A Mish Mash Weekend Update

This weekend in NYC a collective "FINALLY!" exhaled from its citizens as the sun decided to push aside the clouds for some much needed stage time. Ta-Da! Our first days of real summer! Sure, it scattered some rain early Saturday evening, but Sunday was simply sublime. Not that I mind a little rain here and there, but this spring and early summer has been way too soggy on my hot dog buns. And no, that's not a euphemism, you dirty-dirt.

We were especially happy about the weather because our our building BBQ was Saturday night. The turnout exemplified reason number a million of why I Love Brooklyn So Damn Much. More than half of the building's residents were on hand, laughing, drinking and taking a satisfying bites of crisp, grilled kielbasa. I just adore living in a place that's so community-minded and friendly.

I only wish I'd been photography-minded because now I have no pictures of the world's most incredible potato salad. It was a kitchen disaster turned into a delicious explosion of texture and flavor. I promise to tell you (and photograph) all about it next week after I make a batch for the 4th of July.

But the absoulute best thing to come out of the BBQ was the knowledge that former NYC mayor Abe Beame used to live in our very apartment! Not just our building, folks, OUR ACTUAL APARTMENT! Pretty cool, huh? We're seriously considering getting a plaque.

I had the added bonus of Sarah being in town. Sarah is my insanely talented BFF who just got her paintings picked up by the Jan Gallery in DUMBO. The Bigelow sign above is one of my favorite pieces. Whoever snags this beauty will be the object of many, many jealous vibes from yours truly. I'd buy it, but apparently Sarah won't accept a chourus of "You're Pretty!" as payment. Ah, the complicated mind of a talented genius.

I could go on and on about her work, but why not see for yourself?



If you're interested in accumulating one of these, contact Jan at JLA Studios.
If you'd like to see more, go to Sarah's Art Blog.

Viva La Ensalada

Isn't family wonderful? Sure, they can drive you bonkers, but if they didn't there wouldn't be any therapists. And if there weren't any therapists, who would buy cottages in Martha's Vineyard? No one, that's who. It may not seem like this would upset the delicate economic structure of our great nation, but it oh, it could.

I mention family because Fred, Walt and I spent a week down in Hilton Head, SC with my parents, my brothers and their wives, their kids and his mother. What's the saying...two's company but your entire family is being buried alive in a shoe box? Something like that. Actually, we all managed to squeeze in a good time and no one ended up throwing drinks in someone's face or driving off in a rage. There weren't even any slammed doors! (There were also no teenagers, so that may explain why.)

My 8-year-old-niece lets Walt supervise her on the Digging To China '09 Project

The best part is that there were 3 grandparents, 2 sets of uncles and aunts and 3 cousins who were ready and willing to look after Walt. It seemed like there was always someone to watch the little bugger. Fred and I took advantage by taking many swims (me), working on our latest book (Fred), and stuffing our mouths full of chocolate (both) with toddler-free abandon. The stuffing wasn't limited to chocolate and more than frequently involved some sort of grilled meat. Or roasted meat. Or deli meat. Hell, we ate a lot of meat.

I think this was taken after I consumed 14 hot dogs.

Once we arrived home, we proclaimed that we would have vegetarian meals for a week. Our colons gurgled in relief.

The only problem with eating vegetarian in our case is boredom fueled by laziness. We eat pretty much 3 types of vegetarian meals because they're easy: pasta dishes, Asian dishes and salads. Once in a while we'll throw in a beans and rice dish but that's pretty much it.

So when we decided to have a big salad one night, I decided to try and get a little fancy. I reached into the recesses of our recipe bin to see what I could find. Even though a recipe for salad strikes me as odd. I mean, it's salad! Just mix and eat, right? Well color me converted. Because the recipe I picked opened my eyes to a whole new world of chipotle spiked dressings and lots and lots of corn.

It's a Southwestern Caesar and it's anything but boring. If you're looking for a good summer salad, look above. The dressing is equal parts heat and fat and is so very, very good tossed among cool diced Romaine and flecks of corn. We kept it simple, but it can totally be dressed up with beans, grilled shrimp, chicken or the 6 cow's worth of beef Fred and I consumed on our vacation.

I initially wanted to serve it with warmed flour tortillas but instead opted for some wonderfully doughy potato rolls. Not very authentic, but delish nonetheless. And a lot easier on our digestive systems than animals and in-laws.


Southwestern Caesar with Chipotle Dressing.

Bon Appétit | March 1997

Hyatt Regency at Gainy Ranch, Scottsdale AZ

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 1/2 tablespoon canned low-salt chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoon minced canned chipotle chilies (in adobo sauce)
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar

• 1 large head romaine lettuce, cut into bite-size pieces
• 2 medium tomatoes, seeded, diced
• 1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed, drained
• 4 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preparation

Whisk mayonnaise, chicken broth, soy sauce, lemon juice, chipotles and brown sugar in medium bowl to blend. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper. (Dressing can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Mix lettuce, tomatoes and corn in large bowl. Add dressing and 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese and toss to coat. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese and serve.

Typical Writer Stuff

Hey other bloggers and writers! Do you ever think of your blog with dread, complete and utter dread? Do you think about hitting the DELETE ALL button and wiping out your days, months and years of musings just to escape the terror of having to write another post? Do you wonder why the hell you ever started this godforsaken thing in the first place when thoughts of it cause you to grind down your molars and breathe funny?

Yeah, me too.

And yet I can't pack it in. I made a whopping $.003 from Google last month, and you just don't say no to that kind of bling. I'm also too proud to give up and too attached to the community. And once I start writing, it's actually kind of fun. I amuse myself immensely, I admit. If I could only perform stand-up to a room full of me, I'd kill.

Moreover, I've learned over the years that doing certain productive things, whether it's writing, cooking something new or buying new underwear, can be quite rewarding.

And yet I haven't managed to write in about a month. I've cooked absolutely no new recipes, and I have to walk a certain way today because the elastic in my underwear just snapped. My "good" underwear.

I'm hoping a week away will do me right. We're heading down to a beach house to spend a week with family. Either I'll be so relaxed I'll actually come back with the wherewithal to tackle baking bread, or I'll be so neurotic after a week with relatives I'll be funnier than ever. Either way, I'll certainly have something to write about so I win.

I hope.

My New 'Things To Get To In Life" List

So good, yet so impossible for me.
Picture from Kaeppelis Fresh Baked Bread

So far I've got 20 things. And there's nary an errand in sight.

-Overcome fear of baking bread/working with yeast
-Go on a chartered boat to Galapagos
-Perform musical improv regularly and in front of good-sized crowds
-Go back to Hawaii with Fred
-Take Walt and Fred to Tokyo, revisit my old neighborhood and school
-Relearn Spanish
-Host a dinner party for 6
-Spend a summer vacation in Maine
-Enter a fiction writing contest
-Learn how to cut up a chicken
-Enter a recipe contest
-Make another short film
-Make up a series of bedtime stories for Walt, ones I don't write down
-Get a Creative Director title
-Overcome fear of small dress shops/boutiques
-Perform in a Moth Story Slam (thanks, Dave)
-Organize a blogger event
-Become more politically active, know my area representatives and make sure they know me
-Go through the steps again
-Get drivers license
-Find a way to offer a spiritual connection to Walt, perhaps a church, maybe just a practice.

Fred Turns Up The Heat.

I can be a terribly jealous little girl. Or is it envious? Those words are like the Kardashians. I can never tell them apart, they're emotionally draining and I often wonder why they exist.

So. Yeah. I'm jealous (or envious)(or both) of a lot of people. Skinny moms. Independently wealthies. Anyone born in the mid-eighties. Meryl Streep. And lately, I've been jealous of my dear beloved Fred. Because he has done something I thought impossible.

He's surpassed me in the kitchen. This is bad.

It began with Apple Chicken with Cous-Cous, a simple Family Circle recipe. He made it and it was a testament to mixing fruit with meat, something I'm not always sold on. Rich but not overly heavy, with salty, fatty chicken thighs to cut through the sweetness of the apple glaze. It was so good, in fact, I decided to make it for my mom when she visited.

Unlike Fred, I'm not one for following a recipe exactly. I'm a seasoned home cook, after all. I mean, it's cute and all, the way Fred measures out things. But I'm a maverick. A brilliant scientist. A dare devil!

A moron.

By throwing caution to the wind and not following the recipe, I ended up throwing out about a pound of undercooked chicken thighs. My sauce was overly sweet. The cous cous was dry and the spinach didn't wilt.

How did this happen? This is a guy who owned ONE POT before we got married and we put (I snuck) lots of lovely All-Clad on our Williams Sonoma registry. Maybe his body chemistry is stimulated by a $205 saute pan or something.

Then I had a glimmer of hope. One morning Fred announces he's going to try a stuffed chicken breast recipe. Finally! I think. A chance for him to fail! Stuffed chicken breasts are almost legally required to be dry, tasteless, and leave a shard of toothpick stuck to the roof of your mouth. He's so gonna bomb on this one.

Wrong again.


The dinner was beautiful. The chicken was juicy and the stuffing creamy. Almonds gave a perfect crunch to the texture. He steamed some fresh, crunchy green beans and made a side of buttered basmati rice with peas. I secured my Black Card membership in the Clean Plate Club. And left the table with that little green monster nipping at my psyche.

My jealousy is compounded by the fact that I've cooked up a lot of misses lately. There was this Squash Au Gratin that sounded amazing, but I didn't feel the need to use real cream in it so we ended up with a dry squash casserole. Then there was a "chili" I made with our leftover ham hock from Easter, one I decided to improvise and therefore, ended up with a watery bean soup.

I'm starting to think I should try Fred's little "following the recipe" tactic.

Even a maverick needs a little direction, right?

If you're so inclined, you can find the recipe for Stuffed Chicken with Almonds here.
Yes, it's a Cooking Light recipe.
Yes, we've had a lot of luck with Cooking Light lately.
No, I don't think it's just because of Fred.

Grandma's Lemon Cake

Every Easter, my grandma made her "famous" lemon cake. It's comprised mostly of premade mixes and it's incredibly delicious. Fred couldn't stop himself from going back for more and more.

My grandma passed away earlier this year after having lived a long, accomplished life that included 5 children, 13 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. I would make some sort of metaphoric comparison between Grandma and the cake, using words like "uncomplicated" and "tart and sweet at the same time", but I'd rather not make her roll her eyes in heaven.

This Easter, my mom made the cake. This is what I love about family favorites. Grandma Scally may not have been physically present this Easter, but she was still at our table.


Agnes Rohe Scally's Lemon Cake

For Cake
1 Box of Lemon Cake Mix
1 Box of Instant Lemon Pudding

For Glaze
1 cup of confectioner's sugar
1 TBL milk
1 lemon, juiced

EQUIPMENT: 1 bundt cake pan, wire cooling rack

Directions
Make cake according to package directions for a bundt cake, mixing in the box of lemon pudding. Pour into a bundt pan. Once it's done baking and completely cooled, make the glaze. Simply mix the glaze ingredients together and drizzle over cake.

Listless

Does Madonna have a list of Life Dreams? Somehow I think not.

On the left hand side of her site, Maggie Mason has a list of things she'd like to do in her lifetime. It's a great list. I happen to think she is one of the coolest people on the Internet, so I decided to follow her example.

Huh.

Maggie's list sounds worldly and aspirational. Mine sounded like a list of errands I need to get to before work on Monday.

I kid you not when I tell you that one of my things was, "Get to Target to use gift certificate for Easter candy." and "Buy Walt a pail and shovel for the playground sandbox." And those are the least pathetic ones.

As a reasonably intelligent woman, I was shocked by what I had written. I've seen Maggie's list, I get the gist. And yet. I couldn't seem to think up a single thing that didn't involve Walt.

TRAPPED! I'm clamped between the iron jaws of the Mommy Martyrdom. You know, that totally played-out thing about always putting everyone else's needs before mine. And feeling excruciatingly guilty for wanting to have a few nonworking hours away from my family.

Because like many women I know, I received a message that said, "Good, caring mommies focus on their children at all times. Otherwise your depressed kids will grow up to be enraged serial killers. Or Morrissey."

It's not about being a perfect mom anymore. No one thinks you have to be that. There are a gillion books, even more blogs and a TV show that celebrate drinking wine during nap time and letting your kid go to school with Twinkies for lunch. It's more about how much time you spend away from your kids, and is that really good for them?

This message is entangled deeply with my DNA. Even Oprah can't talk it away, and this woman had me buying argyle sweaters one autumn. (Don't ask.) I hear it murmuring quiet disagreement when I read anything that says "Me" time. (An annoying phrase for a bevy of reasons that will take another post to tackle. ) It's tsk-tsking when I hear of parents who left their 8-month-old with gramma and went scuba diving for a week. It's clenching by stomach and twisting when I go to my musical improv class Thursday nights, meaning the only time I see Walt that one day is for a few hours in the morning before work.

What a shit message, right? I try to pretend it doesn't exist. But oh! There it is, lurking and ruining my scheudled pedicure, conniving to throw me into a guilt-fueled buying spree at Toys R Us. What's a girl who wants to think up a few lifetime dreams to do?

The only solution I can come up with is to ignore it and keep moving. In AA they encourage newcomers who are trying to stop drinking to "act as if..." you want to be a recovering alcoholic, even when every cell in your body cries for 27 vodka rocks. Eventually the feeling will fade. So that's what I'm going to do. Act as if I don't feel guilty, or like I suck, or like Walt's very future is going to shatter like weak plaster if I don't see him for 2 hours on one night.

Because if there's one thing I truly believe, it's that there is no better gift I can give Walt then a mom who is truly well-rounded and fulfilled. That, and an Elmo pail.