Food for Thought Thursdays: Feeling Full

Rachel here: In the days before M's arrival, John and I spent Saturdays in our kitchen together. Sometimes I'd cook, sometimes we'd both cook, but what felt important--what was important--was that we spent that time together, focused on feeding ourselves well physically in the upcoming week and in feeding our relationship through this weekly pause together. We'd talk and cook, sometimes listening to talk radio. The best, though, was when our friend Brian gave us new music of his.

John and Brian have always been friends (always). Getting to be friends with Brian (and his phenomenal wife--one of my best, best friends--and super awesome daughter) has been one of the great gifts of being with John. The music Brian makes is, in turn, one of the great gifts of knowing Brian. Brian makes music that articulates feelings I stumble to find words for, grasps moments that slip through my fingers. Ethereal and concrete, brave and intimate--the arrival in our kitchen of new music from Brian has always been cause for excitement in our house.

Today, it is my distinct pleasure to direct your attention to Brian's blog (click here). He has a new album out (called "Call")and, for the first time, he and John have teamed up with John illustrating each of the five singles Brian is releasing (a sample is our illustration for this post). The album is awesome and so are John's singles covers.

Spending the day in the kitchen with my best friend and true love, preparing food to fill our bellies while Brian's music filled our ears--this is as full as I've ever been and I feel incredibly lucky for such sustenance.

Food for Thought Thursday: A Foodie on — What Else? — Food

Janet here: Cara and I met over dancing at Nia, which if you don't know it, is this amazing form of exercise that feeds the soul and exercises the body. If you want to know more click here.

Anyway Cara mentioned one day that she is a regular LTIR follower so I asked her what I ask everyone who reads it: Would you like to share a food memory/recipe? Happily she said yes, so here you go.

Cara: I am definitely a foodie, so it was true excitement when Janet offered me the opportunity to write something inspired by the topic food in her blog! I think that I have loved food as far back as I can remember. I love the smells, colors, textures, and combinations of different foods.

When I think about what my first memories with food are I remember my mother’s cooking — pasta with a marinara sauce, meatballs, fish, and the baked goods ... Oh, the baked goods: banana bread, sugar cookies, muffins. Really my mom cooking for us, with the care and thought that she put into our meals, was an authentic expression of love.

Now as an adult I have grown to appreciate the value of cooking your own food in a way that I am so grateful for. I love to read novels centered around food (Like Water for Chocolate was my first), watch the Food Network, read and collect cookbooks, go out to eat, try different ethnic foods, and of course cook!

The recipe that inspired this story is Grilled Rosemary Salmon Skewers with a Vegetable Feta couscous. I am always trying to find healthy, flavorful and quick meals, and this one was definitely a winner. I made it with my friend, Leticia, who had come over for an evening of good old girl time. Leticia is so much fun to cook (and eat) with because she equally shares my love for a healthy and delicious meal.

The salmon is marinated in a simple combination of rosemary, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and a little salt, and then grilled on skewers with grape tomatoes. It really is melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The couscous with diced peppers, tomatoes and goat cheese is light and a great combination with the fish. We spent the night laughing, drinking wine, cooking and having great conversation.

I am pleased that a recipe that I made on such a great night inspired Janet to ask me to write something on her blog for Food for Thought Thursdays. I understand that the topic of “food” can be very delicate (Suggested reading for anyone who is challenged with balancing how to “love” food and not eat compulsively: Women, Food, and God by Gene Roth).

Thank you Mom for giving me the gift of a childhood filled with loving and mouth watering food-filled memories!

Food for Thought Thursdays: And Then There Were Two

Janet here: After 13 years straight of parenting teenagers fulltime and nearly 26 years of being (mostly) first in our children's lives, Peter and I have officially moved to back-seat status. S, the last child, has left the nest for college and the middle son, G, left yesterday on a jet plane for the next life adventure on the West Coast.

It's a strange feeling, this empty nest. On the one hand, Peter and I are more than ready. One teenager would be exhausting; having multiples for years on end has left us feeling at times as if we were on the 14th round in a boxing match. There were certainly days when I wondered how I would make it until they actually left.

But now the house is empty and of course it is a lot quieter than I imagined it would be. When I walked into G's room to strip his bed, it looked and felt different than S's room, which is still filled with S's essence in a way that G's is not. S's room is a movie on pause; G's room belongs to a show that is over, its main character gone forever.

It is the way it is supposed to be, of course. I wanted to raise strong-hearted and strong-minded children who would feel the world is their oyster. I didn't want to be a parent who stood in the way or who made her children feel as if they couldn't leave. I know, too, that they will be back and that, of course, we will have more family adventures and times together. But the path of the orbit has shifted; where we were once the sun, now we are the moon, still providing light of course but without the same strength.

I know in coming days, I will begin to feel happier about this new change. I am excited to see what it means for Peter and me individually and as a couple. If nothing else, I am no longer going to have to worry about whether a new dish will be well-received; the last fussy eater just left the building and our palate just expanded immeasurably.

Most of all, I am excited to see where our children will go next. This time of their lives is so open with opportunity; it is the decade of complete possibility in so many ways. I can't wait to see where the ride takes them — and us.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Tomato Mush

Janet here: Every family has its own language, expressions that we create for events or moments that we forget are unique to us until we utter them out in the world and receive completely blank, if not shocked, stares. (Certain bodily functions immediately come to mind, for instance.) So, too, do families have prized personal recipes and food moments. And in the Reynolds clan, tomato mush is high up on the list.

Tomato mush is basically tomatoes with mayo, salt and pepper. You just cut up the tomato and then add the rest. Chill it before serving and you're good to go.

I was first served tomato mush at my in-law's home one summer early in my relationship with Peter. If I hadn't already been completely smitten by Peter, this concoction might have sealed the deal. Why? Because the only thing better than a luscious, ripe tomato seasoned simply with a little salt is a luscious, ripe tomato with salt and mayonnaise ... and maybe a little white bread to sop up the juicy goodness. (Indeed, when I can't make tomato mush, a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich on white bread is a happy substitute.) His family's love of tomato mush — in particular the adoration by Peter's dad, Dick, who loves this almost as much as he loves herrings in cream sauce and who grew up eating this — clearly meant Peter and I were meant to be.

As a young mother, I figured tomato mush would be a hit if for no other reason than the name itself. What kid isn't going to want to try something called mush? Interestingly, S, the adventurous eater, is the one child who doesn't like tomato mush. He is not a fan of tomatoes, something I truly don't get, although I will continue to love him nonetheless.

For me, tomato mush remains a special harbinger of summer's full goodness, that moment when tomatoes are perfection right off the vine. They don't need one minute of ripening but instead can be enjoyed immediately and fully. Tomatoes like that always come at the beginning of summer's wane. Certain trees here are already tinged with hints of fall's colors to come, and with it, the cool weather and a return to fewer ripe food options. It makes the tomato's taste all the more bittersweet.

Rachel here: I was going to chime in with my own thoughts on tomato mush, but I think my mom's summed it up pretty well. Plus, I had forgotten that it comes from my dad's family and I like that she liked them all a little bit more for introducing her to this sort of deconstructed tomato sandwich (I prefer it with pumpernickel bread on the side).

Food for Thought Thursdays: The Adventurous Eater Leaves Home

Rachel here: My brothers G and S are such satisfying siblings to me that--unlike most girls I know!--I have never wanted sisters, never even wondered about having them. Each of my brothers offers me incredible company in his own way and has shaped me immeasurably. This post, though, is about S in particular. It is for S and from me as he prepares to go off to college. Here goes...

I was going to write a memory about you, S, a food memory to pause in before you go forth into the next chapter of your life. There are too many to choose from, though (you've always been an adventurous eater). We have had countless meals together, relished myriad treats. Instead, I am going to offer you a little piece of food advice.

In my experience, how well I am taking care of myself in general is mirrored in how I'm eating. When I am conscious of what food I am putting into my body, when I am thoughtful about eating balanced, I find I become a more balanced person in the rest of my life. Eating poorly is really easy to do in college. The thing is, though, that so is eating well if you just choose to. G and I struggled with college during our respective first attempts and this struggle was evident in the ways we chose to sustain our bodies. I know you are intrigued by and in pursuit of a mindful existence and it seems to me that if you can remain aware of how you're eating, the rest will fall into place quite nicely for you. You have a phenomenal brain, S, and a body that is young and strong. Care for yourself physically and psychically you have no ceiling.

I cannot believe you are going off to college. What a lucky school! Though we haven't lived together for some time now, I still will miss you as you disappear from the surroundings I know you in, only to reappear in them with the scent of adventure and unknown spaces faint in your air. I am excited for you and know that the openness you've always had for food is a mere symptom of the openness you possess as a person. This openness is one of your greatest strengths, one I both admire and, at times, envy. So remember to eat your fruits and vegetables and know always that I love you with all of my heart.

Janet here: I had planned to add to this lovely post, but I think I will leave this as Rachel's note to her brother. I get kind of stuck at the part where S, our youngest and our last to leave, is going. XO

Food for Thought Thursdays: Feeding Kids, Part I

Janet here: Rachel's post this week on Books That Make Us Hungry got me thinking about our children and food. It's a big topic, as you can imagine, so I'm only going to tackle one little bit here in memoryland.

I went into feeding my children with a couple of food versions of Things I Would Never Do or Say to My Children — you know, those things you vow as a child/teenager you will NEVER do when you're a parent, about half of which you do within the first few years of your first child's life. Anyway, I lived in a house where you did not leave the table until your plate was clean. After all, there were children starving in India (or Africa or whatever other country your parent wanted to insert, which they all did, at least among my friends). I can remember a few memorable nights where I was left sitting alone at the kitchen table, ice cold fish lying on the plate and my mother checking in periodically to make sure I didn't try something clever like hiding it in my napkin. (Although my Golden Retriever, Sunshine, ate all of my Brussel sprouts for 15 years, even she would not eat this fish.)

Anyway I'm not sure if it was that particular night or maybe the night my mother served liver or the night she served this gelatinous glop called aspic, but I vowed, like Scartlett in Gone with the Wind that I would NEVER make my kids clean their plates. Instead I instituted the No Thank You portion, a spoonful or two of whatever heinous vegetable or entree I was trying to ruin my children's lives with. I felt strongly they should try new things but understood that not everyone liked everything.

I would say this approach was about 50 percent useful (and I'm sure Rachel will disabuse me of even that idea in her part below), but I think it was certainly better than the forced clean plate. So I guess this is one instance where I managed not to fail as a parent which, as all parents know, is basically the bar we're all trying not to fall below.

Rachel here: Ahhhh, yes. The No Thank You portion. How vividly I can picture the two string beans on G's plate. I can still hear the disgruntled mumbles coming from the chair next to mine. Not to blow my mom's mind or anything, but I think she was onto something with this theory. It seems to be a well-established fact that a lot of kids need an invitation of sorts to try new foods. For some kids I know, an actual invitation is all it takes; for most kids, though, bribery seems like a slightly better description. This is where the No Thank You portion succeeded. Foods that were resisted (and we each had/have our own unique dislikes) were presented as mere bites, as teeny bribes that guaranteed access to dessert (which, at least for me, was the point of the main course of dinner when I was growing up) or leaving the table (which was, I think, the point for G...S was hands-down the best eater amongst the three of us as kids). The roadblock on the plate almost always seemed surmountable (except when it was broccoli or cauliflower which, to this day, I can't stand) and, in turn, so did trying new foods.

As you may have noticed, I'm already giving a lot of thought to M and her foray into solid foods. The general theory I've come to subscribe to is that, as when breastfed, little kids (like little babies) know when they are and are not hungry. Because of this, forced eating is a disservice, a move which only succeeds in teaching our kids to override their natural (and correct) instincts about feeding themselves and thrusts them onto the very problematic food trajectory that much of our society is trapped in. The No Thank You Portion, though, both respects the appetite and autonomy of the eater while also nudging kids who'd prefer to judge with their eyes over their tongues out of their comfort zone for just a few bites. Had my mom not done this, G might never have tried watermelon...ever. And I might never have developed the gumption to re-approach broccoli and cauliflower as an adult (and thus never determined that I really do loath them)...and never had the satisfaction of informing my mother that I really don't like them.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Great Camps and Great Food

Janet here: While it may not seem as if a Great Camp in the Adirondacks is about food, for our family it is. That's because we have spent two weeks there just about every summer for most of the last 20 years. Only a trip to London, out West, a wedding and the birth of our grandchild has held us back.

I know we've been lucky as a family to make this happen for so long. I was sure that our children would begin to reject this rustic retreat on the shores of Upper Saranac Lake as they reached the teenage years and entering a technology-free zone for two weeks would become decidedly uncool. (Full disclosure: our rental cabin did get cable TV a few years ago, but the only way to get cell phone service is to stand on a picnic table by the dock and even then it's dicey.) Instead, I have been thrilled that they've continued to love it and that they've been clambering to return and worked to make sure their summer jobs allowed them at least one week with us in this very special place.

But on to the food: Since it's a vacation for me too, this is not a place for fancy food or elaborate dinners. Instead I whip up — and Rachel has jumped in as she's gotten older — dinners I can create from memory. It's a place where some of our usual healthier eating goes on vacation, too. I remember the excitement of our children when they were younger and were allowed to pick any kind of cereal they wanted. The fact that it was the color of the rainbow and had enough sugar to guarantee they would be hanging off the ceiling shortly thereafter didn't matter at all. And this was before the many nights of s'mores around the communal campfire and multiple visits to Donnelly's soft serve ice cream (one flavor a day: enjoy it or don't have any).

The kind of food didn't really matter. It was just the idea of eating together every night without an agenda or schedule that helped to make the food memorable. It's a memory we are hoping to bring to the next generation of Reynolds, hopefully starting next summer with the divine Miss M. And our children, now 25, 23 and 18, have already decided that some day, down the road, they will gather together with their spouses and children and share time together in the Adirondacks. I'll bring the cereal.

Rachel here: My mom completed this post without my input because I was having some internet drama. It was resolved, though, and so I just wanted to say that I love what she wrote. Our summers in the Adirondacks are one of my favorite things about my entire life and I cannot WAIT to bring M (and John! He's never been...tragic!) into the scene as soon as possible (it feels important that this start next summer). S'mores and cereal are just the beginning of the great food-oriented memories. There have been dinners of fish caught fresh from the lake, a 50th birthday celebration for my dad, G's first foray into the kitchen and a more general luxuriating around the table that is never quite mustered throughout the rest of the year. It's a great tradition my parents gave us (continued on from my dad's family...when M goes she will be the 6th generation of Reynolds to arrive in the mountains), the kind that has sated my brothers and me through and through.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Vegan = Tasty

Janet here: We are very happy to introduce Gigi, author of Veganville, who we gave a shout-out to a couple of weeks ago. As we said in our posting, Veganville is not your typical food blog. Gigi likes to throw it out there. This is cooking with an attitude. We think you'll get the idea when you read her guest post here. While I have basically avoided veganhood — who can live without dairy! — Gigi's blog has made me decide to give it a try. Here's hoping you're inspired too.

Gigi:
A while back, Janet and Rachel invited me to be a guest blogger. I’m really excited to be here at Life Told in Recipes. I just hope they remembered that I was coming. I noticed that other guest bloggers received some interview questions and a lead in. I flew all the way from Veganville too. Veganville is my place in cyber land. I’m a vegan food and fashion writer, sometimes irreverent essayist. I’m also the owner of Veganville a small vegan baking and cooking company in Berkeley, California. Hmmm wonder where they are…

Since I’m here, I’d like to mention that I never proselytize but merely expose some truths about certain industries. Today, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about my experience with Martha.

Martha is a thug! There was a time when Martha thrived on sustainable ingredients but that was before she did time in the pokey. I’m sure you’ve heard about her famous ketchup packets and cigarette butt gazpacho by now, but I bet you didn’t know that while doing time, Martha also made eyeliner from peas. She fenced a lot of local ingredients and always composted while in the yard. Martha stopped eating the green meat and slimy eggs and was one step away from Veganhood when she was released.

This was the first cake she asked for on the outside.



It’s made with 582 eggs. Think of the chickens Martha, they are not as free range as you think. There’s a lot of crowding and barbed wire going on in those places, Martha. Think of a prison for chickens. I think I might have heard Martha cackle “I don’t care GiGi - I’m out”.

I took the liberty to veganize some Martha cookies.



Martha’s in the Big House Carrot Sandwich Cookies

ingredients
2 sticks Earth Balance softened

1 cup organic brown sugar

¼ cup water mixed with 3 teaspoons egg replacer

2 cups unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon ginger

½ tsp allspice

2 cups rolled oats

1.5 cups grated carrots

1 cup raisins

method

Heat oven to 350. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment. Cream together Earth Balance and both sugars on medium speed until fluffy. Add egg replacer and vanilla and mix until combined. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and spices in separate bowl. Add gradually to Earth balance mix and mix until combined. Mix in oats, carrots and raisins until just blended. Shape a tablespoon of dough (a small ice cream scoop works well) into balls and place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes until lightly browned. Cool completely before filling.

Vegan cream cheez

ingredients
¼ cup Earth Balance (softened)

¼ cup Tofutti (softened)

2 cup vegan confectioner’s sugar

1 teaspoon non-alcoholic vanilla

Cream Earth Balance with Tofutti. Beat in confectioner’s sugar a half a cup at a time. Remember to scrape down the sides in between. Add vanilla last.

When the cookies are completely cool, spread about 1 T of vegan cream cheese on the bottom of one cookie and then sandwich it together with another. Enjoy!

Food for Thought Thursdays: Food and Place

Janet here: While visiting Rachel and the divine Miss M! last week, I was amazed by more than just the newest Reynolds — hard as that is to believe. I was blown away by the supermarkets.

Now I've been to California before. I remember my father eagerly taking me to the local supermarket chain when they lived in Sunnyvale 20 years ago and, like a kid in a candy store, exclaiming over the size of the lemons! The freshness of the lettuce! The variety of plums! At the time, he and my mother had just moved from Maine, which wasn't exactly known for its fresh produce after, say, September. This was an era in which asparagus were really only available in the spring because that's the way things rolled. Now you can get asparagus practically year-round — not necessarily tasty asparagus but asparagus nonetheless. At the time, while I enjoyed a good melon as much as my dad, I wasn't quite as impressed as he was. I was, after all, 28 and, um, stupid the way 28-year-olds can be.

Now, though, the variety and general quality of the food around Berkeley completely blew my mind. I am used to buying most fruits, apples excepted, at least a few days in advance of when I would actually like to eat them because that's when they'll actually be ripe. Eating in the summer months, when more fresh produce is available, is obviously better all around in the Northeast, but when the fall comes, it's back to eating stewed tomatoes for another 9 months until real vine-ripened tomatoes are available. Those faux tomatoes supermarkets try to claim are ripe are just not and are virtually without taste.

So I found myself thinking about how differently I would eat if I lived someplace where fresh fruit and veggies were basically available all year. I also thought about how this availability and general insistence by a large percentage of the population that of course this is the way their food will be even impacts what kinds of meats and dairy products are available. Virtually none of the meats were pre-packaged as they are in the Northeast and the percentage of meats, poultry and fish that were natural, i.e. hormone/antibiotic-free, free range, organic, wild vs. farm-raised for fish, etc., was much higher than where I regularly shop.

It also got me thinking about class and food. This access to food like this is much more about what you can pay for in the Northeast than I think it is in the Berkeley area. (I say this without having done much research but I've got a hunch I'm right.)

What does all this mean? I'm not sure, but I left California feeling a little bit like I've got a raw deal in the Northeast and feeling a little annoyed that locavore living and eating isn't easier for us all. I'm certain we would all be the healthier for it.

Food for Thought Thursdays: The Family Cookbook Project

Janet here: We started Life Told in Recipes because we love cooking and we love serving the people we love good food. (It was also an excuse to talk on the phone every day.)

But the idea behind the blog was also to get other people talking about food and remembering their happiest moments sharing food with the people they love. With that in mind, we want to let you know about the Family Cookbook Project. Basically it's an online company that helps you organize all those family recipes into a printable product that you can then share with everyone in your family. They've got templates and timelines and suggestions for how to corral your family into this project. Yes, there's a fee, but it's reasonable, especially since what you have at the end is a piece of family history that will last forever.

I got interested in our family food history after my mother died and I discovered all the notes she had written in her cookbooks. They were an abbreviated diary of her life and while wonderful to have, I was left feeling incomplete. Why hadn't we talked about these recipes while she was alive?

The Family Cookbook Project is one way to make sure that doesn't happen in your family. Check it out. You won't be sorry.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Straight from the Source

Rachel here: Perhaps it's too early for me to really articulate this experience. Breastfeeding, I think, is a landing in my body for me. I have gone from spending years starving and controlling food, desperate not to feel full, not to feel my length and weight, to now living in my body, fueling it in the name of sharing it to sustain M. Over and over again, M puts me back in my body and connects mine to hers, lending me both an expansiveness and a closed circuit at once--it is both thrilling and incredibly safe feeling.

A bizarre and breathtaking phenomenon has occurred in which I have gone from merely consuming food to becoming the producer of it for our baby. While I completely support women who end up going the formula/bottle route for the various reasons that that becomes the prudent course of action, I feel incredibly lucky to get the experience of breastfeeding my child. The connectedness that comes from it is both heart-stopping and calming and I feel incredibly and quite simply powerful for being able to feed our baby this way. It took M and me a day or two to really nail this joint project (with a lot of help from John) and I feel so fortunate that we stuck with it. When I feed her, I try to focus exclusively on her, to calm my body and slow my breath so that she is nourished both physically and emotionally. The result, of course, is a nourishing of myself unlike any I've ever known.

-------------------------*

Ok, so I'm typing with one hand now as is often the case these days. I have repeatedly come back to this post in an effort to write a satisfying ending to it. Every time though, M wakes up and wants to eat before I get my thoughts together. I finally realized that that is my perfect ending.

Food for Thought Thursdays: The College Grad Cooks for Mom

Janet here: As a young feminist, I vowed I would teach my sons to do their own laundry, clean a bathroom, sew, iron and cook. No sons of mine I vowed, not unlike Scarlett in Gone with the Wind, would think of this as woman's work. Now, as the mother of a 22-(almost 23-)year-old and 18-year-old, I am a little chagrined to report I am two for five. My sons have done their own laundry since they were 10 (each of my children received a laundry basket and a lesson in how to do laundry as part of their 10th birthday present) and they can clean a bathroom, but the others remain elusive. While they have been taught how to sew and iron, they generally refuse — but Mom you can do it so much faster! — and the cooking lessons, well, those fell by the wayside.

So I was shocked last week when G, the college grad, asked me if I wanted him to cook dinner. No one else was home and I feel fairly certain he thought I'd say no, but I jumped at the offer. And I stay committed even after I learned that basically we were going to have chicken nachos for dinner, a meal that he described as his "Mexican dinner specialty" but was absolutely nachos, as this picture will illustrate.


The meal began with G making me a gin and tonic, which was also a first. Then, as I relaxed in the family room, he got busy in the kitchen, which basically meant cutting up the chicken into strips and looking for "the hottest spices in the cupboard" to create, as he put it, "a history mystery mixture of all the hot red stuff." From there he grated some cheese, threw the whole mixture onto a plate with some tortilla chips, and plopped it in the oven for about 10 minutes. He proudly proclaimed dinner ready, and we sat down to eat. I'm not sure I've ever had a tastier plate of nachos.

Food for Thought Thursdays: a Visual Feast

Rachel here: My dad is one of my favorite people. EVER. While my mom and I share a love for cooking (amongst other things), the appetites my dad and I have in common are a little different. One of my favorites is our mutual love of a midday break to peruse an art museum and share a little lunch.

I can't recall when this little art and lunch tradition of ours first started, though I know it was when I was in high school. At a time when-at best!-I was reticent, invitations to meet my dad at his office on Wednesdays (we had half-days at my high school) or over school breaks were a surefire way to bring us together. He would either pick me up or, once I could, I would drive in to his office to meet him. We'd make our way over to the Atheneum (a seriously, seriously awesome and accessible art museum in Hartford, Connecticut that you should check out if you're in the area) and peruse the galleries together. With my dad at my side, I discovered Calder and the Hudson River School, learned the difference between Monet and Manet, and spent an afternoon stifling chuckles at Grandma Moses (to this day, neither one of us really "gets it" when it comes to her)...to name just a few. In an era when I was loathe to converse much with my parents (except to argue about why I should be allowed to go to various parties or, absent a party, to just loudly list my grievances against them), these excursions with my dad offered neutral territory for us to meet on. With neither of us an expert on what we were feasting our eyes upon, we were free to postulate and interpret as equals. I don't know if my dad had considered this all when he first initiated these little adventures of ours, but regardless, it was brilliant parenting. It was a point of access to him for me, a door that was always ajar even if I had been slamming the one on my bedroom ferociously for days. Often, though we'd start out talking about art, we'd end up discussing the issues I was grappling with at the time.

Sometimes we'd eat in the museum cafe (very yummy), but my favorite was when we'd have sushi together. Sushi wasn't something that we ate growing up. Instead, at least in my teenage mind, it was something that my dad and I ate together. It felt so sophisticated and decadent to me, and a little bit adventurous. I felt like we had this little club-the art and sushi club-that nobody else in my family even desired to join (clearly indicating irreparable shortcomings on their parts). Even if we didn't get sushi, remaining at the museum to nibble in the cafe instead, I felt like my dad and I were sharing a mutual love of finer things, dining surrounded by art.

Every time I go to Connecticut to visit my family (ok, almost every time), my dad and I get in a trip to an art museum. These days he's quite fond of the New Britain Museum of American Art and I've enjoyed the shows he's taken me to there. Though it's rarely just the two of us on these outings these days, I hold this little feeling that everyone else is just peripheral, that really these visual feasts are for my dad and me, that our club is in session even if we haven't formally announced it.

As I'm sitting here writing this, I'm realizing that I don't think I've ever thanked my dad for this tradition of ours that he's gifted me with or expressed to him how much it has meant to me for a decade or more now. And so, thank you, Dad-for art, for lunch, for creating this space for me to find you in (as a tumultuous teen, but also forever). Happy (early) Father's Day; I love you now and I will love you always.


PS: If you're looking to bake a cake for a favorite father of yours this weekend, click here for inspiration!

Food for Thought Thursdays: Fear of Failure

Janet here: I had a moment of cooking panic this week. I had decided to make biscotti, something I'd never attempted before, but no biggie, right? I make new things all the time. And then it all began to go horribly wrong.

I followed the recipe the way I follow all recipes: I take the overall idea of mixing a bunch of stuff together but completely ignore all those little niggly details — aren't they really for people who are afraid to cook? — about sifting, mixing certain dry ingredients together first, using certain equipment etc. I mean, they all end up in the bowl and then in a baking pan anyway so what's the point?

With biscotti, the point, apparently, is that you end up with biscotti that actually looks something like biscotti instead of little biscotti pieces that look as if they aren't full grown yet.

I began to get concerned after I happily dumped all the wet ingredients into the bowl in one fell swoop rather than in batches as suggested. What I had after mixing was just a bunch of dough pieces. Nothing was holding together. The recipe said to take the dough out of the bowl and place it on the counter for kneading. Maybe, I reasoned, kneading would pull my dough together. Nope. After kneading and kneading and kneading and getting nothing to hold together in a way that was supposed to yield a 10" log about 3 inches in diameter, I gave up and just made balls of dough at whatever size I could force to hold together. It looked like this.


Now the story has a (mostly) happy ending, which I will share with you tomorrow when I reveal the full recipe and the final product. But in the meantime, I learned something about myself and about cooking. First, I am not used to having anything turn out other than fabulous, and I was not happy when things began to spin out of control. How would I explain this to the family — okay, Rachel, because of course there is a competitive streak to this little collaboration of ours. And, finally, it turns out instructions are there for a reason and that, yes, they do apply to me. Seems like this little baking adventure stirred up more than just flour and eggs.

Food for Thought Thursdays: My Ongoing Fantasy

Rachel here: This is a post that I write--no joke--everyday in my head. It is a list of all of the foods I am going to eat once I am no longer pregnant. In the fantasy I've been entertaining for, oh, let's say the last 36 weeks, there is a night in my (now not so distant) future in which I ditch the kid and head out for a night of culinary indulgence. When I mention this to some people they say, "Oh, but you won't want to leave your baby with a sitter for a while," to which I calmly reply, "You must think I want John to come." See, part of the fantasy is having no witness as I stuff my face. I want a few hours in silence with all of the foods I have missed so dearly during pregnancy, to reconnect and rekindle. Oh yeah, and I'm having a g-d drink or two while I'm at it (an urban perk is that you never have to drive!). Sure, John and I will need to find time to spend alone together once M is here (we're pretty sure that's the kid's first initial), but I've got an itch in my belly that I can't wait to scratch. Anyway, without further ado, the list:

1. Steak. When I say steak, I mean the kind that leaves blood on your lips. I guess I could have eaten it while pregnant, but this is just one of those foods that is simply not meant to be cooked to a gray death the way I would have had to in order to eat it. So yeah, steak. With lots of blood.
2. Runny egg yolks. I can say with some confidence that, though I have dutifully eaten them for their protein, if I never see another scrambled egg on my plate again it will be too soon. I am picturing a popped yolk running down the sides of a bloody steak and it is making my heart flutter...now I am picturing a homemade caesar salad...I see buttered toast dipped in that marvelous yellowy goo...ugh...I might actually drool.
3. Raw fish. Prior to being pregnant, I could have eaten sushi and sashimi weekly. In fact, when I had my druthers, I'm pretty sure I did eat it weekly. Needless to say, our reunion will be joyous. I think I feel myself tearing up at the mere prospect.
4. Gin. Ok, I know I talked about this being a food list, but where I come from gin IS a food. Don't even try to convince me or mine otherwise. I will be having mine with tonic water and a wedge of lime over ice. I can feel myself melting into my chair at that first sip already.
5. Pate. Do I even need to explain this one? I guess some folks can't get down with pate. This is good because it guarantees I'll be able to find some when I'm ready for it. Give me some gherkins and I am good to go.
6. Roast beef. Some women are psychotic about what they eat when they're pregnant; I am not one of these women. However, as with my more general desire for steak, I have abstained from roast beef for these long months. I can see us running towards each other in slow motion, the thinly sliced rare roast beef leaning in for a hug, and me ducking and tripping the meat so it lands on a baguette with blue cheese. Oh, it's a magical little video and sometimes I play it on repeat while I am eating my 9 millionth vegetable sandwich.
7. Oysters. Raw, on the shell over ice, with a squeeze of lemon and a drop of hot sauce. It will be hard not to moan. I'm not even sure I'll try to stop myself.
8. Tuna salad. This is, no doubt, the lamest thing on my list. For someone who's on the brink of motherhood, I certainly retain (amongst others) the childish tendency to want the very things I am told I can't have. And so, though I had probably eaten tuna less than five times in the year leading up to my pregnancy, I find myself dying to bite into a tuna melt. Though I won't eat it again for eons after my debaucherous romantic evening alone, the tuna's definitely invited on this date.
9. Mayonnaise. I don't even really like mayonnaise (I used to give it up for Lent at church when I was little and everyone thought I was so devoted...good trick, no?). The thing is, though, that a month or two ago John mentioned an interest in making it from scratch. I told him to go for it but that he'd have to eat it all himself or give it away because I wouldn't be able to eat it due to the raw eggs involved. The same propensity for wanting that which I can't have kicked in and now I have wanted to eat homemade mayonnaise ever since. I'm thinking I could do some serious damage to good aioli. Scratch that, I'm thinking I'm going to have to.
10. Homemade ice cream. See, we have an ice cream making attachment for our KitchenAid mixer. When I open my freezer to get my store-bought ice cream (every single day), I see the attachment sitting in there just waiting for me. Once upon a time I made vanilla bean ice cream that nearly brought tears to my eyes. The two of us are going to meet again and it's going to be nothing short of glorious.

Now, I'm sure some of you have read this list and thought, "Rachel, most of that food should never appear on the same table at once." To you naysayers, all I have to say is that most of what I've eaten for the last 36 weeks shouldn't be eaten together at once. I haven't been super weird about what I've eaten, just a little bit particular, and my meals have often been makeshift in the name of ensuring proper vitamin intake (ok, except when my hot wings problem dictates). The real problem with my list is going to be finding one restaurant that offers all of these things at the same time. The good news, though, is that I've still got time to find this wonderful, wonderful place. If you're lucky, I'll tell you where it is once I'm done.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Grown-up Desserts and Sneaky Snacks

We are very happy to introduce Caroline Barrett, a food blogger — you can catch her musings and terrific recipes at Table for 5, one of our faves — and a mother who tries to find creative ways to feed her growing family. We've been a fan of her blog and her writing for a while, so we asked her to do a guest post for Food for Thought Thursday. We love what she's written about and can completely identify with both the need for something sweet after dinner and the sneakiness dilemma. Enjoy!



What do you eat when you find yourself alone in the kitchen? For me, it's always something sweet.

At the end of the day, when all three children are tucked into bed and baths are done, homework is checked and all is blissfully quiet, I look for something to eat. I'm not talking about a bunch of grapes or a sliced apple. I'm talking chocolate. Ice cream. Or cookies.

Our evenings usually go something like this: Dinner is put on the table. It might be ridiculously simple, like rice and beans. Or it could be something I thought about for far too long, bought special ingredients for, read many recipes about, and then wrung my hands while everyone took their first bite, wondering if all the effort was worth it. Either way, there is bound to be some complaining about eating the salad. Or the asparagus. Even a lovely bunch of green beans is likely to get a grimace from my five-year-old son. No matter the dinner or the response, I always expect the same thing when the meal is done. Someone always asks: What's for dessert?

This comes as the last bite of food is taken, and the forks have barely hit the plates. Now, depending on my mood, and how well everyone ate, I'm game for a little sweet after dinner. So I'll offer up a Newman-O (the natural food world's answer to Oreos,) or a popsicle made from leftover smoothies. Occasionally I'll say yes to a small scoop of ice cream. We usually leave big desserts for the weekend or special occasions.

So back to the good part, the one that comes after they are all tucked in bed. When I'm finally alone in the kitchen, I turn the lights down low. Wipe down the counters. Stack papers from school and put mail away. It can all wait until tomorrow. Then, I pour a glass of wine. Not a wimpy glass, no. I fill it right up, a big glass of Pinot Noir or a Zinfandel. Those both go well with late night snacking. And then it's time to bring out the good dessert: the grown-ups dessert.

Sometimes my husband is in on this crime with me. We keep a hidden pint of Adirondack Creamery's Chocolate Chocolate Chip hidden deep in our freezer. It's usually under the corn and behind the peas, a place no kid would look. Their ice cream is incredible rich, chocolate-y, but not too sweet. It's also sold at the Delmar Marketplace, making it easy for us to make a late-night run for a pint if we find our hidden stash too low.

Another favorite secret dessert is the really cheap kind of ginger snaps sold in any grocery store. Strange, I know. It's something about the small size of the cookie, the irresistible crunch and the real bite of ginger. All for $1.99! The serving size on the box says 5 cookies. Really, they go down so quickly that I can probably eat 20 with my (big) glass of wine. Those cookies are good for any clandestine snacking, as they also go well with coffee, tea or milk. I have been caught eating a handful on Sunday morning at 10 am, coffee cup in hand.

My most recent late night snack was the edges from a big pan of brownies. We made a double batch of brownies for Zoe's 9th birthday. It's a rite of passage at any public school to bring in something sweet to share on your birthday. So we mixed up the brownies, she licked the beaters clean, and headed off to bed while they baked in the oven. Next morning, she came down to find all of the edges from the big pan cut off and removed.

"Why are there no edges to my brownies?" she asked. I told her the truth: they were a little too crispy. I just didn't offer up the whole truth: they were too crispy, yes. So I cut all of the edges off, tucked them into a container, and put it in my other secret hiding spot behind the kitchen knives. Tonight, I'll pour myself one of those lovely glasses of wine, and pull out a few of those crispy brownie edges. Maybe I'll make Paul and myself little brownie sundaes, with a scoop of Adirondack Creamery's Chocolate Chocolate Chip on top.

There is risk in all this devious behavior. More than a few times, while we happily spoon our contraband and sip our wine, we'll hear a bedroom door squeak open and footsteps on the stairs. Thanks goodness we live in an old house. Can you imagine if the stairs didn't creak and they showed up in the kitchen, unannounced? When we hear those little footsteps, we scramble to hide our bowls, plates, whatever we were eating. We have been caught on one or two occasions. Once, when Lucy was 3 (she's now 10,) she was being devilish and wouldn't go to bed. There we were, bowls of ice cream in hand, feeling annoyed because we couldn't enjoy it. She kept jumping on her bed, then running down the stairs to see if we were paying attention. Paul calmly put his bowl down, went upstairs and told her to get into bed. Then he put his face very close to hers and said, "Lucy, go to bed, right now." To which she replied, "I smell ice cream."Lucy is no dummy. Knowing that there was ice cream being eaten in the house, there was no way she was going to bed. Paul tried to deny it, but she knew.

Maybe I should feel a little guilty about all this sneakiness. It's not the best behavior to model for my children, is it? As a parent, though, we have to take our small joys and escapes where we can find them. And I guess I shouldn't feel too bad about eating a big dessert, because I eat all my vegetables, every one of them. Without even making a face.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Fake Cake

Janet here: As soon as my very good friend Susan Diters whirled in the door to our house and announced she had made "fake cake" for our communal dessert, I knew we had to get her on the blog. I mean, who offers to make dessert for a group dinner and then proudly announces it's fake? Susan is the only person I know who can do that and pull it off (this despite the fact that I once served strawberry shortcake and made the mistake of using Cool Whip instead of real whipped cream, which she then loudly proclaimed to the rest of the dinner party "Is this fake whipped cream?" I have never lived it down since.)

Anyway Susan can pull this kind of thing off and it's one of the many traits I love about her. An accomplished ob/gyn nurse and mother of three, Susan would absolutely be one of the people I would choose if I had to go into battle or was going to be abandoned on a deserted island like the one in Lost. She is gutsy and true blue.

"You have to embrace the fakeness," she says of this recipe which she got from Grandma Moreland. "I remember my sister making it in the '60s and early '70s and it was this novel idea to boost a box mix and make it better. You take a bit of this thing and it's like ambrosia. It's sweet and a really nice texture and reminds you of Mom and home and doing nothing good but nothing bad. It was like a grilled cheese sandwich but for dessert."

That taking something pre-made and making it better is something we can all probably identify with. After all, who has the time to always cook from scratch? But that ability to pull it off? That's totally Susan.

Here is the magic recipe

Fake Cake
Cake Ingredients
1 box Duncan Hines yellow cake mix
1 box pistachio instant pudding
3/4 vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 cup water
1 cup chopped walnuts

Icing Ingredients
1 cup medium cream
1 cup instant pistachio pudding
1 cup milk

Method
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix them all together basically following the cake mix instructions. Bake in a greased 10-inch tube pan for 45 minutes. Let cool and then add the icing.

To make the frosting beat together all the icing ingredients until stiff.

Food for Thought Thursdays: More Than Chocolate Ice Cream

Rachel here: When I was a little girl and my mom would tuck me into bed, after singing lullabies she'd pause at my bedroom door. She'd turn and blow me kisses saying, "I love you more than tongue can tell and more than chocolate ice cream" before leaving the door ajar and me to drift into sleep. I can still see her backlit by the hall light, fingers to her lips. I can hear her softly bid me goodnight and feel the dark blanketing me in safety and love.

As we all know, Mother's Day is fast approaching. This Sunday I'm sure many of us will be showing our mom's a little bit of love, be it in the form of a card, some quality time together, or just thinking good thoughts about our moms who are no longer with us. As someone on the brink of becoming a mom herself, Mother's Day this year feels a little extra poignant. I've been thinking of my mom a lot over the last 33 weeks (oh yeah, I am seriously pregnant these days) as I have begun my own adventure in motherhood. I have missed her more often than usual, wishing we could actually see each other more during this period of transition in both of our lives. There have been many, many days where I have felt like all I really wanted to do was go for a walk or grab a bite to eat with my mom. There has been this odd coupling of both feeling more like my mother's child than I have in years and also feeling more like a singular being as I grapple with my growing responsibilities.

This blog has been a great connecter for the two of us during this period. We are both busy ladies, prone to running around all day and falling into bed wiped out at night and, though we have always been close, this blog has served as a tie that binds amidst all of our day-to-day chaos. Even if it's only for a few minutes, there are few days in a week in which we don't speak. I love this. It has brought a spontaneity to our friendship that is hard to attain/maintain from so far away. We no longer need to catch up because we are both aware of what's going on in the other person's life at any given moment. Plus, I feel like I've gotten to see my mom differently, as though through blogging we found a forum to re-meet each other in some ways, to discover different aspects of the ways we both work and who we each are. It's really pretty awesome and not a gift I had anticipated receiving via our foray into the blogosphere together.

And so, Mom, though it's a few days early, I just wanted to say, now and forever more, I love you more than tongue can tell and more than chocolate ice cream. XXOO.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Sloooowwww Down

Janet here: For someone who pays so much attention to putting a meal on the table and nourishing people — physically and emotionally and spiritually — with food, you'd think I'd take more time to eat. But I don't: I wolf my food down and am usually fiddling with my utensils while everyone else is just getting down to it.

I also recently noticed — thanks in part to this blog and how it has me thinking about food and eating all the time — that I eat breakfast standing up most days of the week or while driving in my car to work, and that I eat all my weekday lunches working in front of the computer or, on weekends, standing up at the kitchen counter. In other words, while I want everyone I cook for to sit back, relax and enjoy every bite, I don't actually allow myself to do the same.

It was kind of a big epiphany, especially since a lot of what I've been working on personally in the past few years has been self-care and love. It was one of those moments when you stop and think Really? This is what I'm doing?

Of course, in some ways I'm not surprised that food would be one of the last frontiers of self-discovery. Eating has always been fraught with emotional issues, starting with the days when I was called Janet the Planet in elementary school. But I thought I was "fixed," that everything was "fine" now.

Instead, I realized that my speed eating is just another way to not really allow myself to fully nourish myself, to really enjoy the food as it's meant to be enjoyed. It's time for a change, one bite at a time. I can't wait.

Food for Thought Thursdays: Our Illustrator Can Cook!

John here: Before Rachel got pregnant, I knew two truths about pregnant women: they are hormonal and they are picky eaters. Rachel’s always been hormonal, I have tools for navigating that, but the food issue had me nervous. I can’t eat pickle sandwiches for dinner, I just can’t. Rachel did have a pickle phase but it was short lived and stayed mostly to eating them out of the jar and not in weird combinations like with ice cream or something else ridiculous. I could deal with that and I did. While I was expecting the worst from my beloved pregnant wife, sneaking yummy snacks so as to not be too hungry when her urge for okra or uncooked rolled oats kicked in, she was busy building a formidable hunger and unending desire for the staple food of her pregnancy: Hot Wings. Whoa…. Am I the luckiest man alive or what? Not only is my beautiful partner emotionally consistent with her roller coaster hormones, but also she craves my favorite food! HA to all of you other schleps running to grocery stores in the middle of the night for a jar of pickled beets! We live within walking distance of a great wing spot that has done the brunt of the work feeding Rachel, but last night I made her hot wings as a labor of love and joy and to show her my undying gratitude for carrying and supporting our child through the last seven months. She is the best partner I could ask for, and I really can ask a lot sometimes.

Creamy Orange and Chipotle Hot Wings
serves 2

Ingredients
10 whole chicken wings (makes 20 hot wings)
1 12-oz, bottle of Frank's Red Hot hot sauce
1/4 stick of butter
1/2 an orange
1/3 7-oz. can chipotle peppers (about 4 peppers plus juice), chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 pint buttermilk
salt and pepper
olive oil
celery, cut into sticks
blue cheese dressing (or dipping sauce of your choice)
Up to 1 T. brown sugar (or more, if you like sweet sauce)

Method
Wash chicken wings. Divide each wing into two pieces (this is easy to do at the joint). Steam wings for 30 minutes. Lay flat in a baking pan and chill until cooled (roughly 30 minutes). While cooling, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Season wings with salt and pepper before tossing with olive oil. Bake for 30 minutes, or until skin is crisp. Immediately start on your sauce. Pour the Frank's into a sauce pan with the chipotles and their juice. Grate in the zest of your 1/2 orange and squeeze in its juice. Add garlic, butter and brown sugar. Simmer until sauce thickens slightly. When ready to serve, stir in buttermilk. Add wings to the sauce and toss before serving.