gluten, though I have nothing but sympathy for parents and child dealing with honest-to-God allergies and am extremely careful about sending Noah to school with clean peanut-butter-residue-free hands and non-triggering snacks, and would hope others would do the same for us. So basically, I was expecting to agree with some of what this book has to say...but also to roll my eyes at a lot of it too.

My eyes bugged out of my head, but they sure didn't roll. I'm not going to get into all of it -- the genetic engineering and corn refiners and the FDA's refusal to protect us from stuff that's long since been banned or flagged as dangerous overseas (soy baby formula, anyone?) -- but seriously, IS GAH HEAD EXPLODING TIME NOW.

Anyway, the whole artificial coloring thing. Yes, they affect Noah big time. They are banned in our home. Red 40 and Yellow 5 are just like...I don't know. Tiny seismic earthquakes through his neurological system. Artificial flavorings, too. He gets hopped up and agitated...while also weirdly shutting down at the same time. Loss of eye contact, anxiety, tantrums. He defaults back to echolaic speech or just goes silent. Anecdotal? Coincidental? Totally, sure, maybe. But it's so fucking scary, you guys. So why even argue, when it's a pretty safe assumption that Red 40 and Yellow 5 are two little things that we can all live without just fine?

And they are in EVERYTHING. It doesn't have to be garishly candy-coated. It's stuff that should technically, be healthy. Yogurts. Granola bars. Fruit snacks. Boxed cake mixes (seriously, why the FUCK does a CHOCOLATE CAKE need both red and yellow food dyes?). Toothpastes, kiddie vitamins and cold medicines. It's BULLSHIT, trying to shop at a "regular" grocery store when you need to avoid this stuff, even more so when (like us) you've also cut out high-fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils for various other Frankenfood reasons.

We're lucky that we live in an area where Whole Foods is about as common as any grocery store, along with Trader Joe's and several year-round farmer's markets where we buy pretty much everything from produce to grains to meats and fish. (Up where my parents live, you either live on one fancy organic aisle at the Acme or drive close to an hour to the nearest Whole Foods in New Jersey.) We're also very lucky that we can afford to shun the processed foods and eat organic, local, humane, sustainable and all those other hippie food buzzwords. I'll sacrifice plenty of other columns in our budget before I cut food corners, particularly for the kids. (She says while wondering if it's too early to switch from coffee to Coke. And fun-sized Snickers.)

And it took us a long time to get fully here, by the way. Hell, we potty-trained with M&Ms, fed Noah Flintstones vitamins, brushed his teeth with sparkly blue Disney-branded toothpaste. It really wasn't until we stopped giving him anything artificial that we really saw how little it takes to really affect him, be it candy or fast food chocolate milk or a fruit-flavored Triaminic strip. We don't deny him the occasional treat or get hysterical if friends or family offer him something we wouldn't necessarily feed him at home...we just sort of know what we're in for and up our focus on the rest of his diet for a day or two.

If you are unsure of how or where to start, The Unhealthy Truth is a great book for this as well -- at least after scaring the pants off you the author devotes a chapter on how to prioritize your grocery list and budget, taking baby steps to avoid the "worst" things and slowly get your kids to accept healthier versions without feeling like you've just ripped the rug out from under them and clobbered them with a Deprivation Hippie Stick.

Anyway. I actually wrote the bulk of this entry yesterday, right before my parent-teacher conference at the public school program. And finally, OH GOD FINALLY, I got to sit there in front of a team of teachers who had nothing but lovely, wonderful things to say about my child. What a delight and a joy he is, how smart and funny he is, and how much progress he's already making. I'm certainly not all, "OH, IT'S ALL BECAUSE WE THREW OUT HALF OF HIS HALLOWEEN CANDY. ARE BEST PARENTS EVER."

In the grand scheme of things, it's admittedly a tiny part of the puzzle. Though WOW, did I ever have a lot to say about it.

In other news, Noah is kicking ass at school. And I'm committing that phrase to published type: NOAH IS KICKING ASS AT SCHOOL. We celebrated by not coming right home so I could sit around and finish this entry. I hope you understand. It's been a long time coming.

The Bacon Poler Express

So I figured something out, something that should really help my time-crunched, messed-up schedule quite a bit. I just need to multitask. Everything I do must serve a dual purpose. Like, I can put Swiffer cloths on the baby's knees, color my roots while I drive, teach my preschooler how to use his pragmatic language skills to argue with our health insurance. And lunch! Oh, what a pointless uni-task waste of time that is! Until now!

Yep. Time for another adventure in microwavery. On today's menu:

BACON POLES!

So I actually felt a little sad about how terrible that poor souffle turned out, especially since...well, come on. It was a souffle. That I microwaved. Let's not stack the deck too high against any chance of success, shall we? So I chose this recipe because 1) it contains bacon, 2) I had a coupon for bacon, 3) microwaved bacon is actually pretty darn good, and 4) BACON POLES, YOU GUYS.

MEAT STICKS.

BEEFLOGS. (Okay, PORKLOGS, if you buy into the idea of a single magical animal that gives us pork and bacon and ham and logs.)

(Also pictured, top right: "Seaside Cheese Dip." The secret ingredient is canned clams!)

I'm a big fan of things wrapped in bacon, and an even bigger fan of meats on sticks. Put meat on a stick and wrap it in bacon, and I will...uh. I will eat it. Yeah. I'm that serious. (Although if you present me with the other recipe on page 55 -- Microwaved Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Livers -- I may pass on those.)

ANYWAY! It's a pretty straightforward recipe. Packaged breadsticks, bacon, scissors, paper towels and a paper plate.'Twas a simpler time, in a way.

I wish I could say that my perfectly seasonal choice of paper plate was intentional, but it's actually a leftover from last Halloween. (I also may have some fun-sized toffee bars or some other thing that no one in our household likes. You know, in case our BACON POLES! don't turn out so well.)

Cut bacon in half with scissors. Ew. This is actually not super fun, but I suppose it's necessary to achieve true spiral "barber pole fashion."

 

Mmmm, meat barber lollipops.

Now, there was no way I was going to follow the times in the recipe -- while "Defrost" and "Medium" have proven to be fairly comparable, cooking on "High" in a modern-day microwave is the 1977-equivalent to roasting over an open rod of plutonium.

My microwave actually has a "bacon" setting, but it requires math and stuff, like dividing an 8-ounce package of bacon by 10 strips and then multiplying by three strips, which means this is about 2.4 ounces of bacon but you can only enter whole numbers awwww fuck it, let's just nuke the plate for a minute and a half or so.

 

The crackling sound means it's working! Or that it's about to explode. Definitely one of those two things.

 

Okay, so the first batch came out a leeeeeettle well-done. They tasted distinctly burnt, with playful undernotes of char-broiled nitrates. The bacon-wrapped section of breadstick was cooked to the point of blackened petrification.

(STOP MOCKING ME, STUPID JACK O' LANTERN PLATE.)

 

Take two! I was determined to succeed this time, since DUDE. It's a fucking microwave. Surely I can not fuck up a fucking recipe that involves little more than pressing a a fucking button. I mean, for all my mockery of this cookbook, I am running dangerously close to being run over by a GE-powered truckload of irony.

I also wanted to eat some bacon, so I made a few modern-day concessions: the rotating turntable went back in, and I used the "bacon" setting, figuring that even if the cooking time wasn't exact, the power level would be. I aimed for underdone, and checked on them compulsively. Come on, BACON POLES!

Huzzah! Close enough, more or less. Eh.

 

For cookbook-photo comparison purposes. I am so serving these at our next Key Party! They'll be awesome dipped into some Canned Clam Cream Cheese Dip!

Okay, so of course I tasted the BACON POLES!, despite the fact that the end product sort of alarmingly reminded me of these dog treats we used to give Ceiba, until we figured out that she was just gnawing off the bacon-like wrapping and then hiding the rawhide stick-part under the sofa cushions.

These were neither especially bacon-y nor pole-like -- eaten warm, the breadstick was kind of chewy. Once they cooled, the breadstick STILL tasted overcooked and the bacon was rendered down to little more than salt. A thick, reddish-brown crunchy coating of salt.

The first one was pretty good, in a "wow, it's like they figured out how to sell bacon in a vending machine" sort of way.

The second one was...uncomfortably salty. What is this world, where bacon is something other than completely delicious? I am distinctly unsettled.

By the time I nibbled on a third one my tongue was shriveling up and I needed WATER WATER MAYDAY WATER.

 

Ceiba really liked them, so...that's something. 

(It will probably surprise absolutely NO ONE AT ALL that Paula Deen has her own recipe for BACON POLES! She makes hers in a fancydancy oven. And then she covers them in cheese.)

(BACON POLES!)

Microwavery in Action

Oh, come on. You knew I was gonna do it.

So last night I made the infamous spinach-cheese souffle. In the microwave. MICROWAVED SOUFFLE. BECAUSE WHY NOT. Would you like to see how it turned out? In painstakingly over-documented, un-retouched, high-res detail? Yes? Then keep on clicking, baby.

Weekend Vignettes

For reasons that I believe can go mostly undocumented, we thought the dog had salmonella on Saturday. We found stray mussel shells from a disastrously ambitious dinner scattered in the yard; puddles of sick scattered pretty much everywhere else. She's actually just fine, but I just wanted to mention it anyway because I had to clean up a LOT of barf. You know. Just in case Ceiba ever reads this website one day. I cleaned up your barf, and I didn't like it. And now you never call! Ingrate.

*They ALL DIED before we could cook them. I set them on a paper towel for ONE MINUTE and every goddamn mussel decided to commit ritualistic suicide rather than face the hot pan of death. I was going to drown you in WINE, you bastards. WINE. We should all be so lucky to die such a death.

***
In other best-left-to-the-imagination news, we have a mouse in our kitchen. And clearly, the most useless-ass pets EVER.

***

Scene: Every Saturday Morning In Our House, Ever

Jason: Anything you want to do today?

Amy: I want to go to Ikea.

Jason: We're not going to Ikea.

Amy: (dramatic flailing)

Fin.

***

You probably know by now that I eat pretty much everything. Food is my hobby, since I don't know how to knit and dislike standing for long periods of time. I'm actually trying to think of something that I won't eat. Wait, okay, I've got it: raw onions, Cool Whip, head cheese. Tongue as long as it still resembles a tongue. I used to not eat rabbit -- because you know, bunnnnnnies! -- until we moved to the suburbs and a goddamn rabbit ate all my flowers and now I will eat the hell out some rabbit. I will eat that rabbit, if my dog ever stops gnawing on diseased mussels long enough to catch the stupid thing. (Hey, here's a recipe!)

Saturday night I ate pork cracklins for the first time -- fancy cracklins, apparently, since they were served on a charcuterie board alongside wee little pickles -- and for the first time in ages I was completely flummoxed by a food item. It was salty, crunchy and aggressively unhealthy -- my top three most favorite adjectives for food -- but OH MY GOD, IT WAS SKIN, RECOGNIZABLE SKIN, THERE WERE VISIBLE HAIR FOLLICLES. I could FEEL the skin-like texture on my tongue, I was Homer Simpson, sampling from the regenerative bacon buffet in the Garden of Eden.*

So instead of eating them, I lined a few up on my arm and asked Jason to get another few orders because the restaurant was chilly and I wanted a cardigan. Jason was all, "give those back, they're delicious."

*If you know what I'm talking about here, congratulations! We can be friends. We'll eat some deep-fried skin and then go get ice cream.

***

On Sunday, we went to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Noah loved everything about it, except for the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese, whom he eyed warily from the table, nervously eating bites of pizza. When the costumed Chuck E. Cheese (who was missing one furry glove for most of the proceedings) showed up, we had to retreat to a safe distance.

Noah: THAT BUNNY NEEDS TO GO AWAY.

Amy: He's a mouse, sweetie.

Noah: THAT BUNNY MOUSE NEEDS TO GO HOME.

***

As we drove home, Jason and I had a 20-minute unironic conversation about minivans and the many, many attractive features they offer. We're certainly not in the market for a new car or anything, but Jason rode in his coworker's Odyssey and like, maaaaaan, that thing was sweeeeeet. You don't even have to fold the stroller or anything. I remembered the same thing about a friend's minivan in a fit of retroactive lust, shaking my head at my naive young ATTITUDE towards minivans, back when I knew NOTHING about the world and what happens to all your "adequate cargo space" once you have two children.

Amy: I mean, just THINK of all the stuff we could buy at Ikea!

***

We never made it to Ikea. We went to the Big Box Baby Store instead and bought additional baby gates, because our 9-month-old does not have the sense God gave a bunny mouse. While shopping, I was approached TWICE about the Ergo carrier and whether I liked it (yes, oh God, yes), what age I started using it (31) (haaaa, I'm an ass), and then approached again by someone trying to decide between two different floor gyms and which one was better (is it for your baby? no? okay, get whatever one blinks and makes noise.)

Less than an hour after that, we stopped at Whole Foods and a timid young thing in high heels asked me what the difference was between brown eggs and white eggs, and if she hard-boiled the brown ones would they like, be the same? With a white part and a yellow center? She then admitted that this was her first grocery-shopping trip out on her own, and I noticed that her shopping list contained the instruction to "open egg carton and check for broken shells."

Amy: Wow, I must look like, really extra helpful today, or something!

Jason: I think it's more that you just look so much like a mom.

Amy: Do I look like I drive a minivan? Because I don't. Yet. Seriously, the back seats FOLD INTO THE FLOOR, OH MY GOD.

***

We've been pricing up laptops for awhile now -- the Macbook's motherfuckingboard was going to cost a motherfucking fortune to fix, plus it seemed like the water damage was pretty damn catastrophic, and the repair couldn't guarantee that other inside-techie things hadn't shorted out -- and I was resigned to buying a cheaper non-Mac, because. Well. Cheaper. I officially put off the purchase waaaay too long, leading to lost posts and enormous amounts of frustration once the mouse key broke, randomly moving the cursor to different parts of the screen while I typed gaaaaaaaaah kill.

So on Thursday we went to the Big Box Computer Store and I glumly pecked on some keyboards and finally declared one "pretty okay." I knew we could get it cheaper online though, so we didn't buy it.

On Friday -- before any of this other stuff happened, even though Jason probably knew it was a pretty safe bet that I would make stupid jokes out in public, that I would bug him about taking me to Ikea, that I would wander around stores looking like a frumpy, frizzy, minivan-lusting mom -- he came home from work and pulled a brand-new Macbook out of his briefcase. I was stunned.

Jason: You use it every day. It's what you do. It's important. You should have the one you want.

Our anniversary is in a few days. Eleven years. Our life is nothing like the one we thought we'd have once upon a time.

(I still have the one I want.)