Plastic surgery...for dragons

Recently Fiona has become much more critical of the stuffed animal dragons she owns. I was told that a purple dragon (which she asked Santa for the day before Christmas thus sending Brian on a mad dash all over the place trying to find one--mental note, get the kids to visit Santa way before Christmas Eve this coming year) had to be sent back to Santa. This wasn't right after she received it, mind you; she had been insanely in love with Darby as soon as she saw him. This occurred a good two months later. One morning she she came downstairs sobbing because Darby didn't have horns.

I tried guilt tripping the kid into thinking she'd hurt Santa's feelings if she sent it back. No deal. She was sobbing so hard that it was getting hard to understand her, but I think the gist of what she was saying was that Santa's elves could fix him and at least then he'd be happy because he'd have what every dragon needs.

Sigh. The kid would rather have the toy be happy and "complete" than keep it herself and have it living a life unfulfilled. Once I realized she wasn't being a completely selfish little brat, I figured I'd have to give a little minor plastic surgery a try.

I dug through my fabric stash and found some brown wool felt. I got Fiona to draw what Darby's horns were supposed to look like, took her pattern, cut out the felt and sewed the horns on. They aren't perfect, but they made her happy, Darby didn't have to be shipped back to Santa and it wasn't that much work.

But now, four months after receiving a beautiful Chinese Dragon for her birthday, King Kornivised Keenivore (as he is known) was presented to me for his own much more extensive surgical enhancements. No tears this time, which was a relief, but maybe an excess of confidence in the surgeon's talents. King has horns, but no wings, no nostrils (which I was told makes breathing fire very challenging) and no triangle on the tip of his tail.
He looks pretty good to me (ok, the lack of nostrils is a little weird when you start to think about it...) but look at that eager little face waiting for Mama-the-surgeon to work her magic.

Wings are a lot trickier than horns. We had to use Google images to look at all the dragon wing options and I managed to steer her toward some I thought I might be able to reproduce. I dug out some more brown wool felt--two colors this time so that the underside of the wings would be a different color, and to give the wings a little heft so they wouldn't be flaccid (horrors! flaccid wings!)
I used some embroidery thread to add some (primitive) veins.
Then I sewed them on his back. They looked pretty good for my first wingoplasty.

Riding on that success we added the triangle to the tail. Fiona still hasn't come up with a good explanation of what purpose the triangle serves. Rudder, perhaps?
Then I got out more embroidery thread and added some black flaring nostrils. Luckily the photo is blurry because these were a lot harder than they looked. I still can't quite figure out why--I mean, embroidering an oval, how hard can it be? But I had to rip out a few really lumpy and lopsided nostrils before we got a couple of acceptable nostrils (though they are a little petite for a truly ferocious dragon).
Life is much better with nostrils. At least, that's what King told me.

So what comes next? Am I going to be asked to graft talons on toes? She did suggest I sew scales all over a furry dragon and I just pretended I didn't hear her. But if she wears me down and pulls another of those heartbreaking sobbing fits...well, maybe dragon skin grafts are in my future.

U Pick without the pain!

Yesterday I discovered that you can do U Pick and not by physically uncomfortable! The (wonderful, atypical) cool weather we are having meant I took Ian, Fiona, their friend Nick and my mom (aka Granny Jan) out to Rowe's Produce Farm to pick a peck of peas and some strawberries and I didn't sweat buckets! And the kids didn't start complaining after 5 minutes that they were hot and wanted to go home! I've dragged these kids on many a U Pick adventure, but we've never worn long pants and never left the fields still feeling sane (though I always leave feeling a little full...)

Because my kids are strange, they were much more enthusiastic about picking peas than strawberries. Peas are the only green vegetable they eat. Ian ate one and said "Yummy!" which I think I have waited about 6 years to hear (since he decided at age 2 to become a conservative eater). We only got him to try peas again last summer and he realized that despite being green, they are not evil.
Besides, you can also pretend to have a long green nose with a pea...who knew they provided such entertainment value!

Then we headed over to the strawberry field and I helped my mom pick a load of strawberries for her to make jam (I'm too lazy to make my own and she's a nice mom and gives me some).
I brought home about a quart of berries just for snacking, but I didn't need too many because as I mentioned, my kids are strange and don't eat strawberries (they will eat strawberry jam.) But their friend Nick loves strawberries almost as much as he loves arugula (yup, a 5 year old who eats plain arugula like my kids eat potato chips). So while Fiona and Ian played in the dirt, Nick kept me and Granny Jan company and I got the gratifying view of a boy with strawberry juice dripping down his chin:
Once I told Nick that anything he ate in the field was free (the foolish farm owners didn't weigh him on the way in and on the way out!) he went a little crazy. I hope he didn't have a tummy ache later.

For dinner I made a pasta dish that just screams "Spring!":
It's whole wheat spaghetti, ricotta, lots of snipped basil, thyme and oregano, some garlic sauteed in olive oil (I wish I'd had some of my green garlic, but couldn't make the trip over to the garden to pick some), a lot of ground black pepper, and those glorious peas. I wanted to preserve the perfection of the peas so I didn't really cook them: I just put the shelled peas in the bottom of the colander and when the spaghetti was done, I drained it over the peas. It was even briefer than blanching. I ate two heaping bowls of this and plan to eat the same thing all weekend, at least until my pea supply runs out!

Bonne Anniversaire a moi!

So yesterday I turned 39 and celebrated by (finally) getting myself this:
a computer that, god willing, won't crash two times a day.

In the evening, Brian and I walked down to Eve and had a lovely dinner. Brian started with a bowl of curried mussels and I ate a lot of the fantastic sauce (no mussels for me since my body now violently sends shellfish back up the pipe...). We both had salads and split their beef tenderloin entree (which is way too big for me to eat on my own) and drank a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz from their Excursions selection (wines under $30 a bottle.) I really appreciate this part of their wine list--it is actually what made me decide on Eve over Pacific Rim when I was musing over where to go for dinner. I think there is something so decent about having a reasonably priced selection of wines on the menu.

When desert rolled around, I knew I wanted their triple chocolate pots de creme with the accompanying quantity of whipped cream, but I couldn't decide what to drink with it. I couldn't stomach the sweetness of desert wines which I usually only like when paired with a cheese plate, so I asked the waitress if they had any Eau de Vie and unfortunately they didn't. I love a good Eau de Vie that burns as you breathe in and when you exhale you get a blast of fruit essence. So Brian and I went a different route and each got a Guinness to go with the pot de creme and it turned out to be a really nice combination.
The only thing that would have made it better was if it had been draft Guinness with a creamier head. But the bitter nutty darkness of the beer really went well with the richness of the dessert.

My favorite thing about the restaurant came at the end when I went to the bathroom -- I guess I've never used the bathroom at Eve because otherwise I would have remembered the mirror:
All over the face of the mirror are lovely French phrases complementing the person being reflected which meant that instead of looking at myself while washing my hands, I read "Oh, que tu es jolie. Que tu es belle..." etc. I have no idea what I actually looked like when I went back to our table (I suspect a little flushed from wine and stout) but I know I had a big grin on my face after reading that I was "la quintessance de la beaute." (Brian tells me that in the Men's room is a similar mirror but with all the phrases printed in English which I think is too bad; the French definitely adds romance.)

I would LOVE to have a mirror like this in my bathroom--talk about a daily reminder that beauty isn't really about how you look but how you feel.

Taking it up a notch

Well now she's done it. That Ami. She took it up a notch.

To what am I refering?

Why, the hosting of our book group. I hosted last month and I gotta say I'm glad that I'm not the person who has to follow Ami (Hi Meagan! Thanks for stepping up to the plate!) Don't get me wrong, the evening at my house was perfectly enjoyable: we talked about The Welsh Girl (which I was happy to read again) and ate a combination of British and German food that actually went together rather well:

Sole with creamy leek sauce, minted pea puree, German potato salad and red cabbage, with white wine and beer to drink.

But we were all crammed around my small dining room table that seats 4 comfortably, 6 in a pinch and was really too cramped for the 8 people in our group...I had a little music playing and had cleaned up the worst of the crap around the house, but that was about it when it came to ambiance.

The exquisite evening at Ami's complemented the book we read: William Trevor's My House in Umbria. Trevor's prose is so subtle and the untrustworthy narrator, Mrs Delahunty, is so complicated that we spent a good deal of time discussing what was real and what was imagined in the story. Trevor's ability to write cringe-worthy scenes while maintaining your sympathy for the main character raises complicated feelings which we discussed while gathered in Ami's backyard, drinking Gin and Tonic's (in honor of the main character) and icy homemade Limoncello and Orangcello from Lea's sister:
The weather was perfect as we gathered around the table--a little breeze to keep the mosquitoes away but still sunny enough for us to imagine ourselves in an exotic locale. And Ami set a beautiful table:

Peonies and party favors! Ami photocopied some of her favorite Trevor short stories for each of us to take home. (photo courtesy of John Baird)

And of course the food didn't disappoint (I'm wracking my brain for a time when a book group meal failed to live up to expectations...). There was chicken diavolo cooked on the grill, a beautiful salad from Marilyn's garden, sauteed vegetables, Italian bread and of course, plenty of good red wine.

Here I am helping myself to some more of that good red wine. (photo courtesy of John Baird)

I made a dessert from a cookbook that I had neglected for very petty reasons: La Tavola Italiana is a perfectly decent book that has suffered the sin of acquaintance. I bought the book shortly after TAing for a man who had to be the worst Shakespeare professor I have ever witnessed. I was put in the awkward position of having to serve as his apologist to kids who were clued in that their $20,000+ tuition should have offered them better than what this guy was presenting. What does this have to do with the cookbook? The professor was friends with the authors of the cookbook and they mention him by name in the introduction to a few of the recipes. Once I read that a recipe came from his kitchen, well, it just turned my stomach. But thankfully after owning this book for at least 10 years, I have (mostly) recovered from my grad school experience and can once again open the book without gnashing my teeth. So I finally made something out of it!

Ricotta cake with sweetened almond ricotta and strawberries.

It was pretty decent. The cake wasn't anything mind blowing; I liked the pine nuts that studded it and it had a pleasant spongy texture. But it was a fine platform for the consumption of sweetened ricotta and strawberries and tasted particularly good with one of John's expertly pulled espressos. The ricotta (whole milk, not skim) had a few tablespoons of amaretto and a few teaspoons of powdered sugar stirred in. I pressed it through a sieve to make sure it was creamy and not lumpy. Simple, but really nice.

The whole evening was leisurely and graceful and none of us was in a rush to get back in our cars and leave such an enchanted place.

Happy women. (photo courtesy of John Baird)

A perfect photo of Marilyn--she is always able to get us to smile! (photo courtesy of John Baird)

Torn between yelling and praise...

I'm having a parenting moment in which I am terribly torn between yelling at my kid and praising her.

I went into her room this morning and found this:

[translation of the writing in the photo from Left to Right: PUFECATBED=Puffy Cat's Bed, PUFECALIDERBOCS=Puffy Cat's Litter Box and PUFECATFOODBUL=Puffy Cat's Food Bowl]

Wow! What great writing for a 5 year old! Damn! That writing will never come off! Sigh.

The offending toy (Puffy Cat) being put in "toy time out" (i.e. the top shelf of my closet)

Despite the fact that she used "washable" markers it won't come off. With a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser I can get it to fade a little, but it also takes the latex paint off the wall.

I had a similarly conflicted moment a few weeks ago when Brian was out of town and I was trying to get the kids in bed. Fiona had a spectacular meltdown--normally I'd say she's the easier of my two kids, but when she loses it, she really loses it. After an incredible display of lung power, I finally got her to go in her room to calm down, but while I was trying to get Ian settled, she went down stairs, got a piece of paper and wrote:

"I HAT MOMY"

and drew a picture of a heart with a red line through it. Then she marched back upstairs and taped it to the wall of Ian's bedroom (where I was) which triggered his protective urge and then he was yelling at her for being unkind and she was screaming again at both of us. I didn't know how to react since I was conflicted between praising the good writing and being completely sick of dealing with the tantrum which, far from being over, had now escalated to include her brother.

Tease

I just finished Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North which is sort of a prequel, sort of sequel, to the His Dark Materials trilogy. Like his other book, Lyra's Oxford, which came out about 5 years ago, this book is clearly intended as a companion to the trilogy, not as a stand alone work. This one involves the first meeting of Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison and, while the story is nice enough and there are a few new characters who seem to hold promise as far as appearance in future stories, what is really tantalizing are the small pieces of "evidence" that are scattered through the book--little newspaper clippings, a few torn pages from a book on aerial navigation, etc. In fact the biggest "tease" of the book is the inclusion at the very end of the book of two letters from a much older Lyra who is finishing up her Master's thesis in Economic History on "Development in patterns of trade in the European Arctic region with particular reference to independent cargo balloon carriage (1950-1970)". This references a future for the Lyra we left at the end of The Amber Spyglass who was just on the cusp of puberty.

Clearly these characters live on in Pullman's imagination and it leaves me wondering whether we'll get more of these little fragments about Lyra (maybe about Will too?) embedded in other stories (I'd love to have one of these small books be about the Gyptians!) or whether Pullman plans a true sequel to the trilogy.

Endings

I finished the Branching Out scarf for Fiona's music teacher, Angela, just in time for her last class (sneef) yesterday. I put a row of crocheted loops at the ends, just to soften the thing (and to prove to myself that I can still crochet a loop which is about the only thing I can crochet).
It looks lovely on Angela--I could never wear that color. Fuschia and I are not a happy combination.

Today was Fiona's last day of preschool (all these "lasts" which I know will turn into a load of "firsts" when she starts Kindergarten in the fall) and I decided I needed a little comfort to deal with all this parenting emotion. Today was my writing day and luckily I had some left over molasses cookie dough in the fridge so I only had to take 5 minutes to roll out some balls, roll the balls in granulated sugar and put a little blob of raspberry jam in the middle.
These are really terrific cookies that I don't make often enough. They are perfect with a cup of tea in the afternoon--a little spicy a little sweet, but complementary rather than competitive with the flavor of the tea. And since I'm dwelling a little on parenting in my own life, I worked on the family dynamics of my main character today. I didn't manage to integrate the cookies and tea into the story yet, but give me time...

Molasses Cookies
recipe from some college friend's mother who used to mail us these cookies...

3/4 C butter, softened
1 C brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 C molasses
2 1/4 C flour
2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground cloves
1 t ground ginger
1 t cinnamon

granulated sugar
raspberry preserves

Preheat the oven to 350.

Cream together butter and sugar. Add egg, then molasses. Sift together dry ingredients then mix into butter mixture.

Put a little granulated sugar in a bowl. Pinch off a blob of dough and roll into a sphere and then roll in the sugar. Put your sugared spheres on a lined baking sheet.

Now you have a choice of how thick and chewy you want your cookies to be--for thick cookies which are a little chewy and a little cakey use your thumb to make a dent in the middle. For thinner cookies that are a little crisp and a little chewy, use the bottom of a glass to squash the spheres to about 1/4" thick. Then make a wee dent with a finger. In the dents, put a scant 1/2 t of raspberry preserves. (The ones in the above photo used the bottom of the glass method; the previous batch used the thumb squash. I like the texture of the bottom of the glass cookie a little better, but you can put a little more jam in the thumb squashed ones and I like as much jam as I can get...)

Pop in the oven and check in 8 minutes. They might need a minute or two more depending on the thickness and size of your spheres. You want the edges to begin to brown (which isn't so easy to see on a dark brown cookie...) but try not to overcook or they get a little dry and loose the chewy factor.

Cool on a rack. Serve with tea.

My poor state

I'm a little behind in my New Yorker reading but thank God I didn't just skip the last few issues because then I would have missed one of the more lovely poems that has been written about my state. Bob Hicok's "A Primer" was published in the May 19 issue and it perfectly captures the complicated feelings I have about my state.

...February
is thirteen months long in Michigan.
We are a people who by February
want to kill the sky for being so gray
and angry at us. "What did we do?"
is the state motto.

but also:

...daffodils are asked
by young men to be their wives...

This is such a gorgeous place to live and such a problematic place, too. The economy, much of the business mindset and the politics are so ass backwards that sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out. It's easy to love California, but loving Michigan is like loving a smelly little cousin who happens to have a beautiful singing voice. You really have to convince people to get to know him. I know people who moved here to teach at the University and who really never get this place--they stay in our little People's Republic of Ann Arbor and flee to other places for vacations. If they don't get tenure, they leave the state with a feeling of relief. And sometimes I understand where they are coming from. There are days when I wish we lived someplace else, someplace where I could celebrate what is obvious rather than defend what is (mostly) hidden or spend a lot of energy finding and promoting the pockets of goodness and hoping that we can turn the messed up parts around. But other times, my love of this state is so strong that I can't imagine another place providing the same level of satisfaction.

I'm feeling particularly tender towards Michigan since we just got back from a 50 mile 3 day, 2 night canoe camping trip on the Au Sable river, from Grayling to Mio. It was exquisitely beautiful, perfect weather, pleasant and well-kept camp grounds, and lovely people, none of whom rolled their eyes when our 7 year old was eating his 5th s'more and running in circles singing the melody of Ode to Joy at 9:30 PM.

The river was moving (at least until we got to the Mio dam pond) and we played dodge-the-fly-fisher-people and discovered that whistling while paddling is a good way to give them enough acoustical warning that you are coming so they don't hook their waving fly lines in your head. We saw huge beaver dams and trees that were in the process of being chewed through. We found snails and crayfish and played with June bugs and caterpillars. We saw people in their racing canoes training for the Au Sable River Canoe Marathon.

And best of all, we got to know another pocket of Michigan that is exquisite, but humble.

A little rant...

Bad karma be damned. Sometimes I'm just feeling crotchety and have to have a little rant. Most of the time, I try to limit my reviews to positive or constructively critical remarks. But there are a couple of cookbooks that I have picked up lately that punched my buttons and I feel compelled to rant.

Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros
At first I thought this was a kid's cookbook, in which case the organizing principle--recipes grouped by color--might make sense. I know plenty of kids who decide what they will and won't eat based on color. Yes to red, no to orange, yes to brown, GOOD-GOD NO to green. But this book is intended for adults. And to use the book you have to read the mind of the author in order to find a recipe--is "Chicken Sauteed with cheese and milk" in the "Yellow" section, the "Gold" section, the "White" section or the "Monochrome" section? Apparently Pork Schnitzels are "Monochrome," Pan Fried Sole is "Gold", Pizza with Stracchino Cheese is "White" and Grilled Fish Skewers are "Yellow". If ever there was a book that was designed to confuse someone who actually wants to use it as a cookbook, this is it. I started leafing through the book guessing where a particular recipe would be listed--would Lasagne be in the "stripes" section or in "red"? Sauteed Broccoli with Tomato--"red" or "green"?

I have no idea whether the recipes are any good because a) I got so annoyed by the organization and b) I was so nauseated by the many self-congratulatory moments. Under the aforementioned Sauteed Broccoli with Tomato is this blather: "We blew away our fallen eyelashes and the ladybugs that landed on us, together with our wishes, to the nearest star." Ick. Does anyone need an excess of whimsy along with a (useless) "recipe" for Eggs with Bread and Butter? To call this book smug and masturbatory is a bit of an understatement. The author is celebrating her apparently perfect life with her two daughters in Tuscany which would be fine if this was her family scrapbook. But people are going to buy this thing?

But hey, at least the photos are good. Which leads me to my next rant:

Patricia Well's Vegetable Harvest.

Yes, that Patricia Wells, whose name is uttered with veneration. The premise of this book really appeals to me: its subtitle is "Vegetables at the center of the plate." I'm one of those eaters that prefers the side dish to the main course--in fact, when we go to BBQ joints, I usually skip the meat entirely and order a plate of sides. I'd rather have collards, braised green beans, coleslaw and some barbecue beans than a slab of ribs.

Now my rant about this book is a little more tempered--there are some recipes in here that I'll try. But I have two big disappointments: the first is the photos. They are mediocre at best. There are no photos of actual recipes, just atmospheric shots of vegetables being sold at French markets. But worse, the photos are really pretty bad. They bugged me so much that I sought out the photographer--who did they pay to provide the photos for a big-name author? Ah. Well. That explains it. Photographs copyright Patricia Wells.

It may be uncharitable of me, but I imagine the scenario thus: Wells went down to the market one Saturday morning, snapped some pics with a cheap digital camera and convinced her publisher there was no need to hire a professional photographer. Quite a few of the photos are a little out of focus, others are poorly cropped, and still others are a bit inaccurate when compared to the recipes next to which they have been placed--do you really want a photo of fresh fennel next to a recipe that calls for two teaspoons fennel seeds? And does a recipe for quail with fennel seeds really count as putting vegetables at the center of the plate? (My kids would love it if I counted sesame seeds as a vegetable!)

The book could have been made much more inexpensive without these gratuitous, mediocre and not even useful full-color plates.

The other objection I have is that many of the recipes feel like filler. In the salad section, out of 17 recipes, 7 of them have as a key ingredient the same vinaigrette recipe. I get it. She loves her Creamy Lemon Chive vinaigrette recipe. But couldn't she have put together a page of vegetable combination ideas and said they should all be drizzled with the vinaigrette instead of separating them out into distinct recipes? Oh but wait, that would mean that the Salad section of the book would only be about half as long....

Ok, I admit it, I'm also pissed at myself. Usually I try out a cookbook before I purchase it by checking it out of the library. And this time I didn't. I bought it on-line without ever cracking the cover and I feel a little duped.

To be fair, some of the recipes in the book sound decent--the Saffron, Pear and Prune Compote for Cheese sounds like a nice autumn recipe. Curried Beet Soup sounds good too. Maybe now that my excessive vitriol has been expunged from my system, I can stand to open the book to actually try some of these out. Let's see if that Lemon Chive Vinaigrette is as outstanding as Wells implies.

Two obsessions: competing or complementary?

I woke up this morning with an epiphany about one of the main characters in the book I'm writing. Perfect timing since today is my writing day!

But I also woke up with a craving for something special for breakfast--toast, even good toast with good jam, wasn't going to cut it. If I had a lackey, I would have sent them out for a really good pastry, maybe an almond croissant from The Croissant Shop (which Cafe Verde usually has).

But I do my best writing in the morning and heading out in search of good pastry meant that I'd be sacrificing the early morning writing energy for culinary satisfaction.

What to do when two obsessions are competing for your attention?

Muffins to the rescue.

Most muffins don't get me all that excited--they are ok, they serve a purpose, they are even enjoyable most of the time--but get me jazzed up? Not really. But they are wicked fast. So I tried to think what would transform something pedestrian into something a little special--not almond croissant special, but something that was nice enough to get my mind off of my stomach and back to my character.

I came up with Almond, Orange and Strawberry Muffins.
I put some almond meal in with the flour and a little almond extract in with the wet stuff since I can't seem to shake the almond craving (in retrospect, I should have also stirred some sliced almonds in at the end; next time I'll do that.) The strawberries and orange zest give the muffins a bright freshness that suit the spring season. Best of all, I could whip these babies up in the half hour before Fiona's carpool came to take her to preschool--time that I couldn't really devote to writing anyway since it could (and probably would) be interrupted by incessant beverage and read-to-me requests. But once the kiddo was out the door, I could take a warm muffin and a cup of black coffee to my computer and get my competing obsessions to complement each other.

A warm muffin, a cup of black coffee on my "Keep Calm and Carry On" coaster, and a (for now functional) computer, ready for writing.

Almond, Orange and Strawberry Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Dry stuff:
1 2/3 C flour
3 T ground almonds
1/2 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/4 C sugar
zest of one orange

Wet stuff:
1/3 c canola oil
1/4 t almond extract
juice of one orange (1/4-1/3 C)
1/3 C buttermilk
1 egg

Chunky stuff:
about 8 strawberries, washed, hulled and cut into small pieces
1/4-1/2 C sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 400. Prep your muffin pan (non-stick spray or muffin papers).

Mix up dry stuff in a medium bowl. Mix up wet stuff in a smaller bowl. Add wet to dry and mix until still kind of lumpy.

Put one spoonful of batter in each muffin cup. Dot the batter with some strawberries and sliced almonds. Put more batter on top (until muffin cups are about 3/4 full). Top with another strawberry piece or two and/or some more sliced almonds.

Pop into the oven for 20 minutes.

If you need a little more decadence split one open, slather with butter and a gob of strawberry jam.