Truck Go Boom Stink Stink Boom

Since I occasionally have to agree with my lovely wife, I bought a new car. She was a bit embarrassed to be seen with me, which didn't present too much of a problem, because we never really drove anywhere together in my car. Plus, she was a bit concerned that catering clients would see me pull up in my "classic" 1989 Volvo with duct tape holding up the glove compartment, and wonder if I was going to serve or burgle them... which wasn't too much of a problem either since I usually used my friend Kate's SUV because of the storage space when there was a job of any consequence. In the end, when I noticed parents holding their children a little tighter when I pulled into the daycare parking lot (and occasionally finding some money on my front seat with "food for Sam and Lily" written on it) I decided she was right.
Long story short, I bought a Nissan Xterra, which is a truck based SUV which will get the kids around in style and carry enough food for a couple of hundred people or so. So far, I love it. Aside from the fact that it is a stick shift & fun to drive, Sam has been telling everyone in the daycare parking lot who'll listen to come and look at his new car which he thinks is 'cool'. Lily is unimpressed it seems, although she has found new and exciting places to spill milk out her sippie cup. Since the Volvo was pretty cramped in the back, she could only throw the milk forward, and I could reach back and retrieve it from the floor without even taking my eyes off the road. With the Xterra, I'll hear a thump, the cup is gone, and odds are I won't find it until I actually stop the car.... which is what she did on Tuesday.
Anyway, I've been gradually moving out of the Volvo. In my grand cleaning I found (are you ready?) stack of catering supplies (cups, plates - dinner and dessert, in several styles - napkins, silverware, two dozen disposable martini glasses, a set of olive bowls, etc, etc...) a pair of crutches, two road atlases, a full load of laundry, a "Wineopoly" game, a ream of paperwork and directions to gigs, and to top it all off, and Santa Suit and a cow costume. Always be prepared, that's my motto. Have you ever needed a drunken Santa bearing martinis at your party or a crippled cow with a board game to show up at the last minute? Friday Night Out Catering has got you covered... why, I can even plot you a course for the Cannonball Run and have you drop off my laundry at my sister's if need be... I also found a mighty web of wires that was my (impressive, I don't mind saying) stereo system, so part of my cleaning process was removing the rear speakers, disk changer & modulator, Fosgate amp and powered Bazooka subwoofer. How old am I, you might ask? Shut up.
Most of the stuff I'll sell because I don't need it in the Xterra, but I couldn't resist installing the Bazooka yesterday while I was waiting for our power to come back on (bad summer storm knocked out power to 350,000 of us in PA, in case you didn't know). It's a bit of a complicated process - running a power line from the battery to the trunk, removing the interior rear panels to tap into the rear speaker lines (scary), running a ground under the rear seats, and tapping into the fuse box to run a switch so that the amp comes on only when the car is running - lest my subwoofer runs down the battery while I'm sleeping. I finished it in record time, but didn't really drive around until today to test it out.
What I noticed when I first started up the car was a nice resounding 'thump' when the music called for it... mental note, disconnect it when Sara is in the car... What I noticed about a mile down the road was that the music had a certain smell to it.
You heard me, a smell.
It seems that my first experience with my improved stereo was paired with my first experience of Lily's rotting milk in the rear passenger cushion. Not that it was a particularly bad smell, mind you, but a disturbing one. It took me a couple of miles, but I think I nailed it - it's a combination of new car smell, the inside of a bag of circus peanuts, and a particularly ripe wheel of Mont D'Or. At first I thought Boucheron, but soon realized that the cheese was a little more complex, and not a goat's milk cheese, but cow. Not a Joux Vacherin, definitely Vacherin Mont D'or. All in all, it could be worse, but I really reeeeally hate circus peanuts.

Mississippi Burning

It's a bit late to talk about it, but the 4th went pretty well... we had a few people, drank a few beers, blew some things up, just a typical happened-all-over-the-country type thing.
For the number of kids we had over for two days, a remarkably few amount of tears too. Just your average moments of freaking out. Just one strange moment to mention though - my friend Ken came a bit late, after some of the crowd had already disappeared, but was able to hang out for a few hours. Sam knows him a bit - we used to work together from time to time on some catering gigs, and a few times Ken caught an hour or two of sleep between gigs in our spare bedroom. Now that Ken took a full time job as head chef of a restaurant in Philly, we don't see him as much (and hardly ever work together) but he is still around every once in a while.
Anyway, Ken and I were outside cooking shrimp and watching Sam scout for insects, having a fine old time. Ken is one of those guys that Sam is totally cool with, and just slips right into conversations with him... "hey Kenny, what are you eating? Hey Kenny, I picked up a bee at school and it stung me right there (holds up ring finger). Hey Kenny, do you like yogurt? I could go inside and get everyone yogurts that have pictures from Disney's hit film Cars on them..." You get the idea. At some point though, Sam went inside to get some ketchup and said to Sara, "hey mom, that brown guy wants some ketchup".
Seriously.
Out of nowhere.
That brown guy.
She told me while we were packing everyone into the car to see the fireworks, and I was blown away. What do you say? He didn't mean anything by it, and obviously likes Ken. Plus, Ken is brown, so it wasn't like he was saying something completely nuts. Have to nip it in the bud though... While I was still mulling it over, Sara found just the thing to say.... "Sam, remember when you said 'that brown guy wants some ketchup'? Its not really nice to call people things that aren't their name. You know Ken's name, you should call him Ken. If you don't know someone's name, you can ask them, because sometimes when you call people something other than their name, you can hurt their feelings". I'm paraphrasing a bit, but not bad right? Sound like a good reason to call people by their name. I like the way this is going...
Without missing a beat, Sam says, "why?".
"Well, your name is Sam, but you wouldn't like it too much if people called you something else, like 'the white guy', would you?"
"Sure," says my bi-racial three year old, "I'd like that. I'm going to change my name to Sam The White Guy."
(moment of stunned silence in the car)
After a few blocks he agreed to call people by their names, but seemed to still like the "Sam the White Guy" moniker.
So it begins... a young mind yearning to be molded... in some mighty white suburbs... with me as a parent... something tells me we're in for a long rollercoaster ride....

Intelligent Design

Lots of stuff to write about this week... a new car... a roto-rooter visit... Sam learning how to swim underwater... yadda, yadda, yadda. I have to tell you that the most amazing thing was Lily's new hair restraint system. She's been growing her hair out, and there doesn't seem to be a way to hold it back properly. One top-of-the-head pony tail and her bangs are in her eyes. Two pony tails at 11:00 and 1:00 o'clock and she pulls them out... Yesterday, Sara devised a whole new system with three bands and two clips that hold up pretty well. Unfortunately, we have to hire a team of no fewer than four day-laborers and one longshoreman (for the knots) to come and hold everything in place while we are preparing her head, but so far it seems pretty secure. I've signed up for a night school macrame class though, so we should be able to at least cut out the longshoreman by summer's end...

Smells Like Patchouli & Weed in Here...

At the moment, Sara is down in DC for a conference & I'm trying to buy a car, trying to convince people to give me some catering work, and hanging out with the chilluns - so things are a bit hectic around here, as usual. Had a productive past few days though, aside from all of that... finally had a minute to finish the garden out front, even though it's a more modest selection than in the past. We do have the basics though - San Marzano, Cherry and Rutgers-Hybrid tomatoes - some peppers - butternut squash - cilantro, rosemary, sage, thyme - and Thai, Minuette, Ruffled Purple, and Globe basil. mmmmmmm.... oh, and for the one person that might actually care, still have red & golden raspberries, concord & pinot noir, mission fig, pear, and a peach tree that is going through some sort of 'roid rage at the moment. Seriously, it's unbelievable... we have an Alberta Dwarf peach tree that is about 15 feet tall or so, and the thing has so much freakin fruit that the whole tree is bent over and the top branches are touching the ground. So far I've picked about twenty pounds, made two batches of jam, force fed them to the kids, and they're still coming. Every morning when I walk out the door I'm half expecting to see some musclebound high school wrestler injecting oxymetholone and horse tranquilizers into the trunk... "Yeah man, you look ripped! You're gonna kick that fig tree's ass! Those puny grapes have nothing on you man! Headbutt!"...
On the completely opposite end of the high school clique spectrum, Sam has learned his first protest song. For some odd reason (I think it was Sara's doing) he has latched on to Dan Zane's cover of "We Shall Not Be Moved"... Granted, it's a good song and pretty catchy, but if there was a Wikipedia entry for Really-Ass-Funny it would be a video clip of Sam sitting in the back seat singing "We shall, we shall not be moved. We shall, we shall not be moved. Just like a tree, planted by the water, we shall not be moved..." He's got the look down too - little bit of sorrow mixed with camaraderie and sheer determination. Seriously, drop him into the middle of a logging protest and he would fit right in.
Oh yeah, I'm also posting a picture of Stella and my father sleeping... just because I thought it was funny...

Stella Toast

Ever feel like that 6 hours of sleep you get is just too darn much? Too much work and a couple of lunatic children just not enough? This is the plan......
Actually, I take it back. I don't feel crazy at the moment. Ever since Thurman died, Satchmo has been a different dog. Lonely... Depressed... not sure which... I always liked the idea of two dogs though, they were fun together. It wasn't just all the dashing around - they slept next to each other, licked each other clean, wrestled over toys, you know the drill. A few weeks before Thurman died he started having seizures every once in a while - it was pretty creepy for me to watch, and Satchmo was genuinely disturbed by it. I didn't notice at first, but as the seizures increased Satchmo used to disappear when it happened. It occurred to me a while back that maybe Satchmo felt the same way I did when Thurman was gone. Thurman was a relentless pain in the ass... he stole our food, had accidents in the house, his breath smelled so bad that sometimes you could tell when he walked in the room before you even saw him - and sometimes I miss him so much it aches. Anyway, as much of a pain in the ass as it may be, I'm trying to make everything whole again in a twisted sort of way.
To be honest, Sara was saddled with it in the beginning. In keeping with my history of bad timing, we got the dog on Friday morning, and I worked from Friday night until Sunday night - putting Sara on full time two baby and un-housebroken puppy duty for three days. When I got home on Sunday though, things actually looked pretty good. I was expecting two kids covered in a crust of dried spit and graham crackers, and poo in every corner. What I came home to was a full refrigerator, dinner on the stove, well rested kids, and a remarkably poo-less house. Go figure... after three days I might have put myself in the dog crate...
So here we are, one larger. Amazingly wee (only about eight inches from front to back and four inches high) but she manages to take up every spare moment... For those of you who can't tell from the head shot, she is part Pug and part Jack Russell, about eight weeks old, and smaller than a cheesesteak.
If you need to get in touch with me for any reason, I only have eight seconds (usually from 9:26:04 pm to 9:26:12 pm) to talk, and I am booked until July 19th. At the moment I am in the process of hiring a second Joe who will be able to take over some of my personal affairs...

Footnote

Just a couple quick notes from the beach.... First, I couldn't resist showing you Sam in his lifeguard hoodie... and second, we actually found a Donkey's (formerly known as Dunky's) in Ocean City! It was the real thing too, the only difference being the noticeable absence of weapons in the place. It was magically delicious...

Worries and Stripes

I know, it's been a while. Get off my back.
So before Sara started her new job, we went off to the shore for a few days... and for those of you who have been around the chillins, you know that four days and three nights in an apartment the size of a lobster trap could easily result in such a long blog that I could crash the network. So, I'll give you a few highlights to chew on.
The Beach -
The kids, surprise surprise, love the beach. Sam we already knew about, but Lily too... she had four molars coming in this weekend, but was pretty mellow on the beach. Actually, there isn't much more to say about her on the beach. For having all of her teeth come in, mellow is fantastic. Sara even taught her to say 'cool' which is hysterical, because every word at her age is accompanied by a huge sloppy grin. Sam on the other hand, is explosive... like a warm seltzer bottle that you're a little too anxious to open and you go a wee bit to far... pure energy. When we first get down to the beach he takes off his shoes, runs down to the water, and jumps straight up and down for eleven minutes. Not jumping around, mind you, but straight up and down like a jackhammer. Eleven minutes... I actually had to move him three feet to the left every minute or so out of fear that he would bore down to oil, which as you know, is a bear to clean up. We collected every shell in sight, and then moved on to rocks, throwing the unacceptable ones as far as we possibly could into the surf. All the while Sam's already light brown skin slowly turned a warm chestnut, and all of my exposed areas, which seem to have about as much melanin as a naked mole rat, crisped up to an angry pink. He gets it from Sara, of course, who could lie directly on the surface of the sun and get a nice even color.
The Room -
I have to say, perfect location. Right in the middle of the boardwalk, right on the beach, groovy. When we walked in on Thursday night it was pretty nice, but by the time Saturday rolled around, I felt like veal. We were in the house a bit too long in the morning, Sam started twitching; Lily paced from living room to kitchen, kitchen to living room mumbling 'cool' and 'moo' over and over again; and I lost the will to live. Turns out, the room was a little small.
The Food -
What is there to say really, we were at the jersey shore. Pizza, kettle corn, funnel cakes, a lobster, Stewart's dogs, soft pretzels, frozen custard, clams, cider doughnuts, and a crab cake that was actually as big as my face. The Rides -
The boy is fearless. Well, that's not completely true... occasionally he has a dream about witches or llamas that freaks him out, but in general, fearless. We started out slow, on the carousel, and quickly moved on to roller coasters, tilt-a-whirls, these weird spinning things that you lay down in - he was unstoppable. Since we were a bit off season we didn't have to wait in a single line, and on most of the rides the ride operator was just sitting around waiting for someone with tickets, so it was great. The kicker was the bumper cars, which he kept going towards and I kept distracting him from. Finally, since he was taller than the 'you must be at least this tall' sign, Sara kept bugging me to let him, and the 16 year old girl (Erin) who was manning the deserted bumper car area looked both responsible and bored, we let him go. Not to worry that it was deserted, Erin said that she would drive around and bump into him... so she put him in the car, securely fastened the safety strap underneath his arm, and showed him which pedal to push to drive forward. For the next 1.5 seconds, it was great. Big smile, he looked down at the pedal, jammed his foot down on it, sped forward about four feet and hit the guard rail, and slammed his face into the steering wheel. On the plus side, Erin seemed genuinely concerned/terrified/shocked and whisked him out of the car and into our arms in the blink of an eye. It must have reeeeeeeally hurt, because he cried for a good solid thirty seconds before saying anything, and another thirty seconds before he was able to blubber out that we should go on something safer, like Nascar ride which only whips you around at a timid 113 miles per hour. As we walked away, Erin still looked flustered, and I got the distinct impression that late into August she'll still be getting high under The Engourginator after hours with Josh (who has been wanting to hook up with her since Evan's thing under the boardwalk after Kate's party) and talking about the faceplant kid. All in all, it was great. I hate the driving, spending the money, living in a closet, and finding sand in every imaginable place, but it was great. Plus, any time I was feeling a little claustrophobic, Sam would sing me his version of the Jungle Book song and make it all better...

Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your stripes

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature's recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life

yeah, man...

Carnivore on 9th Street

Imagine it's a few days before Easter (I'm a little behind on the blog)...
Sara (who, by the way, on days like this is my favorite person in the whole world, you'll see why in a second) decided to take the day off on Friday so we could all go to the Italian Market together (see? that's why). At the crack of 8:30 I roll out of bed with a smile on my face... imagining the glistening pastry counters, clattering baskets of crabs, rows of sopressata shimmering with sweat, freshly skinned goats staring blankly from butcher shop windows...
oh shit...
the goats...
Well, it's 8:31, and already I've hit a snag. How do I take Sam, who gets excited about seeing a squirrel and almost passes out at the mere mention of a farm, to my favorite place on earth, which just happens to be littered with meat... and not just meat, but meat still attached to the rest of the animal?
8:33 and I realize that Italian Market momentum cannot be stopped, and we'll just have to see what happens. So we're off, and in no time I'm parked in my favorite spot and we're strolling towards heaven. It's been a while, but everything comes flooding back in the first block. Brine and scales at the corner of Washington at Anastasi's Fish Market as they wash off fresh catch and toss packing ice onto the curb. Over-ripe tomatoes and bananas across the street in front of the gristled old man yelling HAMANNY at the top of his lungs over and over (took me about three years to realize he was saying "how many")... and best of all, rows of fiddleheads, mangos, onions and basil gently peppered by the year-round snowfall of ashes from produce boxes burning in oil drums. In a minute we're right in the heart of it, and Sam sees the first crab basket, the baby octopi, and stops to ask what the name of every fish is... Then it comes - the first window. Rows of sausages and four whole goats, hanging by their back legs waiting for Easter dinner.
"What are those?" he asks...
"Goats" I say.
"Hmm" he says, and we move on.
He is quiet, and seems to be considering it for a while, but after a block or so, starts up with his usual chatter. On we go, past Fante's and DiBruno's. Past the mortadella and provolone, olives and feta, whole rabbits and coiled rattlesnake meat, and tripe sandwiches wrapped in newspaper. Finally, right past Catherine street, we come to Sarcone's. For those of you who haven't been, I honestly feel sorry for you. Really. It's just sad. Sarcone's makes bread... but not just bread, some of the best bread in the universe. So good, in fact, that they have a system. Whenever you get there, they are out of bread, but there is a line out the door. Tourists and fools move on, but everyone in the know will wait, because every 10 minutes or so they come out with a fresh batch and 50 or so loaves are snatched up as the line lunges forward, and then the wait continues...
Bread in hand we're heading back up the street toward the butchers, and at the first one Sam says,"hey dad, a goat"... and that's it. Should I be happy? Sad? Hungry? Should my arms be completely numb? Wait a minute, what? Just in time, I'm saved from wrestling with any moral dilemma by the realization that my arms are completely numb. Thirty five pound Sam has been on my shoulders for about an hour, and along the way I've picked up nine pounds of tomatoes, four racks of lamb, four pounds of sausage, two bunches of cilantro & basil, and two pounds of octopus and one turnip - all of which are draped in plastic bags over my forearms as I'm holding on to Sam's feet. Luckily, his scissor grip around my neck has performed some Vulcan hand freeze on me, and although I lost all feeling and control over my hands, they seem to be locked around his ankles securely enough to make it the last two blocks to the car. With the application of some butter, we're able to slip his ankles out of my grip when we get to the car, and within ten minutes or so I'm able to move my pinky again.
Next stop, South Street for pizza, Famous Deli for cookies, window shopping at the tattoo parlors on 4th, and some cheap mexican toys from the Eyes Gallery that don't even last the whole ride home. Couldn't ask for a better day.

Mercury Rising

So the other day, Sam, Lily and I are just sitting around and as usual (without me even trying to make the day funnier) I'm caught up in how absurd and hilarious the whole parenting thing is. First of all, Lily learned this strange dance thing this week. To be perfectly honest, I wasn't even sure it was dancing at first, and since Sara hasn't seen it yet (it seems that when she is home, Lily just wants to hang on to her and isn't really in the dancing mood) I couldn't get a second opinion. It starts with her doing a side step - and a pretty deliberate one, as if she is counting off "a one and a two, a one and a two" in her head - and moving around the living room in a big circle as if she is imagining herself as one small part of a large wedding dance around the bride and groom. The next step in her (remarkably well choreographed) routine is to fall down on to her butt and violently flair her arms and torso from side to side like she was doing some early street version of the twist that never really caught on until it was changed into the relatively mild dance that it is today that has very little chance of poking out an eye or sending anyone to the hospital with a lumbar fracture. I have to admit, the first time I saw the second half of the dance, I was a bit frightened. She laughs while she does it too, which might seem cute when you read about it, but actually, for the uninitiated, it's a little Children of the Corn. That first night after I saw it I even checked the back of her head for three sixes while she was sleeping... only found three nines though, so I slept like a baby. All is well, it turns out... last night I asked her to dance and she happily did the whole routine for me. As you might imagine, I was relieved, and even egged her on with a little song that went pretty much like "dancin, dancin, Lily dancin.." (you have to add a little tune to that in your head) which she thought was just hysterical enough to repeat the routine another 137 times until Sara got home... and then acted as if she had no idea what I was saying. Now that I think about it, our house is kind of like Footloose. I'm Kevin Bacon (encouraging the dance) Sara is John Lithgow (who Lily - Lori Singer - doesn't dare dance in front of) and Sam is more of a Chris Penn, the one who yearns to dance but can't seem to stop spinning into furniture.
Now the dancing alone wouldn't really make the day all that funny, but Sam's odd little brain occasionally bowls me over. Lily is dancing, and Sam is sitting around drawing in Turtle magazine ("crafts" is what he calls any art project, which he doesn't pronounce well when he is excited and often will jog up to me and say "daddy, do you want to make some craps with me?") when he sees a picture of a box of Trix cereal on the back of one of his cereal boxes. "Hey daddy!" he shouts, "we should get some of that!" So I reach deep down inside myself and struggle not to yell out "MY GOD YES! TRIX ARE DELICIOUS! I WAS NEVER ALLOWED TO HAVE THEM AND VOWED THAT ONE DAY MY CHILDREN WOULD BE RAISED SOLELY ON TRIX, COUNT CHOCULA, BOOBERRY, AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, EVEN THOUGH IT WILL RIP THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH TO SHREDS WITH ITS CRISPY GOODNESS THE GODFATHER AND UNDISPUTED CHAMPION OF ALL SWEET CEREALS, CAPTAIN CRUNCH. My son, open the box, and together we will go down the rabbit hole..." Instead I say, tears welling up in my eyes, "No, we can't get that, its not good for you." Really. Even though I felt a little piece of me die, I said it. As if he understood how hard it was for me to say like deer somehow know when it is going to rain, he was respectfully quiet for a moment.... and then said the only thing in the world that could have made me feel better at that moment. That is, precisely the last thing I ever expected my three year old to say...
"But dad, it's part of a nutritious breakfast."

damn...

The Unbearable Lightness of My Head

Ok, blog category #2 - successes and failures of last week.
Started out ok on Monday, until 6:48pm, when I suddenly got sick. Might have been 6:49, but the point is, all of a sudden I thought "holy crap, I feel terrible", and I went from well to sick in about thirty seconds. Stayed home on Tuesday, felt crappy. Went in to to work on Wednesday, felt crappy, and started to stress about the rest of the week. Thursday, still crappy and really behind I stayed after work to prep for friday, ran home to get ready for my wine class... paused a moment to reflect on how sick I was.... and ran off to class and talked for two and a half hours about California wine laws, Oregon LIVE, Albarino, and why if you don't like (or can't learn to like) Barolo you'll never be invited over to my house. At least that's what I think I talked about. I wrote it down before class, but by 10:00pm, things got a little fuzzy. A couple of students noted on their instructor evaluations that they disagreed with my position on the whole Dick York vs. Dick Sargent thing. I am a York man, of course. With his simple country charm and unflinching devotion to his wife despite all of the madcap scenarios she got them into (not to mention he was quite the tall drink of water) I can't possible imagine feeling any other way. How or when that might have come up on Thursday, I have no idea.
Anyway, I woke up in Sam's bed on Friday (because by the time I got home he was passed out in my bed and I was too tired to do the switch) and sat there for a minute deciding whether I should get up and shower, or pray that the seething mass of germs that were pulsing beneath my skin and making every pore on my body ache would finally win so I could die right there on the dinosaur sheets. I went with the shower - and thanks to Sara dressing the kids actually got to work early so I could make a soup before I prepped for the day. Work, then prep for Rosa's gig, and then the dinner - Shitake & crimini tarts with peppered apples and a red pepper & tomato reduction... carrot & cilantro soup... rare pepper encrusted bluefin tuna with curried crab salad & black pasta with garbanzo and garlic puree... greens with shaved parm and roasted pumpkin seed vinaigrette... and three tuilles layered with raspberries and chantilly...
and I was out...
gone..
home, sick...
and too wired to sleep. Go figure.
Oh yeah... little footnote to my last post... Do you realize how often you use your thumb? Like, all the time. Seriously, try this little experiment. Say "OW!", now count to three, say "OW!" again, and now repeat this process for two weeks. Go ahead. Try. It sucks.

Ode to a Thumb

Oh! chubby digit on the side
So handy when I need a ride
Oft ignored or used to suck
Without you I'd be out of luck

A change of pace, you thought would do
"Perhaps I will accent a stew,
some chutney or charcuterie,
perhaps a garnish I can be...
Not merely food when hope is dashed,
for soccer teams whose planes have crashed.
I'll sit on plates by men of honor,
no longer served for parties, Donner."
My flavor surely so unique,
they'll revise Larousse Gastronomique.
Some thumb in tart or etouffee,
would impress Auguste Escoffier."

So on I chopped still unaware
of Thumb's designs l'art culinaire
He waited, watched, and then reacted
When I was just a bit distracted.
My reaction time a touch belated,
I sliced him off with my serrated.
"Foiled!" I swear I heard him yell,
For my serrated did not cut so well.

Still attached, with wound agape,
I put the tip back on with tape.
Healing now, comfortably numb,
I often wonder why my thumb
Would go so far to get his wish
to be a part of my new dish.

il mio terzo bambino, Nuova Simonelli

The first weekend at home with a new baby is always special. Sure, it's tiring... always a bit more effort than you anticipated... but once you're settled, and into a groove, it gets easier and you have time to enjoy everything that makes your family special.
This weekend, we finally had a chance to relax a bit, and had a somewhat kitchen-focused couple of days. Homemade ravioli on Saturday night, and Sam helped roll out the pasta... he is pretty good at it actually, went at a good speed, held up the sfoglia while it was fed between the rollers without ripping it... I was pretty impressed. It might just be something genetic. Maybe the wee bit of him that is Italian crept out on Saturday and just knew how to do it... He seemed to be a bit under the weather for the last few days, and didn't eat much, except for the linguini I cut for him out of the leftover dough, but Lily went at it with full force and gave her scraps to the dog - so everyone got in on the action.
Sunday morning was toasted millet muffins that everyone actually ate, including Satchmo once again, who now has to be let outside every six minutes or so. Leftover pasta for lunch, and red lentil & chicken curry with homemade naan for dinner. Satchmo & Lily went with the naan, but wisely decided to forego the curry. Actually, I think Satchmo would have given it a shot, but seemed a bit preoccupied with trying to open the back door. To be honest, it wasn't the best Indian I've ever made... curry was a bit bland, and for some reason which I can't figure out, the naan refused to puff up while it was baking. It was a bit like eating in a Bangalorian prison. All the while, Nuova sat by just observing, occasionally creaking with boiler pressure.
Weekends always have their ups and downs, kids get tired and cranky, I get tired and cranky... but the high points always make it worthwhile. Coming downstairs on a Saturday morning is perfect... well rested kids milling around, picking at bacon and pancakes... smiles and furious dashes to find new yogurt in the fridge... everyone starts fresh, and it seems like the family I always imagined having. Almost Norman Rockwell. As of last Sunday, thanks to the plumbing expertise of my wonderful father, we have a shimmering stainless steel 110 pound addition to the family, and weekend mornings are a bit sunnier. So here I am, on a Monday at home with the kids, still thinking about coming downstairs yesterday morning... two smiling kids, Sara with hair all akimbo, and the nuova bambino pulsing with excitement to start the day. If only Sara could share my (random & bizarre) obsession... why... it could be the third child we always wanted....
At least I'm not on drugs...

Walker

Hey, Lily's walking. Finally. She was taking a step or two off and on for a while, and the other day, she just decided to stay upright.
I forgot what it was like with a new walker, Sam has been upright for so long I completely forgot how cool the transition was... amazing... She was always the baby, and all of a sudden, with a few steps across the living room, she is a whole new person. Looks different when she is walking too.. really, amazing...
Anyway, I'll have more to say later... just needed to get that out...

Gooey & the Chupacabra

"You'll never really know how much your parents love you until you have children of your own"... odd how that works out, and how true it seems sometimes. Even stranger that the person who said this was some guy at Saul Ewing that I never met, some random schlub that could be the reincarnation of Starkweather or Buddha for all I know.
Ok, I know that more than half of my posts are about the kids, but you'll have to suffer through... its little hard not to get caught up when it seems there isn't time for anything else. I'll start with the fun part though, to suck you in...
I'm home with Lily today because she has pink eye, and they won't let her into daycare again until she has been on meds for a while. Strange disease, pink eye. It doesn't seem to really ever do anything except make your eyes and everything they touch all gooey, but for some reason, daycare seems to treat it like the plague. As soon as she exhibited the first sign of goo, my cell phone was ringing, and I had to go and get her. She was pretty gooey, but in a good mood as always, and happily came crawling up to me with a small conjuctivitis infected stuffed rabbit stuck to the side of her face. As luck would have it, she also learned how to give kisses today. All afternoon she would play for a bit, then crawl over and want to be picked up... and all afternoon I gently peeled away Acme receipts and plastic dinosaurs from underneath her eyes and carried her around until she gave me one of her oddly-formed baby kisses on the cheek. Then, I would gently set her down again, boil some water, add a little rubbing alcohol in for good measure, and pour the mixture directly onto my face to ward off the onset of the goo...
Sam on the other hand, is unusually healthy at the moment... save one little problem... when Sam was younger, he was perfect. Well, not really, but he seemed like it. It was the little things in him that I was most amazed by... since everything was new - his smell, his eyes, his sounds, and the feel of his skin - he seemed perfect... and I dunno... fresh... unspoiled... A few months ago though, he ate something (we still don't know what) that he had a shockingly severe allergic reaction to. By the time we got in the car to go to the hospital, one eye was completely swollen shut, and the other not far behind. His tongue was swollen enough that he had trouble speaking, and his fingers were so big they would hardly bend. Needless to say, I drove really fucking fast.
I spent the day lying next to him in the hospital bed, and for some reason one of the things I remember most was how his skin had changed. He was passed out from all of the medication for most of the day, and I held on to him for a good six hours until he woke up. While he was swollen he was a little bumpy, like he was cold and stiff - but as the swelling went down his skin still felt different. Its hard to explain, but his skin didn't feel like a baby anymore, his arm felt like mine... weathered, tough... Over the next few days that went away a bit. It was a few days of some pretty hardcore drugs, and a handful more of Benedryl before the hives were gone... and it was weeks before I slept through the night. We still have to carry an epi-pen wherever we go, and I don't think there has been a day since that I haven't thought about it for at least a minute or two. For the most part, though, I'm over it. We've done all that we can do, seen a bunch of doctors, and are pretty prepared if it happens again. Just life, I suppose.. everyone has these things to deal with in one form or another, and I don't waste too much time playing out worst case scenarios in my head. Every once in a while it hits me though. On Tuesday I gave him a bath, and when I touched his arm I hit a rough goose-bumpy patch of skin, and it chilled me to the bone. It's sickening sometimes, how hard it hits me. Most days I have this amazing boy, and every once in a while, for a second or two, all I can see is this monster lurking inside of him waiting patiently to show itself again. Meanwhile, we wait, guardians of the Temple of Sam. Carefully watching the gates, syringes of epinephrine glinting valiantly in the sun, gooey pink eyes always watching... always watching...

Countdown

Not so long ago, weekends began as mysteries. Where I would end up, who I would be with... would I wake up on someone's lawn... good times... Always a bit of magic in there though.
These days are a bit of a mystery too, but a different sort. When will Sam fall on his head... will Lily eat that crayon...if I stand more than four feet away, will Lily still be able to hit me with some high velocity vomit (yes, by the way, she can, and did on Saturday). To amuse myself, I have developed a "Someone's Hurt!" Injury Timetable (SHIT) for the kids. Over the course of an average day, I estimated that Sam will hurt himself about fifteen times, and Lily about ten. Only a small percentage of these injuries result in tears that last more than 30 seconds, but there are a significant number of injuries that can be avoided by employing the SHIT system. Here's what I do, feel free to try it with your kids -
First of all, the early stages if the system require a bit of intuitive parenting... educated guesswork, you might say. Start with an easy one to get yourself into the groove - for example, I've noticed that Sam can only run for about 30 paces max before he trips and hits the deck like a flounder. With a well timed distraction after about 20 paces ("hey look, a squirrel!" or "I think there is some yogurt under the car!") he'll pause and regain his footing just long enough to continue for the next 30 paces. The same distractions apply if he is trying to fit his head through a gate, or put his sister in the toilet - "hey look, a squirrel!" or "I think there is some yogurt under the car!" - and I have just enough time to extract Lily from the bowl. Lily was a bit harder to figure out, because she isn't fooled by the imaginary squirrels or yogurt, but a little physical comedy goes a long way with her... a fake slip on a banana peel or slapping yourself on the head will distract her every time.
This is where it gets a bit tricky. When they are left unattended, you have to assume that trouble is always brewing, and the countdown begins. If I'm in the kitchen, and everything gets quiet in the living room, there's about 45 seconds before somebody gets hurt. Believe it or not, I'm getting pretty good at the timing - as soon as I notice a lull, I can quickly finish whatever I'm in the middle of, and dash into the other room just in time to stop Sam from jumping off of the top of the couch. Lily has a telltale shuffle too - if the sound of her crawling across the floor seems particularly determined, odds are she is after something, and you have to reach her before the shuffle subsides. For all of the crap in our house, we're remarkably childproof, but she can get pretty creative, like trying to ease her teething pains on the sleeping dog, or seeing if she can fit her whole arm in the vcr. The key is to have both parents involved, so that if I'm tied up or on the phone and I notice something is awry, I can yell "SHIT!" so that Sara knows the "Someone's Hurt!" Injury Timetable has been activated, and she can get there to nip impending trouble in the bud.
System in place, our daily injuries decreased this weekend, but Sam has started cursing for some reason. I was thinking of renaming the system "Beware! Activate Response! Nearby Endangered Youth!" or "Red Alert! Find Falling Infant!" or even "Seriously, Protect Our Newborn! Get Everyone's Butts Outta Bedlam!" but they just don't seem to carry the same weight...

Hurling a budgiepeet

I know,long time,no blog. So much has happened since my last, as a matter of fact, that I don't know where to begin. I'll start with today and work backwards... sick, sick, sick. Called out sick from work - which I never do - because I coughed up what looked like a parakeet when I woke up. It didn't fly away, or have any rainforest-like wing colors, so I didn't go to the doctor, just went down to the couch for a while. Flipped from front to back, back to front for an hour or so... felt a bit better but got tired of the flipping, so I got up and made some pancakes, and then putzed around for the next seven hours. Loving the sick day though... wish I had more of them... oh yeah, I actually feel a bit better too, what are the odds.
Aside from that, nothing much to say about the last few weeks. There are some good stories, but I'm too crabby to tell them. Just one little thing, as long as I'm on line...I do seem to have these flashes of complete and utter heartache.
Hectic as December is for me, I step into January every year leaving behind a condensed version of what I wish life was like. Between all of the driving and childcare is an endless stream of family, college and childhood friends, and sleepless nights that are worth every second.
Too tired at the moment to drone on like Enya about lost love or time... but as hard as the holidays are sometimes, aches fade, and I have another year of memories to smooth things over. My parents overflowing dining room table, Luke or Jeremy picking up a guitar, waking up at Mar's and hearing all those old familiar voices, seeing Jeanne laugh (not just hearing it on the phone, but seeing it with my own eyes), Sam and Lily on Christmas, and waking up next to my wife without one of us rushing out the door.
So that's it, my month in a nutshell. Now I'm sick, tired, and missing every second of it.

Stollen

Growing up, my family wasn’t much for wearing their emotions on their sleeves. We were a pretty tight knit group – and still are – but relied more on the knowledge that we loved each other rather than saying it at every possible opportunity. Not a very sappy bunch, my family… We had our traditions though… Every Christmas we would get up at the same time, go downstairs at the same time, take turns opening presents in the same way, and even have Christmas dinner with the same family every year… still do, as a matter of fact…
One of the traditions I was never fond of as a kid though, was the distribution of the family Stollen. For those of you who don’t know, Stollen is a German sweet bread (awesome with butter, and even better when it’s sitting next to a heaping plate of eggs and scrapple) that is traditionally made over the Christmas holidays. Love the Stollen, but as soon as I was old enough, I was charged with giving them out to our friends, teachers, bus drivers, babysitters, and what seemed like everyone else we knew. Not a pleasant chore really, because I was subject to countless kisses on the cheek from grey-haired relatives, snickers from my classmates as enormous breads were deposited on teacher’s desks, and the occasional wedgie after getting a hug from my middle school bus driver.
Every year I would hear the same stories coming out of the kitchen as my mother kneaded loaf after loaf… “my mother used to make 75 of these every year, and her mother would make 100 at a time…”
In the past few years, she hasn’t made as many as she used to, just enough to keep the family satisfied, and a few extra for the people who come looking for a fix every year… and every year my sisters and I talk about someone taking over the tradition and spending a day making them, but we never really got around to it. This year my lovely wife (who has been hopelessly addicted to Stollen since their first meeting) decided it was time for someone to take over, and spent a day with my mother just making breads. I watched mostly, but couldn’t help steering the kids into the kitchen every once in a while so I could watch the process I’ve seen every year of my life. Again, I heard all of the same stories, listened to the two of them laugh about the bus driver, watched the batches – three Stollen at a time – rest on the pans before they went into the oven, and smelled the yeast, fresh crust and hints of caramelized sugar that’s pure Christmas for me. All day they lingered in the kitchen, baking and talking about our families – Sam and Lily, my sisters, grandparents, cousins, in-laws – the whole lot of them…
… and for the first time, I got it. All these years, my normally stoic German mother wasn’t really giving out Stollen just to torture me or wish our friends a happy holiday. All this time she was giving the best holiday wish she had… thank you for watching over my children, for protecting and teaching them, for keeping them safe from harm and for being a friend.
So here I am with a family of my own, two children who have shown me what life and love are really about, and a wife who understands more than I do that the smallest things sometimes mean the most – and I can’t think of a better holiday tradition.

Saved

There are moments, you know, that are frozen into memory. Some profound, some foolish, and some completely random. I remember my first kiss (and the first time I actually enjoyed one)the first time I met my wife, first beer, first complete and utter humiliation, first heartache... swim meets, car crashes, dinners, mistakes... all mesh into one big memory soup.
Anyway, I'm right in the middle of a swamp of work. I got into the weeds a few days ago, and I've yet to get out. I have so much food sitting around in so many different refrigerators & freezers, I spend every waking moment running through menus in my head... timing things out... if the pork goes in at 2:00 I need to make the napa slaw by 2:15 because I can clean ten pounds of chicken in 11 minutes so the 40 pound case will be done and I can get the breasts in the oven by 3:00, do the fruit till 3:25 and the flatbreads till 3:45, antipasto veggies broiled by 4:15... and on and on... Today I spent 14 hours like that, planning my next moves, revising by a minute or two in one direction or another. The problem is, I can't stop. I left work at 10:00 and thought - ok, gas station by five after, home by 10:15, food unloaded by 10:30, ask Sara about her day by 10:40, email & menus completed by 11:00, blog by 11:30, bed by...wake up at... its maddening.
This morning though, for a brief shining moment, I escaped. Up and in the shower by 6:15, out and dressed by 6:40, kids ready and downstairs by 6:55 - and I turn the espresso machine on so the boiler can heat up to about 203 degrees in the time it takes me to get breakfast and lunches ready... here it comes... almost ready to go, I start my morning meditation. Fresh roasted Black Cat blend Vienna roast beans from Intelligentsia in Chicago go from the hopper to the low speed gear reduction burr grinder, into the heated portafilter, lightly tamped, refilled and tamped with 30 pounds of pressure, portafilter snugged back into the grouphead, heated cup goes under and the vibration pump goes on... and this morning... perfect coffee karma. Godshot. Crema from the start, a little tiger striping in the drip, and it was perfect. For a moment I lost track of time and stared, sipped, admired, and left the house a little late. For the first time in days, I lost track of a few minutes, didn't adjust my schedule, and it was just what I needed. Finally quiet in my head, I'm good to go, refreshed, and ready to begin again... In the kitchen by 8:05, set-up by 8:30 soup by 9:05, oven on, beef cleaned by 9:20....

Brined

Let me start by saying, it was a strange Thanksgiving. Last weekend we were all set - we planned to be off to Maria's for a (as always) wonderful Puerto Rican/Traditional Thanksgiving meal - and as is the usual state of affairs around here, everyone got sick. At the last minute, all plans were scrapped, and we were on our own. No biggie, we've done harder things than this, so we bolt out on Wednesday and get a turkey, a ham, the fixins for a lasagna, some yams, rolls, etc... Grocery receipt still warm from the register, Sara is passed out on the couch in a flu induced coma, and I'm left to ponder the meal. For some reason I think to myself, lets make this turkey as if I was a grandmother.
So I brine it. Pot of water, some salt, some brown sugar, some bay, a few other things within reach - and I slowly submerge the bird... down she goes into the brine, down she goes into the basement refrigerator, down my throat goes some cough medicine, a few motrin, an actifed, and down I go onto the floor.
Flash forward twenty four hours, and the bird makes a quick appearance upstairs again before she is dusted with a little adobo and tossed into the oven. As far as the bird goes, thats it. Really. Didn't do a spot of work... and let me tell you, I don't care if you deep fried your turkey this year... smoked it, cooked it in wine, marinated it for three weeks or cooked it in an antique clay pot underground - my turkey was better. I don't know why, but the brine worked some sort of magic. It came out to the table looking pretty ordinary, and looked a little better than average when I sliced into it... then I took a bite... suddenly I could focus only on the turkey, and everything else around it seemed to blur and shudder as if I was looking through a fisheye lens, or I was Frodo and I had for the first time slipped onto my finger the one true turkey. One turkey to rule them all, one turkey to find them, and one turkey to bring them all and in the darkness bind them, in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
Sorry about that. Really though, it was pretty damn good. Juicy... So for the first Thanksgiving in my life, I was thankful for the turkey.

The Aukberg Test

Make a list, load the car, go to the kitchen...
It's a two mile or so drive to work, and the whole way I think about timing. When it goes in the oven or on the stove, when it comes off. What the plate looks like... what the sauce should look like... when it goes on...
Unload the car, check the list, chop chop chop...
I had a gig on Saturday - pretty simple thing really, dinner for six. Seeing as though I make about 1500 meals a week, no biggie. The only difference is, these six people could mean some real money for me, since the hostess wants a personal chef and wants to see what I can do... so by the time I leave the kitchen and load the car again, I'm ready, but sweating a little.
I arrive about 90 minutes early and unload the car again... unpack... and start the required small talk... what a lovely kitchen... oh, you interned in some restaurants in Belgium, how wonderful... yes, I always bring my own knives... two kids... ooh, a plate warmer, cool...
don't let me keep you from your guests...
now it's my kitchen...
shoo...
Last two guests arrive, and things start rolling. Cold plates from the fridge, a little ring mold, and in a minute I have six perfect little columns of wasabi cucumber salad. Next six little flatbreads balanced off center like diving boards are gently propped up with a dollop of caviar, and the smoked salmon rolled up with wasabi mousse comes out of the freezer. Quick little slices make pinwheels that defrost on my fingertips, and gently perch on the flatbreads like wee Greg Louganis' (Lougani?) waiting to attempt their inward two and a half onto a pool of freshly scissored chives.
Chargers come off the table, amuse-bouche goes on, and I'm starting to jog...
Some extra cream in the soup to bring it off boil, little pepper - and mumbles from the dining room. Forks clink, mumble mumble, and I sneak in to pull the plates. Bowls out of the warmer, quicklikerabbit I ladle the butternut squash, leek & chipotle out and wipe the rims... basil chiffonade and red peppercorns mounds float on the side (a bit like Greg Louganis after he hit his head I think... not funny, must focus) ... bowls on saucers, and they go out, and now I'm runnng.
mumble mumble...
In case you were wondering when the fun part comes, here it is.. ten ounces of soup per person, and an extra ten minutes of wine and conversation, and I need an entree. Sea bass comes off the ice - and already I have a hiccup - every strip of fish I cut has an odd line of bones right down the center that should have been taken out already. Quick mental note - must yell at fish guy. Loudly. No tweezers or time, I cut the center out of each steak and now instead of six nice pieces of fish I have twelve cute little pieces, and all of my plating ideas are out the window. Oil, chorizo and bay leaves in one pan, cranberry cilantro polenta in another, and asparagus with herb chimichurri in a third. Bass on top of the chorizo, flip asparagus, flip polenta, flip fish, polenta onto a sheet and into the oven, flip asparagus, fish pan into the broiler.
Breathe.
mumble, mumble...
Plates out of the warmer, extra piece of polenta I was clever enough to make directly from the oven to my mouth, and I move on. Actually, I stop for a minute and think "holy shit... thats pretty good" and then I move on. Polenta goes down, TWO cute little fishies stacked on top, a drizzle of chorizo oil, some fried bay leaves and a little basil, my mouth is watering, some chorizo to hold up the stack, and the kitchen smells like Christmas time at my grandmother's house in Portugal. Actually, I don't have a Portuguese grandmother. One day, I do plan to befriend an old Portuguese woman though... spoons clatter... chevre goes down next to the fish, asparagus on top, a few raspberries nestled on the asparagus, bowls come off, plates go on.
Sidebar - apparently, it is perfectly acceptable to spend $100,000 on your kitchen, and only have twelve nice forks.
so I wash some forks...
A little time now, so I throw some english cucumbers on the mandoline to make long thin strips, and stand them on edge on each salad plate in circles to make little walls - tuck the salad greens inside and let some puff out of the top so the plate looks like Huggy Bear wearing a cucumber headband. Some anjou pear on the side, a little Maytag, a pear vinaigrette squirt, and I'm good.
Plates come off, salad and freshly washed forks go on.
mumble mumble...
Back in the kitchen I roll crepes with poppyseed cooked in sugar and orange rind, then roll some with strawberries and mascarpone, and toss them all in the oven. Chocolate sauce and little drops of butterscotch on the plate, crepes out of the oven, stacked like lincoln logs, little strawberry fans on the side, plates come off, plates go on, and I'm done.
breathe...
The kitchen is clean by the time their plates need to be cleared, and Rosa has out her calendar and a red pen to mark down all of the dates she wants me to come back. To seal the deal, because she is stuffed and a little drunk, she pays twice what I asked, and I'm in the car listening to Anna Nalick and smelling the chorizo on my apron before the oven has even cooled down.
Sunday afternoon rolls around, and I'm watching Sam race his rubber iguana down the slides at the park. My finger starts bleeding again from some random dinner injury, my arms are covered with spatter burns, and still, for a minute I can't imagine life being better. Maybe if I had a Portuguese grandmother... or some more of that polenta...